Peter Pace Quotes
There has not yet been a major ground offensive battle... There are, we know, negotiations going on between the opposition forces and the Taliban leadership for surrender.
Pace, Peter. Department of Defense News Briefing. United States Department of Defense, 20 Nov. 2001.
When Confederate General Simon Bolivar Buckner suggested a negotiated surrender of Fort Donaldson, which protected Nashville, TN, his West Point classmate and friend wired back:
Lee was trying to negotiate a peace treaty as a part of his his potential surrender. However, Grant would not be drawn into that, Lee was NOT the government of the Confederacy, and Grant had served with him earlier in the Mexican War and knew he was not a fanatic on teh subject of slavery and race as most of the Southern leaders were. They werenthe ones who would have to be captured or driven to surrender. Grant could have gotten authoirioty as he was in almost real time contact with President Lincoln by telegraph. However, neither wanted to negotiate peace with Lee. Instead, Grant gave Lee and his men incredibly gracious termsof surrender which he and Lincoln hoped would casue the avarage Southern soldiers to feel better about surrender for although Lee's was the largest Confederate Army, there were still others out there that had to be dealt with,
General Grant had the fort surrounded and the confederate general hoped to surrender the fort and allow him and his men to leave to fight again some other day. This was often agreed to so the military objective would be gained without the casualties of a battle. However, Grant and Lincoln did not simply want to gain forts and territory. They wanted to end the war. Those Confederates who survived the battle were taken prisoner and were out of the fight.
He was exactly right. Two decades later Germany had started WWII.
Peter Pace is a retired United States Marine Corps general who served as the 16th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Pace was the first Marine officer appointed as chairman, and the first Marine officer to be appointed to three different four-star assignments; the others as the 6th Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1, 2001, to August 12, 2005, and as Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Southern Command from September 8, 2000, to September 30, 2001. Appointed chairman by President George W. Bush, Pace succeeded U.S. Air Force General Richard Myers on September 30, 2005.
