Favorite Battle?

He is generally know among Ricardians as “The Weasel”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC9fGIDGqDM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Somerset,_1st_Earl_of_Worcester

I understand! AAA has a way of altering your thinking, for the good! I will just say I am happy to accept any tidbit you have, even repeats or comments.

GG

30th August: Rapunzel.
In 1862 in Northern Virginia, however, Major General John Pope was about to get his long awaited comeuppance. Lee was ready to take the offensive against the man he had come to despise, for his over confident bombast and disregard and disrespect of Virginia and the men he had come east to command.
Not heeding his subordinates’ requests for caution, Pope tried once again to break Jackson’s battered Corps(one Brigade did break, but others plugged the gap). On the union far left were only two brigades of Infantry and they were to be assailed by ten times their number. Three Southern Divisions, Hood’s, Kemper’s and Jones’ crashed onto the field, making short work of the outnumbered Northern troops.
Pope did well to recognise the danger when it appeared and sent four Brigades from three different Divisions to hold at Henry House Hill on his left. Remember this was ground fought over 13 months ago, by much the same men and officers, although most were now promoted.
This time around there would be no rout. Understandably, there was much jubilation on the side of the Southerners and a great loss of morale on the Northern side. This sense of martial superiority, begun last Summer  at 1st Manassas, was to continue and come to a head on the field of Gettysburg another Summer from now.

On the 24th May 1864 Grant gifted Lee the  kind of opportunity that rarely happens in a campaign: to wreck the other’s army.
After the bloodletting of May 5-12th, that cost Lee 22000 casualties and Grant 34000,'weakening both armies by 33% and 25% respectively, Grant again disengaged and moved South towards Richmond. Lee had followed and had been reinforced with 7 small Brigades from his capital.
Grant had inadvertentally straddled his large army across the North Anna river.
Lee saw the way to take advantage of his smaller numbers and punish the Federal II Corps, Grant’s best. He could throw 30000 men at the 24000 that were over the V in the river separating Grant’s two halves of his army. Hancock’s 24000 could not be reinforced, because of the V of the river, so he readied his assault.
On the afternoon of the 24th Lee fell violently sick with diarrhoea. He lay helplessly for hours while the opportunity to assault, before the Union commanders realised the sure situation were in.
The reason Lee’s defensive strike could not be undertaken was simple: the attrition of the last 19 days had robbed him of a subordinate able to manage it.
Time and opportunity passed. Grant and Hancock’s isolated Corps were extremely lucky.
We all know the loss of a quarter of Grant’s force would never have changed his resolve to “fight it all out, even if it takes all Summer”, but another battering would have diminished his potential to do so sooner.

You guys have good taste in music.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. — Albert Einstein

one of my favorites…

The reason men like war is because it is the only thing that they do that women don’t laugh at. - Don’t know

Nobody ever won a war by dying for his country, he won it by making the other bastard die for his. — George S. Patton

O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle-be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it-for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen. The War Prayer, Mark Twain.

amen stuka!!!