The absolute SHADE thrown by Ben Butler in this 1871 Congressional hearing on some disciplinary cases at West Point. Like, DAMN. I aspire to this level.
The "disciplinary cases" are also worth mentioning, for the batshitness of their nature. So, some plebes manage to lie their way off campus and bring a bottle of booze to a waterfall, where they proceed to get drunk. I mean, disciplined initiative, really
But that's not the scandal. The scandal is that 3 upperclassmen find out, kidnap the plebes, escort them off campus, order them into their civilian clothes, and then kick them out of West Point. You know, with all the authority they have.
Some in the Army at the time are calling this a "lynch mob" which is super AWFUL timing for that, since, you know, the Army is actively fighting real lynch mobs in the south at this time. Some really tone deaf people in the Army at this time
Anyways, love how Ben Butler manages to get one extra twist in at the end where he's like, "ok, so you didn't let me march into Richmond, but hey, my Black troops did, and that's what matters."
TWIST: US Grant's SON ("who is neither handsome nor the reverse") is involved in this whole affair as an upperclass cadet and gets interviewed by the Army-Navy Journal. Short version: Grant Jr is all bout kidnapping people & expelling them to teach them a lesson about lying

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More from @pptsapper

5 Oct
Teachable moment time

1) this meme presupposes that history is only about battles. It isn't. It also encompasses ideologies, social norms, etc. Only talking about battles in the Civil War without discussing cause & effect is like saying you like cake for the frosting. Incomplete
2) while soldiers of the era were polite to each other in correspondence after the war, they stopped being so once the causes of the war came up.
angrystaffofficer.com/2021/06/20/we-…
3) This meme also presupposes that the conflict that we refer to as the American Civil War was merely that time between 1861-65. In fact, armed conflict began over slavery in the 1850s in KS and continued thru Reconstruction in the 1870s, & even beyond
Read 7 tweets
18 Sep
I love Calvin and Hobbes for so many reasons, but this strip showcases how much emotion Watterson packed into one page, without even needing words.
I mean...not wrong, Calvin, not wrong
And here we have a representation of the military decision making process in action
Read 13 tweets
13 Sep
Hey. Hey

You know, sometimes, when I'm sad, I think about how a fighting quaker logistician from Rhode Island totally skunked an entire British army

And then, much like Julie Andrews & her favorite things,I don't feel so sad

Get in, fools, we're taking a history drunkscursion
Look, ya gotta realize that this story, like all good ones, begins with a villain. And that villain is Horatio Gates, one of the most over-promoted officers of all time whose claim to fame is being in charge of a battle which he refused to direct. By doing nothing he was promoted
Oh, uh, yeah, we're in the American Revolution, forgot to throw that one out there. So here's the sitch. It's 1780 and Gates has just colossally forked up the entire southern theater, basically throwing away every advantage to get a big old L on the books at Camden
Read 31 tweets
12 Sep
But seriously, if you feel that strongly about Army leadership, yeah, leaving is the right choice

Using your resignation as a partisan political statement is *a* way, for sure

Maybe not the best way since you're still serving, but *a* way
"If X happens, I'll leave the military" isn't the threat some people think it is

It's called "changing professions"

Many people do it frequently

With very little fanfare
Read 4 tweets
11 Sep
might house a burrito and drink too much while trolling JSTOR for scholarly articles

could happen
I mean lookit this sweet-ass amphibious training. It's got engineers, the National Guard, an invasion of Cape Cod, what's not to love?
I live for this kind of stuff. Army of 1942-43 needs to adapt, quickly. What does it do? Direct commissions actual experts from across the branches and from civilian life.
Read 8 tweets
6 Sep
It is the height of American snobbery to say that the Chauchat was a piece of shit, but that the trench shotgun won the war

When the former was used almost universally and (with 8mm ammo) to excellent effect, while the latter was barely fielded and seldom makes an appearance
Also gtfo with that NRA nonsense that there are no photos of shotguns in action because of "censorship"

I spent 3 years researching one of the most active units of the AEF in the war, and lemme tell ya, censorship was, uh, nonexistent. They wrote about and photographed ERRYTHING
Brah, if these dudes had been wasting Germans with a shotgun all day, they'd have written about it. A LOT. With consummate pride. But nah. Because at the end of the day, a .45 and a grenade do the trick for trench raiding, with a chauchat as support by fire if things get sticky
Read 5 tweets

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