By Joel Thurtell
We continue the saga of the Civil War seen through the eyes of General Grant’s sentry:
Time and again, I’m asked to settle the question, “Was Lee drunk at Appomattox?”
My response is always the same:
“When was Lee NOT drunk?”
The correct answer is, “Who knows?”
Who knows whether General Lee was drunk any more than who knows if General Grant was drunk?
Who knows, for instance, if Captain Sam Grant was drunk on duty at an Army post in California?
It’s not on any military record.
It’s not on any other written record.
We only have the word of his “friend” and roommate in California that Captain Grant was told to face a court martial or resign his commission.
One voice.
Even journalists, those lowlifes, demand at least two credible sources before rushing a smear into print.
But some historians fall below that low standard.
And how loud the voice of ill-founded rumor has shouted across the ages.
No such voice ever tattled on General Lee, even when he was Captain Lee.
But if Lee had had a “friend” like the one who started the rumor about Grant, I wonder if Lee might have wound up drunk at Appomattox?
Speakin’ of friends, we had a big problem right in the middle of the Battle of Shiloh ’cause of General Sherman wantin’ to be everybody’s friend on Facebook.
Truth to tell, General Sherman was tryin’ ’em all. He was on Facebook, tweetin’ all the time on Twitter, connectin’ on LinkedIn and messin’ ’round on Klout all at the same time.
Nothin’ wrong with social media, you say?
Well, I’ll tell ya what’s wrong with social media: Nothin’.
Nothin’, ’till you get into a Civil War.
Take General Sherman for an example. He was headin’ up a military school in New Orleens before the Civil War done broke out. Before that, he went to West Point, like most of the bigwig generals like Grant and Lee an’ the Johnstons. They was all part of the army club. But ya get General Sherman runnin’ that school in New Orleens, heart of the South, an’ ‘course he’s hot to be friends with all these Southerners an’ whatnot. They’re all buddies on Facebook, LinkedIn an’ so forth.
No problem, right?
No problem, like Holey Hell!
Soon as South Carolina fired them cannons at Fort Sumter, General Sherman had a big problem he didn’t know about.
He was friends on Facebook with Lee, the Johnstons and dozens of other army guys that showed up wearin’ gray coats.
Now, you tell me that ain’t a problem!
General Sherman, he didn’t even figure it out. Smart guy like that who figured out how to wreck them johnny reb railroads and make ’em stay wrecked. But that’s another Facebook story I’ll tell in due course.
So there we are in the middle of the Battle of Shiloh an’ what’s General Sherman up to? Why, he’s shootin’ jpegs of the fightin’ on his iPhone an’ postin the pictures on Facebook!
Now, Jeff Davis was no dumbie. He was the Confederate president. He was a Facebook friend with General Sherman, ya know, ’cause Jeff Davis was a West Point guy and fought in the Mexi war an’ was Secretary of War in the old Union, too!
Soon as ol’ Jeff Davis sees General Grant’s jpegs on Facebook, ol’ Jeff, he flashes the pictures to Johnston an’ the other johnny reb generals fightin’ ‘gainst General Grant and General Sherman at Pittsburg Landin’ — I mean, at Shiloh.
So now ya got this huge motherbangin’ security lapse.
General Grant could never get it through General Sherman’s head why General Grant don’t DO Facebook.
Time ‘n again, General Grant says, “General Sherman, sorry, I mean Cump, this Facebook networking is gonna kill us one a these days.”
“How we gonna find the enemy, get to him fast, hit him hard and then move on if we tell the enemy we know where he is, how we’re gettin’ to him and how hard we’re gonna hit him and where we’re movin’ on to?”
General Sherman, he was none too happy to hear it.
General Sherman was a railroad man before the Civil War, an’ thought of hisself as a real techie.
All the new apps, General Sherman either had ’em or knew all ’bout ’em. He was readin’ David Puke’s columns in The New York Times.
General Sherman, he kinda looked down on General Grant as a low-tech kinda general.
General Grant knowed horses.
Oh, did General Grant know horses.
An’ mules.
General Grant knowed you can’t feed a army with pixels.
You want an army to move, you gotta give ’em real corn mush, real bacon, real eggs.
None of this virtual corn mush for General Grant!
Some say General Grant was a failure before the Civil War.
That is not strickly speakin’ so.
Here is what happened, if ya want ta know.
Or not.
General Grant was workin’ in his dad’s leather store in Galena, Illinois when the rebs staraated takin’ pot shots at Fort Sumter.
He seen lotsa people comin’ ta town thirsty as shag-haired dogs with their tongues lollin’ out.
Now General Grant, he did like lemonade.
Plain ol’ lemonade, no spirits added, thank you!
General Grant, he figured a way to put fizz in lemonade and bottle it up so it would hold an’ people could buy a bottle and carry it home or maybe swig away at it ridin’ their horse or sittin’ on their conastogie wagon.
Great tastin’ stuff. He called it “One Up.”
Nobody was a buyin’ One UP.
So he changes the name.
Two Up.
Sales still dead.
Three Up.
No go.
Four Up. Five Up.
Sales of pop were flatter’n day-old Coke.
One last time. He makes new labels.
Six Up.
No good.
General Grant was all set to try again, had the new labels on bottles and ever’thin’. He knew it was all in the name.
But then, the guns shot off at Sumter.
Somebody else come along later an’ made a fortune that coulda been General Grant’s, but for his volunteerin’ to fight in the Civil War.
Stay tuned for more enlightening episodes in our quest to show how the North really won the Civil War.
