They Risk Upsetting The Bulk of Their Customer Base

[Tonus]

Lets lay it aside and the bad men of myth can remain badmen for alltime, the badmen of present will remain bad...and we don't have to talk about it anymore.  No one is suggesting that we set aside the red white and blue, despite being drenched in blood and oppression the likes of which the virginia battle flag will -never- attain........

Like I said, unfairly or not. The display of the flag (or its suppression) and any conversation about what it represents are exclusive of one another. And yes, that IS what it has become. I wouldn't say that we allowed it as much as we created that association, deliberately or not (I think it was partly deliberate, but much of what informs our cultural views isn't pre-planned). Whether or not we get rid of the symbol will not prevent us from confronting the issue, in the same way that continuing to display it has not forced us to confront it.

[The Grand Nudger]

.............and it isn't -just- the KKK or racists that created that association...but now I'm being told that I just have to live with it regardless of contrary fact.  No, I don't...and I don't see the value in doing so to anyone other than those interested in perpetuating the surrounding myths -agreed upon together- by both the KKK/Racists-at-large...and their opponents.....disturbingly.

That flag does not mean what they say it does, it does not belong to -either- of those groups of people.......period.  No moreso than a swistika belongs to the Nazis, as any native american might have occassion to happily remind you (or any pagan european, had they survived).  One day, in the not so distant future, all that will remain of -me- is a flag I fought under.....and I swear to christ I will rise up from my fucking grave to bitchslap anyone who does to -that- flag what the KKK -and other fairy tale believing bigots- have done to the battle flags of the confederacy.

The POV you're expressing is an exultation of guilt by association encased in gleaming ivory.....and I'm not down with that.

(I'm probably never going to see eye to eye with you on this...I have family that were buried under those flags, both in flying them and in tearing them down, and I have an deep appreciation for soldiers in general, and that's very important to me. I;m never going to give them to the KKK, or people who do -precisely- what the KKK have done to that flag, but who otherwise disagree with them.)

[Minimalist]

I think that Lee was smart enough to realize that he couldn't win, and so instead of playing it conservatively he decided he'd take risks and try to force the issue.

Lee had a string of amazing victories over larger and better-equipped opponents:  Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.  But these were all situations in which he forced, or at least allowed, the union commanders to attack him in highly defensible terrain.  He attained a similar result at Antietam where he should have been crushed but instead fought McClellan to a draw.  In all of these cases he was ably assisted by the utter incompetence of the union command.

But at Gettysburg he ignored Longstreet's recommendation to disengage and move to a point between Gettysburg and Washington and force Meade to attack him on ground of the Confederate's choosing thus once again replicating the conditions of his three most successful battles.  Instead he attacked.  I've seen some suggestion that he simply got carried away with the idea that his army could do anything.  However, it is true that he well understood that the north had the resources to keep wearing the south down.  The comparison to Admiral Yamamoto is not misplaced.  He too understood what he was up against.

[The Grand Nudger]

Stepping back, allow me to put this another way.  Conceding that flag to interested parties does us no great service, it adds -further- shame to that which we clearly hope to forget, but in our more lucid moments look to make amends for.  Make sense?

@Adding on to Mins comment above. He'd hoped from the beginning that he could shorten the duration of conflict, or lessen the destruction thereof -whomever- the conflict turned for. It may have been this goal (not, as might seem the suggestion..that he wanted to lose -before anyone gets the idea that I'm suggesting this) which led him to make the decision that he made. He -accurately- judged that the Union at Gettysburg was spent, he may have seen the opportunity to end it right there and then. His comments and plan, at least, seem to suggest that this may have very likely been the case. Had the Confederacy won at Gettysburg......we'd be reading a -much- different history in our textbooks.

[Minimalist]

Lee should have remembered Malvern Hill.

[The Grand Nudger]

Essentially the battle plan in reverse, wasn't it?  They hoped to exploit the charge they knew would come (as the Union knew that a charge to their center was coming- though they were then incapable of exploiting it to such an extent-)?

(edit: or are we discussing the seductive idea that military commanders fall prey too, time and time again, of the singular, bold, and decisive battle attributed to them which will "win the war", right then and there? Malvern Hill was a battle that I would love to see you expound upon,.....pretty much has it all, doesn't it?)

[Minimalist]

Lee took a gamble and lost.

Perhaps he feared that rather than attack him Meade would simply try to blockade him while the Army of the Potomac (savaged at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville) was rebuilt.  But all he would have had to do was send Jeb Stuart's cavalry on a raid towards Washington and they would have been all over Meade's ass to move on Lee.  I don't know.

[abaris]

He attained a similar result at Antietam where he should have been crushed but instead fought McClellan to a draw.  In all of these cases he was ably assisted by the utter incompetence of the union command.

Isn't that the battle where McClellan failed to persue the confederate army and instead waited for reinforcements?

[Minimalist]

McClellan was a superb quartermaster and a lousy field commander.

Ever been to Antietam?  I have.  He gave General Ambrose Burnside an order to cross "at the bridge."



The bridge is 12 feet wide and 120 feet long and Burnside tried several times to cross it.  It was defended by about 500 Confederates on the heights overlooking which would have given them a clear field of fire down into the union ranks but still, they were firing single-shot muskets and could not have put up that steady a volume of fire.  Nonetheless, in the packed conditions the union attempts were easily repulsed.

The real kicker is Antietam Creek itself.  The battle was fought in September at the end of Summer.  I was there in June shortly after the Spring rains had ended.  The creek was perhaps 30 yards wide and I would estimate the depth at less than knee-high.  Burnside interpreted his orders as requiring him to cross via the bridge when he could easily have sent a regiment of infantry above and below the bridge and routed the relative handful of rebels in short order.  Ultimately, one union Brigade commander disobeyed orders and sent his men across the creek.  By then, the movement of the whole IXth Corps was hours behind schedule and before they could effectively intervene they were intercepted by General A.P. Hill's division coming up from Harper's Ferry.

Side note:  When McClellan was fired for his failure at Antietam his replacement was General Ambrose Burnside.  The result was Fredericksburg.  Sometimes Lincoln wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, either.

[abaris]

Yes, in every account I read and every documentary I saw, McClellan is painted as a cunctator. On a side note, I got a German book on American history from the early 80ies of the 19th century that came to me from my ancestors. It ends with the civil war and even there, McClellan is questioned.