The Civil War Thread (1 Viewer)

[Saber]

Interesting point regarding the the river war. I never understood how the confederate leadership completely missed the vital stategic importance of this area of operations. They seem to have given much thought to the war at sea believing, wrongly, that the blockade would hasten Englands entry on behalf of the South. At a time when rail was still developing and waterways were so important to commerce it seems almost beyond belief the South lost New Orleons so early in the war.

I have always believed that the North's call to preserve the Union had a bit of a shallow ring to it. After all, had not some of these same northern states considered seceding on earlier occasions. Just musing out loud, but it seems what is put up for public consumption as justification for war is often more PR than the real cause. I tend to suspect that the noble preservation of the Union had more to do with the concepts of Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine. I would think that the Northern leadership shuddered at the thought of being hemmed in by British Canada to the north and an independent CSA to the south.

I don't think the confedrate leadership ever truly understood the lengths the North would go to keep the Union intact. I guess comparing Washington to Lee seems a little unfair after all Washington's enemy wasn't on his back door. Perhaps instead of looking at Britain vs the Colonies we should look to see how Washington might have fared trying to seperate Scotland or Wales from England.


What if Grant failed at Vicksburg(well actually he did he just didn't quit the first time)? If the war in the west had fared a little better maybe Lee doesn't feel compelled to go on the offensive. It seems this goes against Lee's character but you never know.

 

[Capitolron]

River War - Interesting point UK Reb.

I still believe that the Southern Leadership on the ground in the West was second class to the skills of the Eastern Commanders. Had a Southern General been innovative in the battles with Grant - we would all be speaking Southern today.

Water was the backbone of the region - but, the ground game was so important and we (the South) did not have the star Quarterback on the football field. IMHO.

 

[Saber]

Too bad there weren't any good generals on the free agent list.

 

[UKReb]

River War - Interesting point UK Reb.

I still believe that the Southern Leadership on the ground in the West was second class to the skills of the Eastern Commanders. Had a Southern General been innovative in the battles with Grant - we would all be speaking Southern today.

Water was the backbone of the region - but, the ground game was so important and we (the South) did not have the star Quarterback on the football field. IMHO.

Yeah! you're right Ron on both points. However, yes the Western leaders were poor but that can be laid at Davis's door for selecting generals he liked and admired rather than their military ability or prowess and holding back on others whose star, given the chance, may have rose as the overall Confederate Commander in the West such as Patrick Cleburne who was only made a Major General by Davis on the insistence of Hardee and Buckner.

And yes the ground game was important but the area was so vast that any military commander including Lee would have struggled to control the movements of troops and supplies with the policy undertaken by the Davis administration. Because the key was the waterways and sorry Ron was much more than just the backbone of the Western Confederacy. It would have been the answer to swiftly move troops and supplies to the problem areas and a fleet of shallow draft gunboats would have caused havoc with Grant's plans and his use of the rivers during his campaigns.

The Confederacy's navy strategy was all wrong, Stephen Mallory appeared to be a good choice as Confederate Secretary of the Navy as he had been the chairman of the US Naval Affairs Committee when he was the senator of Florida. But his decision to just build iron-clads and order "Confederate Raiders" was not only not very far-sighted it also immediately threw up problems through lack of materials and skilled labor experienced in cladding wooden ships with iron. The South had plenty of wooden boat-builders but no "navy iron fabricators" plus the raiders such as the CSS Alabama & Shenandoah were ordered to terrorise Union merchant ships which had no effect whatsoever on the Union's capability to wage war on the South. But the threat to the Confederacy was not from the Atlantic but from the rivers and they simply had no policy concerning the defense of what would become water highways, so the responsibility of defending the waterways fell to the Army and worse the Naval District Commanders were always junior in rank to their army counterparts culminating in them being completely ignored when suggesting a more effective naval policy for defense.
When they finally realised that the Union had started to gain control of the rivers and now had a swift transport system for troop movements the Confederacy had nothing to combat them. The iron-clads were useless due to the shallowness of the waters and their lack of manoeuverability although it didn't stop them from desperately trying which only resulted in all of them being sunk or beached which allowed Grant to use the rivers practically unopposed.
The above brief synopsis is why I am positive that if the Davis Administration had been canny enough to recognise the vast importance of the western waterways and planned a naval strategy accordingly -exactly as the Union had done- we would now be reading a different history of the war in the west.

Saber you raise a darn good debating point re:- if Grant had not gained Vicksburg would Lee still have gone on the offensive, for what it's worth here's my two cents worth.
Lee was trained as an engineer and his mentality was rooted in movement toward an enemy as opposed to waiting, exactly has he had seen his great mentor General Winfield Scott undertake in the Mexican War of 1846. Defensive strategy was not Lee's forte unless forced upon him, this attack mentality was most evident at Gettysburg on the 2nd and 3rd days and most aptly described by Longstreet when he wrote many years after the war:
"When the old man's blood was up, there was no one who could stop him from taking the offensive"

Reb

 

[Saber]

I tend to agree about Lee's military character. It would have taken stronger leadership and control than I believe Davis was capable of exercising to stop the Grey Fox from attacking. Strange how we are back at Mr Davis and his ability to wage the war.

 

[Capitolron]

OK - Lets get this thing going again.....

I have always found the Battle of Sharpsburg the most interesting and the real turning point of the Civil War on Napoleonic Tactics.

The use of Artillery was devastating and weapons had improved beyond the general used tactics of warfare at that time.

What do you guys thinks ??

 

[UKReb]

OK - Lets get this thing going again.....

I have always found the Battle of Sharpsburg the most interesting and the real turning point of the Civil War on Napoleonic Tactics.

The use of Artillery was devastating and weapons had improved beyond the general used tactics of warfare at that time.

What do you guys thinks ??

Welcome back Ron thought you had gone to Waterloo and stayed there.

Yeah! Sharpsburg/Antietam was and still is the single bloodiest day in American military history and the statistics agree with your comments 23000 men were killed or wounded with some units suffering 50% casualties in under 20minutes. Although the battle was inconclusive in military terms it's consequences to the United States as we know were enormous.

But let me ask you if you have ever heard/read that after the battle on that night of the 18th September there actually took place a secret meeting between McClellan and Lee under a flag of truce where McClellan allowed Lee, if he retired from the battlefield, to leave Maryland and cross the Potomac back into Virginia without being pursued or molested.
I've come across this a few times over the years, not to be found in any of the battle's history books but in articles and civil war forums.
Examine the evidence:-
1. He did not pursue Lee's battered army of 35000 even though the Union forces amounted to nearly 90000 with fresh divisions arriving from Washington.
2. The very next morning at 0830 on the 19th September he wired a message to Halleck in Washington stating........we may safely claim a complete victory and can assure the president that the capital is safe from invasion...... yet Lee had hardly started his withdrawal from Sharpsburg.
3. Although he re-occupied Harper's Ferry he never attempted a serious pursuit of the Confederate Army right up to Lincoln sacking him on the 7th November six weeks after the battle.
If this was true it came back to haunt him when he ran as the Democratic candidate in the 1864 election and this "rumour" started to appear in the Washington newspapers, McClellan expected the army vote but did not get it-Did they know if he deliberately let Lee off the hook?

I have never found any real proof of this accusation and it may just be a scurrilous rumour but I did dig up a couple of ambiguous historical quotes
Winston Churchill wrote.....ill treatment was meted out to George McClellan by the Washington politicians and the cabinet with damaging stories about what happened at Antietam.... And General Phillippe De Trobiand the highest ranking Union officer born in France wrote....McClellan had not the burning ardor which was necessary to put an end to the rebellion......he appeared to be always afraid of hurting the rebels too much especially following the Battle of Sharpsburg....

So Ron with you being stationed at the center of power just wondered if you have any inside knowledge from the archives on this interesting after the battle story.
Reb

 

[Louis Badolato]

Reb,

Never heard that rumor before, but I think it is likely to be inaccurate. McClellen had two overriding personality traits, he was a braggart who was incredibly overcautious. He always believed his forces, which always outnumbered Lee's by a considerable margin, were the ones that were outnumbered, explaining his failure to pursue Lee, and as a braggart, he was constantly claiming "total victory" both before and after battles were fought, explaining his dispatch to Washington.

 

[UKReb]

Reb,

Never heard that rumor before, but I think it is likely to be inaccurate. McClellen had two overriding personality traits, he was a braggart who was incredibly overcautious. He always believed his forces, which always outnumbered Lee's by a considerable margin, were the ones that were outnumbered, explaining his failure to pursue Lee, and as a braggart, he was constantly claiming "total victory" both before and after battles were fought, explaining his dispatch to Washington.

Louis

Tend to agree with you and all the valid points you raise plus he being far from my favorite Union general I personally dont think he would have had the "guts" or nerve to have met Bobby Lee even under a flag of truce, but the story keeps popping up especially in civil war revisionist papers and I just wanted to know if you guys across the pond had any info on it.

Reb

 

[kilted vampire]

1. He did not pursue Lee's battered army of 35000 even though the Union forces amounted to nearly 90000 with fresh divisions arriving from Washington.

This being one of the reasons for Lincoln replacing him!

 

[UKReb]

1. He did not pursue Lee's battered army of 35000 even though the Union forces amounted to nearly 90000 with fresh divisions arriving from Washington.

This being one of the reasons for Lincoln replacing him!

And who did he replace him with?

Ambrose Burnside who because of Lincoln's insistence of an "Attack the enemy and destroy him" policy actually undertook a winter campaign and was personally responsible for killing 12600 Union soldiers in suicidal assaults against a Confederate line firmly entrenched on high ground.

Reb

 

[jazzeum]

I thought it might be worthwhile to bring this thread back up for those who may have missed it or forgotten about it.

 

[trooper]

Many years ago I read about Quantrill's Raiders galloping into action with six pistols in their belts and that stuck in my mind. Some time ago the subject came up again and I thought I would put this to the test. I took half a dozen long barreled pistols from my collection and borrowed a friend's daughter's pony. (I wasn't going to use his hunter, I would have needed a ladder to get on the thing) Sticking the pitols in my belt was difficult, I had to let out several notches to accomodate them. Mounting up was even more difficult, not to say painful. Proceeding at a walk wasn't too bad, trotting was agony and a slow canter was even worse. Drawing a pistol wasn't too difficult but the remaining weapons then started to slide. Trying to replace it made matters worse. At which point the experiment ceased, much to the disappointment of the pony's young owner who hadn't laughed so much since her father fell in the duck pond. The conclusion I came to was that if the Raiders had tried there would have been a considerable loss of a lot of valuable weapons. I think the answer lies in the term "six-gun" which was used a lot to distinguish between a revolver and a horse pistol. At some point in the past someone had written "six guns in their belts" as opposed to "six-guns in their belts" and for want of a hyphen a legend was born.

 

[Spitfrnd]

Many years ago I read about Quantrill's Raiders galloping into action with six pistols in their belts and that stuck in my mind. Some time ago the subject came up again and I thought I would put this to the test. I took half a dozen long barreled pistols from my collection and borrowed a friend's daughter's pony. (I wasn't going to use his hunter, I would have needed a ladder to get on the thing) Sticking the pitols in my belt was difficult, I had to let out several notches to accomodate them. Mounting up was even more difficult, not to say painful. Proceeding at a walk wasn't too bad, trotting was agony and a slow canter was even worse. Drawing a pistol wasn't too difficult but the remaining weapons then started to slide. Trying to replace it made matters worse. At which point the experiment ceased, much to the disappointment of the pony's young owner who hadn't laughed so much since her father fell in the duck pond. The conclusion I came to was that if the Raiders had tried there would have been a considerable loss of a lot of valuable weapons. I think the answer lies in the term "six-gun" which was used a lot to distinguish between a revolver and a horse pistol. At some point in the past someone had written "six guns in their belts" as opposed to "six-guns in their belts" and for want of a hyphen a legend was born.

LOL, I would have loved to have seen that experiment.

I think part of your problem was in not using the hunter; he would have had much smoother gaits than the pony. I never read about the raiders having six pistols in their belts but many references credit them with at least two in belt holsters and two more in belts or seperate holsters. No question galloping around with that much movable iron would present certain challenges. I favor the view that they used multiple holsters and perhaps even a couple extra attached to the saddles. Certainly that is what I would have done. My compliments on your daring experiment though. Maybe you could post some advance notice of the next one; the return from ticket sales might well justify it.

 

[trooper]

I was watching "Gettysburg" again the other night and it struck me that the re-enactors appeared more as a host of individuals rather than a martial unit. The obvious answer, of course, is that they don't spend a lot of time drilling as a unit. The problem is that an impression has grown up that the Confederates were more of a mob than a regimented body. This cannot be true. When one reads the personal memoirs it is evident that they spent day after day drilling. Going back to my own personal service we had eight weeks basic training, not all of which was spent on the square. In addition to foot and arms drill we had endless lectures, training films, basic first aid, gas training, nuclear decontamination etc. Even so at the end of eight weeks we passed out on parade as a unified body. Not the clockwork precision of the Queen's Colour Squadron obviously, but equal to any in the British Army. Johnny Reb spent all his time drilling, and many of the drillmasters were European ex military. Marching in time with measured step was essential in estimating the time to travel between fixed points, keeping intervals was necessary in order to move from column to line or to form square. And squares were formed in the Civil War, despite an agument I had with a re-enctor who insisted it never happened. My point is that both armies involved in that conflict projected a far more professional military appearance than we have been led to believe.

 

[lancer]

Trooper - i do not believe there is an impression that the CSA army was in any way a mob. it was a citizen army that obviously required drill and practice. like any new army, it had a learning curve thus the problems in early battles. i have never heard anyone refer to the CSA army as a mob. for my own part, i have never read any reference to a square being formed on an ACW battlefield. where did this info come from? -- lancer

 

[UKReb]

Trooper - i do not believe there is an impression that the CSA army was in any way a mob. it was a citizen army that obviously required drill and practice. like any new army, it had a learning curve thus the problems in early battles. i have never heard anyone refer to the CSA army as a mob. for my own part, i have never read any reference to a square being formed on an ACW battlefield. where did this info come from? -- lancer

Got to agree with Lancer's comments I have never heard of the Reb army described in battle as a mob-most comments from the Federal reports of Gettysburg and in particular Pickett's march up Cemetery Ridge described them as a very cohesive army advancing almost as if taking part in a grand parade.

Even when taking punishing fire from the Federal artillery the gaps were quickly closed up and the advance continued in almost perfect formation as quoted in a number of Union soldiers diaries and letters home written after the battle. Even General Hancock observing the advance said to Gibbon "Magnificent but sheer madness"
They may well have looked like a raggedy, shoeless army because after 1863 they were but regardless how they looked they were very proud citizen soldiers who kept within ranks and files whenever they marched into battle.

And I also have never heard of a square Reb formation on any battlefield in fact the very opposite. Col Fremantle-an English observer at Gettysburg-as quoted in his diary said to a group of Confederate officers "Why dont you form a square like the British Army?" To which they replied "We dont do that and it didn't much help you British the last time you fought us either"

Reb

 

[Sans Culotte]

Two items of note to shore up Trooper's arguments: In Brigadier Young's book, THE WAR GAME, the chapter dealing with Gettysburg states, "Perhaps only the timely appearance of Buford's cavalrymen on the left saved the 1st Corps from the fate of the 11th. Buford bluffed a charge, and the nearest Confederate units formed square..." The chapter also goes on to quote Lt. Haskell concerning the Confederate attack on the 3rd day; (the men moved so deliberately) "as with one soul, in perfect order.... magnificent, grim, irresistible." For various reasons, European observers from spit-n-polish armies found both sides to be more like armed mobs, rather than trained troops. Even if that was so at the beginning of the conflict, that certainly was not so later on.

 

[lancer]

Sans Culotte - thanks for the info regarding forming of square. i am still dubious as Young is a British author and may have simply used a British expression to describe the Confederate tactics. Was he using sources that would confirm a square being formed or was it his description drawn on his conclusions? i find this whole question interesting because nowhere else have i seen or heard of ACW units forming square. i would be surprised if ACW tactical teachings even considered squares, but i would certainly be willing to learn something that would be new to me. -- lancer

 

[trooper]

Sans Culotte - thanks for the info regarding forming of square. i am still dubious as Young is a British author and may have simply used a British expression to describe the Confederate tactics. Was he using sources that would confirm a square being formed or was it his description drawn on his conclusions? i find this whole question interesting because nowhere else have i seen or heard of ACW units forming square. i would be surprised if ACW tactical teachings even considered squares, but i would certainly be willing to learn something that would be new to me. -- lancer

In addition to the Gettysburg incident described by Sans Culotte the following should be of interest:-
Bull Run 21st July 1861, the Union infantry of Col. William T. Sherman "formed an irregular squareagainst the cavalry..."
Valverde, New Mexico February 21st 1862, Company A 2nd Colorado Volounteer Infantry formed square against the lancer companies of the 5th Texas Mounted Volounteers and shot them to ribbons.
Kernstown 24th March 1862, the 29th Ohio formed square against a heavy Rebel cavalry force and "a well directed volley sent the rebels in haste to the rear"
Port Republic, Virginia 9th June 1862, the 7th Ohio formed square when threatened by cavalry who then did not press home the attack.
Olustee February 1864, " the 64th Georgia, a new regiment, never before in action, supposing that only mounted troops were advancing against them, had formed square to resist cavalry"
Resaca, Georgia May15th 1864, the 1st Tennessee regiment, commanded by Col. Feild, formed square against a very heavy Union attack eventually forcing them to disengage and retire.
Five Forks 1st April 1865 a Rebel regiment in the process of charging the Union line were themselves taken in flank by Union horsemen. They formed square and resisted the cavalry until infantry fire thinned their ranks and the cavalry broke in.