Sundowning in America: Yastreblyansky is puzzled by what Donald Trump is trying to say:
Yastreblyansky: So Vicious, So Horrible, So Beautiful: ‘Trump finds a poem…. There is no evidence that Robert E. Lee ever said "Never fight uphill, me boys!"…. I'll note that the case against his being a good general makes Gettysburg its main example… because he insisted on sending attacking forces uphill, against his staff's advice…. "Never fight uphill" could have been a good summary of what he did wrong in the battle, but there's no evidence he ever recognized it…. I don't find any suggestions that there was one "big general" whose death made the crucial difference.… When you try to find out what story Trump is trying to tell here, you find only examples of Trump trying to tell the same story, three times, going back to May 2018…. It's a Lost Cause story, clearly, about how Lee's genius really was going to achieve the impossible, except for this dead general who failed to tell him about the uphill fighting thing before he died. If only he could have called! He was the one who said, "Never fight uphill, me boys!" but the message never reached the commander. (Incidentally, I'm pretty sure the one who really said "Never fight uphill" was the Western Zhou–dynasty master strategist Sunzi, in his Art of War: "It is a military axiom not to advance uphill against the enemy, nor to oppose him when he comes downhill")… <yastreblyansky.substack…>
If you wanted to turn what Trump is saying here into coherence, it would be this:
Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson was Robert E. Lee’s chief lieutenant in the Army of Northern Virginia.
Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson was killed by friendly fire at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 10, 1863.
On July 3, 1863, Major General George Pickett commanding his three brigades (Kemper Garnett, and Armistad) plus four others (Lane, Brockenbrough, Marshall, Davis) charged uphill at the center of the Union Army of the Potomac line on Cemetery Ridge.
Nobody had told Robert E. Lee that the Army of the Potomac troops deployed on Cemetery Ridge were on, like, a ridge.
If anybody had, Lee would not have ordered the assult.
But Stonewall Jackson was dead, and there was nobody else in the Army of Northern Virginia to tell him.
Nor, apparently, did Robert E. Lee have eyes…
