Two examples .

The new Elvis movie has inspired a whole set of new absurd claims that he culturally appropriated Black culture .This is the latest absurdity .

'Elvis' highlights Presley's complicated history with Black music (usatoday.com)

I saw the movie yesterday . What it does is show Elvis's love and appreciation of the Black culture he grew up with ;and yes he was heavily influenced by both Black Jazz ,Gospel ;and good ole country music .

As a holiday present I give you Elvis's song 'If I can dream' from his 1968 come back special .The song was written by Walter Earl Brown and was sung by Presley 2 months after MLK's assassination. It borrows from the MLK 'I have a dream' speech .

Elvis Presley - If I Can Dream ('68 Comeback Special) - YouTube


The other black list is courtesy of Cornell University and represents the continued effort of the cancel culture to rewrite history ; especially by Ivy League egg heads .

Cornell library removes Gettysburg Address, Lincoln bust | The College Fix

“Someone complained, and it was gone,”

Cornell University biology professor Randy Wayne explained :
The Gettysburg Address is an incredible speech. We have a handwritten copy in Lincoln’s hand. It is known as the Bancroft Copy. It comes with an envelope signed by Lincoln (using his franking privilege), and a letter to [George] Bancroft, thanking him for requesting a copy of the address to put in a book to be sold for charity. I show these documents to my class, as well as the heavy iron manacles worn by slaves. Yes, we have a Lincoln legacy that has been inspirational to me and my students. To take his words (and bust) out of the hallway says something about our love of liberty.

It’s telling that a single complaint led to the removal of a cherished part of our history, with seemingly no resistance whatsoever from college administrators.

As a side note ; today is the anniversary of the opening day of the 3 day Battle at Gettysburg . Day one Confederate Forces converged on the town. They were met with a delay action by Union Cavalry and later by Union infantry . Those forces were overwhelmed and driven through the town. The retreating Union forces occupied the high ground on the other side of town . Confederate General Lee gave a vague command to one of his Corp commanders to take the ground "if practical" .Having fought all day the commander General Ewell decided it was not practical. The Union Army after day one had suffered a defeat but the position they occupied set the stage for the next 2 days of battle.

A country that can believe there are dozens of genders is open to believing virtually anything.

Reagan warned in his farewell address about the need to teach American history and restore shared civic rituals.
An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-sixties.
But now, we're about to enter the nineties, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection.

Farewell Address to the Nation | Ronald Reagan (reaganlibrary.gov)


Lincoln taken from the last paragraph of the Gettysburg Address :It is for us, the living..... that we here highly resolve that ...this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

A country that can believe there are dozens of genders is open to believing virtually anything.

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Remember, in Genesis 3, with the free will God had given them, Adam and Eve upset His binary system and opened up the universe to gender being on a spectrum.

this is not a transformer posting . There are plenty others on this site .

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Remember, in Genesis 3, with the free will God had given them, Adam and Eve upset His binary system and opened up the universe to gender being on a spectrum.

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Thus sayeth WG but not the Bible. It never says that.

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

Thus sayeth WG but not the Bible. It never says that.

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No, it doesn't because God gave us each a brain to use to understand the full context (and not be literalists and cherry-pickers).

Or the WG method of just making it up as you go along. It's smoke and mirrors theology.

Tom, the Lincoln bust/G. Address story is just incredible. It just goes to show that no level of credentials as regards freedom and courage makes a person immune to this despicable cancel culture.

Day2 of the Gettysburg battle. Both armies were converging on the field of battle . The Union overall commander showed up the night of July 1 and wasn't sure if he should have the Union Army bug out or stay . But his commanders assured him they had good ground.

As the Union Army arrived they extended their line along the high ground along Cemetery Ridge and began to occupy a small hill on their left flank called Little Round Top.

The Confederates also continued to arrive . Lee discussed the battle plans with his right hand man General Longstreet . Lee instructed Longstreet to maneuver his troops to attack the Union left flank .

Both Lee and Longstreet had no idea what the true strength of the Union Army was on the field because his Calvary commander Jeb Stuart had his troops taking a joy ride around the Union forces , He failed in his primary mission to be the eyes of the Army .

Longstreet believed that the best move for the Confederates was to maneuver around the Union Army and take a defensive position between the Union Army between them and the Union Capitol Washington DC forcing the Union Army to attack (I concur). But Lee had invaded the North for the purpose of fighting a decisive battle on Northern territory . This he believed was the only way for the South to win the war.

So Lee told Longstreet to attack .

A NY political appointee General ;Dan Sickles ,thought he knew better than the Union commander General Mead and moved his corp of troops a mile forward from the Union lines, That weakened the Union line and gave Longstreet an opportunity to exploit. He attacked Sickles's Corp and effectively destroyed them (Sickles lost his leg in the attack) . Longstreet attacked through peach orchards and wheat fields finally arriving at boulders at the base of the Little Round Top. He then attempted to expel the Union forces from the hill . Had he succeeded the battles would've been won.

But the Union ;having the advantage of the interior lines in the battle was able to move forces to plug gaps in the line . Still it was a near thing .

At one point there was a gaping hole in the line. Union General Hancock told the 1st Minnesota regiment to take the flag of attacking Confederate forces even though they were outnumbered 6-1. He was expecting them to survive 5 minutes. But they fought for 15 minutes giving him the time needed to plug the hole.tgf

In the end ;even though it was a close thing ;the Union forces held .

Lee was well aware the the Confederates faced the same problem that Japan and Yamamoto faced in WW2. The numbers of population and industry heavily favored the North. He felt he had to settle the issue by successfully invading the North. Longstreet's idea sounds good in hindsight, but who really knows how it would have worked out. The South should have taken Little Round Top on day one. That failure, and Ewell's timidity on day one, really settled the issue. Only the center remained to be tested. It was an impossible task.

Lincoln had a problem with his various commanders of the Army of the Potamic over their lack of aggressiveness in dealing with Lee, General Mead replaced General Hooker 3 days before Gettysburg because that very reason. (i would've replaced him with Reynolds but that it besides the point) Meade was later replaced for his failure to engage Lee after Gettysburg.

So it is a good assumption that if Lee stole a march towards Washington that Lincoln would've demanded the Army of the Potomac attack .

Can't confirm alternate history one way or the other . I have been reading revisionist history on the War that claims that Lee should've been more defensive and less aggressive in not only Gettysburg ;but also in other campaigns .

Day 3 pretty much proved that in most Civil War engagements ,the defense had the advantage. (until the end when Grant was willing to accept mass casualties in exchange for attriting the Army of Virginia )

Still I take your point that Lee felt compelled to force a decisive engagement . If he were successful then the peace factions in the North may have defeated Lincoln in 1864 . Had McClellan won the election a peace deal with the South that accepted secession was probable .

The problem for Lee in swinging south and positioning himself between Meade and D.C. was the fact that the capital was well defended and not much of an option for Lee to attack so long as Meade was to his north. So Meade could have simply followed Lee knowing that he was running short of supplies and in no position for an extended campaign. And even if Meade had attacked and had not been able to prevail, he still would not have been in a weak position with the, as I remember, 50,000 man garrison from D.C. still in Lee's rear.

There really is no scenario where the South could have prevailed unless Lee had been able to genuinely crush Meade's army and then continue northward. It is hard to imagine how that could have happened, but Gettysburg seems to have been the South's only real chance at winning. Thankfully, that did not happen.

I agree with the supply line concerns .Lee's plan abandoned supply lines anyway . His army was living off the land and he only carried enough supplies for one major engagement , However I am sure that a major factor in his decision to not maneuver past the Union left was he wanted to have the ability to march back to Virginia along his invasion route if necessary.

I don't believe the Washington defenses were a concern because they were garrisoned safely in forts and would not have been used to threaten Lee's rear. Lincoln was very concerned about the defense of Washington throughout the war. A year later Grant had pulled some of the defenses from the city and Jubal Early then marched on Washington and fought a battle at Fort Stevens .
He could also threaten Washington without directly attacking Washington by moving towards Baltimore ,threatening to cut off the rail line to Washington.

As I said ,alternate histories are fun to discuss because there is no way to prove them.

General Stuart arrived the night of the 2nd ,much too late to be a factor. Going into the 3rd day Lee still did not know the strength of the Army he faced . He believed that he had significantly weakened the Union on both flanks .If Meade was going to reinforce his flanks then he necessarily was going to weaken the middle of his line .

It's interesting to think that the same Lee who watched the slaughter of the Union troops attacking Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg did not seem to recall that sight when he told Longstreet to attack the center across nearly a mile of open ground, all under the eyes of dozens of guns and thousands of muskets. Old tactics die hard. It seemed to be the one battle when Lee should have listened better.

That was going to be my point when I post about day 3 . You beat me to it .

Oh well. It's well been said that generals tend to fight new wars with the tactics of the previous war. An exception to that was Germany's invasion of France in WW2.

Given Lee's belief that one major push at the center of the Union line would break it ;he devised an intricate plan that would've been difficult to execute with today's communication technology. There would be a coordinated attack by the Confederate Artillery ;a feint attack on the Union right side to divert more troops from the center ;and a major thrust over open ground a mile + long by Longstreet who had been reinforced by the fresh Pickett's division who did not arrive to the battlefield in time for day 2 when his troops could've played a decisive role.

Longstreet strongly objected to the plan and told Lee he did not believe his 15,000 troops could take the Union center . He was overruled again,

Military experts say no plan survives first contact with the enemy ;and that was true on day 3. The Union forces did a "spoiling attack" on their right on Culp's Hill early in the day. That part of the battle ended in a standstill . It effectively ended the plan Lee envisioned .

At about noon the Confederate Artillery opened up barrage and the Union Artillery answered . The cannon fire lasted about 2 hours and was heard as far away as Baltimore. The field was obscured by smoke and the Confederates often over-short their main target at the center of the Union line . In addition ,the Union Artillery feinted and made it appear that it had exhausted it's supplies. They in fact saved enough ammo for the infantry assault they knew was coming .

When the time came ,Confederate Artillery commander Edward Porter Alexander sent an urgent message to Pickett that now was the time to attack.

In the best Napoleonic fashion Pickett's division assembled on the field in parade form and began the long march to their destruction . As previously mentioned, ,tactics did not keep up with technology Both cannon and rifle accuracy and distance got much better .It was a turkey shoot .

In this fictional adaption of the battle ,Longstreet describes pretty accurately what happened .

Longstreet and Harrison before Picketts Charge - YouTube

Even though they were picked off by rows ,a couple hundred managed to make it to the Union lines and breach them .(the so called high water mark of the Confederacy). Led by General Armistead they scaled the fencing in front of the Union line .

But the breach was swifty sealed by the Union troops . All that was left was the long retreat back to the Confederate lines . Lee met the retreating troops at the line telling them it was all his fault . Some wanted to reform and attack again . Lee met General Pickett and told him to prepare his division for a possible Union counter attack Pickett told Lee 'General I have no division.'

All that was left of the day was one minor engagement that was notable because of the flamboyant commanders involved . Lee had sent Stuart with the cavalry to the rear of the Union line hoping he could get the Union to divert some troops and otherwise harass the Union rear He was met in a back and forth exchange of cavalry by Brig General George Custer . Custer broke the Confederate attack .

The counter attack Lee was expecting never came .

One of the tragedies of our "modern" age is that we are no longer allowed to stand in awe at the courage of men who would line up shoulder to shoulder and make attacks such as that one, the one at Fredericksburg, or the ones at Cold Harbor. The extreme sensitivity of the left has ended it. It's a shame. Boys used to be inspired to courage at the reading of such moments, but no more. Now we are too busy trying to convince boys that they could very well be girls.

The men who fought there understood the value of courage and the need to pay it due honor. The fiftieth year reunion of both blue and gray demonstrated that. I imagine those Union survivors would have viewed the removal of statues of Lee with bewilderment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8SDl81A4eg

Day 4 July 4 . The exhausted armies did not move . The expected Union counteroffensive never came . It had been brutally hot the 3 days of the battle . On this day the skys opened up in an attempt to cleanse the field . There were an estimated 51,000 casualties in the 3 days of fighting .

The 5th Lee began his retreat back to Virgina.

General Meade sent a self-congratulating letter to President Lincoln that he had driven Lee from the north. Lincoln penned a letter in return that he never sent . Lincoln did not think driving Lee from the North was sufficient . He wanted the Union Army to pursue and to defeat Lee .

Lincoln's Unsent Letter to George Meade | American Battlefield Trust (battlefields.org)

Lee's army crossed the Potamic un-harassed and escaped . The war lasted another year and a half with thousands more casualties .

Draft riots erupted in NYC a week after the battle .NYC was a Democrat controlled city with divided loyalties to the Union.Riots over the draft occurred in other cities, including Detroit and Boston, but nowhere as badly as in New York.

The riots lasted 5 days and hundreds were killed ....many of them Black . Federal troops from Gettysburg were sent to NYC to suppress the riots.

As mentioned ;one of Lee's purposes in invading the North was to impact politics .
Lincoln was sure he would lose reelection and that was one of the reasons he was desperate for a victory .

But that wasn't assured until Sherman took Atlanta more than a year after Gettysburg.

The first week of July was the deciding week of the war. The Confederates lost after a weeks long siege at Vicksburg, Lee lost at Gettysburg, and it set in motion Grant taking over the federal armies and the Army of the Potomac in particular. He and Sherman, and possibly Thomas, were the only generals the North had that could defeat Lee. Lee was the only commander the South had that demonstrated he could be effective. The war was decided against him.