Earl van Dorn survives

[Melvin Loh]

Confederate gen Earl Van Dorn was 1 of the South's ablest cavalry leaders, conducting a highly successful guerilla op against Union forces in Mississippi, including at the Honey Springs engagement (1862), but his womanising proved to be his downfall, when the husband of his lover (can't recall her real name, but her nickname was Buck) shot him dead after confronting him with his wife's affair with the gen, and being insulted by Van Dorn. WI Van Dorn hadn't been murdered by the aggrieved husband ? Could the Confederacy have had him as another outstanding hero on a par with the likes of Nathan Bedford Forrest ?

 

[robertp6165]

Confederate gen Earl Van Dorn was 1 of the South's ablest cavalry leaders, conducting a highly successful guerilla op against Union forces in Mississippi, including at the Honey Springs engagement (1862), but his womanising proved to be his downfall, when the husband of his lover (can't recall her real name, but her nickname was Buck) shot him dead after confronting him with his wife's affair with the gen, and being insulted by Van Dorn. WI Van Dorn hadn't been murdered by the aggrieved husband ? Could the Confederacy have had him as another outstanding hero on a par with the likes of Nathan Bedford Forrest ?

I have to doubt it. Van Dorn held a variety of commands through the war, and the ONLY time he was ever successful was the operation at Holly Springs. Given that track record, I tend to think that this was a fluke and not an indication of any great ability on Van Dorn's part.