I could not be more excited that Liberty won last week's conference championship game. They will be playing Oregon on New Year's Eve this year. Although optimistic, Oregon has much more talent on the field. This weekend, I will be watching the Army-Navy Game. I never have to pick because I am unbiased towards both. My grandfather served in the Navy, but West Point is impressive.
I finished Winston Churchill’s biography on the Duke of Marlborough this week. There was a poem he cited towards the end of the work that said the following,”God and Soldier Men alike adore, When at the Brink of Danger, not before; The Danger past, alike are both required, God is forgot, and the brave soldier slighted.” Churchill used this quote to reference the political attacks against the Duke despite all his battlefield victories that brought the United Kingdom victory during the War of Spanish Succession. Many politicians believed that John Churchill could have quickly taken power, but like Cincinatus, he did not absolve himself nor try to prevent these political attacks. He was quietly exiled until Queen Anne called him back towards the end of her life. This poem is quite powerful as it seems that the individual soldier's story is often left aside in favor of the political environment. This, of course, only applies if said environment is not threatened by another. It is the very reason military history should carry on to university to remember and interpret these events and stories of soldiers.
Upon reading the third volume of Kenneth Williams’s work, I thought back to my dissertation. Williams recalled Grant’s decisions to defend Cairo against a possible Confederate attack. It seemed Grant made all the necessary preparations when there was a genuine threat against Cairo. Grant’s thinking never changed as he prepared for a Confederate attack; Shiloh was an outlier. At Cold Harbor, Grant positioned his army so that it was impossible for Lee to break through his line on June 4, 6, and 7, 1864.
Question of the Week: If you could be an expert on any topic in history what area or time period would it cover?
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