Here is the most bizarre conspiracy theory I have ever thought of. It goes something like this. :rolleyes:
General Lee, after years of rather successful move and defend tactics where he repeatedly inflicts heavy casualties on the Union by effectively using entrenched positions against massed troops charging across open ground, suddenly decides to send a huge portion of his army on a suicidal march uphill across about a mile and a half of open field with a damn fence in the middle. The cannons were killing his troops before they could emerge from the tree line. Was this a moment of insanity or was his decision based on more sinister motives. Were the French observers feeding him bad information concerning the Unions troop strength? Why did he disregard the advice of his most trusted General Longstreet? What did Pickett mean when he said “That old man had my troops murdered”? Was there more to General Lee’s statement “This ends here today”?
I don’t know but I thought about it while walking the battlefield at Gettysburg. I wondered what kind of men were these that could move out on orders to most certain death or wounds. What was it that they believed in so strongly? Almost 52,000 Americans killed each other in just 4 days of fighting at Gettysburg. Compare that to Vietnam where we lost that many men over 12 years. Compare that to Iraq.
Were all these men just deluded? 52,000 men, just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks replied, “Because that is where the money is.” Could we be in Iraq for the same reason? Yes there are a lot of “innocent civilians” in Iraq, but there sure seems to be a lot of others that want to kill Americans. I’m sure they believe as strongly as the boys from Georgia at Gettysburg.
Now if we could just get these true believers to charge across a mile and a half of open desert with a fence in the middle we could “end this here today”
