164 years ago today, Stonewall Jackson pulled off one of the most audacious strategic gambits of the entire Civil War.
June 8, 1862. Jackson was in serious trouble. After his stunning run through the Shenandoah Valley, two separate Union armies were closing in on him from different directions. General Fremont had 12,000 men bearing down from the west. General Shields had another force approaching from the east. The plan was for them to link up and trap Jackson between them.
Jackson had roughly 6,000 men. He was outnumbered two to one by each army individually, let alone both combined.
So he did something brilliant.
He found the one place in the entire valley where the terrain would prevent the two Union armies from joining hands: Port Republic, a small village sitting at the junction of two rivers, with a single bridge that Jackson's men controlled. If you hold that bridge, the two Union armies cannot reach each other.
He sent General Richard Ewell with half his force to pin Fremont at a crossroads called Cross Keys. Hold him there. Just hold him.
Ewell held. Fremont had twice the men and never committed them properly. He fumbled the attack all day. At one point, a single Union regiment, the 8th New York Infantry, about 550 men, advanced through thick woods completely unsupported. They walked directly into Confederate General Trimble's brigade of 1,400 waiting in the tree line.
The 8th New York lost 250 men in 15 minutes.
Fremont pulled back. Ewell had held his half of the trap door shut all day with half the men.
The next morning, Jackson wheeled around and smashed Shields at Port Republic. Both Union armies retreated. The trap intended for Jackson had snapped shut on nothing.
Within days, Jackson's entire force was on trains headed to Richmond, arriving just in time to join Robert E. Lee for the Seven Days Battles and drive the Union army away from the Confederate capital.
One man used a river, a bridge, and a crossroads to save Richmond.
Who is the most underrated military mind in American history?
Rare, incredible foofage of the easternmost landing on Sword Beach during D-Day (June 6, 1944), located near Ouistreham in Normandy. British soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division had been tasked with securing the left flank and advancing toward Caen.
What a waste 🕊
On this night in 1781, one man on a horse saved the American Revolution from losing Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and half of Virginia's government in a single morning.
You were never taught his name.
June 3, 1781. The British had chased Virginia's entire government out of Richmond. Jefferson, in his final days as governor, and the legislature had fled to Charlottesville, thinking they were safe in the foothills.
They were wrong.
That evening, 26 year old militia captain Jack Jouett was at a tavern in Louisa County when roughly 250 of the most feared cavalry in the British army came pounding down the road. Their commander: Banastre Tarleton, nicknamed "The Butcher," the man whose dragoons had cut down surrendering Americans at Waxhaws.
There was only one place they could be going. Charlottesville. 40 miles away. And the capture of Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, would be the prize of the war.
Jouett couldn't outrun them on the main road. So he didn't use it.
He swung onto overgrown backwoods trails and the abandoned Old Mountain Road, riding 40 miles through the dark with only the full moon for light. Legend says low hanging branches whipped and scarred his face for life.
Tarleton stopped his men for a 3 hour rest. Jouett never stopped.
Before sunrise on June 4, he came up the mountain to Monticello and woke Jefferson. Then he rode down into Charlottesville and warned the legislature.
Jefferson got out with minutes to spare. British dragoons were coming up his mountain as he left. The legislature escaped over the Blue Ridge to Staunton. Tarleton caught only seven stragglers, one of them a frontiersman serving in the legislature named Daniel Boone.
Paul Revere rode about 12 miles in 1775 and got captured before reaching Concord. Longfellow wrote him a poem and made him immortal.
Jack Jouett rode 40 miles, lost nothing, saved everything, and got a thank you gift of two pistols and a sword from the Virginia Assembly.
No poem. No fame. Almost no memory.
Because of his background in real estate, I think Trump understands better than most Republican presidents in recent history that art and architecture communicate, which is why his administration is intentionally advertising that it’s working to make D.C. not only safe, but beautiful again. Safe is good, but beautiful is even better.
Seeing the incredible artwork in our nation’s capital inspires us as Americans and reminds us of the heroes of our past as well as the wonderful truths and ideals that set our nation apart.
Leftists also understand the power of art to communicate, which is not only why so much of their art and architecture is ugly, offensive, or demoralizing, but also why they allow beautiful works of art to fall into disrepair, be vandalized, or destroyed altogether.
It all sends a message about what they believe about America’s past and what they want it to be in the future.
I know whose vision I share.
“Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.”
-C.S. Lewis
that's because Jaxson Dart was speaking up for an immoral sociopathic criminal who is severely damaging America
Steve Kerr has been speaking up for morality and decency and genuine American values
The most striking part of this chart is how much bluer the bluest occupations are than the reddest are red. Progressives & liberals are far likelier to live in a monopartisan/monocultural bubble.
All over the nation, the Redistricting Wars will resume in the next election cycle. No ceasefire and certainly no peace treaty. What hath Trump wrought? Another endless war.
From "System of Record" to "System of Intelligence"
In the next decade, you want to own the system of intelligence that pulls from the system of record, becomes the user’s one-stop shop for gaining context and taking action, and turns the SoR into something that’s primarily consumed at the API layer.
The reasoning layer that sits above the database is where a new generation of companies is being built, and it’s where the majority of the next decade’s enterprise value of GTM software will end up.
Full piece from a16z's Gio Ahern, Steph Zhang, and Alex Immerman: https://t.co/2udG6l6SSx
Had the 13th amendment passage caused the war to start , perhaps. But that’s not the case . The riots of NY , Baltimore , on and on show this issue was not so simple. To say nothing of his own writings on the Matter… and that Does Matter…
Is that the case if Rs out up a black candidate in Ten? Just imagine, there could have been a black gov of Va, but dems wanted to set back blacks I guess by placing a white person there instead . To compare today to in America to 1877 is exactly what the courts took issue with.. it’s not
42 percent of Democrats believe the Butler, PA assassination attempt on President Trump was staged.
This isn't a small group. Massive numbers of Democrat voters are living in a complete state of delusion.
Here’s the deal: Abigail Spanberger, Don Scott, Louise Lucas and all their friends knowingly violated the Virginia Constitution.
They purposefully violated clear constitutional procedures to deceive voters, capping off their master deception with ballot language meant to confuse everyone.
They strongly argued for the VA Supreme Court to “wait” until after the referendum so their flood of money from national democrats could fund their brazen dishonesty and trick voters to “restore fairness”, and then claim “the will of the people” when the VA Supreme Court would undoubtedly strike down their unconstitutional attempt to disenfranchise millions of Virginians.
It’s a disgusting disregard for Virginians, the Constitution and a flagrant violation of their oath of office.
BREAKING: @FoxNews is on scene in Portsmouth, VA where the FBI is raiding the office of Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore L Louise Lucas, a Democrat and close ally of VA Governor Spanberger. Fed law enforcement sources tell FOX this is in connection to a major corruption probe, and the FBI is serving multiple search warrants, approved by a federal judge, at her office and a next door cannabis dispensary. More to come with correspondent @AlexHoganTV, who reports that Lucas just showed up on scene as the FBI searches her office.