Thread by @pptsapper

I need gin

A memoir of ASO

Official Army accounts whenever I mention gin:

Hello, yes, ASO here, I'd like to order some more gin

Wait is this not the gin window

There should totally be such a thing as a gin window.

Anyways while I've got you here

DO YOU HAVE A MOMENT TO TALK ABOUT OUR FAVORITE ASSCLOWN, GEORGE BRINTON MCCLELLAN

#drunjhistory

Look. It's been a goddam rough *checks notes* decade

Which is why it's time to learn about the September that george "I could fit in lincoln's tophat and thus compensate way too hard for it" mcclellan had in the year of 1862, because fuckit, why not, let's talk about antietam

If you're georgie, September of 1862 is just like the best fuckin month

First, Lincoln gives you your job back after john "selfown" pope managed to look victory in the face and decide he didn't want it like the week prior

2d, Bobby Lee gets this batshit idea to invade maryland

Like, you ever been to Maryland? Imagine invading it with this idea that everyone was gonna flock to your cause. Hell, you'll be lucky not to get your ass kicked for looking at someone the wrong way, and if you disparage their seafood or whatever, they will DESTROY YOU

Lee crosses the Potomac river on september 4 with his band playing the maryland happy song or whatever tf it's called, but doesn't say that their crab cakes are the best shit in town, so people are basically like "who tf are you" & barb frietche is all "fuck right off, traitors"

Look, when the old ladies are leaning out windows and waving the US flag at you, maybe you should get the idea and toddle your traitorous ass back across the Potomac but nooooo TJ "holy war" jackson was gonna keep on going

Jackson, he went and laid seige to the US garrison at Harpers ferry which surrendered stupid fast because of their drunk commanding general which IS NOT THE LESSON LEARNED from this here thread altho on second thought don't drink and war, friends, they don't mix well

But I mean, shit, my great great great grandpa had to surrender there which he wasn't happy about. He then went off and trained the ohio militia that kicked john Hunt Morgan outta the state, so suck on that, TJ.

Anyways. Jackson. Harpers ferry. Yup. Where were we

We were at the point where I need a refill BUT. Its also the point where I get to the point about Lee dividing his army up and then sending copies of his plans out to his corps commanders and then has a courier STRAIGHT UP LOSE A COPY oh bobby, bobby, OPSEC, broseph

Resupply complete. If you're wondering, @BombaySapphire is fuelling this gin-soaked history machine. Annnnnd we're back.

Now these US Cav troopers recover Lee's plans wrapped in some cigars, and Little Mac, well, he's just ecstatic as fuck all

But while Mac had Lee's plans, he's still got no shitting idea how many men Lee has, so it's damn sure lucky that he's got Allen "I count 3 for the price of 1" Pinkerton on his side. Pinkerton is the founding of the secret service dude, not the guy who does military intelligence

Like, if you wanna know if your cat is seeing other cats, Pinkerton is your dude. But if you want someone to count an enemy army for you... Don't hire a PI, man. But Pinkerton had this essential quality for Mac: he was an expert at expelling smoke up Mac's posterior

Now Mac COULD'VE used his cavalry, which was trained and gpddammed proficient in counting people for a living but nooooo they had to be massed together for the bigass charge that Mac fantasized about. If the public calls you the new Napoleon, you gotta think Napoleonic

So, Pinkerton tells Mac that Lee has 100k men. Mac freaks the fuck out and starts doing his trademark telegram dance with Lincoln of "I need more troops, no, more, no MORE" like an angry child who just got told that Christmas was cancelled

Mac slowwwwwwwwly pushed forward against Lee, gently trying to feel him out. Like a really awkward high school slow dance. And then the Iron Brigade punched through Lee's screen at South Mountain and was like "THE REBS ARE RIGHT FUCKIN HERE" and so Mac followed Lee to Sharpsburg

Now Lee was sitting at Sharpsburg MD with the Potomac behind him just SWEATIN cause TJ "I've gotta date with NC" Jackson still wasn't back yet and Mac was piling troops up on the hillside and making obliging probes to let Lee know where he was gonna attack

Like an asshat

Jackson arrives back just in time to observe Mac go into full on CGSC graduate mode. He'd pin the rebs down by using Ambrose "my face is taking over my face" burnside to the south to create a diversion, use four corps to break Lee's left wing, then dash in with the cavalry

And like every single CGSC student, he totally thought he was pulling a jomini by massing effects in time and space but instead he was, as had been stayed by historians before this, being an asshat

Yes, I'm that historian who said that

I'm my own works cited page

Mac LOVED this plan. It was brilliant. He loved it SO MUCH that he didn't share it with anyone else. Just like every good Army HQ element, he hoarded information like a weapon & then got mad when people didn't understand him, thus setting the precedent for, well, now

On the morning of Sept 17, Fighting Joe Hooker's I Corps attacked Lee's left wing, piecemeal, just the way it doesn't work to have happen, but despite all that the I Corps kicks ass thru the Miller cornfield in no small part due to some crazy Midwesterners in the Iron Brigade

And their brigade commander, John Gibbon, a North Carolinian who realized that an oath means a fucking oath, goddammit, who hopped on some guns of Battery B, 4th US artillery, and depresses the muzzles of the guns so that the canister will bounce off the ground up into the rebs

Yeah, so, this is basically like skipping rocks off the water except instead of rocks it's little metal balls and instead of water it's a rail fence that gets turned into all the splinters of the world, and the rebs in front become collanders rather quickly

Gibbon, btw, is the guy who's gonna totally fuck up George Pickett at this place called Gettysburg, but that's getting ahead of ourselves. Hooker's attack stalls, so Mac throws in JK "oh, is it the enemy?" Mansfield's XII corps but Mansfield gets shot and that whole attack stalls

Mac, at this point, still hasn't bothered to tell anyone the plan and the commanders intent is basically a game of hide and go seek. Or maybe freeze tag. No one's really sure. But to relieve the pressure, Mac commits the II Corps in the center to attack a sunken road

Head on

Yeah, because that makes fuckin sense. The Irish Brigade under Thomas "jaysus I shoulda bin drunk for this" meagher charges & dies as MEANWHILE Ed Cross & his NH boys get a lodgement on the sunken road and fire across the flank of the sunken road, bringing some granite state fury

Now at this point, Lee's left is barely hanging on and his center is best to shit. One good push in the center and he is donesican. But instead, Mac reinforces his right flank. Because he still thinks Lee outnumbers him

Meanwhile, over in facial hair land, Burnside is trying to cross antietam creek but finds that Mac's engineers were some shitty engineers. that time they got the size of the barges in the canals wrong during the Peninsula Campaign shoulda been a clue. But their fords, weren't.

So now, Burnside, has to use his imagination, which is not Ambrose's strong point. To get at the enemy, he's gotta get across that damn creek, which means he's gotta cross a bridge, something that literally no one wants to do because it's essentially a deathtrap

SO

He bribes PA and NY regiments with rum and sends them across, covered by the suppressive fire of US guns, which makes the Georgians on the other side disinclined to stick around and thus they pursue themselves rearwards forthwith

Around this time ol facial hair realizes he also needs more ammunition and has to halt his attack for TWO FUCKING HOURS while also asking Mac to support his attack as he promised he would in the battle plan

Mac:

Somehow, Amby Burnsy nearly breaks Lee's right, but Lee is saved by last minute reinforcements that barely hold the line

Meanwhile, McClellan sits there and ponders how sad he'd be losing his imaginary friends to his imaginary enemies.

And so, due to McClellan not knowing a clear commanders intent if it kicked him in the ass, that's how September 17, 1862 ended. A straight up draw with both sides bled dry staring at each other

BUT WAIT was it really

Lee invaded Maryland with three (3) clear objectives:
1. Take the war outta Virginia
2. Defeat the US Army on its own turf
3. Rally Marylanders to his side

Results:
1. For like 2 weeks
2. Nope
3. Big ol nope

End result:

Despite his own best efforts, McClellan managed to keep Lee from achieving (you don't wanna know how hard it was to type that word) his operational ends and thus gave the US a victory at Antietam, even tho Little Mac would do absolutely nothing with it

That asshat

OTOH, Lincoln knew exactly what to do with Antietam and was like "oh hey, Emancipation Proclamation, bitchezzzzzzz" and the rebs were like "you can't do that" and Lincoln was all like

And Bobby Lee continued to fuck around until this week in 1865 when Phil Sheridan, Gouverneur K Warren, and Joshua Chamberlain were like

Editor's note:

He found out

This has been yet another episode of #drunjhistory

Live well, be kind, tip generously, and drink gin

Oh, and let us never forget that Antietam is where Sgt Bill McKinley brought coffee to the troops of the 23d Ohio, which made it onto a monument

Because coffee. And Ohio. Victory.