In May, 2024, there is much talk that America's democracy is in a fraught and perilous position. Perhaps. But not as fraught or as perilous as in May, 1863; when the Union General, the Commander of the Army of the Potomac, "Fighting Joe" Hooker, declared that; after he defeated the Confederates, he would assume the role of Napoleon, and march on Washington D.C. to overthrow the government and declare himself a military dictator. Hooker had a plan.  In May, 1863, one of the most significant battles in American history, was fought; the Battle of Chancellorsville, in which the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, under General Robert E Lee, defeated the Union Army of the Potomac under General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker. 1-The battle is significant on a purely military level for it was an astonishingly stunning victory by Robert E. Lee, against all odds, an American Agincourt, a victory of the  few over the many. If you consider Robert E. Lee an American General, (and h...

  “ Before he died, the great Southern historian ,  Shelby Foote, in the mid 1990s,    gave an interview with PBS about the Civil War. The interview was replete with Proustian moments; Foote was Proust with a bourbon mellowed Southern drawl.   He took note that after the Civil War ended in Union victory; the white Southerner was bitter. But eventually, a compromise, a GREAT COMPROMISE,    was worked out with the victorious North; the South would accept that it was best for all that the Union won; however, the North had to acknowledge that the South had fought valiantly; which is why so many military bases were named after defeated Southern generals.   He gave insight into his bewilderment as to why Black Americans were bitter about slavery; he noted that Hebrews acknowledged their slavery and had risen above it. He never addressed that perhaps Hebrews were still bitter about their bondage, in the time frame of less than two hundred years from the ...