Category Archives: Loose thoughts and musings

“Dead men and plenty here – and I saw plenty [3] of them in all shapes on the field – Help to wound & Kill men then Patch them up I could show more suffering here in one second than you will see in a Life…” Elbert Corbin, Union Soldier at Gettysburg 1st Regiment, Light Artillery, N. Y. S. Volunteers (Pettit’s Battery)

“In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls.” Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

The Army of Northern Virginia and Army of the Potomac remained on the bloodstained Gettysburg battlefield on July 4th 1863. Both armies had suffered severely in the fighting around 50,000 soldiers from both sides lay dead, dying or wounded on the battlefield. Surgeons and their assistants manned open air hospitals while parties of stretcher bearers evacuated wounded men for…

“Armistead at Gettysburg” by Keith Rocco

The bonds of friendship forged by soldiers are some of deepest and long lasting that are formed anywhere.  Those bonds are formed by military professionals in the small rather closed society that is the regular United States military over years of deployments, isolated duty, combat and a culture that is often quite different than that of civilian society.

When the people of a nation goes to war against each other the military is often the last to split and when it does men that were friends and comrades turn their weapons against each other and seldom with pleasure. Mass levies of civilian volunteers motivated by ideological, sectional or religious hatred tend to take up such causes with great aplomb. But those that serve together, even those that may believe in their cause are often torn between oaths that they swore to defend their country…

The Confederate Onslaught

“In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls… generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream; and lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.” ― Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

The Federal Army at Gettysburg had a wide variety of officers. Many senior officers were graduates of West Point but in the expansion of the Army and the call of up militia from the various states other officers were appointed. Many had no prior military service and at times that lack of experience was tragic. However…

On June 30th 1863 the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under the Command of General Robert E Lee was deep in enemy territory. His mission was to draw the Federal Army of the Potomac now under the command of Major General George Gordon Meade into battle and destroy it.  His Army composed of three Corps, the First Corps under Lieutenant General James Longstreet, the Second under Lieutenant General Richard Ewell and the Third Corps under the command of Lieutenant General A.P. Hill.  Lieutenant General J.E.B. Stuart commanded his cavalry but was operating independently of Lee conducting a movement around the Army of the Potomac and unable to provide Lee information on the deployment or movement of the Union forces.

Lee’s army was spread out. Early’s Second Corps was spread out near the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg while his other two corps were concentrated in the area around Cashtown about 8…

Note: I felt the need to republish this article in light of so many of the controversies that have been in the news lately, especially because some of the visceral reactions that I see from so many people about them. I just hope that people take the time to try to get as much of each story and controversy possible, examine them in the light of history and reason before jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions. The fact is that many of us do precisely this and that is in large part due to how terribly divided we are. However, that being said there is seldom any issue that is totally clear, most actually are quite opaque and clouded in the fog of many shades of gray, and what history teaches us is that we need to be careful before jumping to conclusions.

Peace

Padre Steve+

“Unreason and anti-intellectualism abominate thought. Thinking…

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin

Hitler presides over the Reichstag during the passage of the Enabling Act

Sometimes in crisis nations enact laws that in the heat of the moment sound quite good. In fact the writers of such laws usually don’t have bad intentions, they react to a crisis enact laws to safeguard society from the events of the crisis which usually included widespread political, social and economic disruption.  In 1919 with the country engulfed in economic, social, political crisis that had evolved into what amounted to a civil war Germany added an article to the Weimar Constitution.  That article was Article 48 and read as follows:

Article 48 of the German Constitution of August 11, 1919:

If public safety and order in Germany are materially disturbed or endangered, the President may take the necessary…

The following is an article that I first published on this site in 2009 “The Ideological War: How Hitler’s Racial Theories Influenced German Operations in Poland and Russia.” Since I am getting ready to write a number of articles on the subject of politicized military and police forces, the Concentration Camps and the Einsatzgrüppen I wanted to give my readers an overview of the subject. The focus is the ideology that framed and justified to the perpetrators the mass murders of Jews, Poles, Russians and others during the German invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union. I will be writing about policy as well as key personalities involved in the planning and execution of these crimes over the coming months since I have renewed my studies of the crimes and their prosecution at Nuremberg over the past year. In a sense this article is simply an introduction to more specific articles…

This is the next to last installment of my series “Background to “The Pacific” which deals with certain subjects themes and battles dealt with in the HBO series by that name. This article deals with the Okinawa campaign which is covered in part nine of the series. Like all battles in the Pacific which pitted Americans against Japanese Army and Naval Infantry forces this battle was fought often to the death and unlike other battles fought with a large civilian population in the battle area.

Plans and Preparations

The United States decided to invade Okinawa in the fall of 1944 following the seizure of Peleliu and the Philippine landings.  The planned invasion of Formosa was cancelled after General Simon Bolivar Buckner objected.[i] Buckner argued that the Japanese army on it was “much too strong to be attacked by the forces by American Forces then available in the Pacific.”[ii]