Download military strategies, Northern vs. Southern

MILITARY SCHOOLS, BIAS AGAINST
steeped in military theories that they often ignored commonsense approaches to
the war.
Clashes between the two types of officers typically occurred within the
Union and Confederate volunteer armies,
because both the North and the South
usually assigned experienced Regular
Army officers the duty of leading volunteer regiments and brigades and teaching
their inexperienced soldiers and officers
about weaponry and military tactics.
These Regular Army officers often complained that by the time they took
charge, volunteer regiments had already
been badly trained by leaders the men
had elected from among their ranks—
typically the most popular men or those
who had been wealthy enough to finance
the regiment.
Because of such complaints, as well as
the poor performance of inexperienced
officers on the battlefield, beginning in
1862 Union and Confederate volunteer
commanders had to take an examination
to show that they possessed a rudimentary
knowledge of battlefield skills, though
politically powerful men were often able
to get around this rule. In addition, upon
taking command, volunteer officers were
required to study military texts, drill their
men, and stage mock battles on a regular
basis.
Complaints regarding the supposed
weaknesses of officers trained in military
schools gradually diminished as many of
these men continued to perform brilliantly
on the battlefield. One particularly notable example of the value of military
training occurred at the Battle of New
Market, which was fought in the Shenandoah Valley on May 15, 1864. Confederate forces in this battle included 247
cadets from the Virginia Military Institute
who made a heroic charge at the Union
forces of Major General Franz Sigel,
thereby helping the Confederacy achieve
a victory and becoming heroes in the
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South. See also Virginia Military Institute; West Point.
military strategies, Northern
vs. Southern
When the Civil War began, leaders in
both the North and the South thought that
it would be a short war, but the two sides
had very different military strategies regarding how to bring about a quick end to
the conflict. In the North, the first proposed military strategy was General Winfield Scott’s Anaconda Plan, so named because the idea was to destroy the South
by shutting off its supplies via a blockade,
much as an anaconda snake squeezes the
life out of its prey. Once this occurred,
Scott suggested, the Union could take an
army down the Mississippi River to split
the weakened Confederacy in two. President Abraham Lincoln rejected this plan
at first, because he knew that the Northern public wanted to see aggressive, immediate military action against the South
in general and the Confederate capital of
Richmond, Virginia, in particular. Later,
however, he decided to blockade Southern ports, although he stuck to the plan of
invading the South. With this strategy in
mind, Lincoln ordered General George
McClellan to advance on Richmond.
McClellan, however, was slow to move
into enemy territory, even after Lincoln
ordered him to speed up his military campaign, and he hesitated to attack the Confederates even when it was the right time
to do so. As a result, Lincoln replaced
McClellan with another general, Henry
Halleck, who led the Union forces from
1862 to 1864. During this period, the
blockade began to take effect, and the
Union gained control of the Mississippi
River in order to split the Confederacy,
just as Winfield Scott had originally suggested. Then in November 1863 a Union
force led by General Ulysses S. Grant
took control of Chattanooga, Tennessee,
which was the gateway to the interior of
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Confederate territory. Lincoln realized
that in Grant he had found a commander
who was willing to prosecute the war on
Southern soil with the right amount of
forcefulness, and he replaced Halleck
with Grant as his general in chief. Grant
then took over the development of the
Union’s military strategy and ordered his
armies to cut a swath of destruction from
Tennessee down through Atlanta, Georgia, to Savannah, Georgia, on the sea,
then drive upward through the Carolinas
to meet Union forces already at Richmond, Virginia. Only by using this aggressive, bloody strategy, Grant believed,
could the Union bring the war to an end.
In contrast, the Southern strategy was
largely defensive rather than offensive.
Going into the war, the Confederates believed that European dependence on cotton would be the key to their victory. Under this theory, sometimes referred to as
the King Cotton strategy, England and
France would get involved in the war in
order to keep up their supplies of cotton,
and their military strength would make it
impossible for the Union to prevail. However, the Confederacy realized that these
countries would not jump into the conflict
right away, so in the meantime President
Jefferson Davis adopted what he called an
“offensive-defensive” military strategy.
His idea was that the South build up its
forces in key defensive positions to block
Union attacks, but when attacked the
Confederate armies would always fight
aggressively enough to put the Union on
the defensive.
A few Confederate generals argued that
this was the wrong strategy. Instead they
wanted the war taken into the North, and
indeed Generals Robert E. Lee and Jubal
Early did attempt to do this on a few occasions. However, these attempts failed
because the Confederacy’s leaders were
unwilling to commit enough forces to an
attack on the North, fearing that this
would weaken their defenses of key posi-
MILITIAS, STATE
tions. Indeed, shortly after troops were
sent from New Orleans, Louisiana, in
1862 to participate in battles in Tennessee, that city fell into Union hands due
to a lack of defensive manpower.
Since state and city leaders did not
want to part with their defensive troops,
the Confederacy maintained its offensivedefensive strategy even after it became
apparent that European countries were not
going to become involved. By this point,
the South was hoping that it could hold
on to its lands until the North either decided that it could never achieve a total
victory over the South or simply grew
tired of war. With this in mind, Confederate agents in the North secretly worked to
support the peace movement there, but
before they could make much headway
the South experienced a series of crushing defeats from which it could not recover. See also Anaconda Plan; cotton;
foreign countries, involvement of.
militias, state
A militia is a military force that is not part
of the regular armed forces but is ready to
be called on for help in an emergency. At
the beginning of the Civil War, the federal
government called on seventy-five thousand men from state militias, and other
groups of militiamen in both the North
and the South were eager to volunteer for
battle. However, there was some friction
between these soldiers and the professional soldiers of the Regular Army, who
felt that the training of state militiamen
was generally inadequate. The effectiveness of some militiamen was also limited
when they made easy targets of themselves by wearing brightly colored state
militia uniforms into battle during the first
weeks of the war. Soon, however, many
realized that it was wiser to adopt the
muted gray or blue of the Confederate and
Union armies, respectively, which enabled
men to blend into shadows. See also conscription; uniforms and equipment.