Happy Friendly Puppies

No, I'm not joining Joel in Japan. But, have you seen the Simpsons episode where they go to Japan? There is a great scene where someone, I believe Lisa, points out the Hello Kitty® factory. Quite possibly one of the funniest sound effects ensues, involving a meow merging into a squishing and howling sound. Describing it, of course now, makes it merely gruesome, but in context, it made me want to $&!# my pants.
Anyways, I just finished watching two documentaries--one on the "American Revolution" co-produced by the BBC and PBS, and another of Ken Burns'® series of biographies featured the sublime Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain. The theme of any documentary made by Ken Burns® is, of course, the greatness of life measured by its complete and utterly unspeakable tragedy. The notable thing about Clemens/Twain is that he was able to remain basically hilarious until the end. In fact his humor only sharpened as the rota fortunae turned the screws on him.
The BBC/PBS documentary on the "American Revolution," which may be better called the "Anglo-American Civil War," was superlative. Entitled Rebels and Redcoats, it put a good perspective on the war. The fact of the matter is, if you watch the series Liberty and then this one, it is a perfect tutorial in the biases of history. Richard Holmes, a British military historian from Cranfield University, subtly makes the argument that Americans were no more or less free after the "Revolution" than before. In fact, while travelling on a bus in the Carolinas, he interviews a young man who points out that if the British had won the war we would all now have socialized medicine, real social programs, etc...
The point is, of course, if you only see things from your point of view, it is easy to justify bombing the world into submission. However, the British quit the war because they saw things from our point of view--maybe they were pushing us around a little bit. There was a good quote in the film from a man killed in his home by British soldiers during the engagements near Lexington and Concord, "An Englishman's home is his castle."
Anyways, Holmes emphasized the similarities between that war and the war in Vietnam. As he quoted Nathaniel Greene, "We lose, get up, brush ourselves off, and keep fighting." Nathaniel Greene never won a battle, but it was Cornwallis that surrendured in 1781, not he. Likewise, the VietCong and NVA did not win any engagements with American troops, however, it was the Americans that left in 1975, not the NVA. In fact, a greater percentage of our nation's population died in the War of Independence than did in any other, save the Civil War. It was our longest, save the Vietnam War.
This is the principal reason that Lee was doomed to failure in the Civil War. During the "Revolution," the "patriots" talked about the war as a "revolution." In 1800 Jefferson also talked about his ascent to power as a "revolution." However, in the Civil War, only the upper echelons of Confederates and secessionists talked about the war in terms of a "revolution." Even now, when diehard Southerners are asked what they fought for, they say "states' rights." Now, when they used to say this, they meant institutionalized racism. However, now it is a completely vague concept with no definition to contemporary Confederate apologists except possibly an anti-tariff stance. This reaches a fever pitch of absurdity when one considers that Jesse Helms of North Cackalackey was deeply opposed to "free" trade.
The problem is, Southerners had no intellectual concept, however unreal, to rally behind during the war. Therefore, they were playing defense, both militarily and intellectually. We all know what happens when you go on the defensive--it's only a matter of time before you lose. Lee was not committed to a war of national liberation, and therefore refused to authorize guerilla tactics against the Yankees. The Yankees, however, felt free to bring their own guerilla war against the Southern people, straight through the heart of the Confederacy. This is exemplified by the transformation of Union Cavalry over the course of the war.
At the beginning of the war, the chivalrous Southern gentlemen saw themselves as latter-day knights (Nathan Bedford Forrest, anyone?) and were prepared for 18th century cavalry battles. However, their sheer arrogance and assumption of superiority led to Confederate defeat at Gettysburg and Phil Sheridan's Union cavalry terror squads riding through the Shenandoah Valley and torching everything they saw. In fact, the Union Cavalry wore their sabers for show, because they realized that in the modern era, a horse was merely a more effecient means of transport, rather than an actual force multiplier on the battlefield. That's why dismounted Union cavalry essentially won the battle of Gettysburg on the first day, even though they ended up ceding the ground to the Confederate infantry.
The point is, Lee, a man who sold all of his slaves before essentially fighting for a system of racial apartheid, could not see the conflict in a morally clear manner. I don't think that Lee wanted to win. If he did, the war would have been completely different. Lee would have sent out raiding parties to disrupt Northern railroads and shipping. He would have more agressively urged Kentuckian Confederates to act as Commandoes on the Ohio and Northward. They would have promised the Indians New Mexico and Arizona in return for unrelenting attacks on Western settlements. They would have attempted assasinations of all major Washington politicians, and they would have gone on the offensive immediately in Kentucky. The fact that Confederate volunteers from Illinois and New York were fighting in Virginia is a perfect example of this @$$backwardness, or retroculosity.