Me and Lee

My birthday is April 10th. Of historical interest, Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9th, 1865. On April 10th, he issued General Order No. 9, his farewell to the Army of Northern Virginia. In it, Lee stated he wished to “avoid useless sacrifice”, which has given rise to my birthday wish this year. 

On April 9th, 1865, when Lee surrendered, Grant’s generosity set the stage for a peaceful ending to the four years of carnage. He allowed southern soldiers to take their horses home with them to use on their farms, and officers to keep their side arms. Rather than imprison the Confederates, he paroled them, as long as they individually pledged not to take arms up against the Union. He immediately issued 25,000 rations to the starving southern forces. When Union soldiers began firing a 100-gun salute in celebration, Grant ordered them to stop, saying, “The Confederates were now our prisoners, and we did not want to exult over their downfall.”

 On April 10th, Lee issued General Order #9 and spoke briefly with his troops before releasing them. Buried in the middle of the order was this: 

“I need not tell the brave survivors of so many hard fought battles who have remained steadfast to the last that I have consented to this result from no distrust of them; but feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that would compensate for the loss that would have attended the continuance of the contest, I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice.”

“I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice”

 The thing is, Lee knew it was time and more deaths would only delay the inevitable. And Grant knew it was not a time to exult. Not there. Not with so many dead and dying over the previous months and years on both sides.

 The American Civil War was the costliest conflict in U.S. history. It is estimated between 620,000 and 750,000 American soldiers died. This was, of course, because Americans were on both sides of the conflict. That total exceeds the United States fatalities of World War I and World War II combined.

Since WWII, we have had soldiers wounded or killed in Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, Panama, Granada, Kosovo, Somalia, Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Global War on Terror, and any number of other conflicts around the world.

 There were compelling causes among many of those operations, particularly at the start of them. As each of the conflicts eventually wound down, which of those deaths became “useless sacrifices” at the end of those struggles? I don’t know. I wouldn’t pretend to know. As a veteran and an American, I wish I knew.

I think about all those deaths on all those battlefields. So did Senator John Kerry, thirteen years before he was elected to the Senate. During the Vietnam War, on April 22, 1971, while speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a representative of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, he said “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”  

106 years before Kerry asked his question, Lee made a decision and already had his own answer – he was “determined to avoid the useless sacrifice.”

Currently, we have American men and women in harm’s way once again. Thirteen have died so far in Iran, with over 370 wounded. I expect Trump will declare “victory” at some point, whatever that means, and we will depart the area surrounding Iran. Will the world be a safer place? Will we Americans be in a safer place? Most of us know Trump will not have declared victory to avoid additional useless sacrifice on the part of our Armed Forces. He will have declared victory for reasons of political expediency. 

This year for my birthday on April 10th, I am not asking for any gifts, or donations to charity on my behalf, or even well wishes. If you want to honor my birthday this year, reflect on our current actions in the Middle East and say a small prayer for those deployed. We do not need more sacrifices on the alter of Trump’s ego. Lee already knew that 161 years ago, but it is something the current administration seemingly fails to grasp.

Addendum:

I have written three previous blogs concerning the war with Iran. You can read them here:

• Last Tuesday I filled my F250 pickup truck with diesel. Well actually, I didn’t fill it up. The gas pump shut off automatically when it reached $100.00. That was 20 gallons of fuel at $4.99/gallon. I was lucky. The next day, diesel was up to $5.49 at the same station […] Continue here: https://maxnhall.com/2026/03/29/fill-er-up/
• On March 9th of last week, Adam Ray would have turned 40. Adam was the son of my West Point classmate Jim and his wife Donna. He was killed in Afghanistan on February 9th, 2010, one month shy of his 24th birthday. The administration’s cavalier attitude about the current war with Iran is raising old ghosts from […] Continue here: https://maxnhall.com/2026/03/15/adam/
• The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties. That often happens in war”, said our president about our latest attack on Iran. That often happens in War? Could he be more tone deaf? […] Continue here: https://maxnhall.com/2026/02/28/that-often-happens-in-war/