GDG- Re: new Lincoln letter

[Margaret D. Blough]

Greg,

Look at the American Revolution itself. Washington lost both New York and Philadelphia, the new nation's capital, and kept on fighting.

Regards,

Margaret

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Biggsk at aol.com 

> Esteemed GDG Member Contributes: 
> 
> 
> Laurie writes: 
> 
> Jack - this brings up something that I have commented on before - for this 
> war to be truly settled, the South had to be completely beaten. If Mac had 
> taken Richmond in 1862, something a competent general would likely have done, 
> I don't believe the war would have ended. Why 
> should it? Instead, Lee would have been free of defending Richmond and 
> might have been harder to pin down. Lots of things change militarily, but one 
> thing doesn't -the South isn't ready to give up 
> and isn't likely to.>>>> 
> 
> History has a number of examples where "capturing the flag" if you will - 
> e.g. the capitol of a belligerent nation, does not end the war. We lost 
> Washington City in 1814 and still stayed around. Napoleon captured Moscow in 
> 1812 
> - and while not Russia's capitol at the time, the city's symbolism outweighed 
> that of St. Petersburg or Napoleon would have gone there instead. Hannibal 
> ran up and down the Italian peninsula in the Second Punic War whipping Roman 
> legions left and right, but could never take Rome itself - and even when Rome 
> was sacked at times, the Roman Empire still stayed around. Its Eastern 
> portion did not fall until the Turkish muslims took Constantinople in the 
> 1400's. 
> 
> The Confederates got extremely good at shipping out the war making 
> capabilities of their cities before they fell; that was certainly the case with 
> Nashville, the bulk of whose capability was sent to Atlanta, and Atlanta itself, 
> the bulk of its capability being sent to Macon, Columbus and Augusta. That 
> would have happened with Richmond most likely too. 
> 
> Greg Biggs 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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