This is from PunditWatch, today:
Advice from Jim Lehrer
The News Hour host was asked on Capital Gang about the debate over Iraq:
Well, I think everybody should always remember that wars are fought by real people, eyeball to eyeball, and that they bleed and they scream and they die, and as long as everybody who’s making the decisions remembers that, then we’re going to be always OK.
Hey Jim…commanders of the Army of the Potomac being frightened of casualties is what kept the Army of Northern Virginia in the field for the better part of the Civil War. Lincoln called this an unwillingness to face “the arithmetic”, viz., the fact that casualties between North and South could rarely be considered 1 to 1. Every Confederate casualty was equivalent to two Union casualties, and sometimes more, right from the start, because the South didn’t have anywhere near the male population of the North to draw replacements from (especially since they wouldn’t consider arming slaves). While I’m sure Grant was no more happy about casualties per se than any of his predecessors, he understood that they were necessary in order to bleed the Confederates down to the point where they would have to surrender. And he still got elected President (which was McClellan’s failed ambition). If Grant had been in command of the Army of the Potomac from the start, First Manassas might have happened, but I sincerely doubt Second Manassas would have.
And now I must go pick my wife up at the airport. Ciao!