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Browsing named entities in Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 33. (ed. Reverend J. William Jones). You can also browse the collection for Swinton or search for Swinton in all documents.

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Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 33. (ed. Reverend J. William Jones), The crisis of the Confederacy (search)
ing proof—if more were needed, for history is full of it—that brains, education and pluck are of more avail in war than mere numbers. Studying the subject only in his closet, necessarily without practical experience in war—for England has had none of any consequence since the Crimean—it is but natural that the author should have fallen into some errors. His opinion that Grant was great in strategy, but not strong in tactics, is exactly the reverse of the view taken in America. I think Swinton, the historian of the Army of the Potomac, characterizes Grant's repeated frontal attacks during the Overland campaign—notably at Cold Harbor—as a reductio ad absurdum in hammering. The recoil of the hammer was vastly more destructive than the blow. In estimating the numerical strength of the opposed armies, and their losses in battle, Captain Battine certainly often errs, making the odds against the Confederates less than they in fact were, and their losses greater. For instance,
Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 33. (ed. Reverend J. William Jones), General Lee at Gettysburg. (search)
cticable. Whatever was to be the result, the battle was now joined. There was no retreat without an engagement. Instead of the defensive, as he had planned, General Lee was compelled to take the offensive, and himself endeavor to force the enemy away. It was not by the choice of Lee nor by the foresight of Meade that the Federal army found itself placed on lines of magnificent defence. Just east of the little town, across a narrow valley, there lay on the ground a great fish-hook, as Swinton first and aptly called it, a fish-hook of rocky ridge and rugged hills. The lower convex curve of the hook was the Cemetery hill opposite the town. To the northeast the ridge curved back to the barb of the hook, the rocky sides of Culp's hill, and to the south and east the long shank lay across the country for several miles to find its head in the double Round Top. Two main roads from the east came within the hook on their way to Gettysburg, the Baltimore and the Tarrytown roads, and alo