Obiter Dicta

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“The Most Incompetent Man in the Confederacy”: John Pemberton In Over His Head

“The Most Incompetent Man in the Confederacy”: John Pemberton In Over His Head

ECW welcomes back guest author Lucas Simmons. John C. Pemberton ended the Civil War with a less-than-stellar reputation. Confederate surgeon John A. Leavy remarked after the battle of Champion Hill that his commander was either “a traitor or the most incompetent man in the Confederacy.”[1] The truth, at least to me, seems to be somewhere in the middle; he was not a traitor as he is remembered,...

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