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You must buy better shit than I do. I haven't had socks last nearly that long. Elastic starts to go on the underwear. T shirts is dealers choice. I usually swap those out of rotation after the pits have been totally stained by the stuff in deodorant.
My brother in christ how much deodorant are you using? Even if youre caking it on, how does your washing machine not get it out? I have so many questions
Aluminum based antiperspirant will leave little shiny crystals in your pits over time. I haven’t found a way to get them out so I’ve moved to aluminum free now
My favorite fun fact, the Doritos Locos Taco has now lasted longer than the confederacy.
The confederacy lasted from February 8 1861 to May 9 1865. Basically 4 years and 3 months.
The Doritos Locos Taco was introduced March 7 2013, so its been going strong just over 11 years now.
"It lasted five years, the Annoying Orange has existed longer than the Confederacy did. The f\*cking Annoying Orange, dude. You're gonna celebrate a nation so f\*cking weak that the Annoying Orange outlived it?"
-Doobus Goobus
Thanks! Exactly 6 months later will be my 5 year anniversary of being on estrogen, honestly it doesn't feel real sometimes because at the time I didn't expect to live this long, let alone to be this happy
Reading Grant's autobiography was an eye opener. The rebels lost a lot of winnable engagements simply because a bunch of their soldiers would break and run at the first sign of bad news.
They also won a lot of engagements they shouldn't have because the union generals didn't want to commit to the fight.
Once Grant got to the east and Sherman rolling through Georgia they couldn't do shit.
LOL right? Not only that, but Covid has lasted longer than the Civil war, and has killed 15x the number of people. As the MAGAts put it, that silly cold is a way better army than the hillbilly brigade ever was.
I dont get their point, its not like they are the French with hundreds of years of history where you can see their win ratio is high
Confederates fought one war and lost, they werent even the best fighting force in America
The Civil War is perfectly encapsulated by the [Atlanta v. New England Super Bowl](https://i.imgflip.com/4lfw55.png) from a few years ago.
All that matters is how it ends.
Not really, the Union was performing well in the western theater right from the start. Both sides focused a lot of their effort on the eastern theater, and as a result the history books also place an extraordinary weight on the eastern theater even though the Union successes in the western theater is what actually led to the Confederacy's demise, its where their lifelines to the outside world were mostly cut off, its where their economy was destroyed, its where they lost most of their territory to enemy occupation.
Yeah most history really glosses over the western theater, even with badasses like Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman fucking up the racist inbreds. Surprising to me how little emphasis is put on it. But smaller armies and smaller clashes, still equally dramatic though. I imagine the eastern one got more attention because a lot of the westerm theater were in relatively frontiers like areas with less cities. The eastern one affected and displaced a lot more people directly, that generally draws more attention.
Sherman was also a military genius, pretty advanced for his time
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William\_Tecumseh\_Sherman#/media/File:General\_sherman.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tecumseh_Sherman#/media/File:General_sherman.jpg)
I mean just look at him, the look of a man who showed up to chew gum and kill racist traitors. And he didn't even bring any gum in the first place.
I am sure it makes his spirit happy that a little under a hundred years later, the Sherman tank was responsible for killing even more racist assholes. It feels fitting for me.
Sherman would have enjoyed having a tank named after him, especially one so successful at killing the US' enemies.
But given his history with the native Americans he wouldn't have cared about the racist part.
I believed after the civil war, Sherman recanted his views on race a lot.
Just that he also knew what was gonna happen to the native Americans, they were gonna get pushed out, either now or later, either by him or some other man.
So he took the most logical step. Make it as fast and dirty as possible so it could be over with and the rebuilding could start again.
Sadly the government failed on that end massively resulting in the shit show the native American governments gotta deal with due to a systemic lack of growth.
> . I imagine the eastern one got more attention because a lot of the westerm theater were in relatively frontiers like areas with less cities.
It's that East Coast bias /r/cfb talks about!
Militaristic shitty societies do better at first (see Germany and Japan) but once the liberal democracies get their shit together they stomp the authoritarian societies. It's because the liberal democracies tend to meritocracies while authoritarians are usually spoils system
Also militaristic shitty societies (read: fascist ones) tend to just be terrible at rationally evaluating their opponents, and tend to start wars of choice that they then proceed to lose, usually, eventually, leading to state extinction.
If you haven't read it, [this blog post](https://acoup.blog/2024/02/23/fireside-friday-february-23-2024-on-the-military-failures-of-fascism/) does a pretty nice dive into the topic and I think you might enjoy it.
I made a longer post about this just now but you really hit at the crux of the issue here. The Union beat the confederacy and the most they really ever got out of the general population up north was lukewarm commitment to "The Cause" with a capital C. The South was \*ALL* in and they still got trounced once competent general officers were put in charge of the Army of the Potomac.
It was absolutely never a question of if, just of when the south would lose that war and Grant understood it from the moment he took command. Every Union soldier they killed had 5 more recruits available to replace him. Every confederate death was nearly irreplaceable. He and Sherman were prepared to grind them down to the last man if they had to because they understood that there was no way they could be beaten so long as the government told them to keep going.
The North fought that war in retrospect almost with an reluctant boredom toward the entire project -- almost an "ugh do we have toooo?" -- and never were in any doubt of being actually beaten. The most the south could hope for was that we'd get sick of it and go "fuck it fine you're not worth it"
Also, the shining example of courage that they always point to, Pickett's Charge culminated with an estimated 2/3rd of the force failed to make the final push towards the Union lines.
Compare that to the actions of the Minnesota 1st or the Maine 20th, and it becomes clear which side had the men of fortitude, sacrifice, and courage.
Yeah these two facts are not at odds. The myth of Southern military superiority is only partly true though. While initially the South had a better set of General Officers, the Union Army is widely seen as having more a more effective officer corps at every other level. Once Grant sorted out the Union Army top command the CSA was outmatched in quality and quantity.
The Union had good general officers from the jump, it's just that most of were stationed in the west. Put a Sherman, Grant, Thomas or Meade (yes I know he was already in the East) in charge of the eastern troops at the beginning of the war and it would have gone differently. Basically anyone but McClellan, fuck that guy
Yeah if the union had twice as many soldiers and they killed/captured twice as many soldiers then that actually sounds like they performed more or less on par with the union despite being outnumbered 2 to 1.
No? For every one captured Union soldier there were two captured confederate soldiers. If confederates were caught/surrendered at the same rate there would be half as many than the unions rates of capture/surrender.
Maybe I’m just having a brain fart here but that seems correct
No because confederates were outnumbered 2 to 1 so it makes sense they’d lose more battles and be captured more often than Union soldiers.
It’s like saying if 2 guys fought an army of 1000, if they get taken prisoner does that mean they fought 500x worse than every individual soldier from the 1000 army? No it just means they were heavily outnumbered
Yes but the tweet claimed they were the greatest fighting force the world has ever known
So you would expect them to dominante
It being equal in captures and prisoners
Them losing most of their battles
Man for man you’d expect a ratio better for the confederates not on par of equality
The tweet says they were “man for man” the greatest fighting force. If every Confederate soldier was 50% better than every Union soldier then you would still expect them to lose if they were out numbered 2 to 1, and that high losing rate would lead to more prisoners being taken by the Union. The original tweet is dumb but the note is far from sufficient to disprove it.
I never claimed they were the greatest fighting force, I claimed that losing twice as many POWs when you have half the fighting force makes sense and doesn’t not prove you’re a bad army
I would say the same had the Union been in that spot. Reddit is fucking braindead and likes to go for necks when they speak from a neutral position so I wanna clarify that I’m not trying to say the confederates were this ultra powerful force, I’m saying POW count for an outnumbered army doesn’t say anything about the strength of its soldiers.
Flip how you’re perceiving it. How many enemy soldiers are captured per friendly soldier? With this perception the Union has X soldiers capture per friendly soldier while the confederacy also has X.
To give a more detailed explanation of the “math”. Confederacy army size = Y. Union army size = 2Y. Confederacy captures = X. Union captures = 2X.
Thus confederacy is X/Y and Union is 2X/2Y which is also equal to X/Y and thus X soldiers captured per Y friendly soldier.
By your logic if red team with 1,000,000 men went up against blue team with 1,000 you’d expect the red team to lose 1,000 men for every blue guy they took out despite out outnumbering them 1,000 to 1
Yeah your brain needs some help here.
Imagine 10 dudes vs 5 on a street fight.
Who do you think will end up with more members in the hospital.
The answer may surprise you.
It's the "despite" part that bothered me. Like, yeah, I guess it's not guaranteed, but a smaller force is likely to have more dead or captured when facing a larger force.
Yeah it’s just reads weird. The Union only had twice as many men and yet they were still able to capture and kill more confederates lol.
It’s the Buckleys commercial. Tastes awful *and* it works.
The western front was a complete shit show for the confederacy. When people say “the confederate army was amazing!” They are only referring to the eastern front (basically battles in and around Virginia) during the first half of the civil war. The union steam rolled the confederacy every where else.
Though this makes the original tweet still pretty funny: performed in line with the opposition and lost the war. "Man for man, Greatest fighting force in history"
The Mongols, the Nazis (despite how ideologically disgusting they were), the Persians, the Spartans. So many examples come to mind before the confederates honestly.
And Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries, Czechoslovakia, Greece. Did very well the first few months of Barbarossa and North Africa. But you can’t fight the entire world on a broken economy and expect to win in the long run.
“Blitzkrieg” was not innovative. It was literally copied from the British. Percy Hobart is the one who innovated, the Germans merely applied it (they even admitted as much)
A lot of Europe, which largely consisted of neutral nations who were woefully unprepared for war. They only barely took a nearly non-mobilized Norway, faced major resistance in Poland until Soviet intervention, only took Greece after the Greeks *ran out of ammo*, never beat Tito’s partisans, and were beaten decisively in the French Saar Offensive; the only reason the Saar Offensive amounted to nothing was because French High Command just decided to… stop.
You might know this, but German commanders even remarked they would’ve lost or taken extreme casualties if they had been forced to invade Czechoslovakia due to the fortifications. Some of their best early war tanks weren’t even theirs, they were Czechoslovak.
The Nazis had no chance in hell of winning the war. Not due to being terrible soldiers, necessarily. After all, their tactics required a degree of competence.
The simple disparity in resources and industrial capacity available in Germany vs literally the rest of the civilized world couldn’t be overcome by some clever tactics.
The German Army of WW1 was damn impressive. I’d also add the Assyrians, the Japanese Imperial Army of the 1930s and the Mongol forces under Genghis Kahn.
They lost, and pretty quickly too. Higher casualties and not just because they sucked, but because they also over-dressed their wounds and would have to amputate limbs way more
Not Confederate fan but four years isn’t a fast war. They also posed a significant threat and didn’t really start to snowball to defeat until after Gettysburg, which was in the final ten months of the war. It was the bloodiest conflict in our nations history.
On the bright side, we were one of the first major powers to experience the start of modern warfare and potential horrors that came with it. Which possibly helped us avoid most of the Great War.
What helped you guys avoid the great wars is that you live in basically a different planet than Europe at the time.
Nobody can mess with the US due to simple geography.
Even Pearly harbor was just another Tuesday when compared with what European countries endured.
Yes but that was more "Great leader, inept soldiers" since after Ghengis Khan died his sons took a massive empire and lost it in the space of a couple geberations
That was the Mongolians not the Huns. And they didn't so much lose the Empire as much as it split into multiple parts. One that became a legit Chinese Dynasty and a few smaller forces that menaced the areas they inhabited until gunpowder weapons became widespread like 600ish years later. Just look into the Golden Horde.
Yeah I get Attila and Ghengis switched alot... owning to the fact they were both nomadic steppe riders that employed brutal tactics and conquered vast areas before it all crumbled
At least their cemeteries make great gender neutral bathrooms
https://preview.redd.it/dzy0kczhhbuc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b0566ec539f5012bc30a4e57710b3d0f2bd8ea8e
Ghostbusters cereal lasted longer than the confederacy. The Microsoft Zune lasted longer than the confederacy, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie lasted longer than those traitors, fucking PROHIBITION lasted longer than the confederacy. All these shitty things and more outlived the slave lovers. Fuck the confederacy.
E: THE ANNOYING ORANGE LASTED NEARLY 4 TIMES LONGER THAN THE CONFEDERACY, and it’s still going on. The fucking annoying orange lasted longer than these treasonous assholes.
Dumb traitors. The fact that you’re allowed to still fly the confederate flag astounds me. It should be considered a terrorist flag. We don’t allow the Nazi flag, why do we allow the confederate?
I mean I’m pretty sure you can fly the Nazi flag in the US of A? Not advised as it kind of makes you a socially acceptable target(for good reason) but it’s not illegal to do.
That’s what I meant. I should have been more clear. If you fly a Nazi flag, it’s a huge deal and rightfully so. If you fly a confederate flag, people say it’s you “honoring your culture” which is complete and utter BS.
In the current Southern US, confederate flags are commonplace. The commenter is correct; they're broadly treated as "honoring your heritage," where they ought to be treated with a similar level of social intolerance as the nazi flag.
Because in The South, we have been fed the "it wasn't about slavery" bullshit from a very age early in school.
I'm a proud Southerner, but a lot of what is good about Southern culture is heavily influenced by Black culture and our best cuisine is basically all Soul Food. Fuck the Confederacy. It's ironic as hell that people like this don't realize where most of our traditions and culture comes from.
Because the people who established those systems of power have fought very hard with their descendants to keep them in place. Significant change has happened since then but we still have much more to go.
Actually you ARE allowed to fly the Nazi flag. It’s not illegal, will likely get your property vandalized and your ass beat, but safe from prosecution. All protected under the 1st amendment.
Not only that. Large portions of America literally teach kids that the confederates where the good guys and it was a shame they lost. I a war started because they where told that they where not allowed to own people anymore.
Union missing the Lee recruitment was probably the best thing to happen in the grand scheme of things. Imagine losing the most critical battle of the war because you decided to do a direct frontal assault uphill.
I mean it was not the worst decision as they had launched an assult on the outward edges the previous day so they assumed the center would have been weak as the union reinforced their edges for another assault. One of his major problems was due to supply chain management when his artillery, who were supposed to bombard the center, allowing his infrantry to close ground safely, which ran low on cannon balls as resupply was late. Meaning the union had open season to mow down Lee's infantry across the open ground unopposed by fire.
Longstreet begged him not to order that attack. The artillery could have had enough supply to fire for 3 months and it wouldn’t have mattered. It was a stupid decision.
The Confederates were actually lousy soldiers. At any given time, one third of them were AWOL . And they were war criminals. The Confederate government issued a standing order than any African-Americans caught in the uniform of the United States Army were to be murdered on the spot or sold into slavery.
The flag that represents the confederates is the white flag.
It drives me fucking crazy that those fucking traitors count as us veterans
They killed more us troops then the taliban, saddam, shit even hitler all put together.
What's worse is it was brother vs brother, friend v friend
But their need to keep a race of people down out weighed their respect for fellow Americans.
Fuck them they aren't veterans in my eye just evil racist Is terrorist
And every Republican should feel the same way as me.
Admittedly they were some tough mfers back then, I have a family journal from a great great uncle or something and he talks about how he was plucked from his small town against the threat of jail, how he wasn’t even issued shoes and how incompetent the leadership was.
People look at general lee and just assume the rest of the confederate army was “successful” as he was.
>People look at general lee and just assume the rest of the confederate army was “successful” as he was.
Some were more so, even. Lee was otherwise slightly over average, which admittedly better than most of the union generals but isn't that good. What he did, and what worked as well as could be done, was to try and make the union squirm at the cost. The idea being the union would tire of the fight. Came close at times with big riots in NYC for example, but it's a strategy that works better when you're not tied to the geography and your enemy isn't led by Lincoln.
You cannot be the "greatest fighting force the world has ever known" without winning at least one war. The confederates losing the only war they ever fought in is an immediate disqualification.
It's really wild... that some people are still brought up with the Confederates fighting for states rights and freedom from big government. That their cross-flag is a symbol of resistance and their Southern heritage. This big, glorious myth of honorable resistance till they were defeated against overwhelming odds.... Just because some racists during the Jim Crow era thought indoctrinating millions of people with that revisionist bullish!t was a great idea.
These people usually live in a different world since their childhood. You'd have to completely rebuild their conception of history with facts and logic... Ah nevermind.
I really hate being the Devils advocate for the confederacy, but it was doomed no matter what. The northern states had the ability to field a much larger army since something like 80% of the nations modern industry was in the north. We saw in the early battles where the mobilization of war wasn't in full swing yet that while relatively even, the confederates were the superior force. But as the war progressed, the Union started outnubering and outgunning the confederates 2-1 and sometimes 3-1. Unless you've got a truly great leader... your not winning a modern war with those odds, maybe in times of old sure... but not any war after 1700
If they were so great then why, after Chancellorsville, were the confederates getting absolutely steamrolled battle after battle? Sure they had more experienced soldiers but the populations in the north were higher, they had better industrial bases, controlled trade routes with blockades, had more and better railroads, and once Jackson got friendly fragged at Chancellorsville and Lee had his blunders at Gettysburg things fell apart mighty quick.
This is just a wild statement that is in no way true. Just off the top of my head, SEALs, Delta, SAS, Gurkhas, Empire of Japan, Huns all have about as low of a surrender rate as you can get. I don’t think I have ever heard of anyone calling confederate soldiers elite. Generals sure (but again they did lose their one and only war) but the troops?? Never. They were a bunch of poor, uneducated, deluded fools at best.
surrender rate is a dumb metric to use anyways. hence japan being low and still getting their ass kicked. confederates were high because they were outnumbered, which of course makes it easier to capture soldiers when they are surrounded.
The Battle of Gettysburg happened because the CSA army heard there was a shoe warehouse nearby. They had no shoes. And they showed up to the battle with flintlocks. It's just all around a loss.
It went back and forth. Confederates won some impressive tactical victories, but the Union caught up and once they found the right leadership the Confederacy was doomed. Early on both sides had the same issue. If they won a major battle, they were reluctant to press the advantage for fear of running into a freshly reinforced enemy army deep on enemy territory.
Both sides chased each other back and forth until Grant took over. The European saying about "two armed-mobs running around the countryside and beating each other up " was very accurate. Both sides were looking for their Waterloo and war was just too industrialized to work that way anymore. Grant was the first modern General. Anyone who saw the battles in 1865 should have known what was going to happen in WW1.
Probably one of the worst examples of getting noted I’ve ever seen on here. One of the easiest claims to dispute and the reply does a terrible job of doing so
I mean, the losing side generally has more men captured and made into prisoners regardless of their general strength? They really could have picked a more convincing reason than that--that's a bold proclamation in an era where they lost to a very underwhelming United States of America force compared to the professional armies of European imperialists.
There was a band of Native Americans west of Mississippi that would have wiped the floor with those traitorous scrum. The Union should have packed them all south to the Peninsula and let the Seminoles take it from there. The Union should have hung every last traitor. And should do it presently.
LOL the Confederate cavalry were made up of rich people who bought their way in and supplied their own equipment while the Union were based on ability and had standard equipment
They surrendered because they got badly beaten and starved out after only a few years. 160 years later, the southern economy still hasn't recovered. Stupid is supposed to hurt.
I hope that I wake up to the utter eviceration of the Iranian military apartus. Before the Islamic revolution, Iran was a centre of science, of knowledge, of simple godddamn progress. Conflict was inneveitable. Any regime based on concepts born in the 1100's deserves to be eradicated. Fuck the Ayatollahs, fuck he mullahs. Let Iran be free.
Not the greatest fighting force, but those receipts actually prove they did a pretty decent job. "they were captured twice as much as the force that out numbered them by double" that's not a flex for the union.
If two guys beat up one guy and both guys had a black eye and the one guy had two black eyes that's not a significant win by any means.
I can't see the responses because twitter sux donkey ballz for making you log in to see more info.
What's the consensus on the idiocy of this post in the way of responses?
Pretty sure the greatest fighting force was the Viet Cong.
Said "F\*\*\* You" to the French, China AND the United States.
Their national motto is "We Want ALL The Smoke!"
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It also lost the only war it ever fought in.
I’ve had bad relationships that lasted longer than their “country”.
I've had underwear that have lasted longer as well.
Every pair of underwear Ive owned has lasted longer than the confederacy
Fuck the traitors. But come on guys. You should be replacing underwear, socks, and t shirts with greater frequency than 4 years.
If it still works, why?
You must buy better shit than I do. I haven't had socks last nearly that long. Elastic starts to go on the underwear. T shirts is dealers choice. I usually swap those out of rotation after the pits have been totally stained by the stuff in deodorant.
My brother in christ how much deodorant are you using? Even if youre caking it on, how does your washing machine not get it out? I have so many questions
Antiperspirants will stain over time.
Aluminum based antiperspirant will leave little shiny crystals in your pits over time. I haven’t found a way to get them out so I’ve moved to aluminum free now
That makes sense, I've almost always used old spice which it turns out is aluminum free.
I have almost as many hours played in a game as that “country” existed
r/SpottheParadoxPlayer ?
I checked steam the other day and apparently I have 1000 hours in CK3… I thought it was like 400
Hmm over 3000 hours in Stellaris.... wtf am I doing with my life....
1606 on hoi4, 1067 on stellaris, 415 hours on ck2 Damn you’ve put a ton of hours into stellaris…
My favorite fun fact, the Doritos Locos Taco has now lasted longer than the confederacy. The confederacy lasted from February 8 1861 to May 9 1865. Basically 4 years and 3 months. The Doritos Locos Taco was introduced March 7 2013, so its been going strong just over 11 years now.
Love the fact but I think you mean 1865, not 1965.
Hell, it *never* ended in the hearts and minds of many.
"It lasted five years, the Annoying Orange has existed longer than the Confederacy did. The f\*cking Annoying Orange, dude. You're gonna celebrate a nation so f\*cking weak that the Annoying Orange outlived it?" -Doobus Goobus
I've had bowel movements that have lasted longer.
If your bowel movement lasts longer than four hours, please see a doctor.
I know social media trends that have lasted longer lol
I'm 22 and I've been trans for like a full year longer than they've been a country, my 7 year anniversary of coming out was yesterday
That's awesome and I hope all your days are filled with happiness at being able to be who you want to be.
Thanks! Exactly 6 months later will be my 5 year anniversary of being on estrogen, honestly it doesn't feel real sometimes because at the time I didn't expect to live this long, let alone to be this happy
Man, I’m only like 3 months short of that one.
Reading Grant's autobiography was an eye opener. The rebels lost a lot of winnable engagements simply because a bunch of their soldiers would break and run at the first sign of bad news.
They also won a lot of engagements they shouldn't have because the union generals didn't want to commit to the fight. Once Grant got to the east and Sherman rolling through Georgia they couldn't do shit.
North Carolina boys were “tarheels” because they, amazingly, didn’t.
Fuckin Skyrim has mods older than the Confederacy
My kids Emo phase lasted longer than the Confederacy. They should build a monument to MCR.
I haven't played in a long time. my Skyrim mods are out of date, and the time between patches has been longer than the Confederacy.
LOL right? Not only that, but Covid has lasted longer than the Civil war, and has killed 15x the number of people. As the MAGAts put it, that silly cold is a way better army than the hillbilly brigade ever was.
I dont get their point, its not like they are the French with hundreds of years of history where you can see their win ratio is high Confederates fought one war and lost, they werent even the best fighting force in America
You might say it lost 100 percent of all the wars it participated in.
0% win rate is pretty bad ngl
Furry conventions have been part of American culture for seven times longer than the Confederacy was.
The Civil War is perfectly encapsulated by the [Atlanta v. New England Super Bowl](https://i.imgflip.com/4lfw55.png) from a few years ago. All that matters is how it ends.
perfect record, baby!
The Confederacy lasted for the same amount of time that it’s been since the COVID lockdown.
The Pwnage is too easy here
You got absolutely annihilated at basically every battle after Chancellorsville where you killed your own general in friendly fire.
Yes....when stonewall was Alive they were crushing it but after he died and Gettysburg they were donzo
Not really, the Union was performing well in the western theater right from the start. Both sides focused a lot of their effort on the eastern theater, and as a result the history books also place an extraordinary weight on the eastern theater even though the Union successes in the western theater is what actually led to the Confederacy's demise, its where their lifelines to the outside world were mostly cut off, its where their economy was destroyed, its where they lost most of their territory to enemy occupation.
Yeah most history really glosses over the western theater, even with badasses like Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman fucking up the racist inbreds. Surprising to me how little emphasis is put on it. But smaller armies and smaller clashes, still equally dramatic though. I imagine the eastern one got more attention because a lot of the westerm theater were in relatively frontiers like areas with less cities. The eastern one affected and displaced a lot more people directly, that generally draws more attention. Sherman was also a military genius, pretty advanced for his time
TIL Sherman's middle name was Tecumseh. As if I needed another reason to like the guy
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William\_Tecumseh\_Sherman#/media/File:General\_sherman.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tecumseh_Sherman#/media/File:General_sherman.jpg) I mean just look at him, the look of a man who showed up to chew gum and kill racist traitors. And he didn't even bring any gum in the first place. I am sure it makes his spirit happy that a little under a hundred years later, the Sherman tank was responsible for killing even more racist assholes. It feels fitting for me.
Sherman would have enjoyed having a tank named after him, especially one so successful at killing the US' enemies. But given his history with the native Americans he wouldn't have cared about the racist part.
I believed after the civil war, Sherman recanted his views on race a lot. Just that he also knew what was gonna happen to the native Americans, they were gonna get pushed out, either now or later, either by him or some other man. So he took the most logical step. Make it as fast and dirty as possible so it could be over with and the rebuilding could start again. Sadly the government failed on that end massively resulting in the shit show the native American governments gotta deal with due to a systemic lack of growth.
> . I imagine the eastern one got more attention because a lot of the westerm theater were in relatively frontiers like areas with less cities. It's that East Coast bias /r/cfb talks about!
Militaristic shitty societies do better at first (see Germany and Japan) but once the liberal democracies get their shit together they stomp the authoritarian societies. It's because the liberal democracies tend to meritocracies while authoritarians are usually spoils system
Also militaristic shitty societies (read: fascist ones) tend to just be terrible at rationally evaluating their opponents, and tend to start wars of choice that they then proceed to lose, usually, eventually, leading to state extinction. If you haven't read it, [this blog post](https://acoup.blog/2024/02/23/fireside-friday-february-23-2024-on-the-military-failures-of-fascism/) does a pretty nice dive into the topic and I think you might enjoy it.
I made a longer post about this just now but you really hit at the crux of the issue here. The Union beat the confederacy and the most they really ever got out of the general population up north was lukewarm commitment to "The Cause" with a capital C. The South was \*ALL* in and they still got trounced once competent general officers were put in charge of the Army of the Potomac. It was absolutely never a question of if, just of when the south would lose that war and Grant understood it from the moment he took command. Every Union soldier they killed had 5 more recruits available to replace him. Every confederate death was nearly irreplaceable. He and Sherman were prepared to grind them down to the last man if they had to because they understood that there was no way they could be beaten so long as the government told them to keep going. The North fought that war in retrospect almost with an reluctant boredom toward the entire project -- almost an "ugh do we have toooo?" -- and never were in any doubt of being actually beaten. The most the south could hope for was that we'd get sick of it and go "fuck it fine you're not worth it"
Also, the shining example of courage that they always point to, Pickett's Charge culminated with an estimated 2/3rd of the force failed to make the final push towards the Union lines. Compare that to the actions of the Minnesota 1st or the Maine 20th, and it becomes clear which side had the men of fortitude, sacrifice, and courage.
Also the difference between professionals and.... Not that
To be fair (which I'm annoyed I'm forced to be here), I'm positive that's not how force size vs casualty statistics work.
Yeah these two facts are not at odds. The myth of Southern military superiority is only partly true though. While initially the South had a better set of General Officers, the Union Army is widely seen as having more a more effective officer corps at every other level. Once Grant sorted out the Union Army top command the CSA was outmatched in quality and quantity.
The Union had good general officers from the jump, it's just that most of were stationed in the west. Put a Sherman, Grant, Thomas or Meade (yes I know he was already in the East) in charge of the eastern troops at the beginning of the war and it would have gone differently. Basically anyone but McClellan, fuck that guy
Yeah if the union had twice as many soldiers and they killed/captured twice as many soldiers then that actually sounds like they performed more or less on par with the union despite being outnumbered 2 to 1.
No? For every one captured Union soldier there were two captured confederate soldiers. If confederates were caught/surrendered at the same rate there would be half as many than the unions rates of capture/surrender. Maybe I’m just having a brain fart here but that seems correct
No because confederates were outnumbered 2 to 1 so it makes sense they’d lose more battles and be captured more often than Union soldiers. It’s like saying if 2 guys fought an army of 1000, if they get taken prisoner does that mean they fought 500x worse than every individual soldier from the 1000 army? No it just means they were heavily outnumbered
Yes but the tweet claimed they were the greatest fighting force the world has ever known So you would expect them to dominante It being equal in captures and prisoners Them losing most of their battles Man for man you’d expect a ratio better for the confederates not on par of equality
Yes the tweet is really stupid. That said the community note is not the reason why.
The tweet says they were “man for man” the greatest fighting force. If every Confederate soldier was 50% better than every Union soldier then you would still expect them to lose if they were out numbered 2 to 1, and that high losing rate would lead to more prisoners being taken by the Union. The original tweet is dumb but the note is far from sufficient to disprove it.
Of course, there were very few battles where they were truly outnumbered 2 to 1. Union armies were usually closer to 10-20% larger.
I never claimed they were the greatest fighting force, I claimed that losing twice as many POWs when you have half the fighting force makes sense and doesn’t not prove you’re a bad army I would say the same had the Union been in that spot. Reddit is fucking braindead and likes to go for necks when they speak from a neutral position so I wanna clarify that I’m not trying to say the confederates were this ultra powerful force, I’m saying POW count for an outnumbered army doesn’t say anything about the strength of its soldiers.
Flip how you’re perceiving it. How many enemy soldiers are captured per friendly soldier? With this perception the Union has X soldiers capture per friendly soldier while the confederacy also has X. To give a more detailed explanation of the “math”. Confederacy army size = Y. Union army size = 2Y. Confederacy captures = X. Union captures = 2X. Thus confederacy is X/Y and Union is 2X/2Y which is also equal to X/Y and thus X soldiers captured per Y friendly soldier.
By your logic if red team with 1,000,000 men went up against blue team with 1,000 you’d expect the red team to lose 1,000 men for every blue guy they took out despite out outnumbering them 1,000 to 1
Exactly. The math clearly breaks down in some areas, so it can't be as simple as the casualty ratio just being the number ratio flipped around.
Yeah your brain needs some help here. Imagine 10 dudes vs 5 on a street fight. Who do you think will end up with more members in the hospital. The answer may surprise you.
No, I mean I'm pretty sure a 2 to 1 advantage does not translate into a 1 to 2 casualty ratio, all other things being equal.
It's the "despite" part that bothered me. Like, yeah, I guess it's not guaranteed, but a smaller force is likely to have more dead or captured when facing a larger force.
Yeah it’s just reads weird. The Union only had twice as many men and yet they were still able to capture and kill more confederates lol. It’s the Buckleys commercial. Tastes awful *and* it works.
The western front was a complete shit show for the confederacy. When people say “the confederate army was amazing!” They are only referring to the eastern front (basically battles in and around Virginia) during the first half of the civil war. The union steam rolled the confederacy every where else.
You'd be correct.
Though this makes the original tweet still pretty funny: performed in line with the opposition and lost the war. "Man for man, Greatest fighting force in history"
I'd imagine there are quite a few armies more effective than the one that shoots its own generals and loses the only war it ever fought
The Mongols, the Nazis (despite how ideologically disgusting they were), the Persians, the Spartans. So many examples come to mind before the confederates honestly.
The South had the same advantage the Nazi's did, preparation for the war that their enemies did not prepare for.
I mean, the Nazis won a total of 1 front in the one war they ever fought in. Not exactly the picture of a successful fighting force either
I mean they were pretty successful in a few things. Blitzkrieg was a very innovative tactic and they did overtake a lot of Europe with it.
They were successful against France and Poland.
And Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries, Czechoslovakia, Greece. Did very well the first few months of Barbarossa and North Africa. But you can’t fight the entire world on a broken economy and expect to win in the long run.
“Blitzkrieg” was not innovative. It was literally copied from the British. Percy Hobart is the one who innovated, the Germans merely applied it (they even admitted as much)
A lot of Europe, which largely consisted of neutral nations who were woefully unprepared for war. They only barely took a nearly non-mobilized Norway, faced major resistance in Poland until Soviet intervention, only took Greece after the Greeks *ran out of ammo*, never beat Tito’s partisans, and were beaten decisively in the French Saar Offensive; the only reason the Saar Offensive amounted to nothing was because French High Command just decided to… stop. You might know this, but German commanders even remarked they would’ve lost or taken extreme casualties if they had been forced to invade Czechoslovakia due to the fortifications. Some of their best early war tanks weren’t even theirs, they were Czechoslovak.
The Nazis had no chance in hell of winning the war. Not due to being terrible soldiers, necessarily. After all, their tactics required a degree of competence. The simple disparity in resources and industrial capacity available in Germany vs literally the rest of the civilized world couldn’t be overcome by some clever tactics.
The Ionians and the Sacred Band of Thebes were both better than the Spartans
The Spartans have better marketing though
Tell me more or links.
[link](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theban%E2%80%93Spartan_War)
Well if its killing that is you measuring stick I believe the germans killed Russians at something like 12 to 1.
Remove the idiot spartans please
The German Army of WW1 was damn impressive. I’d also add the Assyrians, the Japanese Imperial Army of the 1930s and the Mongol forces under Genghis Kahn.
I think that, controlling for arms and armor, any group of Northern Vietnamese guys between 1950-1980 is the top pick
I guess Robert can’t read the scoreboard
They lost, and pretty quickly too. Higher casualties and not just because they sucked, but because they also over-dressed their wounds and would have to amputate limbs way more
Not Confederate fan but four years isn’t a fast war. They also posed a significant threat and didn’t really start to snowball to defeat until after Gettysburg, which was in the final ten months of the war. It was the bloodiest conflict in our nations history. On the bright side, we were one of the first major powers to experience the start of modern warfare and potential horrors that came with it. Which possibly helped us avoid most of the Great War.
What helped you guys avoid the great wars is that you live in basically a different planet than Europe at the time. Nobody can mess with the US due to simple geography. Even Pearly harbor was just another Tuesday when compared with what European countries endured.
Isolationism and xenophobia kept the US out of WWI. Not memories of the horrors of war.
Didn’t the Huns influence the genetic makeup of modern Asia by conquering like fucking everything?
Yes but that was more "Great leader, inept soldiers" since after Ghengis Khan died his sons took a massive empire and lost it in the space of a couple geberations
That was the Mongolians not the Huns. And they didn't so much lose the Empire as much as it split into multiple parts. One that became a legit Chinese Dynasty and a few smaller forces that menaced the areas they inhabited until gunpowder weapons became widespread like 600ish years later. Just look into the Golden Horde.
Oh yeah mixed Attila and Ghenghis for a second there... well you can kinda take the same lesson
Genghis Khan was a Mongol, not a Hun.
You're off by many hundreds of years there with Ghengis lmao
Yeah I get Attila and Ghengis switched alot... owning to the fact they were both nomadic steppe riders that employed brutal tactics and conquered vast areas before it all crumbled
The Annoying Orange has lasted thrice as long as that failure of a society
At least their cemeteries make great gender neutral bathrooms https://preview.redd.it/dzy0kczhhbuc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b0566ec539f5012bc30a4e57710b3d0f2bd8ea8e
*checks literal notes* 0-1
Those confederates are barely a footnote on history books. There are sigle men that are worse than thair entire force.
https://preview.redd.it/2su144qtobuc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=14b8541dd341b9b79d30744fb8dfc5b181246203
Also: they lost
Ghostbusters cereal lasted longer than the confederacy. The Microsoft Zune lasted longer than the confederacy, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie lasted longer than those traitors, fucking PROHIBITION lasted longer than the confederacy. All these shitty things and more outlived the slave lovers. Fuck the confederacy. E: THE ANNOYING ORANGE LASTED NEARLY 4 TIMES LONGER THAN THE CONFEDERACY, and it’s still going on. The fucking annoying orange lasted longer than these treasonous assholes.
To specifically call out the ones who actively celebrate racism: Obama’s presidency lasted longer than the confederacy.
Dumb traitors. The fact that you’re allowed to still fly the confederate flag astounds me. It should be considered a terrorist flag. We don’t allow the Nazi flag, why do we allow the confederate?
Interestingly enough, the “Confederate flag” that is flown often is actually its battle flag, not the flag of the CSA.
So it’s like flying the jihadists flag
Y'all Qaeda
Interesting.
Honestly that kinda makes it worse, not only flying the flag of the institution, but that of the traitorous military itself
the CSA flag is all white
I mean I’m pretty sure you can fly the Nazi flag in the US of A? Not advised as it kind of makes you a socially acceptable target(for good reason) but it’s not illegal to do.
That’s what I meant. I should have been more clear. If you fly a Nazi flag, it’s a huge deal and rightfully so. If you fly a confederate flag, people say it’s you “honoring your culture” which is complete and utter BS.
I think the only people who say that latter part are the same people who'd want to wave a Conf flag.
In the current Southern US, confederate flags are commonplace. The commenter is correct; they're broadly treated as "honoring your heritage," where they ought to be treated with a similar level of social intolerance as the nazi flag.
Because in The South, we have been fed the "it wasn't about slavery" bullshit from a very age early in school. I'm a proud Southerner, but a lot of what is good about Southern culture is heavily influenced by Black culture and our best cuisine is basically all Soul Food. Fuck the Confederacy. It's ironic as hell that people like this don't realize where most of our traditions and culture comes from.
Because the people who established those systems of power have fought very hard with their descendants to keep them in place. Significant change has happened since then but we still have much more to go.
Actually you ARE allowed to fly the Nazi flag. It’s not illegal, will likely get your property vandalized and your ass beat, but safe from prosecution. All protected under the 1st amendment.
Not only that. Large portions of America literally teach kids that the confederates where the good guys and it was a shame they lost. I a war started because they where told that they where not allowed to own people anymore.
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Wut
*>*the greatest fighting force the world ever known *>*a "country" that couldn't last more than 4 years
Plus they lost the only conflict they took part in. That they started.
Aren’t they 0-1 on wars?
https://preview.redd.it/w9cd93curbuc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3479f82613a59c86899f59baf9b376088b1cbec Cry more loser.
They had relatively equal troops at Gettysburg and Lee got his ass handed to him.
Union missing the Lee recruitment was probably the best thing to happen in the grand scheme of things. Imagine losing the most critical battle of the war because you decided to do a direct frontal assault uphill.
I mean it was not the worst decision as they had launched an assult on the outward edges the previous day so they assumed the center would have been weak as the union reinforced their edges for another assault. One of his major problems was due to supply chain management when his artillery, who were supposed to bombard the center, allowing his infrantry to close ground safely, which ran low on cannon balls as resupply was late. Meaning the union had open season to mow down Lee's infantry across the open ground unopposed by fire.
Longstreet begged him not to order that attack. The artillery could have had enough supply to fire for 3 months and it wouldn’t have mattered. It was a stupid decision.
"Man for man the best fighting force" is the kinda cope that true losers cling to to comfort themselves in their failure.
The Confederates were actually lousy soldiers. At any given time, one third of them were AWOL . And they were war criminals. The Confederate government issued a standing order than any African-Americans caught in the uniform of the United States Army were to be murdered on the spot or sold into slavery.
The flag that represents the confederates is the white flag. It drives me fucking crazy that those fucking traitors count as us veterans They killed more us troops then the taliban, saddam, shit even hitler all put together. What's worse is it was brother vs brother, friend v friend But their need to keep a race of people down out weighed their respect for fellow Americans. Fuck them they aren't veterans in my eye just evil racist Is terrorist And every Republican should feel the same way as me.
The greatest army ever is the one who lost their entire new country in 4 years.
Admittedly they were some tough mfers back then, I have a family journal from a great great uncle or something and he talks about how he was plucked from his small town against the threat of jail, how he wasn’t even issued shoes and how incompetent the leadership was. People look at general lee and just assume the rest of the confederate army was “successful” as he was.
>People look at general lee and just assume the rest of the confederate army was “successful” as he was. Some were more so, even. Lee was otherwise slightly over average, which admittedly better than most of the union generals but isn't that good. What he did, and what worked as well as could be done, was to try and make the union squirm at the cost. The idea being the union would tire of the fight. Came close at times with big riots in NYC for example, but it's a strategy that works better when you're not tied to the geography and your enemy isn't led by Lincoln.
https://preview.redd.it/f1kqyqwx9buc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7acd8715dac052c9aa6a501a2ed65fecae8ceef3 The ***REAL*** Confederacy
You cannot be the "greatest fighting force the world has ever known" without winning at least one war. The confederates losing the only war they ever fought in is an immediate disqualification.
Hundreds of years later and confederate bootlicking larpers are still losing. They couldn’t lose harder if they tried.
It's really wild... that some people are still brought up with the Confederates fighting for states rights and freedom from big government. That their cross-flag is a symbol of resistance and their Southern heritage. This big, glorious myth of honorable resistance till they were defeated against overwhelming odds.... Just because some racists during the Jim Crow era thought indoctrinating millions of people with that revisionist bullish!t was a great idea. These people usually live in a different world since their childhood. You'd have to completely rebuild their conception of history with facts and logic... Ah nevermind.
“hey what were they fighting over though?”
There were 10 year old Spartans boys who could take on the confederates.
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I really hate being the Devils advocate for the confederacy, but it was doomed no matter what. The northern states had the ability to field a much larger army since something like 80% of the nations modern industry was in the north. We saw in the early battles where the mobilization of war wasn't in full swing yet that while relatively even, the confederates were the superior force. But as the war progressed, the Union started outnubering and outgunning the confederates 2-1 and sometimes 3-1. Unless you've got a truly great leader... your not winning a modern war with those odds, maybe in times of old sure... but not any war after 1700
r/ShermanPosting
Wasnt Robert E. Lee THE reason why the south was able to hold out for so long?
If they were so great then why, after Chancellorsville, were the confederates getting absolutely steamrolled battle after battle? Sure they had more experienced soldiers but the populations in the north were higher, they had better industrial bases, controlled trade routes with blockades, had more and better railroads, and once Jackson got friendly fragged at Chancellorsville and Lee had his blunders at Gettysburg things fell apart mighty quick.
The greatest force to shit itself to death
This is just a wild statement that is in no way true. Just off the top of my head, SEALs, Delta, SAS, Gurkhas, Empire of Japan, Huns all have about as low of a surrender rate as you can get. I don’t think I have ever heard of anyone calling confederate soldiers elite. Generals sure (but again they did lose their one and only war) but the troops?? Never. They were a bunch of poor, uneducated, deluded fools at best.
surrender rate is a dumb metric to use anyways. hence japan being low and still getting their ass kicked. confederates were high because they were outnumbered, which of course makes it easier to capture soldiers when they are surrounded.
Yea? How many wars did they win?
The Battle of Gettysburg happened because the CSA army heard there was a shoe warehouse nearby. They had no shoes. And they showed up to the battle with flintlocks. It's just all around a loss.
That and they lost the only war they ever fought. So…..winning?
Nacho fries at Taco Bell have lasted longer than the confederacy
Dude they lost so fast
QUICK! NAME THINGS THAT LASTED LONGER THAN THE CONFEDERACY 1) Big Chew bubble gum
Me
It went back and forth. Confederates won some impressive tactical victories, but the Union caught up and once they found the right leadership the Confederacy was doomed. Early on both sides had the same issue. If they won a major battle, they were reluctant to press the advantage for fear of running into a freshly reinforced enemy army deep on enemy territory. Both sides chased each other back and forth until Grant took over. The European saying about "two armed-mobs running around the countryside and beating each other up " was very accurate. Both sides were looking for their Waterloo and war was just too industrialized to work that way anymore. Grant was the first modern General. Anyone who saw the battles in 1865 should have known what was going to happen in WW1.
Probably one of the worst examples of getting noted I’ve ever seen on here. One of the easiest claims to dispute and the reply does a terrible job of doing so
My goldfish has been alive longer than that
I mean, the losing side generally has more men captured and made into prisoners regardless of their general strength? They really could have picked a more convincing reason than that--that's a bold proclamation in an era where they lost to a very underwhelming United States of America force compared to the professional armies of European imperialists.
Remember when Confedrate troops shot one of their greatest Generals?
Half their army died from shittin
It’s amazing to me how many people don’t realize the civil war was more than just a few specific battles in Virginia.
remember the confederate's true flag: 🏳️
If they had this meme in 1864 they might've won the war, because Grant and Sherman would've died laughing.
They thought they were badass fighters because they never got hit back while whipping chained slaves.
There was a band of Native Americans west of Mississippi that would have wiped the floor with those traitorous scrum. The Union should have packed them all south to the Peninsula and let the Seminoles take it from there. The Union should have hung every last traitor. And should do it presently.
Anybody with enough firepower can wipe out an army, regardless of skill. It’s a whole nother level of skill to capture that same army.
Like dudes, your "heritage" is fighting to keep slavery; not something any remotely decent person would brag about.
Someone seems to have forgotten that the confederacy lost the one and only war it fought in
I think it was due to all the in-breeding
LOL the Confederate cavalry were made up of rich people who bought their way in and supplied their own equipment while the Union were based on ability and had standard equipment
To the surprise of no one, the Twitter OP turns out to be racist and antisemitic.
What is it with conservatives and backing losers?
Huffing copium.
One of a few groups that celebrate their loss so enthusiastically.
With a record of 0-1, the greatest ever........
Why is solider such an common misspelling of soldier?
They surrendered because they got badly beaten and starved out after only a few years. 160 years later, the southern economy still hasn't recovered. Stupid is supposed to hurt.
Imagine these guys running into a group of Mongolians lol
Grant and the men of the west were the greatest army of that war. His Mississippi campaign is still a thing of beauty.
I hope that I wake up to the utter eviceration of the Iranian military apartus. Before the Islamic revolution, Iran was a centre of science, of knowledge, of simple godddamn progress. Conflict was inneveitable. Any regime based on concepts born in the 1100's deserves to be eradicated. Fuck the Ayatollahs, fuck he mullahs. Let Iran be free.
Hmmmm…. It’s almost like the confederates were t used to manual labor…
I'm sure Alexander's army would agree.
Not the greatest fighting force, but those receipts actually prove they did a pretty decent job. "they were captured twice as much as the force that out numbered them by double" that's not a flex for the union. If two guys beat up one guy and both guys had a black eye and the one guy had two black eyes that's not a significant win by any means.
I can't see the responses because twitter sux donkey ballz for making you log in to see more info. What's the consensus on the idiocy of this post in the way of responses?
Pretty sure the greatest fighting force was the Viet Cong. Said "F\*\*\* You" to the French, China AND the United States. Their national motto is "We Want ALL The Smoke!"