By Joel Thurtell
More from General Grant’s sentry on how the Civil War was won:
Man, what a jealous mistress is history.
Once ya try to master it, yer in it fer good.
An’ ya never do master history.
History is the boss, make no mistake.
What makes things hard about history is all the confusion us human bein’s has spun out about what to start with are plain an’ simple facts.
So it is with them three cigars an’ the Battle of Antietam.
There’s a lot of malarkey been spit out from Day One about them cigars an’ whether or not they caused that big battle.
What a lot of hokum!
Them three cigars don’ mean nothin.’
I know what Georgie McClellan said about them cigars: “Here is paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home.”
But General McClellan better of watched his hind quarters, ’cause he was generalin’ against the Bad Link.
The Bad Link was Old Lard Ass, Old Pee for Brains, by which I mean Major General Henry Halleck, who never had a idea for nothin’ excep’ betterin’ Henry Halleck at the expense of General Grant an’ General McClellan and the Union.
Social media only made things worse.
Popular culture claims that a Indiana corporal done foun’ General Lee’s “Special Order 191” in the grass in a envelope with three cigars.
Fer the life of me, I can’t figure why historians have been so gulled by this popular myth.
Think about it.
What was Special Order 191 writ on?
Paper!
Well?
Hard copy!
What general in his right mind, a graduate of West Point, is gonna rely on hard copy to run a Army?
[Answer: Only a real smart general — one named Grant– ed.]
The whole problem with the Confederate Army was all these self-proclaimed brains and West Point guys who was into all the latest tech stuff.
Ask Bobby Lee to show you his iPhone an’ you was good for two hours a loopy tech talk. Oh yes! Bobby Lee had all the apps an’ more. He was buddies with David Puke of The Times even though Puke was for the North.
Ever’body thinks that Special Order 191 was such a big deal, with that corporal pickin’ it up and handin’ it to his sergeant who hands it to a captain who gives it to a colonel who gives it to a brigadier general who finally after all this handlin’ shows it to General McClellan.
Who shows it to the Bad Link.
Old Fart for Brains, Henry Halleck.
Who says to General McClellan, “Maybe it is a trick.”
It was a trick, all right.
But the trickster was Old Fat Ass, Henry Halleck.
Playin’ brain games with General McClellan.
Why do you think they called Henry Halleck “Old Brains”?
Wasn’t his own brains they meant.
‘Cause he messed with ever’body else’s brain.
I could spend all day on Old Piss Bottom.
Back to Special Order 191.
It was important historically ’cause it give Halleck a way to mess with General McClellan’s thinking.
Old Brains knew that true or fraud, the special order was out of date when it was picked up by that corporal.
That corporal, Barton W. Mitchell, was 46 years old when he found Special Order 191.
Think about that for a minute!
Forty-six years old!
Come on!
At the time of the Battle of Shiloh, I was 16 years old. Thirty years junior to the corporal, even if I was only a private soldier.
I knew more about apps than any 46-year-old corporal.
I knew more about the Internet than General Robert E. Lee.
Why, pinch me fer bein’ a bragger, but I knew more ’bout apps an’ iPhones than Davey Puke!
Do you think for a minute that Bobby Lee was gonna stick to hard copy orders when he had his iPhone?
Hail no!
The way Bobby Lee was a’thinkin’ ’bout the Battle of Antietam was a movin’ target. Why, he was textin’ an’ e-mailin’ and shootin jaypegs till hail wouldn’t have ’em.
An’ I was a doggin’ Bobby Lee ever’ minute, all the time I was sittin’ in General Grant’s tent.
Social networking was Bobby Lee’s undoing, believe you me.
Think there might of been some big time ego there?
Things really went South for Lee when he signed up for Klout.
Massive ego massage.
Klout give Bobby Lee a big number fer how much clout the general had on the World Wide Web.
Well, Klout put it out that Bobby Lee had loads of influence over all the other generals.
Confederate AND Union.
Now don’t THAT cook yer goose!
Pretty soon, General Lee was not happy with his Klout score. So he starts puttin’ down names of ever’body he can think of an’ askin’ them to be friends on Facebook, LinkedIn an’ so forth.
What he’s not thinkin’ ’bout is that General Sherman, who to be kind to him we can say is kind of hyper, is doin’ the same thing as Bobby Lee. An’ then one day I logs onto General Grant’s Facebook page an’ bingo! I see General Lee yackin’ away to his generals about what he’s gonna do at Antietam.
So I runs to General Grant.
What does General Grant do?
Low techie that the general is, he puts a courier on a horse and sends him to tell General McClellan to look at General Lee’s Facebook page.
An’ that is how General McClellan won the Battle of Antietam. Sure, he could of done better if he had stopped listenin’ to Old Glue Brains, but he still sent the graybacks packin’.
Okay, the guy what dropped the three cigars and Special Order 191 was probably Confederate General D.H. Hill.
But it don’t matter. Special Order 191 was not what killed the johnny rebs at Antietam.
The killjoy for the South was social media.
Stay tuned for more exciting reflections by General Grant’s sentry on the causes of the Civil War.
