Elizabeth Goudge Quotes
All we are asked to bear we can bear.
Goudge, Elizabeth. The Scent of Water. Coward-McCann, 1963.
Actually this is an ancient Roman Proverb.
The South could not replenish their lost arms and munitions nor could they replace most of the men wounded, killed or taken prisoner. The Union could do both. Therefore as long as the Union army inflicted casualties, it mattered little who won which battle as long as the fighting was in the South. This critical strategic reality was never appreciated by the Union Generals who were generally reluctant to take large casualties. When Grant and Sherman finally were able to set the strategy of attrition in operation, the Union actually won most of the battles though he and Grant took very high casualties. The casualties of the Confederates were generally higher but they did not have to be for the Union to win. The Civil War was a strategic form of suicide. Ironically, at a few points the rebellion might have succeeded because of the incompetent and timid Union military leadership at the beginning of the war.
Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge FRSL was a British author of novels, short stories and children's books. She won the Carnegie Medal for British children's books in 1946 for The Little White Horse. Goudge was a popular author in both the UK and the US from the 1930s to the 1970s. She regained attention decades later. In 1993 her book The Rosemary Tree was plagiarised by Indrani Aikath-Gyaltsen; the "new" novel set in India was warmly reviewed in The New York Times and The Washington Post before its source was discovered. In 2001 or 2002 J. K. Rowling identified The Little White Horse as one of her favourite books and one of few with a direct influence on the Harry Potter series.
