DEFEAT FASCISM

 It appears that the planned trip to Gettysburg and Antietam stands in jeopardy because our government has ceased to function. It presents a personal loss but a minor one in the great scheme of things.

 Still, I reread this book in anticipation, this time with an eye focused on General George McClellan. There have been some attempts in recent years to defend his timidity and define it as justified caution. We’ll see. He faced obstacles, no doubt. The fact remains that his opponents faced the same obstacles.

To this untrained, uneducated, and unqualified mind, one of the apparent factors in this battle was speed. One army had it. One didn’t. Even though the discovery of the Confederate Special Order 191 gave “Little Napolean” the disposition of the insurrectionist forces, he delayed any major attack for 18 hours and then deployed his forces in piecemeal fashion.

At countless times during the battle, delays by the United States forces gave General Lee time to assemble his smaller army for maximum deployment. A.P. Hill’s Division rushed from Harper’s Ferry in hours. The typical federal unit would have taken days, arriving just in time to form burial details.

 The final result? Some call it a stalemate. Some credit the federal forces with repulsing an invasion into the northern states. Some point out that it was enough of a victory to convince Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation which pretty much eliminated the possibility of foreign involvement in our tragic war.

Today’s emphasis is about speed. We see it in the current invasion into all that was ever good and decent about America. One side is unleashing havoc upon the poor, the different, the least of those among us and the ones who believe in the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. The other side says we must wait, in the manner of General McClellan, until we decide what pronouns define us ere we set our defenses.

As in any battle, the side weaker in numbers and moral basis must move faster and with the most force.

Why is that so important now? Anyone who can read knew what might happen. Hell, it was published and available, much like Special Order 191. No one, however, seems to have believed it would happen so quickly.

It must. It gives the forces of darkness time to weaken the American resolve with what we might call their “political artillery.”

At the proper moment, then, with resolve in shamble, “I declare martial law and declare that elections are no longer useful” will sound simply like another day in the park.