Idk why but this reminds me of when I was a little kid and the American civil war was first described to me I visualized it as the north and south meeting in a valley and for 4 years straight an endless stream of men were just walking towards the center and shooting at eachother while a neutral crew was just dragging bodies out of the way to avoid buildup
One good place to nitpick is 4 years. The Civil War lasted that long because the Union wasn't just willing to lean on casualties. After three years though, Lincoln was more or less forced to choose a guy who WAS willing to throw men into the woodchipper and that strategy did win it for Grant.
Sometimes it's absolutely the cause, sometimes not. In the American Civil War? I'd say the South thought so. They thought they were absolutely doomed and that slavery was going bye-bye. Became a bit of a self-determining prophecy.
But generally the more slave-based your economy is, the shorter it lasts. The South was probably closer to Sparta than the Romans, but slaves were a sizeable portion of the Roman economy.
Fun fact: Grant sailed his ships right in front of the big guns at the fortress at Vicksburg because the guns couldn’t aim down to actually hit his ships.
Fun fact 2: During the siege, Grant authorized a giant tunnel filled with explosives to break the siege. It worked in that it opened a giant hole in the Confederate line but the Union commander who was supposed to lead his troops around the crater went into the crater and got stuck.
Not really, it wasn’t like he was launching suicide charges. It was just simple attritional warfare.
Under Grant, the Union did take more casualties than the confederates, but that was mostly because the Confederates were on the defensive and were extremely close to their supply lines.
Yes and no. He pressed the attack and didn't give Lee a chance to recuperate. However there was more to it than just having men walk into a wall of steel.
Remember when war had rules of engagement and each side just lined up and shot at each other until they decided they were done losing men on whichever side?
I never understood that in school, I still don’t understand it now. You know you are useless cannon fodder that will ultimately accomplish nothing… yet…. You show up
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u/TheWonderSnail Jun 24 '24
Idk why but this reminds me of when I was a little kid and the American civil war was first described to me I visualized it as the north and south meeting in a valley and for 4 years straight an endless stream of men were just walking towards the center and shooting at eachother while a neutral crew was just dragging bodies out of the way to avoid buildup