21JUN1864: Lieutenant General Grant has a busy day before him. Tired of getting his US Army annihilated after 12,000 more casualties from 4 days of meaningless assaults on Petersburg, he now decides to lay a siege on Petersburg. The only problem is … to lay a siege, one must actually encircle and cutoff a city, and the US Army of the Potomac is all on one side. Normally, per the rules of warfare, before a siege is laid, a pronouncement is made and an opportunity is given for all civilians, especially women and children, to evacuate. Grant, of course, gives no consideration to this. So LTG Grant meets with MG “Bug-Eyed” Meade and the two make plans to “quickly” create a siege around Petersburg. Their approach is to use their cavalry … led by MG Sheridan who is off in central Virginia again and currently of no use to the US Army of the Potomac … to disrupt the three railroads that come into Petersburg from the other side. Then, they will keep shifting and extending their lines to the left, clockwise, and slowly encircle Petersburg. Their moronic plan has all the workings of an elementary school child, save the crayons, and there will not be a completed siege of Petersburg anytime soon … in fact … not at all. Plans complete, LTG Grant runs off to meet the other Sith Lord, Darth Lincoln, who is now onboard an Imperial transport, the USS BALTIMORE. President Lincoln travels down the Chesapeake Bay and up the James River, where he arrives at City Point, Virginia around noon. The trip has not been pleasant for him, and he feels mildly sea-sick with an upset stomach, his use of the Force not being good enough to prevent illness. LTG and a host of his staff-minions gather around Lincoln and offer some champagne to toast the death of more Americans in an assault on a city to kill other Americans. Lincoln is offered some champagne but refuses it, saying that people get “seasick from drinking that very stuff”. So Lincoln and the swarm of cackling hens parade over to the nearby headquarters of LTG Grant, where Lincoln lays down and rests to overcome his sea-sickness. Eventually he feels better and is ready to go, and mounts Grant’s horse “Cincinnati” while LTG Grant hops on another horse “Jeff Davis”. The first thing that the racist President wishes to do is satisfy his own curiosity and see some of these “Negro” troops that they use in the human-wave assaults. So off they ride to see the 3rd Division of the XVIII Corps which is commanded by Brigadier General Edward Hinks. The 3rd Division is composed entirely of “negroes” from the “US Colored Troops”. The Bureau of Colored Troops is an organization stood up under the US War Department. Their sole purpose is to press into service “negroes” since the mandatory drafts issued by Lincoln are not filling the ranks. Of about 178,000 “negroes” pressed into service, about 71,000 will be lost … one of the most miserably poor attrition rates of any army in history. So President Lincoln and LTG Grant parade around in front of these “colored” troops, while BG Hinks leads his men in mandatory “cheers”. Lincoln is somewhat amazed that “these people” whom he said were not his equals, nor of the mental capacity to serve as “jurors” in a civil society, are now useful enough to save the lives of white US soldiers by substitution in battle. The show now over, Lincoln returns with Grant to his headquarters and sits with Grant in front of his tent for the evening. Grant’s staff-minions entertain Lincoln with story-telling and then Lincoln retires to the USS Baltimore for the night. Down in Georgia, MG Sherman communicates his situation and plans to MG Halleck in Washington, DC: “This is the nineteenth day of rain, and the prospect of clear weather as far off as ever. The roads are impassable, and fields and woods become quagmires after a few wagons have crossed, yet we are at work all the time. The left flank is across Noonday and the right across Noyes’ Creek. The enemy hold Kenesaw [sic], a conical mountain, with Marietta behind it, and has retired his flank to cover that town and his railroad. I am all ready to attack the moment weather and roads will permit troops and artillery to move with anything like life.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Petersburg
Posted on: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 16:54:22 +0000
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