how good was he as a general?
In the first half of the war he faced very weak opposition; the way he constantly outsmarted Little Napoleon McClellan is almost hilarious. Against Meade and Grant, on the other hand, his streak of success ran out.
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)
An army needs supplies, ammunition, troops and coordination from his lower ranking officers and sergeants. If there isn't any of the above, or if he doesn't get the support he needs or the financial support, the General, no matter how genial he is, cannot win.
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It's too vast a topic for a little post, and all IMHO, Lee was the premier general on either side throughout the war. Had he taken the Northern command when Lincoln/Scott offered it to him in 1861, the war would have been over in 1862, 1863 at the latest.
Lee did not face weak opposition, only weak Union higher command. In every battle from the Seven Days on the ANV was outnumbered and outgunned, but Lee's brilliance was able to pull out a win (other than the stalemate at Antietam) until Gettysburg. During the 30 Days Campaign of 1864 the ANV outfought the AoP at every battle, except rather than withdrawing back across the Rappahanock as every other Union general had done, Grant marched his armies South.
I take nothing away from the genius Jackson, but Stonewall performed poorly during the Seven Days, and the ANV was only able to accomplish a fraction of what Lee intended.
Finally time, lack of replacements and supplies, as well as the loss of the cream of the ANV's best commanders caught up with him, but could any other Southern general have held out as long?
One also has to look at Lee from the other side. Let's assume he did take the Union command. Could one believe that Lee would have believed his army outnumbered by 2:1, as McClelland did? Would Lee have brought up siege weapons before Yorktown or Richmond in 1862? Would he have held back some 20,000 fresh reserves and then allowed his opponent to retreat unmolested from Sharpsburg? For that matter would he have held the enemies plans in his hands for 36 hours before advancing his troops? Would he have pulled his troops back from the edge of the Wilderness to Chancellorsville or left his right flank dangling as Hooker did?
I think Lee was terrific and as one young Pennsylvania woman said, watching him ride mounted on Traveler one June day in 1863, "I wish he was ours."
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You mention McClellan; how did such a blatant incompetent ever manage to rise to the top command of the Union? Johnston certainly made a damn fool of him with his Quaker guns.
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)
McClellan was the chief engineer and vice president of the Illinois Central Railroad and also president of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad so McClellan had friends at high posts.
At the outset of the Civil War, the Governors of Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, wanted him to command their state militia, Ohio won. He actually got command of the regiments of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and, later, western Pennsylvania, western Virginia, and Missouri. He was called "Mr. Big War Science"
He was very good friends with Salmon P. Chase, Treasury Secretary. He was named major-general only ouranked by the general in chief, Winfield Scott.
McClellan was a brilliant organizer and logician. Essentially he built the Army of the Potomac and most historians (and many contemporaries) believe that whatever it accomplished later was due to McClellan. His men adored him. In part, Lee believed that he could successful invade in '62 because he felt the AoP would be so disorganized that it would take at least a month to respond to his movements. However, when Lincoln put McClellan back in charge after Pope's debacle at Second Bull Run, it took less than two weeks to reorganize and lead the army northwest and ultimately to Antietam.
However he was a terrible tactical general who was easily self-deluded into believing the ANV was two or even three times as large as it was. He believed in a limited and merciful war, fighting by siege and movement rather than by hard fighting, and he also convinced himself that Lincoln and the government were his enemies. Many letters to his wife are almost paranoid sounding.
A letter McClellan wrote to Lincoln following the Seven Days convinced Lincoln, who had come to believe in a hard war, that McClellan was not the general he needed, and it would be another year before he "discovered" that Grant was the man he was looking for. McClellan was first relieved before Second Bull Run, then was relieved permanently after he failed to follow Lee after Antietam.
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Many generals, rightly so, believed war to be utterly horrible and that a total civil war was too tragic to comprehend. McClellan was one of them.
shareAgreed. Most of those generals were either dismissed, demoted or "promoted up" (like Pope to Minnesota) by the end of 1863. It still doesn't excuse McClellan's failure of leadership, especially at Antietam.
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After the war, Lee was asked which Union general was the toughest he faced. His answer, "McClellan."
shareProbably because McClellan would gather a huge amount of troops, position them and then do nothing for a long period of time. This probably made Lee nervous not knowing when and if McClellan would attack
shareI actually think it had more to do with what happened in the Antietam campaign, McClellan acting totally out of character throughout, pushing Lee hard and attacking with such vigor at Sharpsburg. That was totally out of character for the normally cautious McClellan. Lee would not have been aware of the lost order until well after the battle.
shareShelby Foote's chapter on Antietam in his Civil War trilogy does a nice job of describing the impact of the "lost order." Had McClellan acted more vigorously he could have caught Lee totally unprepared with Jackson at Harper's Ferry and Longstreet north at Boonesboro (IIRC) and defeated him in detail. But again he had convinced himself that Lee had 120,000 men so he didn't press the attack on South Mountain, and Lee had time to pull most of his troops to Antietam ahead of the Union army.
Actually he was aware of the Lost Order pretty shortly after the event. According to Foote a Southern sympathizer was in McClellan's tent when the Order was brought in. He left that night to carry the news to the nearest command, who forwarded the information to Lee posthaste. But McClelland's "slows" allowed him the time to react.
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Ah yes. I had forgotten that. Still, McClellan kept attacking throughout the day, pushing the Rebels line back and stretching Lee's forces to the extreme breaking point. Hill's arrival saved him. Yet, even as the day was about to end, McClellan had the 20,000-man corps commanded by Fitz-John Porter. When McClellan considered using him, Porter commented, "General, if you commit me, you'll be committing the last reserves of the Union." That convinced Mac not to use them ending the battle. Had McClellan used Porter's Corps, they might have broken the rebel line.
shareNot only Porter but Franklin's VI Corps. So Porter's comment wasn't even accurate.
I'm afraid that you underestimate the number of subjects in which I take an interest!
Logically, I think one has to ask, if Lee had 120,000 or even 80,000 men in the ANV why did he allow 40,000 to get beat down so bad as to make casualties of 1/4 of his army? In front of Williamsburg one Southern general said only McClelland would have failed to attack; I think the same can be said for Antietam.
JMHO, but after years of reading about Union military leaders in general and Antietam in particular, my conclusion is that in September 1862, only US Grant would have done the right things there before, during and after the battle to have won a decisive victory and possibly ended the war in '62 or '63.
On the other hand, facing Grant, Lee might have (if possible) retreated back south rather than make a stand at Sharpsburg.
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It's interesting to think about Grant being there. I don't think Lee would have retreated. It wasn't his measure to retreat from ground gained unless compelled to do so.
shareI don't think, at that point, he would have either, nor would Grant's reputation have been as established in 1862 as in '63 and '64, but I think Grant had already demonstrated that mentally he would have thrown everything at the ANV and not worried about his "last reserves." Nor did Lee retreat before Grant at the Wilderness until circumstances forced him to pull back to Spotsylvania.
I have an article from an old Civil War Times in which one writer postulates that Grant never fooled Lee, not even with his shift to Petersburg; Lee simply didn't have the manpower left to react and block the crossing of the James. (Others disagree and say Lee was completely fooled and lost touch with the AoP, but it was still an interesting argument.)
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Yeah but then you also have to remember that it was Grant that took Vicksburg and the control of the Mississippi River. If Grant was selected by Lincoln from the beginning of the war depending on who was the commanding General at Vicksburg it might not have been a victory.
When the Story Lady tells us about the naughty boy who blew up his goldfish.
The only time Grant surprised Lee came after Cold Harbor as Grant tried to move toward Petersburg. He made three plans to confuse Lee, 1- He continued to push David Hunter down the Shenandoah Valley, destroying Lee's surprise. To counter this, Lee reinforced Early with Breckenridge's command. Second, he dispatched Sheridan's cavalry to raid Lee's rear. Third, he planned to feint attack just south of Cold Harbor, using Warren's V Corps. While these were going on, the remainder of the Army of the Potomac would cross the James and attack Petersburg. It should have worked and would have except for the reluctance of Baldy Smith to order a night assault prevented the Union from taking Petersburg. By the next day, reinforcements had arrived and the final siege of the war was on.
shareYou have to keep in mind that Grant did not exactly humiliate Lee as a general tactics wise. He simply kept pounding away at him because he knew Lee would run out of manpower first.
shareThe amount of casualties that Grant suffered were enormous throughout his campaigns.
shareAccording to a documentary I own Grant at the time of Appomattox had 40,000 troops and he had started at about 100,000. Lee on the other hand had only about 20,000 troops. because he knew his army would be destroyed he surrendered to Grant. And also because there was nothing for his troops to eat. Grant actually provided some food rations for his remaining men when he surrendered.
Green Goblin is great! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1L4ZuaVvaw
The paroled Confederates parole papers also provided them free passage on any Union vehicle so many ex-Confederates got free passage home. Grant wanted them to get home in time for spring planting, knowing that would have to happen if they and their families were to have any chance of surviving the year.
shareLee's were greater.
shareLee's were greater.
Agreed. The South had run out of resources of every kind, especially men. They never had enough men in the first place, compared to the North.
share....and this was a bigger problem than we want to acknowledge today. Not only was the Union running out of readily available troops by this time (which was large part of the reason they started relying so heavily on "colored troops"), but the press and public opinion was turning more and more against the war. The Union Army suffered 55,000 casualties (in a little over a month!) during the course of the Overland Campaign. That is a LOT of sons and fathers not coming home (or coming home maimed) in a very short period of time. And, when the campaign was over, Grant still wasn't in Richmond, and he wasn't going to get there anytime soon. Grant was quickly nicknamed "The Butcher", and the anti-war movement in the north gained serious steam. Of course, we now know that Lee was suffering casualties at the same (and possibly slightly higher rate) as Grant and the Army of Northern Virginia had been fatally wounded to the point where it would never be able to take the offensive again, but as the spring of 1864 was turning to summer, nobody knew that for certain.
If Sherman had been unable to take Atlanta that fall and if the newspapers had been trumpeting about a "stalemate" in the east and west as the election of 1864 approached, things just might have turned out differently.
Of course, we now know that Lee was suffering casualties at the same (and possibly slightly higher rate) as Grant and the Army of Northern Virginia...
Sorry, I must have double clicked or something. I deleted the second posting.
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