American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

source: http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2010/06/9261/


<b>The Civil War: Let the Sesquicentennial Begin in Solemnity</b>
Robert McHenry - June 16th, 2010

We, the people of the United States of America, are about to embark on a five-year commemoration of the Civil War, that consequence of political failure of most aweful (thus deliberately misspelled in order to recapture some of the word’s original meaning) memory. Much of what we do, or is done to us, in the coming years by way of noting the events of 150 years ago, will be trite, trivial, sentimental, and bathetic. We can count on the media, false history, and the forces of commercialism for that.

U.S. Civil War; Bettmann/Corbis But let’s begin differently. June 18 will mark the 150th anniversary of the nomination by the Democratic Party of Stephen A. Douglas for president, thus assuring the main ground upon which the campaign would be fought. The Republicans, meeting in May, had nominated Abraham Lincoln. It was two years since the two had staged a famous series of debates while campaigning in Illinois for a seat in the U.S. Senate, and nothing had happened to change the division between them or between the sections of the country that favored their views.

Scanning through the two party platforms of 1860 we look in vain for the two words that animate them both: Dred Scott. But by allusion and implication, the 1857 Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court is clearly the central issue of the campaign. The Republican platform uses the word “slaveryâ€

I saw the title and thought it was about Ned Simms birthday. Nice post Col. Elkin! Colonel? Wasn't I just conducting your training at the Academy a month or so ago? Glad to see you're doing well despite it.

General Mark Nelms

5/2/XIV/AoC "Blackhawk Brigade"
"the only good Reb is a whipped Reb...or one with a generous bar tab!

Union Military Academy Instructor

Mark, is that you? These eyes have gotten weaker as I've gotten older so come forward so that I can touch your face and tell who is talking to me. Yes, I believe that it is Mark Nelms, and he still has that wart in the center of his forward, and an ear lobe missing from falling asleep with his ear dipping into a glass of 'medicine', and I'll just take his word for it that the cannonball is still stuck in his rear from when he was standing in front of his lines and yelled "FIRE". After 10.5 years of warfare, I guess that it just goes to show that wounds make some of us just that more handsome, and some of you it ... "What Martha? I am being nice to Mark. I was just in the process of asking him to come in for a glass of moonshine."

Lt Gen Ned Simms
1/VIII/AotS/USA
Blood 'n Guts hisself, a land lovin' pirate. Show me some arty tubes and we'll charge 'em.
VMI Class of '00

The General is too kind and my failings are in spite of his brillant teaching.

Col. Elkin

“I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies. . . . Let us study the probable lines of retreat of our opponents, and leave our own to take care of themselves. Let us look before us, and not behindâ€

General Simms,

Is that really the Yankee story about how General Nelms, got shot in the backside???? I was't present at that engagement sir, but the account from multiple eyewitnesses that I read in our highly accurate Southern newpapers said that he was wounded shortly before he got out of our artillery range after giving a lisp handicapped order to his men to "Chawge furriouswy to da weeer!!!", and then pronptly lead his men by example.

I can't say as I blame him as those old men (mostly amputees) and school kids he was facing were pretty angry. Further, there were nearly 2 dozen of them, and some of them even had actual weapons. It's not fair to expect a positve outcome from that situation with less than 80,000 Yankees.....

For the record, this is NOT an indictment of General Nelms leadership abilities, after all, he is certainly one of your best if not your best.......[:D]


BG Hank Smith
Army of Georgia
Smith's Corp Commanding