Thread by @pptsapper

Ok, so, like, it's #NationalMedalOfHonorDay so you just know I gotta toss back 1 or 2 or 5 or whatever drinks and talk bout one of my favorite medal of honor recipients everrrrrrr

But I'm not gonna tell you who it is right off because suspense or whatever

So it's like May of 1863 and the American civil war is lit tf up. Like, battles. Everywhere. As many prominent historians have said. Let's look at ol Virginia and that continued campaign to take Richmond because misplaced centers of gravity but whatevs

The Army of the Potomac has just come out of some seriously shitty times. Like, first getting fed into the woodchipper at Fredericksburg, then marching through the frozen mud and then marching BACK thru the frozen mud, all for a dude who did NOT want the job of CG

Finally, Lincoln is like "I made a whoopsie and shoulda listened to burnside when he said he wasn't the dude" and fires Burnside, despite his mazing facial hair.

Oh. And there's this DELICOUSLY gossipy behind the scenes intrigue to get him relieved from his peers, too

If there's anything army officers love more than fighting and PowerPoint, it's DRAMA, baby. Move over real housewives of whatever, the army officer corps got you beat. Whenever, wherever, they got more drama than Bravo has time slots for. They nasty to each other.

Suffice to say, they help get Burnside relieved. Into his place as CG slides Joe Hooker. Now, Hooker gets some bad raps. First because of his name. Right? It's just too easy. Plus, rumors that he likes to party. And it's the 19th century, where dinner means "getting hammered"

Hooker in fact was guiltless of his rep for turning the HQ tent into an orgy carnival. He didn't even drink that much (see, "dinner" in previous tweet). But he loved him some palace intrigue and had totally played a role in getting Burnsides canned.

Lincoln knew this and basically told Hooker that he knew it, too, when meant Joey Hooker is skating on some thin political ice. But Joey, he don't care, he got bigger ideas. Namely, reforming the whole goddam army of the Potomac into a modern fighting force & reinstalling morale

Yeah, that's right, the guy with orgy carnival™ reputation turns out to be one of the most professionally minded dudes I'm the Civil War. He modernizes the Army's logistics, created an actual intelligence bureau, feeds and pays soldiers, and basically dominates shit

He also reforms the Army's cavalry which has basically been a bunch of dudes who stare at their horses and wonder what they're for

Which gives me an opportunity for a brief STORY WITHIN A STORY

but after I refresh my drank

So. Cavalry. Hooker breathes new life into the federal cavalry. Which enables one of the weirdest stories of the war to happen

Our protagonists: William Averill, US Army, and Fitzhugh Lee, secesh. Both had been at West Point together where they DID NOT like each other

The armies spent a lot of time glaring at each other across the Rappahannock river. Much banter was exchanged. Fitz Lee sent across a note to Averill: "I need coffee, c'mon over"

Now this at first glance might seem like a nice little "aw, buddies" story

Well.

The CSA couldn't get coffee. So their preferred method was trading tobacco for it or taking it off dead Yankees.

This latter was Fitz Lee's meaning. Basically, "hey ol pal, come on over so I can kill you and take coffee off your corpse"

Heartwarming, right?

Averill gets Hooker's permission to go bust some skulls and leads a raid across the river where he stacks rebel cavalry bodies when they decide to charge his dismounted troopers

Caught up in the charge is the "gallant" John Pelham

No, not kidding that's what everyone called him

also known as the "boy major" Pelham is this rising star in the confederate army, as an artillerist. he dropped out of West Point in '61 to go do traitor things

he had no business being at this fight but saw a charge and went for it, being gallant and all that

Which is where he gets waxed by an artillery shell from John Calef's battery. Calef, btw, was West Point class of '62 soooooo yeah, little grudge match there

Anyways. Averill cleans up and moves back across the river. But before he leaves, he leaves a note:

"yo, Fitz. Came for a visit. You weren't here. Left you some coffee."

And he pins the note to Pelham's jacket. And leaves some coffee

Cold. As. Ice.

Ok, back to the main storyline now

So Hooker devises a cunning plan to draw ol Bobby Lee from out of his fortifications at Fredericksburg to make him fight. He leaves a decoy force in Lee's front and then pops himself right in Lee's rear. Heh.

Lee is perturbed

Lee, btw, is low on numbers, because Confederate logistics is SO BAD that they can't get food to Lee's army. Lee sends 1/3 of his army to southern VA to gather the food needed for his army

That's right. Their log is so bad that they can't manage resupply ops in ONE STATE

Nevertheless, Bobby Lee runs after hooker and gets all caught up in some initial fighting on May 1 by Hooker's advance guard, who fall back to the main lines

Ok. So. A few salient points about Joey Hooker. He wants his dudes to fight on the defense, bc offensively the AOP is meh

Second, he's so paranoid about OPSEC that he doesn't tell anyone about his plans. Like... Anyone. That's kind of a problem.

Anyways. He pulls his dudes back into a defensive line on some high ground and waits for Lee to bring the noise and the funk, which Lee likes to do

Enter Dan "I shot my wife's lover and will someday seduce the deposed queen of Spain" sickles, the political general who basically loves to fight. On may 2, he convinces Joey to let him go brawl with the rebs. Joey reluctantly agrees and swings 2 corps against Lee's lines

The 3rd (sickles) and 12th Corps get all caught up in some inconclusive fighting in shitty terrain while Lee sends Thomas "undiagnosed crazy person" Jackson on a long flank march against what he thinks is. Hooker's flank. Everyone loves those flanks in the civil war, FACT

Jackson leads his troops on a 12 mile flank march and gets right on Hooker's flank

Only

It's not.

Hooker's flank is crazy Dan sickles et al partying on down by Catherine furnace. Instead, Jackson has found what is essentially an outpost of hookers army. Woops.

That outpost is the 11th corps

This is a mostly German unit. They like philosophy, beer, and their last commander, Franz Sigel, who quit over army drama (see previous tweet re real officers of the army of the Potomac). They DON'T like their new commander. Oliver "JESUS" howard

Me, I stan OO Howard. Dude is brave af, lost an arm at seven pines, wants to do the right thing. But he's also EXTREMELY RELIGIOUS. which doesn't sit too well with the Germans. So there's some.... Friction.

Dude hands out religious tracts, ffs

Anyhoo, his corps is spread way too thin and Howard misses a shit ton of messages telling him "yo, dig in, you're about to be attacked" bc he's riding his lines trying to figure out the terrain. Which, uh, doesn't go well for him

It's late afternoon when Jackson's attack hits

Shit goes sideways on a big ol hurry. The 11th corps takes all of Jackson's attack and behaves pretty much like anyone would if you were about to have dinner and then someone charged you with pointy metal

Better, actually, than most

Some units straight up choose discretion over valor and run for it. Others stand and fight and get mowed down. It's messy as hellllll. The terrain is shit, causing Jackson's attack to get funnelled onto the one main road leading to Hooker's HQ, as darkness begins to darken

Things are straight up, high key chaos. Jackson is just yelling at his troops to keep attacking. One armed Howard is trying to rally anyone possible to stop him. Hungry rebs are stopping to eat all the food they just captured, because Joe gonna joe

Howard manages to put up enough of a fight to slow Tommy "I love big lemons and I cannot lie" Jackson down for about two hours. But shit is all kinds of fucked for the US Army, and that's a fact

As many eminent historians have said

In so many words

Until
...

Enter, Hubert Casimir Anton "god's gift to artillery" Dilger, commander, Battery I, 1st Ohio Light Artillery in the 11th Corps.

Like. Just LOOK AT THIS MAN

Like Wu Tang clan, he ain't nothin ta fuck wit

In case you couldn't figure it out, Huey ain't native born. He's not only German, he's a German military trained artillery officer. Which means he's basically precision incarnate. He hears about the civil war and is like "rock'n roll, baby" and moves to Cincinnati & takes command

Also known as "leatherbritches" - my dude wore leather pants into combat, so imma just call him hotpants from now on - Dilger didn't come to Chancellorsville to run away. He unlimbers his six guns and starts canistering anyone who gets too close

By dark time, and by which I mean evening, because the alcohol has mostly taken over, Hot Pants has just one gun left

ONE

he puts it on the main road, the Orange Turnpike, and turns it up to eleven

Not because he lost them,you see. But he managed to save the five and just decided to have a one on one battle with Stonewall with one gun

To even the odds

As Jackson's bros come screaming down Hot Pants meets them with a blast of double canister to the face.

Dilger straight up slows 15,000 confederates down with one doggone artillery piece

Like. Fuck, man

So yeah, in 1893, Dilger gets the Medal of Honor for this

Natch

Because of being slowed by one hot German in leather pants, Thomas "hold a hand in the air to keep my insides balanced" Jackson tries a night attack which reveals the amazing marksmanship of the 18th North Carolina in one of the greatest own goals in military history

Like, seriously, is there a decapitation strike that has ever killed one corps commander and wounded a division commander at the same time?

I can't think of one

Also LOL to CSA cavalry prowess when reb inf hear hooves and assume they're Yankee cavalry, that says a lot

With Jackson down, Lee keeps attacking on May 3 but all it does is give Hooker a concussion and give Dan Sickles more opportunities to ride around smoking a cigar saying everything is fine as everything is not fine

Hooker will pull back about half a mile

Hooker hangs out in his defenses for a few days, waiting for Lee to attack (except for a storm, Lee would have, and hot damn, that storm ruined an amazing day for the US Army to have a reverse Fredericksburg) then falls back across the rising river before it gets too high

Speaking of Fredericksburg, US troops actually storm Marye's Heights this time and get in Lee's rear and then there's a counterattack but Lee didn't bet on some crazy Vermonters who refused to give ground and just stood there and Green Mountained until the rebs gave up

So, yay, Chancellorsville, Lee's perfect victory

Dude, if losing 1/5 of your army, a corps commander, & multiple division and brigade commanders just to keep the field is a perfect victory, I hate to see what a bad day is like

Oh, right, Gettysburg

Nev mind, I love seeing that

I know, I know, you're wondering about what Huey Dilger does

WELL

Hot Pants will be at Gettysburg, where his Buckeyes will take on an entire Battalion of rebel guns on July 1. Hot Pants gets annoyed at his gunners' aim and starts to sight the guns himself

Get ready for this

His first shot completely dismounts a rebel gun

Second shot, blows up an ammunition chest

Third shot. No effect, says his spotter

"Oh no," says hot Pants. "I think you'll find I have plugged their barrel"

WAIT FOR IT

when US troops advance on July 4...

THEY FIND AN ARTILLERY PIECE WITH A ROUND SHOT IN THE MUZZLE

legend. ary.

But he ain't done yet.

Later that year the 11th corps gets sent west to Tennessee, where they'll kick ass thru the campaigns into Georgia with Billy Sherman

It's here that he encounters the right reverend Leonidas Polk, a righteous, god-fearing southern episcopal bishop-turned rebel general who just HAPPENED to also claim title to 111 human beings

Dilger solved this ecumenical problem by cutting Polk in twain with round shot in '64

Unfortunately, Polk was such a shitty general, Dilger may have done the US cause a disservice by killing him

Meh, I'm ok with it.

Folks, raise a glass to Hot Pants Dilger and Ohio's Battery I, 1st Light Artillery

Ok, so Dilger isn't actually my favorite MOH recipient ever, but he's a damn good one

And I needed to drunj about Chancellorsville, too

Why? Because this is the Lost Cause bullshit still peddled on the battlefield. If the Lost Cause calls Antietam a draw, then C-ville is too

This #drunjhistory involuntarily sponsored by @pridespirits, in the spirit of Baron von Steuben

Here in the US Army, we're proud that a gay German man taught us how to fight and beat the British

Fin

I blame @kairyssdal for the fact that my mentions are out of control

Sir, what have you done