Guy's Books and Thoughts

Clover Bakery, a Japanese bakery serves this wonderful drink called
a �banana mocha.�
Major coffee houses such as Peet�s or Starbuck�s do not carry such an
item. I have tried other places which tried to produce a banana
mocha, but it just wasn�t the same. It one instance the flavoring was
NOT banana syrup, but a weaker cream based flavor. Another thing
about this mocha is that the whipped cr�me is scooped from a plastic
container instead sprayed from a can. I don�t know if that is another
reason why the taste is different.

Another item served by Clover is fried hot dog. This is a hot dog in
a corn flake like pastry. There are other items which are served in
buns such as chow mien, curry, fried fish, fried crab or German potato
salad. Not great for a diet, but tasty.

Guy

Ever since I read Basil Liddell-Hart's (British war theoretician)
praise of Sherman in his book STRATEGY, I've been reading up on that
particular general.

While neither Grant nor Sherman appear to be deeply religious, I found
certain aspects of their lives worth studying, maybe even inspiring.
Both men had failed careers. Grant had to pawn off his watch to get
money to buy Christmas presents for his family. When the war broke
out, Grant was working as a clerk for his father. He was in an
unhappy situation. Sherman had gone through several jobs and ended up
teaching at military school in Alexandria, Louisiana when the war
broke out. While William Sherman was sympathetic to the South, he
felt secession was wrong, and resigned.

Along the way to leading the Union Army they had their share of
failures. Sherman overestimated the strength of the enemy in
Kentucky. The newspapers criticized Sherman's statements about enemy
strength. He was even declared "crazy" and took a leave of absence. It
looked as if he would never be active in the army again. But through
a series of circumstances Sherman showed himself an able soldier, with
an almost uncanny sixth sense under fire, at the battle of Shiloh. He
anticipated the enemy attack and directed cannon fire in that
direction. When the enemy chose to attack in the direction of those
cannons, he had two groups of riflemen prepared to meet that attack.
The first day was a defeat for the Union at Shiloh. But with
reinforcements, Grant predicted, they would beat the Confederates the
next day. And sure enough that happened. Grant was initially praised
for his victory. But after the battle, he was criticized for his
conduct. Instead of focusing on the victory won by Grant, the news
media, the politicians and the generals focused on Grant's mistakes,
such as being caught by surprise. Grant's superior, Halleck, put
Grant on probation. Grant was about to leave the Army, when Sherman
persuaded him to stay. Sherman pointed out how dire his situation
was, but his fortunes changed. Grant weathered the storm of Shiloh and
later went on to become commander of the Union Army. He became the
first lieutenant general since George Washington.

Contrary to certain misconceptions, the Union did not simply win on
sheer weight of numbers. Victory for the North was not inevitable. The
Union could have lost will to wage war, and the Confederacy would have
achieved independence. In 1864, it looked as if Lincoln would lose
reelection and a "peace" candidate would become president. Grant was
taking heavy casualties losing about 65,000 killed, missing or wounded
in roughly over a month, from May 5 to June 18th. But Lincoln's
election was saved by Sherman's capture of Atlanta September 1864.

The jacket cover of this book claims this is the first book which
covered the partnership and friendship of the two generals. I am not
sure if that is totally correct. While this may be the first book
DEDICATED to the partnership of the two generals, I am sure the
biographies on Grant or Sherman have to discuss their partnership. I
was familiar with much of the material covered in the book. But I
found his explanations of the political maneuvering to be new to me.

The author does make a some mistakes in the book. For example, he
mentions that Mc McClellan won some minor engagements in western
Virginia (pg. 53). Actually, it was Rosecrans who won those
engagements. Mc McClellan left Rosecrans without support, while
Rosecrans fought and won the day. But Mc McClellan got the credit. On
another matter, Robert E. Lee did not totally outmaneuver Mc McClellan
in the Peninsula campaign. Except for Malvern Hill, Mc McClellan
inflicted heavy casualties on Lee and won those engagements. Mc
McClellan was actually within 9 miles of Richmond. Mc McClellan had a
tendency to overestimate the enemy and defeat himself. Sherman had
this problem in Kentucky, but overcame his fears.

I wonder if we should follow Grant in his attitude about facing
adversity? Grant simply would not allow himself to be intimidated by
Lee. He exclaimed that his generals were asking what Lee would do to
them, while Grant was asking what he could do to Lee. While Grant
failed to smash Lee's army, he kept pushing Lee backwards, from the
Wilderness campaign, to Cold Harbor, to Petersburg and finally to
Appomattox, where Lee surrendered. In the meantime Sherman was
marching to Atlanta fighting first Joe Johnston, and then John Hood.
The Grant/ Sherman team kept the Confederates from concentrating their
forces. If Johnston had been able to unite with Lee against Grant, or
Lee unite with Johnston against Sherman, the outcome of the war could
have been much different.

There are some little details in the book which caught my attention.
I did not know that brigadier general John Corse rescued Sherman when
he was under attack at Colliersville, Tennessee. Corse apparently
sent Sherman the message "I'm coming." I was more familiar with the
later story about Corse being under attack when Sherman was
campaigning in Georgia. Sherman sent a message he was on the way. That
incident in Georgia became the inspiration for the hymn "Hold the
fort, I'm coming." Perhaps history does have a certain symmetry to it.

Another incident which caught my attention was when some mules
stampeded in the direction of Confederate general Longstreet's army.
Longstreet's men thought they were facing a nighttime Union cavalry
charge and ran. This sort of reminded me of an incident in the Bible
where the enemies of Israel, heard some hoof beats, and fled thinking
that Israel had hired an army against them. After the Union
mule "charge," some wag suggested that the mules be given an honorary
promotion (brevet) to horses. Promotions were being given out freely
at the time. Grant laughed when he heard the suggestion.

The book runs about 400 pages. I found it a nice read, even though I
was familiar with some of the material, having read about the Civil
War before and taken a class at San Jose State University on the
subject. The material which was new to me was some of the political
maneuvering done behind Sherman and Grant's back in Washington. While
the government bureaucrats did hinder the efforts of Grant and
Sherman, they did not totally stop them. It's a good thing for the
Union, that Lincoln and his colleagues, in spite of their doubts,
allowed Grant and Sherman to execute their plan. Lincoln allowed Grant
and Sherman free reign, and did not try to micromanage them.

I should add one more note. Not everyone thinks that Grant and Sherman
were the Union generals who won the war. I ran across one Army of the
Cumberland website, which was highly critical of Sherman. I believe
the author of that website said it was General George Thomas and his
staff who were the real heroes. I also ran across a George Thomas
website which was critical of Sherman. I think the author of the
website mentioned something about Sherman's memoirs being self serving.
I also recall talking to someone about Sherman's memoirs. I think that
person said the same thing.. If I can, I hope to find more information
on the Union generals George Thomas and William Rosecrans. They may
not be well known, but at times they conducted military masterpieces.

Guy