Category Archives: History

History, Philosophy, Political Commentary

Pickett’s Charge

18 Comments

Some thoughts on the 150th anniversary of the victory. I hadn’t realized that there was even a controversy about whose fault the loss was. I’d always thought it was clear that it was ultimately Lee’s responsibility — he ordered the charge — though having better information from Stuart might have resulted in different decisions on his part. I think that, after his previous string of victories, he’d grown overconfident, and was overcome with hubris.

Also, a bonus link to libertarian perspectives on the war. I’ve always thought that the tragedy of the war was that states rights were so damaged because the southern states chose to use them to defend slavery.

[Update a few minutes later]

How not to remember Gettysburg:

What, one must say, led this prolific best-selling writer to think anyone concerned with the meaning of Gettysburg would give a damn about where she and her husband slept when they were overnight guests at the White House? I was waiting to hear her say that, unlike others, she didn’t have to pay for the honor. And anyone who read her Dartmouth commencement address already knew this story.

As a historian, Kearns Goodwin should know that history is the means by which we, as a people, learn about our country’s past — how our ancestors took risks and measures that made the United States the hope of the world and created the great republic in which we now live and breathe as free men and women. Instead, Kearns Goodwin used the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the most important battle held on our own land to talk about herself, and the would-be greatness of the contemporary liberals she holds in esteem.

No less than what I would have expected.

History, War Commentary

Sesquicentennial

2 Comments

It’s been a century and a half since the beginning of one of the (if not the) most consequential battles of American (and indeed, world) history. It was the beginning of the end for the southern cause, particularly after Grant took Vicksburg the day after the end of the battle, cutting the south in two and freeing him up to come east command the army that would eventually become the greatest the world had known up to that time.

[Update later morning]

Some thoughts from George Will.

The battle is also a sharp rebuke to those who claim that violence never solves anything. Ultimately, it solved slavery in America.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

TWA 800

6 Comments

I’m not sure why it’s all of a sudden gotten new play, but given all of the lies and cover ups that the government has been seen to be involved in recently, it’s probably fertile soil for it right now. I was always sceptical of the official story, given so much eyewitness testimony about missile streaks and such, but none of the alternatives make a lot of sense either. I have no firm opinion on it.

But you know what would be an interesting investigation to reopen in this environment? Or rather, in the coming environment of late 2015, early 2016? When the Democrats are holding their primary?

Someone should do a documentary on Vince Foster. Next month (on Moon Day, in fact) will be the twentieth anniversary of his death, the circumstances of which remain a mystery to anyone actually paying attention. I have no idea who killed him, and we may never know, absent a deathbed confession or something, but I think that the likelihood that he killed himself is slight, and that he died in Fort Marcy park, vanishingly small.