One of the few ground rules observed with equal fervor by editorial writers and politicians is that the Civil War is about as amenable to levity as motherhood. It was a reasonably calculated risk for President Eisenhower to call Confederate General Jeb Stuart a headline hunter, and for Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery to label Pickett's charge as ''monstrous." But when Ike and Monty jocularly agreed that Generals Lee and Meade should have been ''sacked'' for their blunders at Gettysburg (TIME, May 20). they committed themselves irrevocably to battle.
Southern editors raced to combat with rebel yells and a battery of 105-mm. inkpots....
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