By Joel Thurtell
We continue the saga of the Civil War as seen by General Grant’s sentry:
General Henry “Old Brains” Halleck and General Grant were not Facebook friends.
Maybe if the two generals had gotten together on social media, things would of gone better between them.
Somehow, though, I don’t think so.
“Old Brains” claimed General Grant screwed up the Battle of Shiloh.
So we had “Old Brains” steppin’ off of a steamboat and takin’ over and sendin’ General Grant to sit in a tent with nothin’ to do.
“Old Brains” had somethin’ of a problem, though, ’cause it was General Grant — not “Old Brains” — that sent the johnny rebs runnin’ tails-between-legs back to Corinth, Mississippi.
Nineteen miles they run.
Off to the races!
How could General Grant of lost the battle if he done sent the rebels packin’?
General Grant won the Battle of Shiloh, an’ Henry Halleck didn’t like it.
So “Old Brains” went all out for tongue-waggin’ an’ rumor-mongerin’.
Whiskey!
Grant loves whiskey!
Too bad President Lincoln never found out what brand of whiskey General Grant drinks.
If he did, General Halleck woulda got himself a free barrel.
Maybe it woulda mellowed him. Made him treat General Grant nicer.
I don’t think so.
How can I describe General Halleck to a lay audience?
Not a mellow man.
General Halleck’s first an’ only thought was of Henry Halleck, an’ the fate of the Union take the hindmost.
Whereas General Grant was all for the Republic and beatin’ the rebs.
General Grant tol’ me once that the art of war is findin’ the enemy, gettin’ to him as fast as you can, hittin’ him as hard as you can an’ then move on.
What do you think General Halleck did after Shiloh?
Well, no question where the johnny rebs was — they was in Corinth, all tuckered out and no gumption to fight.
What does “Old Brains” do? Get to the rebs as fast as he can?
Why, “Old Brains” was as slow as a Sunday mornin’ crap in a plugged-up outhouse.
“Old Brains” moves the army an inch an’ builds a fort. Next day, move the army an inch and build another fort.
“Old Fatass.”
By the time “Old Lardbutt” got all those forts built, the johnny rebs was long gone.
But “Old Pork Brain” was movin’ fast another way.
All the time he’s buildin’ these forts, General Halleck is burnin’ up the Internet makin’ Facebook friends with President Lincoln an’ sendin’ emails around about General Grant hittin’ the bottle.
So that is why General Halleck and General Grant probably never would of been friends on Facebook.
‘Course, this was all very hard on General Grant. An’ the story goes that he was packin’ his valise an’ gonna leave the army when General Sherman come by an’ talked him outa leavin’ and since then they got to be Facebook friends.
That ain’t how it happened at all.
I was standin’ guard duty at General Grant’s tent an’ I heard what went down.
General Sherman come over to see General Grant, that is true enough.
An’ General Grant was sittin’ on a camp stool tyin’ up a batch o’ letters with some old string, just like they say.
But now listen up, ’cause I’m about to tell ya the true history of what happened between these two men.
General Sherman had no notion about General Grant takin’ a vacation from the army. No, sirree!
General Sherman was all about gettin’ to be friends with General Grant on Facebook.
That’s what the conversation was about.
Some people says that General Sherman convincin’ General Grant to stay in the army changed the course of the Civil War.
They’d change their minds if they’d a heard what I heard. I’m a sentry. My job is to pay attention.
So, General Sherman says to General Grant, “How come you never accepted me as a friend on Facebook?”
“How many times I gotta tell ya, Sherman, I don’t DO Facebook!”
“Okay, okay, you don’t DO Facebook. But tell me this, Ulys — okay if I call you ‘Ulys’?”
“Call me anything you want, Sherman, but you’re makin’ me late to lunch. Can I call you ‘Tec’?””
” ‘Tec’?”
“Yeah, short for Tecumseh. Your middle name. ‘William Tecumseh Sherman,’ right?”
“My Facebook friends call me ‘Cump.’ ‘
” ‘Cump,’ ” says General Grant, tryin’ on the sound. ” ‘Cump’ has a ring to it, kinda like ‘Shiloh.’ ”
Now, General Sherman sees he’s gettin’ somewhere. “I even got a little jingle, ‘Cump, Thump, Whump,’ on my cell phone ring tone. Wanta hear it?”
“I don’t do cell phones,” says General Grant. He pulls out his laptop. ‘I’ll google you an’ see who you are.”
“Who I am is the general named ‘Cump’ who helped you whump and thump the graybacks the other day. If we get to be friends on Facebook, no tellin’ what we can do to those stinkin’ rebs — drive ’em to Atlanta, all the way to the ocean!”
“How is our bein’ pals on Facebook gonna beat the South?’ says General Grant. “That’s just plain nuts.”
“Whadaya mean ‘nuts’? ” says General Sherman.
(You need to know that General Sherman is very sensitive on the sanity issue. See, what happened a while back, he got pissed off at a newspaper reporter and give the scoundrel two hours to get out of his jurisdiction or he’d hang the blackguard for a traitor. What General Sherman knew is that these media folk claim to be all objective and fair and impartial while all the time they’re rootin’ for one side or another underhandedly like the two-faced skunks and sneak thieves they are. Everybody knows that, but mostly they know better than to say it. And nobody ever threatened to hang one of those scalawags before. So this same reporter, soon as he was safe away from General Sherman, put out a story on Facebook that General Sherman is crazy as a coot. Well, that got around an’ made lots of trouble for General Sherman.)
“I’ll tell ya what I mean by ‘nuts,” says General Grant. “If ya think a mere friendship between two mortals can change the flow of history, you are crazy as a mare in a bees’ nest. You think my acceptin’ you as a Facebook friend is gonna somehow make the rebs run scared as a fat tomcat in a room full a wolves, you are just plain looney tunes! History is a complicated beast, General Sherman. Neither you nor I has the power to tame a giant with a million heads and claws that stretch across oceans of time.”
“General Grant, if you don’t believe that the two of us can use social media to win this war, then I will come to believe that all the lies and innuendo about you are correct. You must be drunk!”
“So what if I AM drunk, General Sherman? You are stark ravin’ bananas.”
“Yer drunk!”
“Yer certifiable!
“Yer smashed!”
“Well, General Sherman,” says General Grant, “I may be drunk today, but tomorrow I’ll wake up sober. You, General Sherman, will be crazy the rest of your life!”
Now, I ask you, does that sound like the foundation for a great friendship that will change the course of history?
Stay tuned for more episodes of “How Social Networking Won the Civil War.”
