“Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.”
The American civil war was fought with trains and telegraph.
Grant’s objective was to destroy Lee’s army, or to pin it down. His objective was Richmond only to the extent that Lee was forced to engage him in order to protect it.
In late 1864 and 1865 it was, but Grant had been fighting in the Western theater, and eventually directing all operations there, for years before that, with remarkable success. He was also General of all Union armies, directing them all.
Grant’s reputation for just fighting wars of attrition was pinned on him (by the Northern press) during the Overland Campaign, which was a bloody mess to be sure, but that was NOT his intention. He was trying to outmaneuvre Less the whole time, though shortly after he had little choice but to have Meade entrench the Army of the Potomac across from Petersburg while his other armies rolled up the South elsewhere.
Grant was a terrific general in every respect, the greatest of the war.
My main point was that his objective was Lee’s army, not really Richmond. If he could have destroyed Lee all at once he would have, but that wasn’t possible. From here:
A personal aside: My great-great grandfather fought in the Overland Campaign, being called up to replace troops killed at the Wilderness and joining the campaign at Spotsylvania, He was in the suicide charges against Lee’s entrenched army at Cold Harbor. He was captured during the movements to envelop Petersburg and died in Andersonville of scurvy a few months later. I’ve read a great deal about the campaign.
This is true. Part of the Lost Cause myth is that the South had much better soldiers and leaders but just couldn’t compete with the manpower or industrial resources of the Union forces. And the Confederates did have some darned good leaders. But there were plenty of times when the Union just plain outfought and outmaneuvered the Confederates.
Another rebel yell post: in the early eighties , on PBS, a folklorist stated that after a presentation to the daughters of the confederacy, he was approached by an elderly lady who said that when she was a little girl, her father would, very occasionally, demonstrate the yell for the children, and she performed it for the folklorist. He, in turn, passed it on to us, the listening audience. It was lower-pitched, and featured a very strong ululation, and I do mean strong. A hundred cavalry at full tilt would make anyone doubt his career moves.
Sorry I don’t have any more detail than this, but it was more than thirty-five years ago, and these days I wear my eyeglasses on a string so that I don" have to spend thirty-five minutes looking for them every time I set them down.
Dan
I recently watched this series again in light of current American politics. It’s really good. I still have a few questions, I guess. I like Shelby Foote better on the second viewing, despite some disliking his description of the conflict as a “failure to compromise”, thinking this a serious mischaracterization. Probably it was. But given the War was originally ostensibly about preserving the Union, it isn’t completely inaccurate even if the War had more serious causes.
Apart from briefly mentioning Bleeding Kansas, it barely mentions the War in the West, which was very significant, but is covered in the series “The West”.
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The series says that Jefferson Davies was highly criticized after the war in the South, “rather than blame the soldiers”. But given the difference in men, materiel and railroads, the odds of the South winning were extremely long. How is he viewed now? Was he treated fairly by the victors?
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The skirmishes for conquest of the Mississippi are interesting. After the Merrimack reaked havoc, the North persuaded an eccentric and brilliant Scandinavian to design what became the Monitor, containing dozens of newly patented innovations and completed in a fairly short time. Who is this Scandinavian fellow? What else did he do? What happened to him after the war?
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The series doesn’t mention Perry opening Japan to trade. Since this happened in 1853 before the war, he presumably had canons but not iron barding. Could a gunship have caused that much damage to a city? Because it sounds like Vicksburg was shelled for many weeks without much progress.
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Until the return of Grant, the Northern generals seemed pretty incompetent and unable to act quickly when necessary. Was the army so hierarchal that more NCOs did not object? Lincoln studied classic war stuff and was very critical of McClellan, etc., but could not find a better choice. Why was this? Was the North more reluctant to promote soldiers who had been capable? Was West Point so highly regarded?
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A lot of profiteers made more money by selling shoddy footwear, etc. Were there attempts to hold these people accountable?
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It seems generals were very slow to realize bayonets were useless given repeating guns, or that charges against troops embedded on high ground were stupid. Why was this? Did not other countries study this war when it came to WW1?
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Are there a lot of Confederate dollars around today? Are they worth more now than then?
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The series mentions Sam Houston in Texas was a strong Union supporter. What efforts did the Confederacy make to win over Southwestern States?
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The series often quotes Frederick Douglass but does not talk about the North Star newspaper. How did this come to be?
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Lee seems to have been very highly regarded on both sides, apart from a few unfortunate mistakes like Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg. After the war, it says Lee refused to be an advertising shill, and was a college President for many years. Although he was clearly a highly capable General, and far shrewder than Northern counterparts, how does he rank in historical terms, say compared to Caesar or Alexander. Was he as good as advertised, or is this an American tendency to see everything there as the best and brightest?
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More and more modern people are unenthusiastic about basic vaccines. Yet 2/3 of Civil War deaths were due to things like diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles and infectious pneumonia. Is this point ever used to try to convince naysayers, or are they just impervious to logic and science?
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Although I understand supplies were limited, the saga of Andersonville still seems shocking. Not permitted to even built shelter from the weather? Is there any worse example on American treatment of prisoners? Of Caucasian prisoners?
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The story of how miners broke an impasse by secretly tunneling under their enemy and then causing a massive explosion and crater seems strange. How was it that the North did not realize that if you rode into the crater, instead of around it, you couldn’t easily get out?
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The story of the Sanitary Services and Clara Barton are very interesting. The fact the North had these and the South “could not afford these” was, under the circumstances, another reason the North was likely to win despite shrewd Southern leadership. Did the South try to improve hygiene? How was it that Barton and others were not paid for their services?
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If an opposing army was dug into a deep forested thicket, on strategically unimportant land, would it not make more sense to send in fire than troops?
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Although many enlistees never saw battle, causality rates were often enormous at certain skirmishes. These were dwarfed by deaths from disease, though POW deaths also rate. How did Southern POWs in the North fare?
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Certain units, say the 20th Maine, seemed to have performed particularly well. Is this still a source of local pride today? Were many memorials affected by modern political sensibilities, resulting in statues being removed and schools and streets renamed? Or not so much?
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Are any other great American speeches comparable to Gettysburg in terms of importance? Or in terms of brevity?
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How odd is it that the war began and ended at the property of the very same dude? Is there any equivalent to this in all of history?
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How did West Point change as a result of the Civil War?
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If the ironclads instantly made all the other navies obsolete, how did other countries react? I vaguely recall that there was an intense worldwide increase in colonialism and competition between the 1880s and the 1910s, leading to WW1. Did they copy ironclads? Did submarines make them obsolete? What happened to boats as a result of the Civil War?
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Forrest does seem a capable leader despite his proclivities after the war. How is he regarded today?
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I heard the series made Foote a celebrity and that he kept a public phone number and was often called by admirers or those less so. Are his histories good (though not a historian?)? What about those if the others quoted - Ed Bearss or Barbara Fields or Oates?
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The series does not cover the Restoration well or much. Is there a good documentary that does?
As far as I can tell, there are no other speeches anywhere (American or not) that are as brief, yet significant, as the Gettysburg Address.
I think you mean the Reconstruction, not Restoration. A historian who specializes in Civil War history wrote in a blog (Electoral-Vote.com) that the Reconstruction is one of the most difficult periods of US history to teach. Says other historians agree.
The 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment captured the battle flag of the 28th Virginia at Gettysburg. The flag currently resides in Minnesota and over the years Virginia has attempted to have it returned. Governor Jesse Venture said something like, “Minnesotans died capturing that flag. We’re not giving it back.” In 2013 when the governor of Virginia asked to borrow it for the 150th anniversary of the battle the governor of Minnesota said no. I imagine it’s because he was afraid Minnesota would never see the flag again.
So, yeah, it’s still a source of local pride in some areas. I doubt many Minnesotans think about it very often though.
I did mean the Reconstruction. Thanks.
Bleeding Kansas was a little earlier; about 1855 to 1857 by my recollection, though I may be off by a year or two. Anyway, it’s been called the rehearsal for the Civil War. Border ruffians, John Brown and his sons slicing pro-slavery advocates with swords, the sack of Lawrence, the Marais de Cygnes massacre, they all took place in that time period. Then came the four constitutions (Topeka, Lecompton, Leavenworth, Wyandotte), three of which were rejected by Congress, leaving Wyandotte, being approved by Congress, as the state constitution of Kansas.
Thing is, Kansas became a state in 1861, and might not have become a state at all, if the southern states hadn’t started seceding from the United States. Kansas was admitted as a free state, mainly because there weren’t enough slave states left in Congress to vote otherwise.
It’s complicated. I could go into a lot more detail (this period of American history fascinates me), but I’d probably bore your socks off.
The PBS America channel over here had a documentary on the Reconstruction period.
Yes, particularly in the aftermath of the Battle of Fort Pillow, in which the Confederates under Nathan Bedford Forrest massacred the soldiers who were trying to surrender. About half of the Union soldiers who were killed were black.
Lincoln’s second inaugural address is another masterpiece of rhetoric. I don’t think it’s as important as the Gettysburg address, partly because the second inaugural happened near the end of the war.
Roosevelt’s speech to Congress the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is also important.
Also, military tactics had not caught up with advances in weaponry. A massed charge into musket fire had a chance of succeeding. But in the Civil War they were using rifles, which were accurate over a longer distance. The rifles could be loaded more quickly than the older muskets, and they sometimes used repeating rifles. These factors allowed soldiers to start firing sooner at an approaching enemy, and to get off more shots before that enemy got close enough for hand combat. Yet even as late as Gettysburg, there were attempts at mass charges across open fields.
The Minié ball was a particularly deadly bullet. It was made of unjacketed soft lead, and when it hit someone it would flatten, doing a lot of internal damage and creating a big exit wound. Under today’s rules of warfare only jacketed bullets can be used, but there were no such rules back then.
Yes, it was. But the situation almost mandated it. Lincoln was giving a dedication speech for a cemetery. Not an occasion where one would typically expect such oratory.
[I was going to mention Washington’s farewell address, but learned just now–searching to the length of the “speech”-- it was a letter and not a speech.]
In examining Lee’s record as a general, it’s important to note that the term “General” is a broad one.
Lee, for the great majority of the war, commanded an army, the Army of Northern Virginia. In this context “army” doesn’t refer to the entire Confederate land forces; it means a specific unit, a formation composed of a number of corps. Lee’s command was restricted to that formation and its movements. (He was made general of all armies very late in the war when it no longer mattered.) The Confederates had other armies, which in some cases were organized for a long time; the Army of Tennessee was a major player in the West, and the Army of Trans-Mississippi was another major formation. (Confederate armies were named after areas they initially operated in; Union armies were named after rivers, for some reason. Confusingly, at one point the rebels had an Army of Tennessee, while the Union had the Army of the Tennessee, which was the army Grant commanded in taking Vicksburg.)
This means that Lee was basically a lieutenant general. Today we have four levels of general, but they’re very different. A brigadier general commands a brigade, a major general a division, a lieutentnat general a corps or army, and a full four star general an entire nation’s force. Five star generals would command an entire theatre in war, like Eisenhower in Europe, so you rarely have them anymore. There is very little similarity in job between a brigadier general and a full general, despite the title sounding similar.
Lee’s brilliance was in commanding his army to win battles in the field. He was unquestionably extremely skilled in his understanding and use of units and the nature of battle at the time to defeat enemy formations on the field of battle; his wins at Frederickburg and Chancellorsville certainly make that clear. He inspired loyalty in his officers and men and kept them motivated.
Lee was not without fault, and the crushing defeat at Gettysburg illustrated one of his weaknesses; his methods of giving orders were sometimes a bit unclear or vague, and so his officers were sometimes acting in manners not well coordinated. Still, over his field command abilities were outstanding.
What Lee could not do, really ever, was command at a STRATEGIC level. Lee’s officially assigned job for most of the war, and what he really only had interest it, was commanding the ANV and defeating Union forces on the Virginia front. So that’s what he did. Lee did not exert command over any other Confederate force - in fact, basically no one did. For most of the war the CSA had no supreme commander; Jefferson Davis directly commanded the army commanders.
The greatest general of the war was Ulysses S. Grant, and he was probably the greatest general in the history of the USA. Despite was revisionists will suggest, Gran was a field commander of high skill, but what set him apart from Lee was that he was truly a four star general all the way. Grant understood STRATEGY; he naturally grasped the concept and implications of the entire war on a continental scale, and how the various Union armies and lesser formations collectively contributed to victory. Even when in a role equivalent to Lee’s when he commanded the Army of the Tennessee in the Vicksburg campaign - a campaign still studied in military academies, and by far the most important battle of the war - you can see how he grasped the strategic implications of what he was doing. When given supreme command he coordinated Union forces with tremendous skill. (Grant’s methods of giving orders are an absolute model of how orders should be given. They remind me of assignments I did in command courses in the Army.) Grant did a job, brilliantly, that Lee never really even HAD. Command of a whole continent of armies just is not the same as command of one army, and the evidence tells me Lee really could not even have done what Grant did.
Lee won battles against a technically superior force, and after the war he accepted defeat gracefully and acted like a gentleman. He just sort of LOOKED noble, and so he became a huge hero in the Southern revisionist “Lost Cause” manner of remembering the war. He was a talented general, but wasn’t even the best general of that war, and the USA has had other greatest generals, IMHO.
It’s safe to say that attitudes about Jefferson Davis have changed a lot over time in both the North and the South.
In the North, Davis was held as a prisoner for two years after the end of the war. There was considerable debate about what to do with him. Some wanted him tried for treason in a military court, which almost certainly would have resulted in his execution, others wanted him tried as a civilian, with a less certain outcome. In the end, he was released and effectively pardoned. Based on my reading and some speculation, this was down to a couple of factors:
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The execution of the Lincoln conspirators sated much of the desire for vengeance among Northerners
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Davis had been a Senator in the 1840s and 1850s, was personally charming, and many of those with power and influence were his friends. His wife was also well-liked and worked for his release.
In the South, as you mention, he was given the blame for the loss at first. He wasn’t active in public life in the years immediately after the war, but later did become involved in Southern Veteran’s groups and historical societies, and later became something of a hero to the Lost Cause Movement. His birthday is a holiday in some states in the South and a major highway in northern Virginia was named after him, and the name was only changed a few years ago.
On the subject of Davis: since you ask about Shelby Foote, I have read his three volume history of the War. It’s fairly readable, although Foote had a fondness for long and convoluted sentences.
If Foote’s book can be said to have a “main character,” it’s Davis. Foote begins with Davis preparing to resign from the Senate on the eve of the war, and ends with a summary of Davis’s life after the end of the war, finally concluding with his death. I don’t think that Foote was exactly a Lost Cause believer, but his sympathies are very obviously southern, and he seemed to admire Davis.
I remember seeing Burns’s series when it was first broadcast, and Foote certainly did become something of a celebrity in a way that none of the other “talking heads” did. At least partially that was because he had a lot more screen time. Most of the others were academics, and spoke rather academically. Foote had more the air of a storyteller, and could spin an entertaining yarn in that “downhome” accent of his, which led to Burns putting him onscreen quite a bit more.
I read somewhere that while Barbara Fields supposedly appeared in the series twelve times, Foote appeared closer to eighty. Someone pointed this out to Burns years later. Burns said he had no reason to doubt those numbers, and had not counted appearances himself, but would not want to change how he did it then, presumably because Foote does seem like an engaging storyteller.