As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
If one invests the time to examine the record of General James Longstreet, and treasure the experience of his recollections of the history of the Civil War, one soon discovers a masterpiece in this American Napoleon, as while General Sherman to General Lee speak of battles and events, James Longstreet always lays out the battlefield before the examiner like a chessboard he is playing.
James Longstreet was a Field Marshal. James Longstreet was a tactical officer. The reason the Union cursed him and the Confederates envied him, is because he commanded a battlefield from the privates to every swell of the ground. He understood that everything was to be utilized and would be utilized to the best advantage.
The first striking thing one conceives about General Longstreet is that he uses his army to feint, to bluff, to draw off the enemy, to buy time for other forces to withdraw, and the last thing he does is uses his army to fight a battle, because all else are opening and closing gambits to the grand game.
General Longstreet requested to be sent to Tennessee to save the Confederacy in smashing the Union army there against General Braxton Bragg. Bragg was one of thee most incompetent Confederate Generals. His methods were well planned, but set in stone. He was of weak nature and would not allow a subordinate to provide a better solution. Braxton Bragg when provided a victory by General Longstreet, was unaware of it for half a day and refused to follow up the victory to drive the Union army from Tennessee.
In that the following paragraph contains in it the essence of military strategy. General Lee could sit in front of the Union Army of the Potomac with 60,000 troops. But General Lee could sit in front of the Union Army with 40,000 troops, send 20,000 to Tennessee and by that action amplify those 20,000 to 40,000, as hitting a weak part of the Union army, would create a weakness in the Army of the Potomac and against Grants and Sheridan's forces in the West, making those Armies checking the South, have to shift to deal with those 20,000 reinforcements in Tennessee.
The prime object of the second advance upon Knox- ville was to show the strategic strength of the field, and persuade the authorities that an army of twenty thou- sand in that zone could be of greater service than double that force on the enemy's front or elsewhere, but they could not or would not hear of plans that proposed to take them from the settled policy of meeting the enemy where he was prepared for us.
Instead the Southern military and political leadership, arrayed itself in force against the Union army where it was entrenched and on the ground which the Union had chosen for battle.
General Longstreet from the beginning of the war advocated one sound military strategy for the South. The Confederate Army had to maneuver to frustrate the Union, then strike the Union, and in that withdraw to a position favorable to the Confederates to draw the Union to attack whereby being worn out, it would be defeated, and attrition would use up the Union army in three years.
Now you hopefully understand about strategic strong and weak points, as they are the same in life and in combat. Another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
agtG
