By Joel Thurtell
We continue the saga of the Civil War as witnessed by General Grant’s sentry:
They say General Grant took immoderate risks at the Battle of Shiloh.
I tend to agree overall, though not in detail.
I’ve described how the two of them great generals was standin’ under a tree in the pourin’ rain and how General Sherman was all down in the mouth ’cause the Federals had got knocked ’round pretty bad the first day a that battle.
Some say they called it “The Battle of Shiloh” ’cause it was short, punchy an’ had a biblical ring to it.
None of that is true.
What happened, see, is Firefox asked General Grant if he wanted to update his Internet software, and General Grant punched the key for “yes.”
Next, Firefox wanted General Grant’s password.
You know what comes next.
‘Course, General Grant can’t remember his password.
Not because he was drunk! I am so tired of hearing that worn-out old pisspot.
You know how you make up new passwords and don’t write ’em down ’cause you don’t have time, yer in the middle of a battle or tryin’ ta find a latrine, an’ all ya need is a new password to get ya into yer account an’ yer golden.
Until Firefox wants ta update an’ you forgot yer password.
Well, General Grant, he needs to think up a new password.
He looks aroun’ the Union camp, which stretched for miles and miles along the Tennessee River at Pittsburg Landin’.
“Pittsburg Landin’ ” woulda made a fine name for the battle.
But it’s lousy for a password. Two words and a space. No good.
General Grant, he sees a sign on a church over there an’ bein’ in a hurry to get into his e-mail, he puts down “Shiloh” as his new password.
‘Course, yer s’pose’ to keep yer password under yer slouch hat, so t’ speak, but General Grant is so relieved that he come up with a good password that he shouts “SHILOH!!!” so loud he could of waked the johnny reb dead all the way to Corinth nineteen miles away.
One of ol’ Horace Greeley’s newspaper reporters hangin’ aroun’ camp heard him shout “SHILOH!!!” an’ thought he was talkin’ ’bout the battle, an’ that’s how the battle got named.
Truly.
It was a terrible battle for the North that first day.
It was so bad that the Confederate officers — colonel and higher — was eatin’ breakfast in General Sherman’s tent an’ used up all the fresh eggs an’ bacon. They even shot General Sherman’s milk cow an’ carved off huge chunks a beef an’ had themselves steak an’ eggs for breakfast in General Sherman’s tent.
That is the real reason why General Sherman was so down when they was a standin’ in the rain. But that was not the great risk to the Union army and the course of history.
The great risk come from they was standin’ side by side a havin’ this conversation by way of e-mail, tappin’ away at their laptops, an’ it’s just blame’ lucky the rain didn’t get into General Sherman’s PC or General Grant’s MacBook Pro, ’cause if those circuits had a got wet, they woulda shorted out an’ it woulda been the end of communications between those two great generals.
Which woulda shorted out the whole Union strategy, such as it was.
See what I mean about General Grant takin’ a risk?
It’s true that General Sherman was responsible for his own laptop, but General Grant was in overall command. For my money, he oughta of issued a order bannin’ use a laptops in downpouring rainstorms.
An’ what if one of them generals standin’ under a tree in the rain had a got struck by lightnin’?
What then?
End of the Union as we come to know it.
These are all ways the course of history coulda been changed for the South to win, and people just don’t think of it.
All the time them johnny reb officers was a feastin’ on General Grant’s cow, an’ they et the whole carcass, all except the guts.
The Confederate overall general, Johnston — not Joe Johnson, but Albert Sydney Johnston — was such a hog. He said he was a goin’ ta keep the guts outa General Sherman’s milk cow an’ stuff ’em fer sausage.
Well, don’t that jus’ go to show.
There’s the chief of the johnny reb generals hangin’ aroun’ General Sherman’s tent gettin’ his sausages stuffed when he shoulda been fightin’ the Battle a Shiloh.
If General Johnston had done his duty an’ not dawdled over some dadblamed sausages, he wouldn’t of been in the wrong place and he wouldn’t of caught the bullet in his leg that made him bleed to death right there in the middle of the Battle of Shiloh.
It all goes to show, the devil is in the entrails.
Believe me, them rebs was plenty down in the mouth after General Albert Sydney Johnston met his Maker.
Talk about immoderate risk-taking.
What would Shakespeare of writ?
“A sausage! A sausage! My kingdom for a sausage!”
It was all there, spelled out for General Johnston in the fine print of War.
For my money, them johnny rebs should of thought of the mayhem they was gonna create when they chose to start this durned intestine war.
General Johnston’s sausage was small potatoes in the Big Scheme of Things.
Of the many things that lost the Civil War for the South, high on my list would be the Confederacy’s failure to comprehen’ the power a social media.
Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In — they all played their role in defeating the South, an’ I’ll write more ’bout that in my next dispatch from General Grant’s camp.
Stay tuned for more insights about historical inevitability and accidentality as we delve further into the memoirs of General Grant’s private sentry.
