by Barry Hastings
Knowing (because I do) people like reassurance (like reading, or hearing, you’re irritating certain people), and realizing some will distrust, some believe it, every now and then I offer up for dissection, another statement on, “where I’m coming from.”
I learned to read at 4 years old, about halfway through the Big War. I very early on developed an interest (it became abiding) in all subjects military. As I learned more, I read more widely. When I joined The fightin’ CooGoo’ (Coast Guard) I quickly became interested in naval history, in fact, in maritime history in general (since its all inter-related).
At one time, in middle age, I owned one of the best collections of naval history literature in the state, much of it classics, like a first printing of Teddy Roosevelt’s Naval War of 1812 (written while he was an undergrad at Harvard in 1884, I believe.)
Through my business years (credit and finance), my leisure reading was, probably, 90% military and political, the rest modern and historical novels. I developed a love for classical music, and rockers of the late 1950s and the whole ’60s. Having taken half-a-dozen night classes at GRJC (now Community College), I transferred to GVSC (now a very creditable university — then a new, small college), where my eyes were opened on the benefits of solid research, flexible writing style, the importance of having knowledge of international relations, political science and anthropology; as well as of the creative arts, and at least a conversational knowledge of general science. I got a good education there. Enough to encourage me to consider, and pursue, study of the inter-relationship of all things. (Easier to say than do.)
From there it was off to WMU where I was granted a Grad-Assistance-ship in the history department. I studied under a very good person, accomplished {Emeritus Professor) military historian, and the best lecturer/story teller I’ve heard, ever. His name is Sherwood Cordier, and we’re still friends after some 45 years. (Being more a gentleman than me, myself, or I, I suspect he disagrees often with my terminology. But I know he agrees with me on the dangerous condition of the world, our national security, and our vulnerability.)
My aim is to get your attention, and in whichever style, or manner I believe best suited the question at hand. I’ve always promised readers I’d “never knowingly mis-lead them.” I try to do it with satire, irony, blasphemy and humor; truthfully, factually, and easily proved. At near 78, I feel no need to conceal either zits or wits, behind a screen of ‘since-constructed’ latter-day Heritage. My plan was...
… to write about four momentous days, July 1, 2, 3, 4, in 1863, that marked beginning of the end for the Confederacy, politically, economically, militarily. From July 1st through 3rd, the Battle of Gettysburg raged in Pennsylvania; out West, on the 4th, 30,000 Confederate soldiers surrendered to General U.S. Grant. They marched out of Vicksburg, on the Mississippi, into captivity, following a trying siege, and many stiff nearby field skirmishes. The Navy played a big role in blockade and support during the campaign (Grant always worked well with the Navy).
The Confederacy was split in half. From its uppermost navigable depth and breadth of the Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico. Shortly after, Grant was promoted to command the National Army – The Grand Army of the Republic. And a fine army it was, having excellent field commanders, and being very well clothed, fed, supplied and armed. Under orders from President Lincoln, a short time later, Grant was headed for command of the Eastern army, and confrontation with a man who’d been his (slight) senior, and his comrade during the Mexican War (1846), R.E. Lee. Grant quickly brought his favorite commanders East to join him, and turned some of those in the West loose to pursue active operations into the South, and the Deep South. (And I guess everyone knows how all that worked out.)
Back East, what’s called the Civil War Draft Riots, but is more accurately described as race riots, broke out in New York City — it killed hundreds, perhaps more (who knows given the record keeping of the day?). It was an angry uprising of (mostly, but not entirely) Irish immigrants who saw blacks as a threat to their work. It raged from July 1 through 3, until troops dispatched from Gettysburg by General Meade (following defeat and withdrawal of Lee), arrived in the city and put the riots down.
Back in Pennsylvania, Michigan infantry, artillery, and cavalry units distinguished themselves across the Gettysburg battlefield, where no small number of upper midwest Yankee soldiers won the Congressional Medal of Honor. An opportunity to chase Lee down and bring him to decisive defeat was muffed by General Meade, who failed to take up the pursuit. He was a brilliant defensive general, but not much given to the risk involved in attacking a crafty general such as Lee.
When Grant shortly arrived, the running brawl to Richmond began. As Grant wrote to President Lincoln, “I intend to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” While he met the promise, pressing and bleeding Lee’s army daily, he lost many soldiers. But he had the reserves, the Southerners were running out of gas, out of men, and out of time.
Reaching Richmond at last, Grant began surrounding, bombarding, suffocating, attacking, and starving his opponent’s forces. By the time the two generals met at Appomattox Courthouse, Richmond looked much like Berlin at the end of World War II. While doing so, he unleashed Sherman in the deep south.
And I guess everyone knows how all that worked out.
But you know, despite all the suffering of that war, the old Confederate states still continue to harass blacks at the polls, in schools, in the streets, at a time of the utmost urgency calling for communication and cooperation among and between us. It ain’t happening, it’s appalling, sickening and dangerous.
They, along with many more, from what I see in the Trump candidacy, and the direct contact with some ungodly right wing God of Ted Craze, are in a state of denial. When Bob Dylan announced, “the times, they are a’changing'” he knew it would be a process; long, slow, fought tooth and nail by those who live in a dream world of hate ‘n bigotry ‘n ignorance. But it’s got to happen or we’re Rome.