As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
It is no secret that I detest the fictionalist Ken Burns of PBS in his propaganda of skewed history in giving aid and comfort to not only the enemy, but worse enabling the inconsiquential to think they actually mattered in history.
Burns idea of "history" fell from the masterful work of the history of the Brooklyn Bridge, to racism in the Civil War was about blacks, when it was about States Rights and then he came unglued in defining America by "Baseball", to the last idiocy of "if it were not for colored peoples" World War II would have not been won by those incompetent white people.
Who but a warped liberal would come up with such nuttery.
I will apologize for this if my memory bank is incorrect in this, but what I will to write about here is an event which Ken Burns I am almost certain fabricated in his Civil War series. I know the sequence of the battle he was speaking of, and it matches Pittsburg Landing, but I can not recall if that is what he said it was in his fictional series of the Civil War.
The basis of the Burns fictionmentary was that the Union was getting beaten bad, were driven to the river, were in serious straits in being overrun, but darkness came on the scene to save the Union, whereby reinforcements arrived and saved General Grant, who was being searched for by General Sherman, who finally found him out of camp due to the cries of the wounded, and Sherman said something like, "Hard day", and Grant replied, "Lick em tomorrow".
History lays out a completely different reality at Pittsburg Landing on the Mississippi River, and the scenario of the battle matches Burns layout, but the events are absolute fiction in what Burns put on screen. If this is the same event, then Ken Burns liberally lied to the public in that documentary and what he put forward was not history at all.
Here is the reality of Pittsburg Landing.
The Union was progressing with the "big picture" in the West in securing the Mississippi River. General Pope had just with the help of Naval gunboats secured Island No. 10, to open that part of the river.
General Grant was 100 mile away in Tennessee at a place called Pittsburg Landing, on the Tennessee River.
On April 6th in the morning, the Confederates smashed into Grant's lines in force. The battles were furious all day. The Union center gave way in being outnumbered, and the Unionists were driven from their camps and pushed back to the river.
General Grant deserves full credit in not allowing this to become a wholesale slaughter as it would have been with with other generals. History shows that only Sherman and Sheridan could have held their lines as Grant did in the fighting was that desperate.
Late in the day, the Confederates attempted with an even more vigorous assault to turn Grant's left in order to take Pittsburg Landing and the transports on the river, which literally would have left Grant's Army annihilated, as he could have surrendered or died as the only options.
Now you can see this matches Burns story completely, so it is why I conclude he was talking of Pittsburg Landing.
Here though is where Burns lied to everyone in fabricating a story.
At this point, a Naval Lieutenant in Mr. Gwin appears at 1:30 pm, with one of wooden steamships acquired out of Cincinnati and converted to a gunboat in the Tyler appears at Pittsburg Landing.
Gwin communicated to General Hurlburt on the Union left, to ask permission if he could open fire with his guns on the Confederate lines. Hurlburt communicated back his position and that of the Confederates, and that Hurlburt would not be able to hold his position for another hour as he was being overrun.
At 2:50 pm, Gwin opened up with the Tyler's guns for an hour, and then ceased firing at 3:50 pm. He then communicated with General Grant, who replied that Gwin was to use his own judgment, in other words, Grant gave Gwin full control in what Gwin deemed necessary to operations.
At 4 pm, the Tyler's sister ship, the Lexington arrived, and both ships moved 3/4's of a mile about the Landing and opened fire on the Confederate batteries, and the ships silenced the Confederate guns in 30 minutes.
At 5:30 pm, the Confederates had driven to the point 1/8th mile or just 220 yards above the Landing, but still a half mile or 880 yards from the Tennessee River. It was at this point that the Tyler and the Lexington opened on the Confederates, with the Army batteries on the field, and drove the Confederates back in confusion, in what was a massive artillery sweep of their lines.
During the time, at approximately 5 pm, from Nashville, the advance of Union General Buell's division arrived from General Nelson's Army of Nashville and began to reinforce the Union lines on the left, which restored Grant's lines.
Notice in this now how Burns lied. Burns makes no mention of the Naval gun battle, and he has Buell coming up during the night after Grant held out all day. That is not in the least what happened in the reality, and it is a slap at the Naval and Army gunners in not being given credit in this battle for their work, and it denies General Buell his due credit in getting his Army up from Nashville in time.
Burns leaves this off in reinforcements come up and the Union wins the next day, but that is not what took place either as there is a macabre humor which took place during the night that secured the Union victory.
The Union was not just laying along the river sulking in General Grant as Burns portrays him, as General Nelson put in a request which was then ordered, in the gunboats began shelling the Confederate positions every 15 minutes during the night.
This is so awful it is humorous, as it was like General Patton "saluting" the Germans on New Years with a howitzer blitz.
One must understand what was taking place to understand the terror involved, as the Union gunners on the gunboats, were using shells that were screaming in their flight by the noise in reaction to the air. The boats had 4 20 pounder Parrotts and a battery of rifled guns.
These 8 inch shells shrieked into the Confederate camps all night, splintering branches like shrapnel and then exploding on the ground. The Confederate commander stated that his forces were of no use the next day from this, as they never got any rest in knowing a shell was coming in every 15 minutes.
That was the real battle of Pittsburg Landing and far more glorious and heart moving than the Burns fiction, because at the critical moment, the Union lines were pushed back to their annihilation, whereby the Union gunboats brooded the Union lines under their guns with a devastating fire of shot and shell which ripped apart the Confederate lines.
This ground was absolutely undefendable except for the gunboats on the river. There was an impassable ravine there for Cavalry and Artillery, and Infantry would have had a hard time scaling it. Grant had no forces there except some Artillery and a supporting squad of Infantry.
It was at this point the division of General Buell arrived as the battle was being regrouped and the lines held. It was not as Burns created in holding out and the Union forces all came up during the night, and then won the battle.
It was in effect the Tyler and then joined by the Lexington, who checked the Confederates and then wore them out during the night with their heavy shells.
It has been some time since I last reviewed Burns Civil War and this is from memory in the highlights, but I am certain he did not feature Commander Gwin of the Tyler or Shirk of the United States Navy as the pivotal point in this battle when the Union lines collapsed in the late afternoon.
The point in this being, if Ken Burns was caught so patently fabricating history in this segment, then what in hell is wrong with every segment of every fictionmentary he has been gleaning a fortune off of and winning Al Gore awards?
There were only so many battles which Grant was involved in. Only a finite number of rivers in the west he was backed up to, in meaning I only found him driven to the river once in his campaigns, and that was on the Tennessee, so I am almost certain from memory this was Pittsburg Landing, and with that Ken Burns created a fiction in Pittsburg Landing was a Naval victory and had nothing to do with Grant holding on.
That is the problem with all of this liberal history which censors the actual events and is more concerned about their social engineering or the constant theme of "the powerful white man brought to his knees making him human too".
The freshwater Navy of America received absolutely no credit from the Lincoln Administration nor from the Army heirarchy. This division of Cairo Illinois was passed over for the New Orleans division of Admiral Farragut.
No credit is given to Admiral A. H. Foote, nor for his gun ships of the Tyler, Lexington and Conestoga, led by their flotilla of "turtles" in the gunboats led by the Benton. That is a shame because Admiral Foote was wounded in battle, stayed in command under constant berating and Captain Gwin would die in battle.
I have always had a fascination with Naval power in their masterful ability to regulate their fire. When one considers rivers are moving, waves are bouncing a ship, it is a timing event to actually hit anything, and yet their well regulated gunners often hit the mark.
One has to feel for the Confederates in they fought hard all day, the Yankees were broken, and in the moment of victory, the Confederates ran into two gun ships which stunned them with the slaughter unleashed.
As stated, the real history of Pittsburg Landing is much more dramatic and heroic. It was a two dimensional war of land and water. The battle hinged literally on two Naval gunnery crews who did their work well.
That should not be forgotten nor overlooked.
nuff said
agtG
