I would like to reprise my comments about Lee and Grant which i once posted at Abuzz. One of the members there, who was rather condescending and claimed to be a working historian came into the thread and disparaged my remarks, but when i asked him to respond to them point by point, he said he had some history to write and disappeared from the thread. I was unimpressed.
Robert Lee
One of the English historians (AJP Taylor, i believe, although i don't recall for certain) said that the Confederacy should just have assembled a
Grand Armée in Chattanooga and then have marched into the "old" Midwest of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois, and thereby cripple the Federal war effort (which it assuredly would have done). It has been pointed out that the North could simply have assembled their own Grand Army, of larger size and better equipment, and confronted them in the field. I consider that a good response to that nonsense.
However, the point has been made that by attempting a strategic area defense, the South squandered many of its resources defending places which were not under attack. This criticism was advanced as early as the 1870s. A former Federal staff officer (i don't recall his name--i read his paper in a collection of contemporary critiques of the conduct of the war) pointed this out, and used as an example the 15,000 troops who sat out the war in Florida, a state which the Federals made no attempt to take and hold (one small invasion was repelled, and the effort was abandoned), and for which there was no reason to invade and occupy. I believe that Lee saw the foolishness of this policy. For example, Governor Brown of Georgia had 40,000 stand of muskets and and equal number of uniforms and pairs of boots which were never used by the South, and which Sherman looted and burned when he took Milledgeville in 1864.
When Lee was in disgrace as a field commander (after Cheat Mountain), he was Davis' military adviser. It was Lee who advised Albert Sidney Johnston to strip the Gulf coast of garrisons to create an army to attack Grant--just one of the reasons i think Lee understood the strategic situation. Johnston did attack at Shiloh, and on paper, his army was only a little smaller--42,000 as opposed to 44,000. But Grant's third division, under the command of Lew Wallace (author of
Ben Hur), the largest with 7,000 men, was miles to the north of the battlefield. Wallace immediately began marching to the sound of the guns, and would have come to a bridge over Owl Creek, in the rear of the Confederate attack. But Grant's aides insisted that he reverse his march, and come down by the road along the Tennessee River. Wallace had already done his scouting, as a competent commander should, and he considered that an idiotic order for someone not on the spot (i agree). So, in a fit of pique, he reversed his entire division in the road, and marched back to his encampment, and then marched down to Pittsburgh Landing, arriving well after night fall.
Therefore, Johnston actually only faced 35,000 effectives, and those scattered across miles of rough terrain. The Confederates, with little more experience than their Federal counterparts, rolled up the enemy everwhere. Of course, Confederate officers did their damnest to ruin things. Braxton Bragg (did i mention Bragg?), for example, sent his three divisions in to attack "the Hornet's Nest" at the sunken road, one brigade at a time, each brigade unsupported. The Confederates managed to run off or capture the defenders, though, despite Bragg's best efforts. Just as the 2000 captives were being rounded up, and after Johnston had sent his surgeon to look after Federal wounded, he was hit behind the knee by a spent musket ball which did little damage. However, he bled to death, because there was no one there with a knowledge of tourniquets. The command then devolved on our good buddy, Beauregard. Like Sibley in New Mexico, Beauregard managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory--the one remaining Confederate brigade which had not yet been engaged, Johnson from Bragg's corps, was preparing to attack the line of guns protecting Pittsburgh landing when Beauregard called off the attack. Overnight, Wallace arrived with his division of 7000 men, and the advance of Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio arrived, when William "Bull" Nelson ferried his monster division of 10,000 over the river just after nightfall (Ambrose Bierce was in that army, and describes the nightmare march Buell's army made to come to Grant's aid). The outcome was in no doubt the next day (Bierce describes a part of that action, too).
So, to me, not only did Lee understand the strategic necessities, but in the case of Johnston's last campaign, his doctrine was justified. However, one of the best friends of the North, P. G. T. Beauregard was there to save Grant's career. It was also Lee who suggested that as Ben McCulloch (Texas Rangers, Arkansas Mounted Rifles) and Sterling Price (Missouri Stage Guard) had proven they could not get along and work together, someone else should be given overall command, and sent to attack the Federals in Missouri. Unfortunately, the choice fell on Earl Van Dorn, who was one of those commanders who froze when entrusted with any formation larger than a brigade. All his presence did was to force Price and McCulloch to fight in the same army, without enforcing any cooperation on them. The battle of Pea Ridge proved this, as Pea Ridge itself separated McCulloch and Price, and when McCulloch was killed, and Albert Pike's Cherokee ran from Federal artillery, Curtis was able to concentrate on defending his small force from Price's attack. Van Dorn's presence had done nothing to improve the logistics of this force (their logistics were non-existent), and Price's men went into the battle with just 8 rounds in their cartridge boxes. They took the woodlot at Elkhorn Tavern with the bayonet, and forced Curtis to retreat, but when Franz Sigel came up, Curtis was able to form another line.
Van Dorn decided he should retreat. He had marched around Curtis and was attacking from the north, which meant that Curtis had to turn and face north to defend himself. This meant, essentially, that both armies had cut off the communications of their opponents before the battle began. However, Curtis was well-supplied, and he successfully defended his trains even when his line was thrown back in confusion by the Missouri State Guard. Van Dorn had arrived without his trains, and without even basic supplies. The men had been issued three days rations for the march, two days before the battle. Most of the army had no ammunition and no food. Stand Watie launched a cavalry charge to discourage Curtis from attacking during the retreat (completely unnecessary--Curtis had no intention of going anywhere near those nasty, violent men), and the Missouri State Guard trudged off. Van Dorn was probably justified in retreating, but a modicum of military competence should have allowed him to deal with Curtis pretty swiftly.
There are other, smaller examples, but overall, i would say Lee's record while the adviser to Davis shows he well understood the military necessities of the strategic situation.
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I have said that i rate Joe Johnston over Lee, and i continue to do so. However, i think that precisely because Johnston was so competent, and understood the overall situation, he was usually paralyzed when faced with action. This should not detract, however, from his accomplishments. If he had not been at Manassass when Beauregard lost his nerve, i think McDowell would have run right over the Confederates. He also handled the retreat from Fortress Monroe to Richmond brilliantly--"Prince" John Magruder convinced McClellan that he faced a large and dangerous force. That was not a difficult accomplishment, because McClellan always took counsel of his fears--but it didn't happen to be true. By the time Jubal Early showed his tactical ineptitude at Williamsburg, Johnston's army had already escaped McClellan's feeble clutches. (A young staff officer once began a report to Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson by saying: "General, i fear . . . ", at which point Jackson interrupted to say: "Never take counsel of your fears, son.")
Johnston was defending Richmond with about 70,000, and McClellan had an army of 130,000 available to him, and the initiative. Davis finally prevailed upon Johnston to attack, which he did along the Nine Mile Road in the battle which became known as Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines. It was not a bad plan, but Johnston's belief that McClellan could reinforce his line more quickly and with more men was justified. Johnston was badly wounded, and Gustavus Smith took command, and proved that no Southern officer could take the palm from him when it came ordering useless slaughter.
It was after Seven Pines that Lee took command of the army, which he immediately began referring to as the Army of Northern Virginia. Using his excellent strategic sense, he called on Jackson to come to Richmond to join him with his Army of the Valley (in Virginia at the time, "the Valley" or "the Valley of Virginia" meant the Shenandoah Valley), as soon as he could disengage. Jackson concluded his brilliant Valley campaign of 1862 with the twin battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic (the latter a somewhat useless slaughter because he failed to keep control of his forces, but it achieved the purpose of convincing General Shields to retreat, and join his forces with John Frémont, who had been mauled at Cross Keys, after failing to trap Jackson because of sterling incompetence (Frémont was working very hard to end his military career, and he succeeded in the fiasco in the Valley). Jackson was able to evacuate all of the literally millions of dollars of Federal stores, including badly needed medical supplies, which he had captured at Harper's Ferry, and to disengage his army and put them on the march and "on the cars" (the railroad) for Richmond. Jackson had his men march along, with a train carrying about a third of his force. The train would deposit that part of the force, which would then begin marching at the head of the army, and the train would back up to pick up the troops at the rear. He managed to bring his men over the mountains and 100 miles from the mountain passes with all the captured supplies, their stores and their wounded and hospital and supply trains in just ten days--a remarkable accomplishment in those days.
Lee was now in a position to attack. When Johnston had attacked at Seven Pines, two corps of McClellan's army were across the Chickahominy River. McClellan had mended his line, but the result was that Fitz John Porter now commanded about a third of McClellan's army on the other side of the Chickahominy. To correct the error of having too small a force west of the Chickahominy, McClellan had moved most of his army, and left too small a force on the east side of the river. With reinforcements from North Carolina, and the arrival of Jackson, Lee was in a position to throw as many as 70,000 (some people say 80,000) men at McClellan and still keep about 15,000 or 20,000 in the trenches before Richmond.
Lee, whose strategic vision was undoubtedly clear and acute, now began to demonstrate his operational failings. Lee never maintained an adequate staff--he had fewer staff officers than most brigade commanders, although he commanded the largest army in Confederate service. This did not mean that he was not competent about engineering (which in the army begins with reconnaissance, and ends with reconnaissance), he had entered the Corps of Engineers after leaving the USMA at West Point, and had been Winfield Scott's chief staff engineer in the invasion of Mexico. So he called in James Ewell Brown Stuart (whom absolutely
nobody called "Jeb") and told him that he wanted him to do a reconnaissance of Porter's position north and east of the Chickahominy. Stuart immediately began dreaming of glory, and when he suggested a vainglorious and unnecessary "ride around McClellan," Lee attempted to discourage him.
Which leads us to the second significant flaw in Lee's conduct as the commander of an army. He simply could not bring himself to criticize or discipline his officers, attempted to resolve personality conflicts as though dealing with a minor quarrel among friends, and adopted a "what's done is done" attitude when his subordinates did not do what had been ordered, or disobeyed orders. His orders to Stuart, written in his own hand, were very clear about what was expected of him:
Quote:You will return as soon as the object of your expedition is accomplished, and you must bear constantly in mind, while endeavoring to execute the general purpose of your mission, not to hazard unnecessarily your command or to attempt what your judgment may not approve; but be content to accomplish all the good you can without feeling it necessary to obtain all that might be desired. I recommend that you take only such men as can stand the expedition, and that you take every means in your power to save and cherish those you take. You must leave sufficient cavalry here for the service of this army, and remember that one of the chief objects of your expedition is to gain intelligence for the guidance of future operations. . . . Should you find upon investigation that the enemy is moving to his right [i.e., to the north, toward Porter's position], or is so strongly posted as to render your expedition inopportune--as its success, in my opinion, depends upon its secrecy--you will, after gaining all the information you can, resume your former position.
(From Freeman's
Lee's Lieutenants, in which Freeman does not criticize either Stuart or Lee, as i will do.)
Lee's notion of secrecy and Stuart's cannot reasonably be said to have been consonant. Stuart took 1500 troopers and a section of horse artillery, for what was to have been a reconnaissance of the right (northern) flank of McClellan's army. And he rode completely around McClellan's army. He discovered that the Federals were evacuating their supply base at White House (a Lee property which he had inherited from his father-in-law and given to his son) on the Pamunkey River, and moving their base south to the James River. He also tipped his hand, badly. McClellan was already badly spooked, especially after Johnston's attack. Alan Pinkerton had been telling him that there were 200,000 Confederates in Richmond (no record remains of the source or sources upon which Pinkerton based this fantasy), and McClellan believed what he was disposed to believe--that he was badly outnumbered and that Johnston (he did not yet know Lee had taken over, which certainly would not have consoled him) could attack with superior force and still leave the Richmond defenses well manned.
Lee never criticized Stuart's silly ride around McClellan, although his refusal to discuss it with William Preston Johnston after the war speaks volumes. Stuart was dead, and Lee was loathe to speak ill of the living, never mind the dead. But McClellan was working up a slow but effective panic, and consulting with those of his favorite high-ranking officers who were inclined to agree with him that they were in an impossible position. By the time Lee was to launch his attack, McClellan had already switched his base to James River, and Porter was preparing to evacuate his position north of the Chickahominy when the first suicidal attack was launched.
More later . . .
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