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"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs
"Am I to infer from that that you are not fond of Mel Brooks and his assorted works?"
Does it look like it?
I'm all about artistic license. Especially with history. Remember-when the legend becomes fact-print the legend!
"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs
To the original video (not of Blazing Saddles) the photo of the wounded soldiers is actually a photo of Union soldiers taken at Fredericksburg, VA in May 1864 not Confederate soldiers as presented in the video.
Kind of the next thought.
Shek and I both lurk at a site called Civil War Memory which is about the use of the Civil War rememberances, etc, in current events and interpretation. One subject the site really does a good job on is the misnomer that Southern African Americans willingly took up arms on behalf of the Confederacy. This very point is so far beyond the pale as to strain credulity. Men like Cleburne who proposed arming blacks from a purely strategic neccesity point of view were roundly criticized. I believe it was on 25 MAR 1865 before the Confederate Congress authorized the formation of Black units...and 2 battalions were formed from impressed slaves and the units only action was at Saylors Creek where it was shattered and spread to the winds.
I'll offer up the first historical inaccuracy. The cadet "Southerner" is Henry Walter Kingsbury, born in Chicago, and died a Colonel of Infantry at Antietam while commanding the 11th Connecticut. Oops . . . guess he didn't fight for Southern independence.
OK, enough of letting this thread deteriorate into a blazing saddles homage, I'll give you this one first in the inaccuracies of a SCV video...so they are not all that smart, its the south, blame it on the Northern reconstruction of the southern education system. Next.....
Here's the next error in the SCV video. When they talk of Northerner's invading the South, they use images from the Southern invasion of the North, and specifically, an image of the Rohrback Bridge, now referred to as Burnside's Bridge. Oops . . . I guess they forget to mention the South's invasion of the North.
Please expound so we can argue about Ft Sumpter once again for the umpteenth time?
Here's the last inaccuracy. The video claims that the South fought sometimes with odds 5:1. Technically, I'm sure that those examples exist. This reference is surely made against this battlefield marker that can be found at Five Forks, where Lee's Petersburg line was finally stretched and broken on 1 April 1865.
So this is inaccurate how? You just admitted "at times" and the video claimed "at times". Should it contain a disclaimer of only once?
There's a handful of other things I could bring up that are distortionary from the video, but I'll just leave it at those three.
Hell, if your feelin like it, I'm game. May not be as entertaining as a Mel Brooks film, but should be more engaging. You want a lost cause, I'll play the part.;)
So this is inaccurate how? You just admitted "at times" and the video claimed "at times". Should it contain a disclaimer of only once?
"Liars figure and figures lie"
Eric,
The video was produced as part of a series that the particular GA chapter of the SCV wanted to air on the History Channel to promote their Lost Cause version of the war. One of the tenets of the Lost Cause is the overwhelming odds that the Confedearcy faced, which as told, was that the Confederacy couldn't win against these odds and yet continued in their heroic struggle (which begs the question as to why they even started the war then if it was impossible to win against the 2:1 odds they faced in the field). The specific example that I can think of where Confederate forces fought at odds worse than 2:1 would be in the precursor maneuver battles of Grant's Vicksburg campaign where his speed of maneuver overwhelmed Pemberton's ability to reinforce isolated garrisons. So, a claim could be made for odds, but these odds were created by poor Confederate strategy of trying to defend everywhere and not by a Union advantage in numbers, which is the tenet of the Lost Cause and the implication.
As to the Five Forks reference, which has a clean 5:1 advantage and what I believe the video is referring to, the monument emplaced during the Centennial by the Dinwiddie Commission is simply wrong (the actual odds were just over 2:1). What's important about this is two fold. First, the initial Lost Cause mythology about the odds first surfaced over the parole numbers from Appomattox and then were extrapolated back through the Overland Campaign. Thus, Five Forks was tainted by this initial brush. The second thing is that the incorrect monument was emplaced/dedicated during the Centennial, a period marked by strong Southern resistance to the Civil Rights movement and during which a renewed emphasis on Lost Cause mythology emerged as an antidote, if you will, to the Civil Rights movement. This clearly had an impact in the incorrect narrative on the monument - whether it was an error of omission (believed the Lost Cause mythology and so the numbers didn't seem wrong) or an error of commission (a deliberate distortion of the figures), I can't say.
So, the video makes another sloppy historical error in pursuit of continuing the Lost Cause mythology about odds.
Now, if you believe that the video wasn't trying to create an impression that the South fought against impossible odds and was interested in pursuing historical perfection, then I'd like to hear the argument. However, they rely upon a historical error built upon a foundation of a narrative that relies on historical error, and so you've got a long journey here.
Please expound so we can argue about Ft Sumpter once again for the umpteenth time?
This isn't about federal property that South Carolina gave to the United States government. It's about the fact that when the video talks about Northern invasion, they show a picture of a battle that occurred in the North because of the Confederate invasion of the North.
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3
Didn't Tophatter mention something about the Japanese planes were NOT re-arming on the carrier decks at the Battle of Midway when the American dive bombers hit them, as most historical reportings would like us to believe? And the time differential between Torpedo 8's fateful attack and the arrival of the dive bombers was more than sufficient for Japanese fighters to regain altitude.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
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