Historical parallels are always there for the thoughtful. Consider a key turning point for each of two former US presidents.

Union General Ulysses S. Grant crossed the Rapidan River in Virginia on 4 May 1864 – 157 years ago this very week – to commence the Overland Campaign in order to engage and destroy Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in a series of bloody battles that ended on 12 June when the siege of Petersburg began.

With the stakes equally high for the country, Donald Trump crossed his own Rapidan to commence his version of the Overland Campaign when he started down that escalator on 15 June 2015 and declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. This past Monday, that campaign continued with the latest battle as he labeled the 2020 election “The Big Lie.”

Some would say this is over-the-top hyperbole. I think not. Let us examine the parallels.

Grant developed a reputation for dogged determination and tenacity – honed in capturing heavily fortified Vicksburg, MS, in July 1863 and later at Missionary Ridge in Tennessee in November 1863 – but also for ingenuity in the use of maneuver warfare and op tempo, the delegation of authority to subordinates, battlefield improvisation, and a genius-level understanding of the strategic and operational levels of 19th-century warfare.

The Overland Campaign was his first major operation after having been appointed commander of all Union armies by President Lincoln in March 1964. The strategy he developed involved continually holding and engaging Lee’s sizeable but inferior army while Gen. William T. Sherman cut through Georgia (which eventually became the “March to the Sea”), and two other Union generals concentrated on the key Confederate port at Mobile, AL, and major railway supply lines in West Virginian. The strategic objective was to attrite Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia while destroying the Confederate army’s logistics resupply capability and ability to wage war.