coberst wrote:One question that developed early in my reading was why the ordinary white citizen of the South was such a good soldier, superior to the Union soldier. Why did the ordinary southern man fight so valiantly to preserve slavery when he was not a slaveholder himself? This valiant southerner fought with very little comfort and support from the Confederacy because the Confederacy was a financially poor institution. The rebel soldier often did not even have shoes. The rebel soldier often had to find food on his own. Very little in the form of supplies were provided to the rebel army.
This is an historical myth--that it is a persistent myth in no way authorizes the contention embodied in the myth. Several examples can dispel the myth. When the garrison at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina surrendered, they did so in the face of
force majeur, with the knowledge that there would be no relief expedition which would arrive in time to either defend or evacuate them. The garrison at Fort Sumter did not surrender because the gunnery of the ad hoc forces assembled to bombard the fortress was superior, and the shattering of their brick fortress also represented the shattering of the previously held belief that brick fortresses could withstand sustained, heavy bombardment. The garrison was able to survive quite well behind their brick walls, but their guns were no longer serviceable, as their gun emplacements crumbled under the bombardment.
At Pensacola, a lieutenant of artillery, Adam Slemmer, took action immediately to secure the military stores of the place, or to destroy what could not be carried off. At the entrance to the harbor of Pensacola was another brick fortress, Fort Pickens. It had not, however, been occupied since the Mexican War. Lt. Slemmer with fewer than 100 men evacuated as much of the military stores as possible, and spiked the guns which could not be carried off. He destroyed more than 10 tons of black powder. More importantly, he did all of this in January, 1861, long before the debacle at Fort Sumter. A naval expedition eventually relieved Slemmer's tiny force, and the Federal government held onto Pensacola harbor throughout the war--denying its use to the Confederate states. However, the myth of southern military superiority has been so strong that while the disaster at Fort Sumter is commonly known, the heroic and completely successful operations of Lt. Slemmer and his small force at Pensacola is completely forgotten.
The first battle of Bull Run is held up as another example of southern superiority of arms. That is also based upon a mythic interpretation of events. On the day before the battle, when Irwin McDowell's Federal army was moving up to the banks of Bull Run, a demonstration was made at Blackburn's Ford, on the right of the Confederate line. (A demonstration is a military move to make an attack appear eminent, and to fool the enemy about one's intentions--it was actually rather successful.) Unfortunately, several batteries of artillery advanced beyond the line of Federal infantry, which was not a problem at the time, because Beauregard had no intention of crossing the ford to attack--this was unfortunate because no one took the trouble to tell the battery commanders just how idiotic that move was.
On the following day, well before dawn, almost half of McDowell's army marched upstream and crossed to attack the Confederate left. There was only a single, small brigade to oppose them. The plan was to sweep to the south and east, and to roll up the Confederate left. It came very close to success. Beauregard had already lost his nerve simply by the approach of the Federal forces. Fortunately for the southern cause, Joe Johnston was present to introduce a little sanity into the command. Even then, many brigades were marched back and forth to no purpose, a sterling example being the brigade of Thomas Jackson, which would go on to undying fame as the Stonewall brigade.
By daybreak, the Federal troops were rolling up the Confederate left like a cheap carpet. Col. Evans had fewer than 1000 troops to oppose the more than 6000 Federals who were advancing against them. Bartow and Bee were sent to reinforce the Confederate left, but they were soon involved in the same disaster. When Jackson's brigade was sent to the left, he stopped short of the road to the stone bridge, and formed a line on rising ground. The Federal plan was to push past the stone bridge, and having cleared the bridge, the remainder of McDowell's army was to have crossed the bridge to complete the destruction of Beauregard's army.
As Bee's brigade was crumbling around him, he is said to have attempted to rally his men by pointing at the hill behind them, and saying: "There stands Jackson, like a stone wall." Hence, the Stonewall Brigade and Stonewall Jackson. (Some commentators hold that Bee, who was wounded and would soon die of his wounds, spoke bitterly about Jackson's refusal to advance his brigade to aid him, saying, rather: "There stands Jackson like a damned stone wall.) Jackson's men did hold their position, although even that is somewhat disingenuous. The 33rd Virginia Battalion broke, and was obliged to counterattack with the bayonet ("Give them the bayonet" was one of Jackson's favorite orders in the heat of battle).
As the battle swirled around Jackson's brigade on the Henry House hill, more Confederate troops were arriving from the Valley of Virginia, the brigades of Joe Johnston's Army of the Valley, who literally jumped off the trains and formed up to advance on the Federal line. Now the foolishness of the day before came into play. Two Federal batteries advanced beyond the Federal infantry line to open an enfilade fire on Jackson's line. Jackson had made his men lie down, and after the 33rd Viriginia had recovered the guns they had lost, they were withdrawn and made to lie down, as well. At that point, a South Carolina regiment advanced on the Federal guns, and they were wearing their pre-war uniforms, with blue coats and light blue pants. The battery officers wanted to fire on them, but the senior battery commander present ordered them to hold their fire, insisting that they were Federal troops, despite the fact that they were advancing from the opposite direction. The Federal guns were taken, and hauled away.
As those guns were being hauled off, a Colonel who now commanded one of the two Federal divisions which had fought all day ordered them to attack the Henry House hill (the division commander, David Hunter, had been wounded earlier in the day, and the division was now in the command of the senior colonel). He ought to have waited until reinforcements could be brought over the stone bridge--but in the event, his men, tired and thirsty, nevertheless surged forward with a cheer. When they crested the rise, Jackson's men stood up, gave them a volley full in the face, and charged with the bayonet. At about the same time Colonel James Ewell Brown Stuart (who was never in his lifetime known as "Jeb") lead the First Virginia Cavalry in a charge to protect the men who were hauling off the captured Federal guns.
The Federal troops, who had fought long, hard and well for nearly 12 hours, had had enough--they broke, and they began to run. Jackson had enough sense not to pursue. Jefferson Davis, and experienced veteran of the Mexican War, soon arrived, and when James "Peter" Longstreet wanted to pursue (he had been twiddling his thumbs at Blackburn Ford all day), Davis refused to allow it. That was a good thing. One of the Federal brigade commanders was Louis Blenker, a German immigrant who had fought in the socialist uprisings in Europe in 1848, and unlike most of the "48ers," he had had experience as a commander of regular troops who had once managed to defeat the Prussians. He had kept his troops (First Brigade, Fifth Division) well in hand, and they were not involved in the rout. He formed his brigade in line across the road, and had them fix the bayonet, and form for "repel cavalry." The Confederates were as green as the Federal troops--i sincerely doubt that jaded southern troops, as disorganized by victory as the Yankees were by defeat, would have been able to break a fresh brigade kept well in hand by its commander.
On the whole, Federal troops performed well at that battle, and it was a toss-up who would win until the final counterattack by Jackson's (relatively) fresh troops against Federal troops who had been on the road or fighting since 2:00 a.m. This battle was, though, the first glimmering of the myth that southern troops were superior to Federal troops.
However, before that battle, Federal troops had driven the Confederates out of Philippi, Virginia, in an event immortalized as "the Philippi Races," because of how fast the southerners ran away. It was, arguably, the first land battle of the war. It was a small affair, but it secured the Baltimore and Ohio railroad which lead from the West (what we now call the Middle West) to Washington City. That was the opening move in McClellan's campaign in western Virginia. Ten days before the battle of Bull Run, at Rich Mountain, McClellan's subordinate, William Rosecrans, attacked the Confederates, and drove them from a strong position which would have prevented the advance of Federal troops into western Virginia. Rosecrans complained that he was not well supported, but in the event, the Confederates retreated, and the retreat turned into a rout. The immediate Confederate commander was Pegram, but his superior, Robert Garnett, hurried forward and tried to bring some organization to the retreating forces. At a river crossing east of Rich Mountain, as Rosecrans' force pursued, Garnett was killed, and Confederate military control of western Virginia collapsed entirely. Later in the year, Robert E. Lee was given command of the forces in western Virginia, and failed miserably--he was called "Granny Lee" after that campaign, and in late 1861 and early 1862, many observers thought Lee's career was over.
In the Trans-Mississippi theater, the St. Louis arsenal was threatened by southern sympathizers, but another of the German "48ers," Franz Sigel, lead German immigrants in a swift move to secure the arsenal, and earned a commission to Brigadier General. The Confederates were badly disorganized, and the only significant force was the Missouri State Guard, most of whom followed Sterling Price into Confederate service, and Ben McCulloch's Texas Rangers and Arkansas Mounted Rifles. These two men hated one another cordially, and marched north from Arkansas, refusing to speak to one another. Nathaniel Lyon was the Federal commander who had been sent to Missouri to hold the state for the Union. Franz Sigel was to have been under his command, but he sulked and continually refused to cooperate. At Wilson's Creek, south of Springfield, Missouri, Lyon attacked Price's Missouri State Guard in the early morning of August 10, 1861. Lyon had only planned to delay the Confederate advance with the attack, and did not intend to fight a full engagement. Sigel proposed to advance by a different road, and so, fatally, split the Federal force.
Lyon's men drove in the Missouri pickets, and were advancing through heavy woods, driving Price's men before them, despite the fact that Sigel's absence meant they were outnumbered. Then Lyon was killed, and the Colonel who succeeded him panicked, and withdrew his forces. Sigel did keep up his end of the bargain, and had driven in Price's cavalry, when McCulloch attacked, and Sigel (wisely under the altered circumstances), withdrew to Springfield. The battle is accounted a Confederate victory--however, significantly, it was only a tactical victory. Price and McCulloch continued to feud, and withdrew into Arkansas. The only time Missouri was seriously threatened again in the war was when Confederate troops landed from Tennessee, and were attacked by Grant in November, 1861, in the battle of Belmont, which was a draw. Grant's boys advanced, and drove the Confederates from their encampment, but then disintegrated as a fighting force as they broke up to loot the camp. John Logan of Illinois kept his regiment in hand, and would not let them enter the camp. When the Confederates counterattacked, Logan was able to hold them off while the Navy camp up to evacuate the Federal force. To the extent that the Confederates continued to hold the field, it could be accounted a Confederate victory--but the Confederate Commander in Tennesee, Gideon Pillow, withdrew from the Missouri side.
The last attempt made against Missouri was in 1862, when Earl Van Dorn advanced with Price's and McCulloch's troops. Van Dorn had been put in command because Price and McCulloch could not get along, nor agree upon operations. Federal General Curtis had advanced into Arkansas to destroy Price and McCulloch, and Van Dorn hoped to return the favor. He managed to get behind Curtis by forced marches, and was actually marching south from Missouri into Arkansas when he attacked. However, to accomplish that, he left his supply trains behind. He then split McCulloch and Price into two divisions for the attack, leaving the steep terrain feature, Pea Ridge, between the two--which meant that they could not cooperate. The ubiquitous Franz Sigel was also present, and about half of the Federal troops were German immigrants, who performed very well. McCulloch was supported by Albert Pike and Stand Watie, with their Indian troops from the Indian Territory (one day to become Oklahoma). Curtis had left only a screening force on his left, but it included artillery, and the Indians refused to face the cannon, and would not advance out of the woods into the open ground. McCulloch determined to show then there was nothing to fear, and leading a force of Texas Rangers and Arkansas Rifles on foot, was killed in the opening volley. The Indians decamped, despite Pike's and Watie's best efforts, and the Texans and Arkansans withdrew as their formations disintegrated in the absence of a competent commander. On the other flank, Price's Missouri State Guard initially advanced rapidly against the advance of Curtis's force, and cleared the wood lot around Elkhorn Tavern. But they only went in with a handful of cartridges, and when they were gone, they only had the bayonet to rely upon--and they failed. Price later claimed that Van Dorn had not told that the trains had been left behind--i doubt that. Van Dorn was later to prove that incompetence was not a fluke, but a postitive talent of his. In 1863, a doctor shot him, claiming Van Dorn had seduced his wife, and put the South of of that part of their misery.
After Belmont, Grant advanced relentlessly and took Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River. He then advanced to Dover on the Cumberland River, and besieged the only army then in Tennessee at Fort Donelson. A few weeks before the battle of Pea Ridge on the other side of the Mississippi, Gideon Pillow lead an attack out of Fort Donelson, which looked as though it might succeed, but once again, Grant's subordinates proved stubborn and capable, and Logan, William Wallace (who would die of wounds at Shiloh two months later) and Lew Wallace (whom Grant would come to hate, and blame for the retreat of the first day of Shiloh--and who would command in New Mexico after the war, where he wrote
Ben Hur) managed to stop the retreat, and counterattack, driving Pillow's troops back into Dover. The Confederate Commander at Fort Donelson, John Floyd, fresh from failure under Lee in western Virginia, sent to Grant for terms. Grant replied: "No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." Floyd, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, surrendered. Grant's bluff had worked, and the fact that it was a bluff is made clear by the fact that Nathan Beford Forrest, who, in disgust, refused to accept the terms, rode out of Fort Donelson with his troopers and anyone who would march with him, and escaped unmolested.
The real clincher on this topic, and as in these other examples, from the beginning of the war, was the victory of George Thomas at Mill Springs in January, 1862. Although Beauregard and Johnston had been victorious at Bull Run, Johnston withdrew in the Spring of 1862, and took up positions around Richmond and in the Virginia Peninsula, where McClellan would follow him to demonstrate to incompetence on a major scale was not soley a Confederate industry. In the Trans-Mississippi, Lyon had been defeated and killed at Wilson's Creek, but Price and McCulloch had been spooked, and withdrew to Arkansas. In the west of the Western theater, Grant has moved from one success to another, and was soon to encamp his army near Pittsburgh Landing, where the battle of Shiloh would take place.
That left one large Confederate army in the west, and not yet dealt with, the army of George Crittenden. His subordinate, Felix Zollicoffer, had advanced into Kentucky to Somerset, and took up a position to hold the Cumberland gap. A few months before this, a Virginian who remained loyal to the Union, George Thomas, had been sent to Lexington, Kentucky, to take command of Federal troops in that state. He found 2000 unarmed men, commanded by a naval officer, and fearing daily an attack by local residents. He made himself the squeaky wheel, and got uniforms and weapons, and grabbed four more regiments from Indiana and Ohio, and put together a small force of fewer than 5000 men, whom he trained vigorously on daily basis, and whom he held to the highest military standards. He was ordered to advance and clear the Cumberland Gap, and he did so in style. In January, 1862, when most commanders thought of winter quarters, Thomas marched on Zollicoffer's position. Zollicoffer came to the attack vigorously, and Thomas' boys stood to the work like veterans. When the lead regiments emptied their cartridge boxes, the fixed the bayonet, withdrew through the supporting line in parade ground order and filled their cartridge boxes at the supply trains, while the supports counterattacked the Confederates. The Southerners broke, Zollicoffer was killed, and Thomas pursued them relentlessly, with Crittenden only stopping when the handful of survivors reached Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
So, in the four major regions of conflict at the beginning of the war, you have two Confederate victories--Bull Run and Wilson's Creek, the result of which was that both of those Confederate armies retreated to the south and abandoned the ground they had defended. In Kentucky and Tennessee, they were defeated and driven deep into Tennessee.
The "superiority" of Southerners as soldiers in the American Civil War is a myth. All the troops on both sides were Americans, and as such, they made good soldiers when well-lead and well-supported, and ran away when their commanders were incompetent, or when the couldn't be supplied and fed. No surprises there.
Given that the initial premise is flawed, i see no good reason to pursue the rest of your thesis.
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