[GHOSTRIDER AZ]

Originally Posted by vaughanwilliams

It's the Gadsden Purchase, not Gladsen, and the U.S. bought southern Arizona and a sliver of New Mexico.

I stand corrected. But it remains The United States purchase this vast area. The other consideration was the Railroad. The RR wanted the Feds to buy this corridor thru Texas to run the Rail. They obviously did not want to with the Mexican Gov with this huge investment.

The Gadsden Purchase was a big deal and expanded the Great West!

Sorry for the Typo!

[GHOSTRIDER AZ]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

I own several hundred history books and have read thousands.

Just the other night I was rereading Grant's memoirs, the part in which he relates his experiences in the Mexican War and his opinion it was one of the most unjust wars ever fought. Have you read Grant's memoirs? Good reading, the man was an incredibly lucid and elegant writer.

I did not know that. Sounds like good reading! Grant was a soldiers General and Understood war ,like Sherman did. (War is Hell!) Really goes to show that over confident Commander Officers get their Lunch handed to them.
Even Santa Anna was very overconfident and did not focus on war. He had the (At the time ) state of the art cannons and a forts along the boarder. Huge organized Army. Overlooked one detail, that cost him.

The charge pouches for his Infantry rifles were too much and they tended to explode. Not a good thing in combat.

How many Generals Did Lincoln go thru, until Grant? The Union all most lost the Civil war!

[GHOSTRIDER AZ]

[quote=TriMT7;31126227]Yeah. You're right.

The descendants of the dozens of Spaniards in Florida who were here when the United States "extorted" the land Spain stole from the Indians are just clamoring for Spanish to be an official language of Florida, huh?


Spaniards never had total control, because the European Powers understood what value Florida was. How many times did Castillo San Marcos, In St Augustine change hands? Even the Confederates understood if you control the sea you cut your enemies supply lines.
They use to run past the Union Navy Blockade and naturally this was a excellent Port.

Pirates everyone glamorizes them ,but in their small numbers they were always a threat to a English Trader Vessels or a Spaniard Gold run back to Spain.
The English Needed a Port between the Bahamas to St. Augustine to James town To link the English Colonies.

Tampa in fact was overran with Pirates on to this day they have Gasperella every spring. Every one dresses like Pirates and Wenches! But in the day Pirates were taken very seriously.

Key West has a excellent Museum.

[LordHomunculus]

@ Chelito23, Christinerica, DUNNDFRNT, Ken E, limehousemiller, miamihurricane555, New Horizons, safak, and vaughanwilliams (but seeing as how this is probably a joke thread. Screw it.)

[GHOSTRIDER AZ]

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[miamihurricane555]

I wish spain didn't sell florida so soon to the usa. I just wish it would have waited long enough for a large enough spanish population to settle there so that florida would be the quebec of the usa.

[Chava61]

No.

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by GHOSTRIDER AZ

How many Generals Did Lincoln go thru, until Grant? The Union all most lost the Civil war!

3 generals had overall command of The United States Army during the rebellion before Grant; Winfield Scott (who had captured the City of Mexico), George McClellan and Henry Halleck. Grant was made overall commander early in 1864 and decided to stay in the East where he'd be near Washington and could ride herd over Meade and the Army of the Potomac while Sherman was left the more important job of finishing the war in the West. However Sherman's army group (the Armies of the Cumberland, the Tennessee and the Ohio) had very capable army commanders in George Thomas, James McPherson and Schofield. And the Midwestern Yankees who made up those armies were tougher than the eastern Yankees and with an almost unbroken string of victories going back to 1861 (Belmont, Mill Springs, Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Cornith, Iuka, Perryville, Stones River, Pea Ridge, Vicksburg and Chattanooga) had very high morale and superb fighting spirit and considered themselves unwhippable. And the Atlanta Campaign and the subsequent Nashville Campaign and marches through Georgia and the Carolinas proved their self esteem justified.

I don't think the Union was ever close to losing the war; though progress in the Eastern theater was slow until Grant came east, in the more important Western theater (that is the operations between the mountains and the Mississippi) the Union made progress from the beginning, though sometimes in fits and starts. But by the summer of 1863 the entire Mississippi River was cleared, Kentucky and Missouri were saved for the Union and most of Tennessee was in Union hands. By the end of 1863 Chattanooga, Knoxville and eastern Tennessee (a hotbed of Unionist loyalty, over 20,000 east Tennesseans fought in the Union army) were in Union hands.

[Irishtom29]

[quote=GHOSTRIDER AZ;31129857]

Originally Posted by TriMT7

How many times did Castillo San Marcos, In St Augustine change hands?

Five. Spanish to English in 1763 at the end of the Seven Years War. Back to Spain in 1783 at the end of the War of the American Revolution. Spain to The United States in 1819. In 1861 rebels against The United States occupied the fort and in 1862 The United States retook it.

The fort was attacked and besieged twice by the English in the early 1700s but withstood both attacks. Earlier St. Augustine itself had been captured and sacked a couple of times by English and pirates, before the building of the Castilo and the city's other fortifications.

[Sunny-Days-in-Florida]

Hell no.

This is America and we speak English.

We need to stop all the pandering to non English people and force anyone who lives here to learn to read and right the language we are suppose to use.

If you cannot read or write or understand English then move out of the USA.

Gets old having to deal with our country pandering to Spanish speaking people when we have other people living here and who want to learn English so they can adapt to us instead of us adapting to them.

No more signs in my stores, no more road signs, no more menus, no more schools hiring extra teacher who speak Spanish just because the kids cannot understand anyone who speaks and teaches in English.