History can be a most exciting subject matter
History can be a most exciting subject matter
By: Bill Mead, Tehachapi News Columnist
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Posted by editor Mon Jul 23, 2007 13:51:29 PDT
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0 responses 0 comments Everybody “knows” where public education is lacking but most of the complaints ignore the reality that there is an awful lot to teach kids in a few short years and there just isn't enough time to do more than scratch the surface on anything.
My wife and I are history buffs. We often talk about how inadequately we learned history in school. But we both agree that the best our schools can do is make students want to read history on their own and that means demonstrating that the past can be far more interesting than any fiction. The only teacher I ever had who could do that was the late and legendary Ralph Dilts at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. It's his fault that my bedroom wall is lined with history books.
A few weeks ago, Betty and I got to talking about how conventional accounts of the American Civil War are full of sound and fury but short on real insight into what was happening. For example, I suggested that the war between the states was unnecessarily prolonged because the curriculum at West Point prior to the Civil War failed to include courses in chicken stealing.
I think my logic on this point is unassailable. Keep in mind that in order to put down the rebellion, Union forces had to invade the newly-formed Confederacy and capture its armed forces. The problem here was that as Union forces advanced, their supply lines got longer and harder to defend. Union commanders had to keep dropping off troops to guard railroads and supply depots as they went along until they nearly ran out of fighting soldiers at the front.
Then along came a couple of renegade Union officers named U. S. Grant and William Sherman who knew almost nothing about Napoleonic tactics. These two roughnecks figured out that if Confederate civilians and soldiers could live off the land in the southern states, why couldn't northern invaders?
Grant came to this realization after a Union supply depot in Mississippi was overrun by rebel troops. The escaping Yankees arrived back in Memphis, burping and picking their teeth. They told Grant the rebel countryside was loaded with fat chickens and hogs and they weren't particularly interested in supper that night.
Grant made good use of that intelligence in planning his successful assault on Vicksburg, which was the real turning point of the Civil War. He sent Union troops across the Mississippi River with instructions to live off the land. Hundreds of Confederate chicken coops paid the price for that command decision.
Sherman was no less perceptive than Grant. Later, when he started his famous, or infamous, march through Georgia, his soldiers became known forever as “bummers” because of their talent for swiping every edible commodity on their way to Savannah and the ocean. Mention Sherman today to anybody who lives south of Atlanta and you can still hear the sound of hog pens being slammed shut.
Gallantry had a lot to do with the outcome of the Civil War but so did the innate ability of Americans to grab a chicken on the run. I hope the top brass at West Point realizes that. See what I mean about history being a fun subject?
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