The Devil's Own Day

Just after dawn on Sunday, April 6th, 1862, a patrol of bluecoats from the Army of Tennessee discovered a sobering fact:

The Confederate Army, which they thought was still located near Corinth, Mississippi, was actually only about two miles south. Over 40,000 troops from the Army of Mississippi had marched through heavy rains and mud to confront the Yankees near Pittsburg Landing.

It would forever be remembered as the Battle of Shiloh.

Caught completely off-guard, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was 20 miles away meeting with Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell whose Army of the Ohio was coming down to reinforce Grant’s but the rains and mud had slowed his forces.

General Johnston of the Confederates struck before the Yankees knew what hit them.

The Battle of Shiloh was a horrifically bloody affair and demonstrated to both sides that the war would be far longer and more costly than either had realized. Over 23,000 casualties would be recorded through only two days of fighting.

April 6th was terrible for the Union Army. First, they were surprised, then pushed back, and ultimately beaten badly. Though they would ultimately win on the 7th, the nature of the surprise and the brutality of the damage made headlines. The newspapers were not kind to Grant afterward. There were numerous calls for his resignation due to the blunder and he was reassigned.

On the evening of the 6th, a battle-weary Grant had retreated away from the tent to escape the screams of the wounded calling for water and aid, and the sounds of the hogs who were feeding on the dead. He sat alone beneath a tree, chewing on the remnants of a cigar that had been soaked through by the rain.

His friend, Brig. Gen William Tecumseh Sherman, found him there, isolated and grim.

“Well, Grant,” Sherman said with a heavy sigh and a shake of his head, “we’ve had the devil’s own day, haven’t we?”

“Yes,” replied Grant, “lick ’em tomorrow, though.”

November 25th, 2024 will be a day remembered as the day the American justice system abdicated its duties. Whether that’s fair or not or whether Merrick Garland, Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, Leticia James, or anyone else who has struggled to bring Trump to account could have done more or done things differently or moved faster or more strategically? I’ll leave all those questions up to those with the legal expertise to answer them.

The cold, hard fact is that Donald Trump committed a myriad of crimes, from falsifying business records to illegally retaining classified documents, allegedly selling that information (or at least making it available to those who could reward him), and attempted election fraud and subversion. The tape of him requesting Georgia officials to find him 11,780 more votes is a matter of public record.

Yet none of it was enough.

Whether it was the foreign influence campaigns, the domestic influence campaigns, disagreements on policy or procedure, or meddling by SCOTUS, the government could not hold Trump accountable for the criminality it alleged he engaged in.

The cases were dismissed in a way that allows them to be brought again after Trump’s term ends, and Jack Smith will likely write a report about the investigation which Garland could then choose to make public (I’m not holding my breath on that one).

However, a loss is a loss and this loss stung.

Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, said in 2023 a Trump return to the White House would mean investigations into those who attempted to prosecute him:

If such investigations occurred, they would mean testimony, perhaps before Congress, by Smith and his team. That testimony would give them an opportunity to discuss the facts of the case in a public venue. Would it mean Trump held criminally accountable? No, but revealing his misdeeds before the entire nation would be satisfying for those of us who are frustrated by a lack of such.

No one is above the law, even if current conditions allow some to skirt consequences.