Arisen

As my plan for an early bedtime has been dashed, I may as well post...I have returned to the film list.  I watched "Salesmen" on TCM last night, a 1969 documentary about door-to-door Bible salesmen.  Interesting; the film was not too bad, but the look at life and society (How trusting!) back in the day was fascinating.  Tonight I watched "Fargo," which I had seen in bits and pieces over the years.  I liked it -- the accents were cloying -- but I am not sure it is as wonderful as everyone says; not that it is not a very good film.

I am reading Steere's Wilderness Campaign, which -- as you can tell -- is an account of the battle; what I like about it is 1) How he breaks down, unit-by-unit, what happened every day; and 2) His careful assessment of the battle in this view.  He ties together Grant's main objective -- crushing Lee's army -- and the tactical accounts to show that Grant actually had a good plan to destroy Lee, but due to faulty (non-existent) staff work, the terrain, HQ confusion, and some good fighting by the A.N.V., he couldn't pull it off.  The author was a WWI veteran, and thus had some experience of the fog of war; I think that experience underlies many of his assertions and theories as to what happened.