Republicans looking for a midterm lesson after November 3 are being pointed toward an army caught badly off guard. In a RedState commentary, streiff uses General U. S. Grant’s Civil War experience to frame the GOP’s political setback. The comparison centers on commanders who underestimated the danger before them, then faced the consequences when their opponent attacked. Its strongest point is not that elections resemble combat in every respect. It is that confidence offers little protection when the assumptions behind it are wrong.
The writer approaches Grant through a personal change of perspective. Raised as a Southerner admiring Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, and J.E.B. Stuart, he once regarded Grant as a commander whose advantages mattered more than his ability. With age and study, he writes, Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman became favorites instead. That reversal gives the political comparison a useful starting point: learning sometimes requires abandoning a flattering version of events. For Republicans assessing defeat, the relevant question is what their expectations failed to account for, rather than how to preserve those expectations.
The Republican Midterm Lesson Begins With Misplaced Confidence
In the account, Grant’s Army of the Tennessee was coming off victories at Forts Henry and Donelson. It was resting near Pittsburg Landing with about 48,000 men while awaiting reinforcements from General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio. The planned advance would target Corinth, Mississippi, and sever two major rail connections. Success, as the commentary describes it, would cut off Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia from supplies and reinforcements coming from the Confederacy’s southwest. Grant had an ambitious plan, but the enemy had a plan of its own.
Warnings did not persuade Grant that a major attack was imminent. He wrote, “I have scarcely the faintest idea of an attack, (general one), being made upon us but will be prepared should such a thing take place.” Sherman shared his skepticism, telling Grant, “I have no doubt that nothing will occur today more than some picket firing.” These statements matter because they show the gap between acknowledging a possibility and expecting it. Both commanders recognized that some fighting could occur. Neither statement conveyed an expectation of the assault that followed.
The Opponent Had Reasons to Move First
Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston viewed the situation differently. According to the commentary, he knew Grant’s approximate strength and understood that Buell’s arrival would change the balance against him. On April 6, he had numerical parity with Grant. By the evening of April 8, the commentary says, he would probably be outnumbered 2-1. His opportunity depended on acting before those reinforcements arrived. The broader lesson is straightforward: an opponent’s incentives may reveal dangers that confidence in one’s own position obscures.
The Confederate assault came before dawn and struck an army that was largely asleep. Yet the attack did not destroy Grant’s army. The account credits leadership at the company and regimental level with helping Union troops regroup and begin holding ground. At the area later known as the Hornet’s Nest, troops under Generals Benjamin Prentiss and W.H.L. Wallace resisted repeated assaults for hours. Their defense bought Grant time, illustrating a distinction that matters to the analogy: being surprised and suffering badly did not mean his army had ceased to function.
By late afternoon, Union forces had been pushed into a final defensive line near Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. Artillery and the gunboats USS Tyler and USS Lexington supported that position. Johnston was mortally wounded during the fighting, and P.G.T. Beauregard took command. As darkness fell, Beauregard halted the attack, believing Grant’s army was beaten and unable to escape. The day therefore contained assumptions on both sides, not merely a lesson about one commander’s failure to anticipate danger.
A Setback Is Not an Explanation
The political analogy has limits that should not be brushed aside. RedState characterizes the midterms as a bloodbath, but this commentary’s battlefield narrative does not establish why particular Republican candidates lost. It supplies no basis for assigning the result to a specific campaign tactic, policy dispute, or voter group. Those are separate questions requiring electoral evidence. The historical comparison is most useful as an argument for examining mistakes, not as a substitute for identifying them.
For Republicans, that distinction separates a useful reckoning from another round of reassuring slogans. Grant’s experience, as presented here, shows how recent victories and confident judgments can coexist with serious vulnerability. It also shows why the condition of an organization after a setback matters more than an opponent’s declaration that it is finished. Neither denial nor despair amounts to an assessment. The practical challenge is to identify which assumptions failed, determine what remains capable of working, and avoid mistaking a compelling historical analogy for a completed political diagnosis.
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RedState’s Midterm Lesson For Republicans Begins With Grant’s Army Caught Asleep
Republicans looking for a midterm lesson after November 3 are being pointed toward an army caught badly off guard. In a RedState commentary, streiff uses General U. S. Grant’s Civil War experience to frame the GOP’s political setback. The comparison centers on commanders who underestimated the danger before them, then faced the consequences when their opponent attacked. Its strongest point is not that elections resemble combat in every respect. It is that confidence offers little protection when the assumptions behind it are wrong.
The writer approaches Grant through a personal change of perspective. Raised as a Southerner admiring Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, and J.E.B. Stuart, he once regarded Grant as a commander whose advantages mattered more than his ability. With age and study, he writes, Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman became favorites instead. That reversal gives the political comparison a useful starting point: learning sometimes requires abandoning a flattering version of events. For Republicans assessing defeat, the relevant question is what their expectations failed to account for, rather than how to preserve those expectations.
The Republican Midterm Lesson Begins With Misplaced Confidence
In the account, Grant’s Army of the Tennessee was coming off victories at Forts Henry and Donelson. It was resting near Pittsburg Landing with about 48,000 men while awaiting reinforcements from General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio. The planned advance would target Corinth, Mississippi, and sever two major rail connections. Success, as the commentary describes it, would cut off Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia from supplies and reinforcements coming from the Confederacy’s southwest. Grant had an ambitious plan, but the enemy had a plan of its own.
Warnings did not persuade Grant that a major attack was imminent. He wrote, “I have scarcely the faintest idea of an attack, (general one), being made upon us but will be prepared should such a thing take place.” Sherman shared his skepticism, telling Grant, “I have no doubt that nothing will occur today more than some picket firing.” These statements matter because they show the gap between acknowledging a possibility and expecting it. Both commanders recognized that some fighting could occur. Neither statement conveyed an expectation of the assault that followed.
The Opponent Had Reasons to Move First
Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston viewed the situation differently. According to the commentary, he knew Grant’s approximate strength and understood that Buell’s arrival would change the balance against him. On April 6, he had numerical parity with Grant. By the evening of April 8, the commentary says, he would probably be outnumbered 2-1. His opportunity depended on acting before those reinforcements arrived. The broader lesson is straightforward: an opponent’s incentives may reveal dangers that confidence in one’s own position obscures.
The Confederate assault came before dawn and struck an army that was largely asleep. Yet the attack did not destroy Grant’s army. The account credits leadership at the company and regimental level with helping Union troops regroup and begin holding ground. At the area later known as the Hornet’s Nest, troops under Generals Benjamin Prentiss and W.H.L. Wallace resisted repeated assaults for hours. Their defense bought Grant time, illustrating a distinction that matters to the analogy: being surprised and suffering badly did not mean his army had ceased to function.
By late afternoon, Union forces had been pushed into a final defensive line near Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. Artillery and the gunboats USS Tyler and USS Lexington supported that position. Johnston was mortally wounded during the fighting, and P.G.T. Beauregard took command. As darkness fell, Beauregard halted the attack, believing Grant’s army was beaten and unable to escape. The day therefore contained assumptions on both sides, not merely a lesson about one commander’s failure to anticipate danger.
A Setback Is Not an Explanation
The political analogy has limits that should not be brushed aside. RedState characterizes the midterms as a bloodbath, but this commentary’s battlefield narrative does not establish why particular Republican candidates lost. It supplies no basis for assigning the result to a specific campaign tactic, policy dispute, or voter group. Those are separate questions requiring electoral evidence. The historical comparison is most useful as an argument for examining mistakes, not as a substitute for identifying them.
For Republicans, that distinction separates a useful reckoning from another round of reassuring slogans. Grant’s experience, as presented here, shows how recent victories and confident judgments can coexist with serious vulnerability. It also shows why the condition of an organization after a setback matters more than an opponent’s declaration that it is finished. Neither denial nor despair amounts to an assessment. The practical challenge is to identify which assumptions failed, determine what remains capable of working, and avoid mistaking a compelling historical analogy for a completed political diagnosis.
Source: RedState