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Civil War Battles
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Robert E. Lee
1. Northern Generals. McClellan energetically whipped Main Ideas:
his dispirited army into shape but was reluctant to send his Key Words:
Analysis:
soldiers into battle. For all his energy, McClellan lacked
decisiveness. Lincoln wanted a general who would
advance, take risks, and fight, but McClellan went into
winter quarters. "If General McClellan does not want to
use the army I would like to borrow it," Lincoln declared
in frustration. James L. Roark, Professor of History at
Emory University, Michael P Johnson, Johns Hopkins
University, Patricia Cline Cohen, University of California,
Santa Barbara, Sarah Stage, Arizona State University,
Alan Lawson, Boston College, and Susan M. Hartmann,
Ohio State University, The American Promise: A Compact
History Third Edition Volume I: To 1877 (Boston,
Massachusetts: St. Martin's, 2007), 377.
All this time the Federal commander had manoeuvred
with skill and daring, only to be checked by concentrations
on interior lines which were never surpassed in Lee's
greatest triumphs. Then on June 3 Grant made his single
blunder by ordering a blunt frontal assault at Cold Harbor.
A few hours later 6,000 slain and wounded were stretched
out before the rebel rifle pits at a trifling cost to the
defenders. And with this final slaughter the month's battle
ended as the exhausted armies weed each other in trenches
less than a hundred yards apart. The Federal dead,
wounded and missing have been estimated at 50,000 the
Confederate losses at 32,000. Lee had retreated nearly to
Richmond, yet both in tactical and political respects he
must be credited with the victory. Grievous as his
casualties were, amounting to 46 per cent of his original
strength, he had won even the temporary advantage in the
duel of attrition. For after Cold Harbor the Northern
general was execrated as a "butcher" by newspapers,
which had recently lauded him to the skies. Throughout
the Union the heart-rending casualty lists were blamed on
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the Administration; and in view of the approaching
presidential election, the hopes of the Confederacy grew
brighter than at any time since Chancellorsville. Lynn
Montross, historical writer for the US Marine Corps, War
Through The Ages: Revised And Enlarged Third Edition
(New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1960), 623.
Few soldiers of history have been the victims of an
injustice such as has permanently clouded Grant's military
reputation. Although he admitted his error at Cold
Harbor, the blunder had been no more costly than Lee's
frontal attacks at Malvern Hill and Cemetery Ridge.
Throughout the entire war, moreover, Grant's total losses
amounted to a smaller proportion than those of his great
opponent. Yet in 1864 he had to endure a storm of abuse
from his countrymen which has even been echoed by
critics and historians. Lynn Montross, 623.
Let's consider the casualties that earned Grant his
reputation as butcher. During the first month of the 1864
campaign, as the Army of the Potomac ground its way
from the Rapidan through the Wilderness to the nightmare
of Cold Harbor, it suffered approximately 55,000
casualties-about the total strength of the Army of Northern
Virginia the start of the campaign. In the process, it
inflicted 32,000 casualties-a ratio of roughly 5 to 3, which
is higher than the 5 to 2 superiority that the Union
possessed over the Confederacy, and is not an
unreasonable proportion considering the advantages that
the defense had in Civil War battles. Reid Mitchell,
Gabor S. Boritt, Why the Confederacy Lost (New York:
Oxford University Press), 1992, 120.
Main Ideas:
2. Southern Generals. The contrast between Lee and
Key Words:
McClellan could hardly have been greater. McClellan
Analysis:
brimmed with conceit and braggadocio; Lee was courteous
and reserved. On the battlefield, McClellan grew timid
and irresolute, and Lee became audaciously, even
recklessly, aggressive. And Lee had at his side in the
peninsula campaign military men of real talent: Thomas J.
Jackson, nicknamed "Stonewall" for holding the line at
Manassas, and James E. B. (Jeb) Stuart, a dashing twentynine-year-old cavalry commander who rode circles around
Yankee troops. James L. Roark, 377.
It is in the entrenchments as much as the weapon itself that
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we find the clue to Lee's greatest victories. Just as the
backwoods invention greased patch had given the
American rifleman of 1777 an advantage, so in 1862 the
equally practical "head-log" revolutionized tactics. This
improvement consisted merely of two logs so placed on
the parapet as to allow the entrenched soldier to fire from
a slit between them. Thus protected from the hasty and
scattered shots of advancing foemen, he could aim from a
rest with a sense of security. Ax and spade soon became
almost as important as the rifle itself, since nearly all the
Civil War campaigns took place in wooded country. With
constant practice the troops of both sides learned to throw
up log-faced earthworks in an incredibly short time, and
even the Northern revival of hand grenades did not solve
the problems of the offensive. Lynn Montross, 603.
Lee's generalship rested largely on his ability to make use
of such factors. For the Southern leader did not depend on
the rifle pit solely for defense; he also made it the pivot of
attack. Relying on the proved fact that a marksman in a
trench could take care of several foemen, he planned to
neutralize a large portion of the enemy's bulk and create
the opportunity for a decisive counterstroke. On several
fields he carried his daring to such lengths as to divide his
army in the face of a more numerous foe, knowing that a
regiment in the trenches was worth a division in the open.
Lynn Montross, 603.
Sometimes these lapses may be charged to Lee's own
tolerance. As the direct heir of the Washington tradition,
he went even further than the Revolutionary hero in his
aversion to anything smacking of military tyranny. Only a
few occasions are recorded when he reproved a
subordinate, and several of his most trusted officers took
liberties, which few commanders would have allowed.
Stonewall Jackson seemed to have an intuitive access to
his superior's very thoughts; but men like the able and
opinionated Longstreet were capable of causing friction in
their very zeal for victory. It was Lee's misfortune in
Pennsylvania that a series of such incidents changed the
entire course of his campaign. First, the boisterous Jeb
Stuart chose this moment for one of his celebrated rides
around the Federal army. This misunderstanding cost Lee
dear, for he entered enemy territory in ignorance of Union
troop movements. Next, one of his corps commanders, A.
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P. Hill, decided on his own initiative to drive an opposing
cavalry force out of the comfortable red brick town of
Gettysburg. The invaders, some of whom were skylarking
in plug hats taken from village shops, hoped to renew their
supply of shoes. Instead, they met an unexpectedly stiff
opposition from tile Federal horsemen. Lynn Montross,
610.
3. Antietam. Lee again divided his army, sending
Jackson in an attempt to capture Harper's Ferry with its
strong garrison. By a prodigious stroke of luck, the order
for the separation fell into McClellan's hands giving him
the cue to redeem himself with a battle of annihilation.
Yet even this amazing opportunity went begging as the
Northern advanced with his wonted caution. So slow
were his movements that Jackson took Harper's Ferry and
reunited with Lee on September 16 to accept battle the
next day. Lynn Montross, 605.
Due to the Confederate vice of straggling, Lee's army had
melted he could bring but 41,500 troops into line on a
strong defensive position at Antietam Creek. McClellan's
numbers were 81,176, but the story of the day is told by
the fact that not more than two of his six corps were ever
engaged simultaneously. Two remained in reserve, seeing
almost no action in a battle fought in detail by the other
four. Often the advancing Federals were outweighed at
the point of contact by riflemen taking every advantage of
excellent natural cover. Lee handled his army faultlessly
and the following morning his troops awaited a
resumption which McClellan declined. On the nineteenth
the invaders fell back across the Potomac without
molestation, having suffered about 10,000 casualties as
compared to 12,000 for the North. Lynn Montross, 605.
At the last possible minute Lee's army had been saved
from defeat. What had saved it was the arrival from
Harper’s Ferry of A. P. Hill. These soldiers came upon
the field at precisely the right time and place, after a
terrible seventeen-mile forced march from Harper's Ferry,
in which exhausted men fell out of ranks by the score and
Hill himself urged laggards on with the point of his sword.
A more careful and methodical general (any one of the
Federal corps commanders, for instance) would have set a
slower pace, keeping his men together, mindful of the
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Main Ideas:
Key Words:
Analysis:
certainty of excessive straggling on too strenuous a march
– and would have arrived, with all his men present or
accounted for, a couple of hours too late to do any good.
AP Hill drove his men so cruelly that he left fully half of
his division panting along the roadside. Those who were
left in time to stave off disaster and keep the war going for
two and one half more years. Bruce Catton, journalist and
Pulitzer prize winner for historical works, Civil War,
Three Volumes in One, Mr. Lincoln's Army, Glory Road,
A Stillness at Appomattox (New York: Fairfax Press,
1984), 185-6.
In 1862 at Antietam, nearly 11,000 Confederates and more
than 12,000 Federals had fallen along that ridge and in that
valley, including a total on both sides of about 5000 dead.
Losses at South Mountain raised these numbers to 13,609
and 14,756 respectively, the latter being increased to
27,276 by the surrender of the Harpers Ferry garrison. Lee
had suffered only half as many casualties as he had
inflicted in the course of the campaign. Even this was
more than he could afford. "Where is your division?"
someone asked Hood at the close of the battle, and Hood
replied, "Dead on the field." Shelby Foote, American
novelist and son of a planter, The Civil War: A Narrative,
Fort Sumter to Perryville (New York: Random House,
1958),702.
4. Impact. Antietam was finally, and irrevocably, the
decisive battle of the war, affecting the whole course of
American history ever since. For this stalemated
battle-this great whirlwind of flame and torn earth and
shaking sound, which seemed to consume everything and
to create nothing-brought about the Emancipation
Proclamation and put the country on a new course from
which there could be no turning back. Here at last was the
sounding forth of the bugle that would never call retreat.
Bruce Catton, 191.
The Emancipation Proclamation meant that Europe was
not going to decide how the American Civil War came
out. It would be fought out at home. And it would be
fought to the bitter end. The chance for compromise was
killed. Bruce Catton, 192.
By the summer of 1862, events were tumbling rapidly
toward emancipation. On July 17. Congress adopted a
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Main Ideas:
Key Words:
Analysis:
second Confiscation Act. The first had confiscated slaves
employed by the Confederate military; the second declared
all slaves of rebel masters "forever free of their servitude."
In theory this breathtaking measure freed most
Confederate slaves, for slaveholders formed the backbone
of the rebellion. Congress had traveled far since the war
began. James L. Roark, 382.
Lincoln had, too. On July 21, the president informed his
cabinet that he was ready "to take some definitive steps in
respect to military action and slavery." The next day lie
read a draft of a preliminary emancipation proclamation
that promised to free all slaves in the seceding states on
January 1, 1863. Lincoln described emancipation as an
"act of justice," but it was the lengthening casualty lists
that finally brought him around. Emancipation, he
declared, was "a military necessity, absolutely essential to
the preservation of the Union." On September 22, Lincoln
issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation
promising freedom to slaves in areas still in rebellion on
January 1, 1863. James L. Roark, 382.
The limitations of the proclamation-it exempted the loyal
border states and Union occupied areas of the
Confederacy-caused some to ridicule the act. The London
Times observed cynically, "Where he has no power Mr.
Lincoln will set the egroes free, where he retains power
lie will consider them as slaves." But Lincoln had no
power to free slaves in loyal states, and invading Union
armies would liberate slaves in the Confederacy as they
advanced. James L. Roark, 382.
By presenting emancipation as a "military necessity"
Lincoln hoped he had disarmed his conservative critics.
Emancipation would deprive the Confederacy of valuable
slave laborers, shorten the war, and thus save lives.
Democrats, however, fumed that the "shrieking and
howling abolitionist faction" had captured the White
House and made it "a nigger war." Democrats made
political hay out of Lincoln's action in November 1862
elections, gaining thirty-four congressional seats. House
Democrats quickly proposed a resolution branding
emancipation "a high crime against the Constitution." The
Republicans, who maintained narrow majorities in both
houses of Congress, beat it back. James L. Roark, 382.
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5. Gettysburg. The Army of the Potomac remained some Main Ideas:
Key Words:
80,000 strong after deductions for stragglers and
Analysis:
yesterday’s casualties. Lee on the other hand, with
Pickett's division and six of the seven cavalry brigades still
absent, had fewer than 50,000 effectives on the field after
similar deductions. Moreover, the tactical deployment of
the two forces extended these eight-to-five odds
considerably. Meade's 51 brigades of infantry and seven
of cavalry were available for the occupation of three miles
of line, which gave him an average of 27,000 men per
mile, or better than fifteen to the yard. This was roughly
twice as heavy a concentration as the Confederates had
enjoyed at Fredericksburg. Lee's 34 brigades of infantry
and one of cavalry were distributed along a five-mile
semicircle for an average of 10,000 men to the mile, or
fewer than six per yard. As for artillery, Meade had 354
guns and Lee 272, or 118 to the mile, as compared to 54.
Shelby Foote, 497.
If Stonewall Jackson still commanded the II Corps and
had received Lee's message to attack the Yankee right on
Cemetery Hill before sundown if practical, it is almost
certain that he would have attacked. To Stonewall the
word "practicable" had a different meaning than it had to
Old Bald Head. It mean a good chance of success, as he
had shown at Fredericksburg until the Federal guns on
Stafford Heights changed his mind. To Ewell it mean
absolute certainty of success, and the sight of enemy
fortifications growing stronger by the hour, and Lee's
refusal to give him supporting troops paralyzed his will.
Moreover, Johnson's division did not arrive until late
sundown, so that when Ewell conferred with Lee at
twilight he was absolutely unwilling to move. The
opportunity to crush a still dazed enemy had passed.
Richard Ewell was simply no Stonewall Jackson. Robert
Leckie, 504.
It is the custom of military service to accept instructions of
a commander as orders, but when they are coupled with
conditions that transfer the responsibility of battle and
defeat to the subordinate, they are not orders, and General
Ewell was justifiable in not making attack that his
commander would not order, and the censure of his failure
is unjust and very ungenerous. James Longstreet, 381.
Gouverneur K. Warren, the army's thirty-three-year-old
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chief engineer . . . Disturbed to find the high ground [Little
Round Top] all but unoccupied; despite its obvious
tactical value, Warren told the signalmen to keep up their
wigwag activity, simply as a pretense of alertness . . .
Colonel Strong Vincent, who at twenty-six was the army's
youngest brigade commander, responded by marching at
once to occupy the hill. Arriving less than a quarter of an
hour before the Texans and Alabamians, he advanced his
brigade-four regiments from as many different states,
Pennsylvania, New York, Maine, and Michigan-to the far
side of the crest, well downhill in order to leave room for
reinforcements, and took up a stout position in which to
wait for what was not long in coming . . . Warren did not
waste time riding to the head of the column to find Weed.
"Never mind that, Paddy," he said. "Bring them up on the
double-quick, and don't stop for aligning. I'll take the
responsibility." O'Rorke did as Warren directed, and
Weed soon followed with his other three regiments,
double-timing them as best he could up the steep, boulderclogged incline. Shelby Foote, 503-4.
Main Ideas:
6. Pickett’s Charge. Lee's plan was to assault the
Key Words:
enemy's left center by a column to be composed of
Analysis:
McLaws's and Hood's divisions reinforced by Pickett's
brigades . . . The column would have to march a mile
under concentrating battery fire, and a thousand yards
under long-range musketry. James Longstreet, LieutenantGeneral Confederate Army, From Manassas to
Appomattox, Memoirs Of The Civil War In America
(Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press: 1960),
386.
The Union cannons on the hill fell silent one by one.
General Hunt passed the word along to the remaining two
thirds of his guns to stop firing to make the Confederates
think that the Union cannons had been knocked out.
Shelby Foote, 547-8.
Lee said the distance was not more than fourteen hundred
yards. General Meade's estimate was a mile or a mile and
a half (Captain Long, the guide of the field of Gettysburg
in 1888, stated that it was a trifle over a mile). He then
concluded that the divisions of McLaws and Hood could
remain on the defensive line; that he would reinforce by
divisions of the Third Corps and Pickett's brigades, and
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stated the point to which the march should be directed.
James Longstreet, 386-7.
"If,' said he [Lee], on many occasions, 'I had taken General
Longstreet's advice on the eve of the second day of the
battle of Gettysburg, and filed off the left corps of my
army behind the right corps, in the direction of
Washington and Baltimore' along the Emmitsburg road,
the Confederates would to-day be a free people." James
Longstreet, 401.
The story of the famous charge is best told by the bare
statistics. In any age of war, including the present, losses
of more than 30 per cent will usually suffice to stop
assaulting troops. Yet out of the 4,500 men in General
George Pickett's own division, 3,393 were left on the
field-a casualty list of 75 per cent. All 18 of the brigade
and regimental commanders were killed or wounded, and
one regiment lost nine-tenths of its total numbers. Lynn
Montross, 614.
Southern soldiers also seized scores of black people in
Pennsylvania and sent them south into slavery. James M.
McPherson, 650.
The Confederate invasion (of Pennsylvania) had the
opposite effect on Northern opinion from what Lee had
expected. Instead of encouraging the antiwar faction, it
spurred an outburst of fury among most Northerners that
quelled the Copperheads into silence. The invaders had
seized all the cattle, horses, wagons, food and shoes they
could find and levied tribute on towns they occupied.
They had also captured scores of Pennsylvania blacks and
sent them south into slavery. All of this roused
Northerners to the same pitch of anger and hatred that
Southerners had experienced when defending their soil.
James McPherson, Ordeal by Fire (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1982), 325.
7. Vicksburg was the key to the Mississippi, if not to the Main Ideas:
entire war. If it fell, the great waterway would be in Union Key Words:
Analysis:
hands. But if it held out as Abraham Lincoln said: "We
may take all the northern ports of the Confederacy and
they can still defy us from Vicksburg. It means hog and
hominy without limit, fresh troops from all the states of
the far South, and a cotton country where they can raise
the staple without interference. Vicksburg, however, was
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a very tough nut, especially from the water. It stood on
high bluffs on the eastern bank commanding a great bend
in they river. On its eastern or landward side it was
protected by swamps and bayous. Robert Leckie, 542.
Up to this time its supplies had come down the
Mississippi on barges, but with only five days' rations,
Grant cut loose altogether from his base. The significance
of this step cannot be overestimated. All European armies
of the day had long ago returned to the magazine system in
reaction to the excesses of the Napoleonic wars. The
Federal forces of the first two years, influenced by
continental models, likewise depended on bases and
wagon trains. Early in the war Northern political leaders
still hoped to gain converts in border regions, and generals
were warned against offending the inhabitants. The
Confederates subsisting for the most part in friendly
territory, were first to supply themselves at the expense of
the enemy. This policy gave them an advantage in
mobility which General Ewell summed up in his
comment, “The path to glory cannot be followed with
much baggage." Lynn Montross, 616-7.
By deception and manoeuvre Grant had already won his
main objectives when he reached high ground at Walnut
Hills and occupied Haines’ Bluff as his new base of
supplies. A few clays later, counting too much on enemy
demoralization, he made the single mistake of the
campaign by ordering a general assault all along the line.
From three miles of trenches the rebel riflemen replied
with a murderous fire. Grant stubbornly tried again, and
on the twenty-second he had to accept a second repulse
with heavy losses. Lynn Montross, 617-8.
Pick and spade served him better as weapons. Throughout
June his parallels and approaches drew ever closer to the
Confederate entrenched camp. In the Federal rear
Johnston was assembling an army of relief, but after a
heroic resistance Vicksburg came to a choice between
surrender and starvation. Lynn Montross, 618.
Now Grant's daring came into play to match his
farsightedness. Although he had about 33,000 men
against Pemberton's 23,000, the enemy army in Vicksburg
was linked to the interior by rail and could be easily
reinforced or supplied. Grant decided to attack the city's
rear, its supply base to the east in Jackson, then held by
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Joe Johnston with about 6,000 men. The Union chief
proposed one of the most audacious moves in history: to
cut loose from his base, seize Jackson, and then, still
living off the land, turn west to invest Vicksburg. Thus, as
Grant moved east toward Jackson, the bewildered
Pemberton sallied from Vicksburg to "cut" the nonexistent
Yankee supply line. Robert Leckie, 551-2.
Main Ideas:
8. Siege of Vicksburg. Vicksburg was caught in a trap.
On the river, gunboats kept up a steady shelling of the city. Key Words:
Analysis:
On land, field artillery boomed away. The Union trenches
spread their strangling arms wider and gun batteries
wormed their way closer. Within the city, the garrison and
the people lived like cave dwellings. Robert Leckie, 556.
There was little to eat but corn bread and mule meat.
Some lived on spoiled bacon and bread made of pea flour.
Those with hardy stomachs trapped and ate rats,
comparing their flesh to spring chicken. Robert Leckie,
556.
In 1863 at Vicksburg, the meager diet was beginning to
tell. By late June, nearly half the garrison was on the sick
list or in hospital. The Confederate ration now had been
reduced to "one biscuit and a small bit of bacon per day."
If you can't feed us, you had better surrender us, horrible
as the idea is, than suffer this noble army to disgrace
themselves by desertion. This army is now ripe for
mutiny, unless it can be fed. Shelby Foote, 415.
Confederate casualties during the siege had been 2,872
killed, wounded, and missing, while those of the Federals
totaled 4,910. The final tally of prisoners included 2,166
officers, 27,230 enlisted men, and 115 civilian employees,
all paroled. In ordnance, too, the harvest was rich one;
yielding 172 cannon, surprisingly large amounts of
ammunition of all kinds, and nearly 60,000 muskets and
rifles, many of such superior quality that some Union
regiments exchanged their own weapons. Shelby Foote,
613-4.
The twin disasters at Vicksburg and Gettysburg proved to
be the turning point of the war. The Confederacy could
not replace the nearly 60,000 soldiers who were captured,
wounded, or killed. Lee never launched another major
offensive north of the Mason Dixon line. It is hindsight,
however, that permits us to see the pair of battles as
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decisive. At the time, the Confederacy still controlled the
heartland of the South, and Lee still had a vicious sting.
War-weariness threatened to erode the North's will to win
before Union armies could destroy the Confederacy's
ability to go on. James L. Roark, 389.
9. Sherman’s March to the Sea. Simultaneously,
Sherman invaded Georgia. Grant instructed Sherman to
"get into the interior of the enemy's country as far as you
can, inflicting all the damage you can against their War
resources." In early May Sherman moved 100,000 men
south against the 65,000 rebels. Skillful maneuvering,
constant skirmishing, and one pitched battle, at Kennesaw
Mountain, brought Sherman to Atlanta, which fell on
September 2. James L. Roark, 390.
Sherman’s loss for the past month of June 1864 was 7500
Johnston’s around 6000. This brought their respective
totals for the whole campaign to just under 17,000 and just
over 14,000. Roughly speaking, to put it another way, one
out of every four Confederates had been shot or captured,
as compared to one out of seven Federals. Sherman would
take great pride in this reversal of the anticipated ratio of
losses between attacker and defender. As well he might,
especially in a campaign fought on ground as unfavorable
to the offensive as North Georgia, against an adversary he
admired as much as he did Joe Johnston. Shelby Foote,
400-1.
The capture of Mobile, the fall of Atlanta, and Sheridan's
victories in the Shenandoah Valley put a different face on
the presidential election. As late as August 23 Lincoln
himself had believed that he would not be reelected. That
day he had asked the members of his Cabinet to indorse a
folded sheet of paper without reading it. On it he had
written: "This morning, as for some days past, it seems
exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be
reelected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with
the President elect, as to save the Union between the
election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his
election on such ground that he can not possibly save it
afterwards." Paul M. Angle, A Pictorial History of the
Civil War Years (Garden City, New York: Doubleday &
Company, 1967), 182-3.
The logistical accomplishments of this march were among
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the most stunning in the history of warfare. The earlier
march through Georgia had taken place against token
opposition in dry fall weather along lines parallel to the
principal rivers. This one went half again as far and
crossed many rain-swollen rivers and swamps in the
middle of an unusually wet winter against increasing
opposition, as the Rebels desperately scraped together an
army in their futile attempt to block the blue bulldozer.
Counting rest days and delays caused by skirmishes and
fights, Sherman's forces averaged nearly ten miles a day
for forty-five days. During twenty-eight of those days rain
fell. James McPherson, Ordeal by Fire, 471.
The Confederates expected the weather and terrain to stop
Sherman. Joseph Johnston believed that "it was
absolutely impossible for an army to march across lower
portions of the State in winter." But the Yankees did it.
Pioneer battalions (100 white soldiers and 75 black
pioneers) cut down whole forests to corduroy roads; entire
brigades exchanged rifles for spades and axes to build
bridges. At night the men-Sherman included-sometimes
roosted in trees to escape the flooded ground. Yet in all
this, only 2 percent of the army fell sick. When the
Federals came to the Salkiehatchie River, Confederate
General William J. Hardee assured his superiors: "The
Salk is impassable." The bluecoats bridged it and got the
army over without loss of a wagon or gun. "I wouldn't
have believed it if I hadn't seen it," said Hardee ruefully.
Johnston later wrote: "When I learned that Sherman's army
was marching through the Salk swamps, making its own
corduroy roads at the rate of a dozen miles a day and
more, and bringing its artillery and wagons with it, I made
up my mind that there bad been no such army in existence
since the days of Julius Caesar."21 James McPherson,
Ordeal by Fire, 471.
10. Total War. Sherman had long pondered the nature
and purpose of this war. He had concluded that, "we are
not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people."
Defeat of Southern armies was not enough to win the war;
the railroads, factories, and farms that supplied and fed
them must be destroyed; the will of the civilian population
that sustained the armies must be crushed. Sherman
expressed more bluntly than anyone else the meaning of
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Main Ideas:
Key Words:
Analysis:
total war. James McPherson, Ordeal by Fire, 460.
In time Sherman would concede "many acts of pillage,
robbery, and violence were committed by these parties of
foragers." The damage inflicted came to no less than
$100,000,000. "At least twenty millions of which has
inured to our advantage, and the remainder is simple waste
and destruction. Shelby Foote, 645.
"Vandalism, though not encouraged, was seldom
punished," according to an artillery captain who also
served as an undercover reporter for the New York Herald.
He noted that, while "in Georgia few houses were burned,
here few escaped." Shelby Foote, 787-8.
In the course of the march now approaching its end, an
estimated 25,000 blacks of both sexes and all ages joined
the various infantry columns at one time or another. A
considerable number managed to tag along, a growing
encumbrance. Shelby Foote, 649.
In 1864 the march on Savannah achieved a significance
beyond its considerable military value. The risk had
turned out slight (103 killed, 428 wounded, 278 captured
or otherwise missing: barely more, in all, than one percent
of the force involved) even Sherman was somewhat awed
in retrospect. Shelby Foote, 713.
Sherman has justly been censured for the needless
suffering he inflicted, though Sheridan's devastation of the
Shenandoah was even more harsh. For all military
purposes the thorough destruction of railways would have
sufficed to deprive the Confederate armies of food, while
the burning and looting of local supplies could only leave
a tradition of bitterness for following generations. Enemy
chroniclers admitted that cases of personal violence were
few, but it could not be denied that thousands of civilians
had been reduced to the hardships of malnutrition. Lynn
Montross. 630.
11. Lee's Surrender. During the Final year of the war,
Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant employed his overwhelming
superiority in manpower to defeat the Confederacy.
Simply stated, Grant’s plan was to mobilize every
available man, apply pressure on all fronts, and stretch the
Confederacy. Joseph T. Glatthaar, Gabor S. Boritt, ed.,
135.
Let's consider the casualties that earned Grant his
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Analysis:
reputation as butcher. During the first month of the 1864
campaign, as the Army of the Potomac ground its way
from the Rapidan through the Wilderness to the nightmare
of Cold Harbor, it suffered approximately 55,000
casualties-about the total strength of the Army of Northern
Virginia the start of the campaign. In the process, it
inflicted 32,000 casualties-a ratio of roughly 5 to 3, which
is higher than the 5 to 2 superiority that the Union
possessed over the Confederacy, and is not an
unreasonable proportion considering the advantages that
the defense had in Civil War battles. Reid Mitchell,
Gabor S. Boritt, 120.
In the fall and early winter of 1864-65, some 40 percent of
the Confederate soldiers east of the Mississippi deserted.
Archer Jones, Gabor S. Borit, 74.
Lincoln’s re-election was the clincher. It meant that the
pressure would never be relaxed. Grant would be
sustained in his application of a strategy that was as
expensive as it was remorseless. No loss of spirit back
home would cancel out what the armies in the field were
winning. Bruce Catton, 519.
After the fall of Wilmington, last great port of supply,
neutral observers realized that the end was near. Not only
had the material resources of the South been shattered, but
even the causes of rebellion. For the theory of states'
rights became a mockery when governors might browbeat
Jefferson Davis by threatening to secede from the
Confederacy. Nor could the doctrine of slavery be upheld
when several Southern leaders advocated the freeing of
Negroes to fill the thinned ranks of the armies. Lynn
Montross, 631.
12. Dueling Presidents. Mobilization required effective
political leadership, and at first glance the South appeared
to have the advantage. Jefferson Davis brought to the
Confederate presidency a distinguished political career,
including experience in the U.S. Senate. He was also a
West Point graduate, a combat veteran and authentic hero
of the Mexican-American War, and a former secretary of
war. In contrast, Abraham Lincoln brought to the White
House one term in the House of Representatives, and his
sole brush with anything military was as a captain in the
militia in the Black Hawk War, a brief struggle in Illinois
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in 1832 in which whites expelled the last Indian, from the
state. The lanky, disheveled Illinois lawyer-politician
looked anything but military or presidential in his bearing.
James L. Roark, 374.
Davis, however, proved to be less than he appeared.
Although he worked hard, Davis had no gift for military
strategy yet intervened often in military affairs. He was an
even less able political leader. Quarrelsome and proud, he
had an acid tongue that made enemies the Confederacy
could ill afford. He insisted on dealing with every scrap of
paper that came across his desk, and he grew increasingly
unbending and dogmatic. James L. Roark, 374.
With Lincoln, in contrast, the North got far more than met
the eye. He proved himself a master politician and a
superb leader. When forming his cabinet, Lincoln
appointed the ablest men, no matter that they were often
his chief rivals and critics. He appointed Salmon P. Chase
secretary of the treasury knowing that Chase had
presidential ambitions. As secretary of state, he chose his
chief opponent for the Republican nomination in 1860,
William H. Seward. Despite his civilian background,
Lincoln displayed an innate understanding of military
strategy. No one was more crucial in mapping the Union
war plan. James L. Roark, 374.
Lincoln won an extraordinary 78 percent of the separately
tabulated soldier vote (119,754 out of 154,045). The
Republican majority was probably as large among soldiers
who went home to vote or whose ballots were not
separately counted. Even in the Army of the Potomac,
only 29 percent of the men voted for McClellan. James
McPherson, Ordeal by Fire, 457.
The soldier vote provided the margin of Republican
victory in several congressional districts. It probably also
provided Lincoln's margin in New York and Connecticut
(and possibly in Indiana and Maryland). Although the
President would have won without the army vote, the fourto-one Republican majority of soldier ballots was an
impressive mandate for Lincoln's policy of war to victory.
The men who would have to do the fighting had voted by
a far larger margin than the folks at home to finish the
job.34 James McPherson, Ordeal by Fire, 457-8.
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How to Win a Battle.
US Grant
1. Avoid Frontal Assaults.
Flank Attack.
Hit them On the Ends - Enfilade Fire
Surprise them from Behind
Once you get them on the run, keep up the scare
Shoot them in the back
Fleeing men make good targets
Fleeing men can't fight back very well
Mystify and Surprise
2. Concentration of Forces
Hurl all of your Army against a part of the enemy
forces
Gang up, teamwork,
Frederick the Great
3. Geography
Take the high ground
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Attacking troops walk up slower
Defending troops can fire down upon slowly
moving troops
Ground Cover, top of hill
Ground cover, bottom of hill
Split the Enemy Line –
Divide and Conquer
Cross Fire
4. Make them attack you
Defensive advantage 2 to 1
Swing around
Get between them and their supplies
US Grant
Get Between them and their capital
5. Siege Warfare
Surround Them
Dig defensive trenches around them
Cut Off their Supplies
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