Seeing different things in disaster

 Yesterday’s note on the March of the Ten Thousand was about how people handle disaster.

Today’s note is about perspective. Alexander the Great looked at the story of the Greek mercenaries who fought with Cyrus and didn’t see a story of disaster. He saw possibilities.

Alexander saw that the Persian Empire, great as it was, was weaker than people supposed. The story of the Anabasis, in his mind, proved that a relatively small number of soldiers, marching as a disciplined, organized unit, could fight their way in and out of the vast empire, even though greatly outnumbered.

Why would anyone do that?

The empire was fabulously wealthy.

Alexander’s perspective on the story of disaster reminds me of U.S. Grant’s take on another “disaster” during the Civil War.

The rebels were dug in at Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia. Armies fought in lines in those days, often two or three ranks deep. But a young colonel in the Union Army named Emory Upton hit on the idea of stacking regiments one behind the other. What if the attack came at 20 ranks deep on a narrow front? The front lines would suffer terribly, of course. But the following ranks would fill the gaps and keep coming.

Upton talked the idea up until the high command bought it. A reinforced brigade of about 4,000 men punched a hole in the rebel lines. The Confederates barely contained the damage. Just barely, the rebels drove the attackers back.

The Union forces suffered heavy casualties, and there was a lot of criticism of Upton.

Grant saw the potential of the idea.

“A brigade today, we’ll try a corps tomorrow,” he said.

He reasoned that if the Confederates could just barely handle such an attack by 4,000, they’d crumble if hit by 20,000.

He was right.