A very gifted speaker, this Bruce, who has quite a few different topics he can speak on, even a website (civilwarbruce). Also a big baseball fan and, even better, a White Sox fan.
Well, of course, the first thing he had to say was what a poltroon was. This is not a commonly used word these days, although I would say some of our leaders might qualify for it.
A poltroon is an incompetent, lacking in morals, person.
After his talk, I would have to say it was a miracle that any generals emerged from the war as anything but a poltroon.
The U.S. Army was entirely unprepared for the Civil War. It had only four generals and 16,000 men. Even little Paraguay in South America had a larger army. Furthermore, there were only 76 officers in the U.S. Army ranking major or higher.
There would be a need for at least 1,000 generals during the war.
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There were only four generals at the start of the war:
Winfield Scott (1786-1866)
David E. Twiggs (1790-1862)
John E. Wool (1784-1869)
William S. Harney (1800-1889)
They were all quite old to say the least.
--Old Secesh
