Ok, SouthernFriedLibEater, if you want a 2nd Civil War so bad, stop posting on Parler and read this thread about Braxton Bragg pissing away the Battle of Stones River. And don’t skip the part about the frozen corpses; wouldn’t wanna think you weren't fully reckoning with history.

When we left Tennessee on New Year’s Eve 1862, Bragg’s Rebels had driven the Federals 3 miles after a dawn attack. There was a lull on New Year’s to gather the dead, and a disastrous Rebel assault the following afternoon that cost 1,800 men in an hour. https://twitter.com/CivilWarHumor/status/1344806861464170496

Although Bragg had told Richmond, “God has granted us a happy New Year,” by Jan. 3, like the sun rising in the East, like a ground ball through Bill Buckner’s legs, like a hapless guy in a YOU HAD ONE JOB meme, like a Giuliani fart lighting up a courtroom, Bragg was gonna Bragg.

Several of his generals took the unusual step of writing to Bragg to say the army should promptly retreat. Employing the kind of kid-speak Fox News does when it gently explains to Trump that he lost, they told the raging narcissist, no, HE wasn’t the problem -- his officers were!

So Bragg’s first excuse was the army was too tired to fight. When that argument didn’t fly with everyone, he claimed the Union was reinforced. (Nope -- Reb cavalry had misinterpreted the comings and goings of Federal wagons as preparation for retreat, instead of resupply. Oops.)

In his memoirs, Gen St. John Richardson Liddell said: “Some of the men familiarly called out to me, ‘What’s up now, General?’ I answered impatiently, ‘Ask Gen. Bragg.’ They saw the hidden meaning and said, ‘Well, boys, retreat again. All our hard fighting thrown away, as usual.’”

Bragg’s initial success made his decision to retreat (only 3 days after occupying the “whole field,” in his words) a tough one to swallow for his soldiers, Richmond, and the Southern press. Headlines branded him a liar and accused him of being in over his head. (Huh. Imagine.)

See, Stones River shook the South -- it had the highest percentage of casualties on both sides of any Civil War battle; the freezing conditions made aiding the wounded even more difficult. Yes, there were acts of mercy, but soldiers also got captured trying to help fallen foes.

One Federal spoke of corpses “appearing as if their last moments had been spent in extreme pain -- eyes open, and apparently ready to jump from their sockets; hands grasping some portion of their garments and their features all distorted and changed. It was a sickening sight.”

In the wake of this, Bragg met his staff and said, “Ok, I know I’m not the most popular guy in the South--”
“Not even close.”
“But until you say I’ve lost the confidence of the army--”
“You’ve lost the confidence of the Army.”
“And make me a diagram--”
“WE MADE YOU A DIAGRAM.”

STILL NOT CONVINCED by his inner circle, Bragg wrote what the great historian Peter Cozzens calls “perhaps the most incredible document addressed by a commander to his lieutenants during the war” -- and that’s saying something, cuz remember, McClellan had his OWN LETTERHEAD!!!

Bragg sent a circular letter (the 1800s version of a chain email) to his generals asking, in essence, if they thought he was doing a good job. Was the retreat the wrong decision? Was he REALLY that incompetent?

(Don’t look for this move in Sun Tzu’s Art of War; it’s not there.)

Bragg was surprised when the response came back telling him, yeah, you’re TERRIBLE -- you should quit. It might be the first time in the history of Employee Reviews where a boss called a meeting to get ideas to boost morale and his subordinates said: “Here’s one: Fire yourself.”

Jeff Davis, displaying his Knicks-like genius for personnel moves, let Bragg stay on. But even he said: “Why Bragg should have elected that tribunal and invited judgment upon him is to me unexplained.”

But “thinking through the consequences” has never been a big Secesh trait ...