As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Mine eyes have seen the coming of the Glory of the Lord
He hath trampled out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.........
With the direction of United States General of the Army, Nelson Appleton Miles, warrior of the Civil War, warrior of the Aboriginal terror wars and warrior of the Spanish American War, the Lame Cherry in exclusive matter anti matter embarks upon the exposure of General Ulysses S. Grant in causing the butchery of the Union and Confederate Armies, in his Wilderness Campaign which prolonged the war for another year, when it could have been ended in 1864 AD in the year of our Lord.
The stage is set before you in the Capital of Richmond Virginia, with Petersberg as the Confederate entrenchments held by Robert E. Lee. In this, General Grant as in Vicksburg stated he would fight there all summer, and he did, without effect, and was forced to maneuver against Robert E. Lee.
Grant's Richmond Campaign solved nothing and achieved nothing to defeat Robert E. Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia. It would be a matter that the Hero of the Shenandoah, General Phil Sheridan, being finally awarded command of the Sheridan Division who marching south would be the force who would begin the end of the Civil War.
In this General Sherman had attempted to absorb Sheridan into his ranks, which Sheridan would not have any part of, as Sheridan was a proven general of his own victories. Sheridan's stations was on the Confederate flank, and literally on his own convinced Grant in a monsoon to press the attack, and literally by himself, Sheridan struck the Confederates and routed them on the flank.
It was this battle of all costs, that forced General Robert E. Lee to come out of his trenches, and thus began the Wilderness Campaign.
"Much has been said concerning the despatch sent after his first engagement, saying he "would fight it out on that line if it took all summer." He did take all summer, and the object was not accomplished; neither did he keep on that line, but abandoned it to the route via James River."
Miles, Nelson Appleton, 1839-1925. Serving the Republic
"The first important engagement that year was the battle of the Wilderness, lasting three days, an undecisive but most desperate engagement.
Miles, Nelson Appleton, 1839-1925. Serving the Republic
"Grant recognized the impossibility of dislodging or destroying Lee's army on that field, and the impossibility of advancing against such a formidable barrier; he then decided to turn the flank of Lee's army. The subsequent movements in the campaign were similar. Although he started out opposed to the idea of manoeuvring and was inclined to depend upon persistent, continuous blows, he was forced to manoeuver in order to make any advance. In turning to the left, while it brought him nearer to his base of operations, it carried his army into a more densely wooded country, with inferior roads, making it more difficult to march than if he had moved to the right and forced Lee into an open field of battle like Gettysburg.
Miles, Nelson Appleton, 1839-1925. Serving the Republic
There were two subordinate Generals in this who literally won the victory over Robert E. Lee. One was General Phil Sheridan in his Sheridan Division, in George Custer received Lee's surrender, and the second was General Nelson Miles of the Second Army Corp who literally received the surrender from Robert E. Lee.
We focus upon this in 1864 in General Miles, in what led to the events of 1865, as Sheridan was the hammer striking the head of Lee's forces in flight and Miles was the anvil smashing the Lee's rear to bring the Army of Northern Virginia to surrender.
General Grant had two choices in 1864 after Lee was dislodged as the above explains. Grant could strike Lee's right flank or Lees' left flank. In this is the fear and fright of General Grant. Politically, Lincoln would not be allowed another defeat and survive, as if Grant failed, the Union would come to terms with peace in the Confederates. In this Grant was hemmed in to the worst kind of warfare, not for Lincoln or Grant, but for Confederate and Union Soldiers.
Grant could have and should have chosen to move by the right flank of the Confederates. In accomplishing this, Grant would have brought an open field engagement as at Gettysburg for the defeat of Robert E. Lee in open combat.
The risks to Grant's Potomac Army were a defeat and the end of Lincoln. The cutting off of his supplies in moving right if Lee could gain that advantage.
The benefits would be tens of thousands of lives saved and the end of the war.
The Lame Cherry now sets up the order of battle so the risks will not be as great, and what General Miles was stating between the lines. The Union had Sheridan and Miles, who were the best in the Potomac Army in proven victors.
Robert E. Lee had lost General Thomas Jackson and General Jeb Stuart in battle. The South never won a battle after Stonewall Jackson was killed, and after Sheridan shattered Stuart's Cavalry, it was in pieces still a force, but not the same fighting unit.
In that assessment, Grant should have picked his ground on Lee's right flank, reinforced his supply, and then struck with Miles Second Corp, as Sheridan struck the right holding it, as General Custer outflanked the Army of the Potomac and struck in their center rear.
Sherman should have brought to bear in supporting Custer in the center rear, while Meade who was best suited to standing in nomad's land, and I mean nomad's land, should have held Lee's center forward.
The Civil War proper would have ended by September 1864 in the east, with Richmond taken, and only General Hood in Tennessee and General Johnston in the South with General Forest's Cavalry to contend with in their remnants.
Warfare of speed would not have allowed Johnston or Hood to come to the aid of Robert E. Lee.
Instead the below is what took place in thee most horrific of warfare with the disaster for the Union at Cold Harbor in which thousands of Union Soldiers were slaughtered, sent in against veteran Confederate artillery positions.
The criminal disaster of Cold Harbor was not the battle, but the reality that General Sheridan had stormed and occupied that position earlier, but was not reinforced by Grant or Meade, so it lapsed back to Confederate control.
"These flank movements were usually made under cover of the night. The Second Corps took the initiative, moving by Todd's Tavern to Po River. My brigade was moved out from Todd's Tavern to observe if the enemy were marching on a parallel line, and was attacked by two brigades of Mahone's division, then moving to intercept our flank movement. By a spirited counter-charge this attack was successfully repulsed. Another sharp engagement took place at the Po River, resulting in the defeat of the enemy."
Miles, Nelson Appleton, 1839-1925. Serving the Republic
"When the Union army reached the vicinity of Spottsylvania, prepared to assume the offensive, it found the enemy had moved, by interior lines, and was then in position. After reconnoitring and various demonstrations had been made to ascertain the position of the enemy and its relative strength, a disposition was made for attack on the angle of the Confederate line, and our corps, and especially our (Barlow's) division, was selected to make the principal assault. Marching from its position near Po River, under cover of night, our division formed en masse with two brigades in front and two in rear, or forty men deep; the Second and Third divisions in two lines on the right and left; the last brigade moving into position and, without a halt, forming what is tactically called'' double column on the center.'' Thus we moved forward in the gray of the morning for one of the most desperate assaults ever made. It was impossible to see but a few yards in front of us, and without skirmishers or advanced lines the troops moved in a solid mass over the undulating ground up to where they suddenly came upon the pickets of the enemy, who fired their rifles and then retreated back to their lines. This fire was not replied to. The men had been ordered to remove the caps from their loaded rifles and use nothing but their bayonets until they had gained the enemy's position.
The column moved steadily on, passing as best it could over the obstacles of felled trees and cut brush, until it came in front of the intrenched line of battle with a strong line of chevaux-de-frise in front that at first seemed impassable; yet the momentum of this column, forty men deep, all crowding forward, was irresistible. On reaching the chevaux-de-fnse thousands of strong men literally raised it up and tore it to pieces and rushed under or over it to the line of works with their bayonets fixed. It was the first time during the war that I had actually seen bayonets crossed in mortal combat; it was a crash and a terrible scene for a few moments. The superior numbers of the Union assailants soon overpowered the Confederate defenders, who had held to their position with great tenacity.
They had been able during that time to load and discharge their rifles three times into the great mass of Union troops, where every shot took effect in the heads or shoulders of the advancing men. The same was done with the batteries of artillery; the guns were fired three times before they were captured. As the Union column swept en masse over the fortifications, the Confederates threw down their arms; Generals Johnson and Steuart, with four thousand Confederate soldiers, thirty stand of colors, and twenty pieces of artillery, were captured. Of course, in the rush of the assault, our organizations became very much mixed up and somewhat confused by the excitement. If this assaulting column had been properly followed by a supporting force to take advantage of the success gained, and then swept down the line to the right and left, greater success would have resulted from this heroic effort. The assaulting column pressed forward through the broken line for some distance, and was then met by a counter-charge.
The ground was fought over by the troops charging back and forth for ten hours of that day, and presented a spectacle of horror without a parallel. Probably on no other one field of like area of the great Civil War did as desperate fighting and heavy loss occur.
During that time the infantry fire was so terrific that standing trees were cut down by musket-balls alone, and one solid oak, twenty-two inches in diameter, was cut down entirely by the infantry fire during the engagement. Its stump is now in the National Museum at Washington. Batteries attempting to go into action were completely disabled and thrown in a disordered mass by the drivers and horses being killed, and the bodies of men who fell, killed or wounded, on the ramparts were riddled by scores of bullets. It was the only ground that I ever saw during the war that was so completely covered with dead and wounded that it was impossible to walk over it without stepping on dead bodies."
Miles, Nelson Appleton, 1839-1925. Serving the Republic
At Cold Harbor
"This resulted in the Union troops reaching the intrenched line of battle of the enemy in a few positions and breaking that line, only to be attacked on both flanks and repulsed. This was the case with Upton's division of the Sixth Corps and with Barlow's division of the Second Corps. The general result was a loss to the enemy of approximately two thousand, and to the Union troops thirteen thousand, including many of the best men of our army.
Three young colonels, with whom I had served from the time they were lieutenants, bivouacked that night together and slept under the same blanket; they were laughing and speculating as to the results of the morrow. When dawn came they all gallantly led their regiments and were all dead in fifteen minutes. This was followed by another flank movement to the left, with our base line of operations once more on the James River, which we had left two years before."
Miles, Nelson Appleton, 1839-1925. Serving the Republic
So General Grant moved by the left flank, into a tangled wilderness, killing his people as the Confederates were killed off. Once again like at Gettysburg, the ghost of Stonewall Jackson arose, as General Grant had left Washington DC exposed, but General Jubal Early had not followed through the attack.
If Jackson had been at Washington, he would have captured Lincoln and the Congress, as the Confederates were inside DC within 4 miles of the Capitol.
The Lame Cherry exposes this in the disaster that General Grant was. His "safe" campaign to protect Lincoln killed thousands of Americans, and it literally almost had Washington DC captured again.
"These minor engagements continued during the autumn with no decisive results, when Lee had the audacity to detach from his army a corps of troops under General Early for the evident purpose of capturing Washington, or at least of withdrawing the army from the siege of Richmond and Petersburg.
Had Stonewall Jackson been in command of that force, the result would undoubtedly have been very serious, if not disastrous, to the Union cause. They left Richmond on June 13 th, marching north through Gordonsville and down the Shenandoah Valley, crossing the Potomac River above Harper's Ferry. They encountered a small division of troops under General Lew Wallace at Monocacy, Maryland, and permitted themselves to be delayed by this insignificant force for three days. Thence they moved on to Washington, reaching a point on Seventh Street, now known as Georgia Avenue, within sight of and four miles from the national Capitol. Here they were checked by a motley force composed largely of convalescents and employees of the departments at Washington, until the fortunate arrival of reinforcements. It was several days after this Confederate corps was despatched from the Army of Northern Virginia before it was discovered by General Grant, then with the Army of the Potomac. He detached the Sixth Corps, placed it on steamboats, and hurried it down the James and up the Potomac to Washington. It disembarked at the latter place and was rushed double-quick through the streets of Washington and out Seventh Street to reinforce the irregulars then holding off Early's corps from the capture of the capital. After a feint and some desultory attacks, with some sharp musketry and artillery fire, the corps of Early withdrew, and another serious national crisis had passed into history."
Miles, Nelson Appleton, 1839-1925. Serving the Republic
"The position of the Army of the Potomac was that of a protracted siege. While it had suffered more than that of any other army in the terrible losses, amounting approximately to sixty thousand men placed hors de combat, it still clung to the throat of the Confederacy with bulldog tenacity, gaining step by step positions of slight importance, but all having the effect of convincing the enemy that it could not be forced to release its hold in the death struggle. Thus ended the campaign of 1864."
Miles, Nelson Appleton, 1839-1925. Serving the Republic
This was Grant's, Stanton's and Lincoln's Campaign of attrition. The war could have been ended in 1864, but was instead butchery. One finds in the memoirs of General Nelson Appleton Miles a veiled attempt to bring this all to light. This had meaning for General Miles, as his Second Corp was the group who had been slaughtered at Anteitem, Gettsyburg and the Wilderness. There was no other unit in the Army which had been literally been killed twice over, as their casualties by war end were twice in WIA, MIA and KIA in numbering 16,000 and they were only 8000 men.
In the final slaughter they were down to 2800 men and in that they finally lost a battle flag as the Corp no longer existed in strength.
In 1865, it would be Sheridan and Miles who would beat Lee, as their commanders in Meade were off fighting where Lee had been and where he was not, and Grant had to be summoned to the field.
It was this Grant group which had the war won for them as they could not win it, and protracted it in slaughter. Grant's group would end in the mass assassination of General George Custer's command.
Grant should have struck Lee, got him moving and then killed his Army in 1864, as that is exactly what Sheridan and Miles did in 1865 for the victory, after the 'move by the left flank' was ended.
It ends with this actuality of the men who suffered worst in this and the final statement of General Miles.
"I have seen a large body of cheerless troops massed in a field after a hard day's march, and when all wanted rest, obliged to stand waiting for orders, knowing that an all-night march was before them, and a battle next morning, changed by a witty little Irishman on a caisson-box of one of the batteries, singing, crowing, talking, joking in the most inimitable manner, and the scene of gloom soon changed to one of uproarious laughter and good humor. Such scenes were of frequent occurrence as the army slowly carved its way toward Richmond. It was generally admitted that a wit was worth more to a company than a doctor, and a band of music more than a hospital."
Miles, Nelson Appleton, 1839-1925. Serving the Republic
Yes wit is worth more than a company and a band more medicinal than a hospital, when one has bludgeoning political generals like Grant and Meade and hackneyed militarists like Lincoln and Stanton abusing the military.
If such facts bother the hearts of Lincoln and Grant worshippers, I never said they were not men of good qualities at times. They are not the ones to be venerated as the real victors were denied their Presidential place in cabal commmerce and political rewards.
What Lincoln, Stanton and Grant did in the Wilderness was as criminally abusive and of fear, as what FDR, Marshall and Einsenhower did in World War II at the Battle of Bulge in not allowing General Patton to smash the Germans there, and end the war. Instead Americans were made to sit in frozen foxholes with dead for bullet stoppers, as General Miles Soldiers were butchered and burned alive in the Wilderness.
Custer and Patton were assassinated for not being in the inside ring, and Grant and Einsenhowere were rewarded with political gain, as history creates fiction and the suffering of Civilian and Soldier is manifested as our God marches on to Armageddon to end this occupation of His Throne.
"Every night during the winter of 1864 and '65 there were received along the line of intrenchments before Petersburg and Richmond numbers of men who crept through their picket-lines, dropped their arms, and came to us as individuals or in squads, amounting in the aggregate to thousands. They stated that much larger numbers were leaving their commands and making their way as best they could back to their homes. The Confederate army never again fought with the same dash and indomitable fortitude that had marked its conduct during the three previous years."
Miles, Nelson Appleton, 1839-1925. Serving the Republic
nuff said
agtG
