You are the Army

[samgrant]

Found this from an address: Churchill's "American Civil War" as History
by Col. Joseph B. Mitchell
ICS [International Churchill Society] United States Conference, Richmond, Virginia
2 November 1991

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/...cfm?pageid=595

"We may be sure that Brigadier General Henry R Wise [a typo, I think, should be "Henry A"], former governor of Virginia, spoke for everyone just two days before Appomattox when Lee asked him what the Army would think of him if he surrendered. Wise blurted out, "General Lee, don't you know that you are the Army?" When Lee then mentioned "the country," Wise told him: "There is no country. There has been no country for a year or more. You are the country to these men. They have fought for you. They have shivered through a long winter for you. Without pay or clothes or care of any sort their devotion to you and faith in you have been the only things that have held this army together. If you demand the sacrifice, there are still left thousands of us who will die for you.""

[r_moody]

I am of the opinion that this had alot to do with Lee's decision to stop the fighting. It was too much of a burden for one man to carry and honor would not allow him to continue as a partisan/guerilla.

Rick

[nbforrest]

Wise was an interesting character. His relationship with Floyd in 61 always cracks me up. He sure had a tongue on him and wasn't afraid to use it. I suppose that's why he spent most of the war commanding a brigade in backwater posts.

Respectfully

[matthew mckeon]

This is the same Wise as the governor who interrogated John Brown, as well as the one who told the Union officer at Appomattox that "We hate you, sir" He also served in Congress at the same time as J.Q. Adams, whom he liked. He got around.

[samgrant]

[quote=matthew mckeon]the one who told the Union officer at Appomattox that "We hate you, sir" quote]

Matt, Where does that 'hate you" thing come from? Never heard of that before!

[matthew mckeon]

Dear Sam,
I believe he said, "You may forgive us, but we won't be forgiven. There is a rancor in our hearts you little dream of. We hate you, sir" I may be off a little and will check it.

[whitworth]

Lee seems a complex contradiction. Lee nearly fought his army until it was totally destroyed. Lee had no real viable army at Appomattox, yet he seemed to find it hard to surrender according to historians. Wouldn't a great general know when the war had seen its end.
Many of his soldiers had seen the end, months earlier and had deserted. Lee seemed confused why his army was breaking apart with desertions in 1865.

Even as early as 1862, Lee in his letters and dispatches had seen the serious weaknesses of the Confederate army. One can argue that Lee had seen the possiblility if not the total probablility of Confederate defeat, even before Gettysburg.

After Atlanta fell, and Hood took his army west into Alabama, leaving Georgia wide open for attack, didn't it occur to a general with Lee's experience, that logistically the Confederacy was headed towards defeat.

[samgrant]

Originally Posted by whitworth

Lee seems a complex contradiction. Lee nearly fought his army until it was totally destroyed. Lee had no real viable army at Appomattox, yet he seemed to find it hard to surrender according to historians. Wouldn't a great general know when the war had seen its end.
Many of his soldiers had seen the end, months earlier and had deserted. Lee seemed confused why his army was breaking apart with desertions in 1865.

Even as early as 1862, Lee in his letters and dispatches had seen the serious weaknesses of the Confederate army. One can argue that Lee had seen the possiblility if not the total probablility of Confederate defeat, even before Gettysburg.

After Atlanta fell, and Hood took his army west into Alabama, leaving Georgia wide open for attack, didn't it occur to a general with Lee's experience, that logistically the Confederacy was headed towards defeat.

A very interesting point, while Lee has been credited as one of the greatest warrior generals of all time; one must wonder when he first recognized the fact that his army could not prevail, and then why he then kept on in spite of that fact.

Was he somehow delusional? That he felt that there was always 'some thing' that would turn things in his favor?

[ole]

A general perseveres. Quitters rarely win. How many times in world history has a stroke of luck (accompanying an opponent's stroke of bad luck) turned around an impossible situation.

That said, I think Sherman's virtually unopposed march through Georgia ought to have infused a modicum of reality into his thought processes. Most certainly when Columbia was taken.

Ole

[larry_cockerham]

In Martin Sheen's portrayal of Lee in GETTYSBURG which I have seen five or six times, he seems to project an aura that Lee was trying to get the war to a close. His directions prior to battle seemed to help bring that about.