My mention of it was in reference to Lee's consideration of ordering forces to engage in it *after* formal surrender. It would have been very much like a VC scenario, or the modern day iraqi insurgency.

Ah. Robert E. Lee was way to much of a "gentleman" to do that. This is a man of loyalty who did not even want to fight for the South, but did so, because he state left the Union. A play like this would not be in his playback. He faught hard, and admitted defeat when he knew the war was lost. I suspect he did not even consider this idea, given his personality.

Not only did he consider it, but he said in correspondence much later that had he known what was in store (reconstruction etc) he would have gone ahead with that plan.

Hmm.. I shouldn't have said he didnt consider it.. I just meant i don't think he would have done it.

To the contrary, my poker analogy was a very apt one. Just as a poker hand is composed of several streets of action, so too battles. When things start out good and go bad you need to cut your losses and run. And lol at saying realizing something is a mistake and foolhardily going ahead anyway doesn't make it a larger mistake. His losses at the point of his decision to charge the entrenched federal positions on the 3rd day were way way less than what he ended up suffering. And realizing the mistake and carrying it out anyway, especially despite sound counter advice does magnify it meta terms.



Again good plans that go awry, and the reasons don't matter. Lee had good plans and when something went wrong resorted to frontal assaults.



You are continuing to ignore something very important. It does not matter if Lee was able to wage a battle and win, if the *cost was too high*. He could not afford attrition as the North could. So the bottom line is he needed to choose battles where the cost wasn't likely to be high, and where he could reap other fruits.



"until afterwards" - that is still being dismissive. That he might have had a good plan to begin with doesn't change the wrongness of sticking to sound tactics when something goes bad. And even if in my first post I only listed one specific example of Gettysburg as to frontal assaults, I gave more later which you are ignoring.



The contrarian/revisionism really started in the South after the CW. Lee was widely liked and admired. That is a positive trait in a general, i.e. being able to instill confidence and a willingness to follow. But it must be coupled with sound strategy and tactics.

You really think so? I mean I know all the AC under-issues here, but isn't it more likely that Sherman would've still been highly effective.

The man to whom "If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking." is attributed or President Lincoln, who made it clear he would perserve the Union at all costs, would've given up so easily?

Cody

Wrong. Burnside asked for a truce, ostensibly to attend to wounded, and *Lee agreed*. The next day Burnside withdrew across the Rapahannock. Lee did not have to allow that to happen, and any army crossing a river is severely exposed.


Look I am not saying that Lee could not win battles, even though a lot of that was due to the stupidity of Union generals. But you are saying that Lee could not follow up in any way on Chancellorsville, where he did indeed defeat a larger force. But just as with Fredericksburg, Union forces had their backs to a river and had to recross same to get away. Even if Lee could not have pursued the entirety of retreating Union forces, he could have focused on a smaller part and defeated/captured them totally.



Failure to follow up and gather fruits starts *first* from only engaging in battles that offer the potential of such fruits. Which is why Jackson said in advance of Fredericksburg that they could win tactically but not gain any long term advantage. And when you add in large losses of Lee's "wins" that he couldn't afford, the mistake of choosing battles is magnified.

When you talk about the difficulty of pursuit with cavalry, you are insinuating that a retreating force would have been effective in fighting them, which is only true with the best rearguard actions. Your horses aren't going to be shot out from under you by troops who don't have time to take up positions and be able to stand their ground and keep firing. Also you are ignoring that infantry could also pursue, which they obviously could since they would have been pursuing retreating enemy infantry on foot.


You are right he mainly did not plan to do so. But as I replied above to the other poster, he would resort to that if things went wrong. That something went wrong with the original plan doesn't make wrong tactics later right.


As another poster noted too, the Valley Campaign was Lee's idea, but Jackson was the one who could carry it out and not be suckered into battles where he could lose too much. That Lee had some good ideas doesn't make up for the bad ones which mainly were being willing to engage in the war of attrition. The North lost too many men unnecessarily as well, but they could afford it.


While it is true that in the later stages of the war the South wasn't able to be really effective in opposing a campaign like Sherman's, the fact still remains that Sherman, deep in enemy territory and unable to keep intact long supply lines back to the north, was able to force retreats with the threat of action and not have to fight nearly as much. According to Sun Tzu that is the pinnacle of generalship.


Let me repeat what I said earlier about what the correct plan should have been for Lee:

1) Overall play defense but not by giving battle on the enemy's terms. Mainly keep moving around and threatening D.C. or other Northern cities and try to produce opportunities to *totally destroy smaller units* (includes capture).

2) Switch to offense *for short periods* when situations warrant. This means trying to take Philly, or pursuing defeated smaller units to eliminate them completely. See the Jackson quote I gave earlier and how he says that pursuing and destroying a retreating enemy can be done by *half the number* of enemy, i.e. a demoralized enemy not in prepared defenses can much more easily be defeated.

4) If a good battle plan (maneuver & taking on smaller units) goes awry for any reason, cut your losses and move on.

3) At all costs avoid engagements where even a "win" can produce huge casualties.


Do you agree with that and did Lee follow that *in the main*? Or did he rather engage in a war of attrition that he could not afford and squander the opportunity in Pennsylvania not to engage at Gettysburg, but rather to take Philly. As to the objections raised earlier in this thread to same based on logistics, one only has to ask how Sherman fed his army in the march to the sea.

As to your question of trolling, that is ridiculous. Scholars have been making these same points for years which I have read some of. While they have their detractors, they aren't "trolling". Too much of the Lee aura is based on how good he was in inspiring his generals and men to be willing to follow him, regardless of the results.

And I am fully cognizant as well that Lee did not control the overall war effort as he wasn't given full command until the very end when it didn't matter. Lee needed to avoid huge losses or gain a big result like taking Philly in order to wear out the North. Instead he willingly engaged in a war of attrition, and when the other theaters of the war collapsed allowing the North to concentrate on the eastern states of the south, his time and luck had run out.

You keep blathering on about these "frontal assaults", so I assume they must be numerous. We have Day Three of Gettysburg and we have Malvern Hill. Which others?

This is wishful thinking. Generals do not have the luxury of choosing arbitrary battles. Take the Overland Campaign. Did Lee fight this campaign well? If not, and given that he "sucked", let's just assume this is true, what should Lee have done?

I think it's reprehensible to suggest that Lee knew that Pickett's Charge would fail. He realised his mistake afterwards, and tried to resign. The first two days of Gettysburg came within inches of victory. He was over-exuberant, and made a fateful choice. The reason that this decision is so heavily analysed is that it was unlike him. If he always made these "frontal assaults", then Pickett's Charge would not even have a name.

You flat out ignored my point that your opinion of Lee is wholly at odds with the opinions of those men who had to fight against him.

Sherman is only effective when he has an army. Draft riots had already started in the north. A longer, drawn out quagmire would not exactly help things in the recruiting department.

Asymmetrical warfare flips the tables. In conventional warfare, the north grinds down the south. In decentralized guerilla warfare, the south doesn't grind down the north, but grinds down the north's army, it's morale, its ability to fight deep inside enemy territory.

You think Lincoln would go down there himself to shoot them damned rebels after all the troops got sick of getting clobbered by the 19th-century equivelent of roadside bombs?

I guess you didn't bother reading all my posts but I also mentioned a couple others in the 7 Days campaign, i.e Mechanicsville and Glendale. I also mentioned sometimes it was his subordinates who acted on their, as with A.P. Hill at Mechanicsville, but that is chargeable to Lee if he did not explicitly forbid such attacks.


I have not maintained that every single battle Lee chose to fight was a wrong choice, merely that he made too many such wrong choices. There were battles where he suffered large losses, including ones he won tactically, but which could have been declined as the Union forces were not posing a serious threat.


Let me change "knew he would fail" to "high probability of failure" then. Do you dispute that? Or that he could not afford the heavy losses likely to ensue either way?


Yeah I did. So what. Lee was an amicable man and gracious in defeat or victory. So he was well-liked. And so many of the union generals he fought against were so clearly incompetent that he had to shine compared to them. But he was no Jackson or Sherman. Note that I have the same low opinion of Grant as well, who by the way was not one of those union generals with a high opinion of Lee, at least in later years.

So the poker analogies are putting you on tilt?

Alexander >>>>>>> than Bonaparte

I hate you.

Let's examine that for a minute. I think you have to remember that invading Philadelphia was explicitly contradictory to the South's overall geo-political-metagame strategy. The strategy was to bleed the North until they lost the will to fight. The South decided, with the buy in from Lee to wage a defensive struggle only. The advantage would be to Southern forces because they would be fighting on home turf, close to local supply. The North would be far from home on unfamiliar terrain with supply lines behind that had to be maintained.

Invasion of Philadephia would have placed Lee in a situation where he could be surrounded, seiged, and starved out. Lee would have lost his mobility, which was central to his strategy. The move would be unexpected, sure, but short of looting Philadelphia and burning it to the ground, it would have been military suicide. Politically, invasion of Philadelphia is a risky move. What if the North had been galvanized to fight instead of broken? Gettysberg was Lee's best chance at breaking the union army and breaking the will of the North. Remember at this point in the war, there were riots in New York and Lincoln was shutting down critical newspapers, imprisoning descenters, and had suspended Hadeous Corpus. A victory at Gettysberg would have broken the union's will completely.

If Lee's army hadn't mostly walked off the field, he probably could have taken the day.

You mean after Picket's charge?

Also, I'm starting to agree with you regarding Philly. An army moves on its stomach and moving east would have placed the Union Army directly between Lee and home.

I have read a few bios on Jackson. I have always admired him and reading about him only deepened my respect for him as person and as a leader. He was, however, far from the perfect military leader a lot of people believe him to be.

Strategically, he was very strong. But, his execution was marred by his inability to work well with others. On numerous occasions he let personal differences (most of which seemed petty) affect his command and operations.

He also made some bizarre choices on several occasions that are very hard to understand or explain (ex. riding an insane distance to visit with command and then sleeping through the first half of the subsequent battle) that ultimately and directly led to failures/losses.

That said, after reading about the civil war from a variety of sources, one consistent theme is how every battle became completely chaotic. Even under the very best circumstances, battles devolved into confused exchanges of men and material overseen by commanders who had little to no communications. Even the best laid plans would fall apart minutes after the battle started.

Barring total incompetence, I think that few people are in a position to judge the people involved too harshly. Lee, Jackson, Grant are all generals who fought remarkably well with what they had available in men, material and information.

Well, Lincoln did not think it was silly. After the victory Grant was promoted to General of all union armies.

Grant never saw a peer in any of his battles...

You forgot to mention Forrest, who was the forerunner of modern guerrilla warfare. He was definitely under-utilized by the confederate leadership.

Let us take those examples then.

At Mechanicsville, Lee planned to smash the Union's isolated left flank using Jackson, with Hill moving in from the front of the left flank as the Unionists were pushed back. He correctly surmised that McClellan had not the stomach to attack Richmond yet, and kept the Union right in place with minimal force and maximal subterfuge. Jackson failed to mass his troops adequately, and attacked with about 1/4 of them, and attacked very late at that. Hill moved forward, and met very strong resistance. Even then, this wasn't a frontal assault: Hill was facing the isolated Union right, with the Union center and left wings across the river.

At Glendale, we have Lee pursuing a retreating and disorganised enemy. Lee plans an attack on multiple sides, attempting to break the Army of the Potomac. His division commanders go in piecemeal, and little is gained, other than spooking an already terrified and resigned McClellan even further. Should he *not* have attacked? You have condemned Lee for not pursuing a retreating enemy after Fredericksburg. So then why was Glendale a mistake? All you have to do is read the opinions of those on both sides: Glendale was very nearly a huge disaster for the Unionists, and very nearly a devastating victory for the Confederates.

Except for Malvern Hill, the problems in the Seven Days Campaign were due to poor performance and coordination between Lee's subordinates. Is this Lee's fault? No. Lee had taken control of this army after Johnston was injured. In only three weeks, he had had precious little time to organise the command structure, or to remove inadequate commanders. He did this after the campaign, and we can all see the performance of his army after this.

Lee had only three weeks to take over Johnston's command, plan his attack and concentrate his forces. By the end of the fourth week, the Army of the Potomac had fully retreated to the James for evacuation, and Lee was free to move north and destroy Pope at Bull Run 2. Does Lee deserve any credit for it?

So, again: we have Gettysburg Day Three and Malvern Hill. Of your other two examples, neither one was planned as a frontal assault, and only one was even arguably fought as a frontal assault. Both had tremendous possibilities for victory.

"Too many" huh? Well, what about the ones between the Seven Days and the Gettysburg campaign? Which of these should he have avoided?

Yes, I dispute that. His blood was up, and he expected to carry the day. If what you say is true, then Lee's shock and horror and disgust with himself after the battle makes no sense.

Great response. From the books I have read, your description of Jackson is accurate. For a variety of reasons, Jackson failed to perform as planned on a number of occasions.

Also, not to be too nitty with OP. But when you write hundreds of thousands were killed in frontal assaults, that seems to be an unnecessary exaggeration since the KIA count of those killed in battle was around 100K +/- for each side. Thanks for starting a good thread.

I don't think that time would ever be on the South's side. They were at best moderately industrialized, fielding a large army was a terrific burden on the South, doubly so when you consider that they lost a large fraction of their work force to field that army. Its been noted already in this thread that the southern army was ill equipped, and even if they limited their fighting they still needed food and clothing. Couple this with the North's ability to blockade and the possibility of a slave revolt as times got worse and you don't have a good picture of what will happen in a protracted war, even one which doesn't involve many casualties.

I don't think some of you understand why certain things happened as they did in this war.

Prior to the war the individual states were viewed as soverign, individuals saw themselves as being, for example, Virginians first, and US citizens second. This sentiment was of course stronger in the south and it would be fair to say that opposition to a strong central government existed in both sections of the country but more so in the south. This is all pretty foreign thinking to Americans today and is one of the reasons that people have a hard time understanding some aspects of the war.

After Lincoln won the election in 1860 a number of deep south states went out before he even arrived in Washington but the fate of many border states was up in the air. The seeds of how the war was fought would be sown into the political decisions made during the debate in these states.

Active army officers whose states had left the Union or were considering leaving resigned their commissions and headed home. For most the decision of which side they would fight was simple, they would side with their section. The vast majority of us being in their shoes would have done the same thing.

In the border states there was considerable opposition to secession. Ironically, it was Lincoln who tipped the scales and pushed several of these states out of the Union.

A number of Federal military installations in the South had been abandoned and or taken over peacefully by the Confederacy. The Union CIC Winfield Scott, and many others, wanted to avoid conflict over these in order to contain the rebellion and lessen tensions that might led to a larger defection to the Confederacy. Lincoln was of course under pressure by War Hawks to take immediate action. His decision to reinforce rather than withdraw from Sumpter lead to the opening of hostilites, and his subsequent call for troops to put down the rebellion lead to secession by Virginia and other states that were in the balance. Virginia was the key state here, and opposition to secession was so high that its western counties remain in the Union and became West Virginia.

What relevence does this have to the discussion in this thread? Lee has been critized for not adopting a less confrontational strategy and others speculate that a defensive war by the South (time/space defense) would have had a higher likelyhood of success.

Well, part and parcel to the political wrangling was an appeal to Virginian pride, Virginia was considered the first state of the Union by many both inside the state and out and the notion of establishing the Confederate capital in Richmond was a carrot dangled during the debates as an inducement for the state to come out. When this came about, any possibility of a purely defensive war by the Confederacy went out the window.

There was simply no choice in the matter. Richmond and Washington are too close. Virginia did not enter the war only to yield the state to Federal occupation without major confrontation, as would have be necessarilly a part of a space/time defense.

To say that Lee sucked because he fought major battles in Virginia is born of ignorance of the political situation and the attitudes of the people. And of the fact that he never had a choice to make, he did not have command of Confederate forces in the east until much later and only had the political juice to influence war policy years later.

In summary, OP sucks as a threadstarter on this subject.

IMO Lee was a very good strategist and general, but probably not one of the best of all time. The early commanding generals in the east were all more or less incompetent. Also, the northeast was an urban/industrial area, and didn't produce as good officers and soldiers as the agricultural south or the midwest (which made up the northern side in the west.

Sessession was initiated by plantation owners that controled the governements in the deep south. Slavery was extremely profitable, there was a very large slave population, and setting up an independent country allowed them to trade cotton for manufactured goods without tariffs.

In the upper south, they didn't grow cotton, didn't own that many slaves, and didn't have as much cultural differences from the north. Virginia was a mixed industrial and agricultural state. What became West Virginia was mostly subsistance farmers with some industry. Virginia was also close to the national capital and had ties to the founding of the US. Virginia had originally voted against sessession.

There were mixed feelings in the later states that joined the Confederacy, also North Carolina, Tennnessee, and Arkansas, as well as the 4 slave states that did not join. Maryland almost certainly would have seceeded if it was not controled by the Union army.

The way Virginia was so ruined by the war was sad, particularly considering its reluctance to seceed. The situation of deep southern states, such as Mississippi, which was one of the richest before the war, with its cotton economy, but has been one of the poorest since, is also sad.

It is the southern view that the sates in the upper south were forced to seceed by Lincoln, but the truth is probably more complex, as the conflict escalated on both sides.

Good discussion and I was ready to reply but exsubmariner took the best points out. At one time I venerated Lee, Stuart, Jackson, etc, the entire Southern pantheon. Some reading and thought have changed that a lot. Would the South have won if Jackson lived and scouted the ford, and rolled up the entire Union flank? I don't know. But, the main discussion is Lee, and Lee at Gettysburg.

Exsub is right, Philly was suicide. Consider how close NJ is where the Union could base a force with total command of the Sea. One corps could have blocked the Delaware River for a retreat. Ask Napolean how taking Moscow deep in Russia worked out. An abandoned city has no food, and 10k cookfires and 100k foragers burn a place down quick.

The frontal charge. Its become the modern criticism of the Civil War Era. Lets go back a bit to where these guys got their inspiration and training. Contrary to modern beliefs, West Point was NOT a military school. It was an engineering school. All these officers were barely taught drill, formation, tactics, etc. Most of the dumb ones were assigned to infantry, and infantry fought and dominated this war. Class, wealth, and that West Point ring were required to command in the South. The Northern Army actually was a better place for talent to thrive. So where did these guys learn their craft? Two places. Mexico and Napolean lectures/books. Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott were the best military minds of that century in this country hands down. And these guys taught Napoleanic tactics that were pre-miniball. Artillery on open fields and bayonet charges. You know, the **** that worked
in the Napoleanic Wars. AND, there was limited success with frontal assaults in the Civil War on both sides. A lot fo the failure was coordinated the follow-up. Who was behind Pickett's charge to solidfy the ridge? No one. SHiloh as well the Confederate advance was not supported or reinforced and thousands died in the mud with no where to go. Jackson was slowly realizing that baiting an enemy into a dumb charge, then followed up by a counter charge was the best strategy. It negated an open kill zone for the rifles of the day, and the artillery as they wouldnt fire on their own retreating men. Artillery was also not as useful, and mounted troops could assist as well. As bad as Lee was at using the frontal assault, rest assured he wasnt as ****ing stupid as Braxton dumb**** Bragg. And, lets recall that bayonet charges were STILL being taught and used in WWI against trenches and machine guns and barbed wire and mines.

A lot of non professional soldiers grasped what worked better than the pros. For the South, Hampton and Garland were
leaders who got it in Virginia but never had "real" command. Hampton was wounded on the 2nd day at Gettysburg and unconcious for the 3rd. Butler and Rooney were incompetent and useless. Interesting no one I saw mentioned the old adage, "Lee had no clue how to use mounted troops". Though late in 64 the South had a division of mounted infantry who saved their asses a few times, but it was hopeless after Lincoln won re election.
Garland died at South Mountain(I think). I also liked Jubal Early as a commander, and he faught in 64 vs a very large opposing force, and even burned a sizeable Union City.

That brings us to the guerilla war. Take to the hills and woods. Go Minute Man. BIG MISTAKE DOOMED TO FAILURE. What was happening in 64. The Union began freeing slaves and giving them weapons. A lot of Southern manpower was invested in defending cities like Mobile or Charleston, and keeping slaves on the plantations and not looting and burning. Thats part of what allowed Sherman to march across Georgia without being devastated as the South couldnt abandon the countryside or middling cities without order breaking down. It was a weak-tight failure, but they didnt have enough to post the next big blind anyways. Lee, Davis, Johnston, and the Confederate Congress knew this. Especially Seward would have went this route. He was even more of an outright savage and war criminal than Lincoln. A South that wouldnt have surrendered would have burned more. 1/4 or so of the South was black, and a good bit of the whites were loyal to the Union(40% or so of West Point southern officers stayed in the Union Army even). Its not Iraq where 95% hate the occupiers.

Lees shortcomings as a commander weren't large or glaring. I think we are overlooking what he was trying to do AND his position. He was not very socially or politically powerful. His drunk daddy blew a lot of his family's wealth and cache. He wasnt even in overall command till late in the War. BUT, he concurred with Jeff Davis' misinformed strategy. Both he and a lot of those in power thought the North would give up. Pictures of dead soldiers in newspapers and a heavily pacificst country made it hard to keep the war going. What he tried to do at Antietam and Gettysburg was cause a spectacle for the press.
Tens of thousands dead in a pointless battle between white christian brothers. It was a wrong opinion. The North was not going to give up. Especially Lincold and Seward. Lincoln as well didnt think the South would fight as hard as it did. There never was a "master plan" to win the war. No grand strategy for a field victory. It was always outlast or get lucky. And it almost worked until the summer of 64 brought Lincoln some victories and good press. McClellan might have won the election in June or July. That was the last gasp for the COnfederacy Thats where I blame Lee. He also fought against giving troops to the fight in Tennessee and along the Mississippi, even though he knew thats where ultimate defeat would come. I agree with the Op who said he pursued his advantages hard where he could, but his "inner engineer" as I like to call it knew he never quite had enough manpower to win.

On an aside. The "myth" about the South having ready made soldiers better than the Union. Almost complete total bs myth. The South had a STUPID policy of electing officers. Not who was good or smart, but who was rich or popular. They had few NCOs/100 compared to the Union. They were slow and recalcitrant when it came to putting up fieldworks. That was slavework. It came down to REGULAR soldiers, not guys who could reload a gun. And both sides had them by 63. Men who could stand in a line and fire round after round at other men in a line. Men who would fix bayonets after a night sleeping knowing they would die at dawn. It was a rare courage and heinous carnage.
If the South had had such superb "soldiers" Manassas would have ended it when the Union ran for the hills(witness how Lincoln raised that army with 3 month enlistments as evidence he thoguht the South wasnt serious). Instead they set to looting the camp and didnt walk into DC victorious. True a lot of Union guys had never loaded a gun before, but the Southern men had no experience of fighting in formation, charging with the bayonet, or digging a trench.