Blog? What An Interesting Name.

Blog. Blaaaauuuhhhhhggg.

I like it; it sort of connotes blah. Blaaauuuhhhh. A condition of running off of the mouth. One I have suffered from for, well, maybe my entire life. And Peter said, “blah, blah, blah…”

Do I have a point? Yep.

?

I think I do: when I first joined this forum, I knew I had some fair knowledge of the war in question, at least more than the average citizen of our grand republic.

But I also knew that I may run across some very talented people, people that have taken this stuff seriously for a long time. I would have to tread carefully.

Lightly…very lightly…very,very..sshhhh…lightly.

AND I DIDN’T!!!!!

I broadcast the one fact, the one solid fact that I had known for ten years, ever since on business I drove up a North Georgia highway  into history, into a battlefield of legend, far surpassing any of that stuff I’d seen on television or the movies. I drove through Chicamauga.

I could not wait to get back to my base in florida and run to the library. I got some books, and I read the most interesting. I learned some neat stuff; one being that there was a western army. I did not know that. I did not. And an army that by war’s end had over a million men filter through it. (Ohh, I hope that is true…tread lightly).

Well, in this book, I could have sworn on a stack of bibles that I read about three union soldiers of different rank and circumstance that would one day be presidents of our country.

I think I said…Oh, I’m too lazy to check, but it’s in my into for all to see.

At any rate, I launched a question out into the internet as a sort of fun quiz.

Boing!!! The answer came back and poked me in the eye. Ouch. Only one future president served at Chicaumaga. While it is true that two others did serve in Ohio regiments, they were in two other places at the time, the man told me.

I checked the internet for hours. Not because I feared being wrong, but because…I feared looking stupid.

I was wrong. So I replied graciously that I would rather be wrong and learn from others, than to remain ‘right’ and sound ignorant.

That’s true. But I wish I had been right from the get go. And that is why I like the blog.

That makes no sense whatsoever…I like the blog because I can flesh out my ideas, sound kind of sincere and humorous, and yet allow a certain vulnerabilty into my civil war studies.

See, I want to get better educated. What got me started today was reading an essay on Gettysburg that showed how military commanders like Lee would have used Napoleanic Arithmetic in deciding their attack against union lines that infamous day.

A very interesting article. He went on to say how commanders back then learned certain subjects that were available to them, and had no access to the 20/20 hindsight of armchair experts like me. But also, they had studied for years the great war leaders of ancient history, so they knew far more than I do…unless I wished to attend the Point for so many years. Which I didn’t.

He also stated how these generals primarily had engineering education, that their war experience came as junior officers in the Mexican War, and that their OJT came from first and second manassas, seven days, chanclerville, etc.

He ended that rather than he ever insult these commanders on his pages, he would adopt a scholarly approach, utilizing what they knew at the time. In other words, put himself in their shoes.

That hit home. He has changed my outlook. From now on, I will try to think the way he has advocated.

And that’s why I like the blog.

And that makes no sense. Bllaauuugggggghh. Blah, BLah, blah.