I think if General Lee stays with the US army instead of joining the CSA the war lasts until 1863 with the Union winning quicker. What else do you think is different about the war, the aftermath and the people in it?
With Lee in charge of US forces instead of opposing them the Peninsula Campaign succeeds and Richmond is taken in mid-1862. It might take until sometime in 1863 before the rest of the Confederacy is entirely subdued.
With a quick victory, slavery might actually have been abolished somewhat more slowly. Lincoln wouldn’t have issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
With less blood shed and Lincoln still alive, the North would have been less vindictive and Reconstruction might have been avoided.
No Arlington. No secret handshake for Kappa Alpha Order.
. . . as long as you’re willing to postulate a Lee who wholeheartedly stays with the USA instead of siding with the Confederates, are you willing to postulate a Lee who directs Union troops such that enemy soldiers can march into DC unopposed?
Why would Lee allow DC to be “undefended”?
More importantly, why would Lincoln allow him to remain in command if he did so?
I’ve said before that both sides would have come out ahead if Lee and McClellan had swapped places.
Lee was an aggressive general who pushed for big offenses. That would have been a good strategy for the American army, which had more men and resources than the Confederates and had to take the offensive in order to occupy the south and win the war. But it was a bad strategy for the Confederates; Lee should have followed Washington’s strategy form the Revolution and seen that preserving his army was his top priority.
The only problem Lee might have brought to an American command would be if he had retained his Virginia-centric view. Lee saw Virginia as the only focus of the war. If he had done so as an American commander, he might have pulled troops from the western theaters where they historically made good progress.
McClellan was a terrible general. But by pure coincidence his natural inclination would have been to follow the strategy I described above. He was great at building and preserving forces and maneuvering them around. But he always hesitated at the brink of battle and backed away. As leader of the American army, this prolonged the war until he was replaced. If he had been the Confederate commander, he also would have prolonged the war - but that would have worked in favor of the Confederate cause.
I’m assuming for the sake of this thread that the OP means Lee was as committed to the American cause as southerners like David Farragut, Winfield Scott, and George Thomas were.
This makes no sense. If Lee decided to stay with the Union, he’s going to ensure DC is defended. Lee above all was honorable. There’s no way he would have agreed to serve the Union and then subvert it.
I expect Lee’s former residence does not get turned into Arlington Cemetery, but also that Lee himself never sets foot in Virginia again after the war because he is widely viewed as a traitor there.
Not necessarily. The fact that he stays with the Union may itself have changed political opinion in Virginia, creating a greater split in views there.
For instance, some junior Virginian officers may have followed his lead and stayed with the Union. That could cause greater division within Virginia, as some families would have boys fighting for the Union.
It may have also influenced some political figures to waver in their support for the CSA, and possibly stay with the Union, in the same way as Andrew Johnson did in Tennessee.
Butterfly wings and all that; except Bobby Lee had some pretty big wings. Make one significant change like Lee staying with the Union, and the knock-on effect is not purely military.
Lee was a fantastic tactician. But, he was mediocre at strategy and abysmal at logistics. Why would he be any more successful than other historical Union generals.
Only change IMO is that Lee is remembered as the General US Grant replaced in 1864, the the one who surrendered to him in 1865.
Well, he wouldn’t, of course.
It would be, as it were, an I Can Only Do It Once thing: after Confederate troops pour into DC, Lincoln would presumably realize he’d made a mistake by letting Lee position Union troops at Point A and Point B and Point D but not Point C – and Lincoln would then presumably say, “oh, he’s now fired.”
But he presumably wouldn’t say that until after he found out what Lee had done.
I believe a quick and easy northern victory would have led to very little in the way of social progress that the war forced upon the country. Certainly the slaves would not have been freed.
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Also instead of one civil war we would have had half a dozen since the south won’t feel wipped.
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This is where I think the notion of Lee as a great choice for the Union breaks down.
Lee’s vision was even more limited, I think, than the “Virginia-centric” theory, though that was a big part of it. Lee simply did not have a broad strategic vision necessary to effectively command a continental war. As I have find of borrowing from John Keegan, the Confederacy was the largest territory over which a single war had ever been fought to that point. (So Keegan says, anyway.) A Napoleonic viewpoint, which Lee brought to the table, of two armies in relatively proximity maneuvering to either stay out of battle or get into it was a star or two short of the level of command understanding a general would have required to coordinate a war that encompassed a few million square miles. What was not immediately within Lee’s area of operations was hard for him to understand, which in fairness was true of MOST generals of the time, not a weakness unique to Lee. The war was eventually concluded by general who did understand such things.
So Lee being successful as Union commander is a theory that hinges on him winning the war very quickly. That’s possible, and there’s sure as hell no way he’d have done a worse job that McLellan (though, as you point out, if McLellan is commanding the Army of Northern Virginia he’d have deliberately avoided the decisive battle Lee would have sought.) But it’s not obviously going to happen. The Army of the Potomac under Lee is still very green, his subordinates are way inferior to the ones he had in real life (no Stonewall Jackson confusing the hell out of the Union) and the area is a hard one to conduct an offensive in.
AK84’s theory that Lee would eventually have been succeeded by Grant (well, to be picky, he would have been subordinated to him; Grant did not replace George Meade, who commanded the Army of the Potomac right to the end of the war. Grant was made his boss, with the new job description of General-In-Chief of all armies) is a very plausible one. Grant’s promotion to General in Chief was in part a recognition of his broad strategic genius and the fact that someone had to do that job, rather than a bunch of army generals all independently reporting to the Chief of Staff and the President. Grant was a man who could do that job. Lee was not, and would have quite properly be left in command of his army, as George Meade was.
In fairness to McClellan (which is not easy) he did organize and train a powerful army successfully, which Lee probably wouldn’t have been as good at.
Lee’s daring was suited to a campaign involving less numerous, more poorly supplied forces. He might not have fared as well commanding the Union army.
Sort of a parallel what-if - would the WWII battle for Egypt have ended more quickly if Rommel had commanded the British forces and the Brit commanders (including Montgomery) had led the Germans?
Given the failure of the North to see Reconstruction through and prevent the South from re-oppressing its black population, it could be argued that the North was not “vindictive” enough.
If the was had been won by the north much quicker then their would have been alot more confederate soldiers alive at the end which could have ended in a very nasty guerilla campaign which could have lasted for years, even decades or they might have tried to restart the war say in the 1870’s.
No, it was good that the south took a hard licking where every port and major city was taken and most of the confederate soldiers dead. Look how fast the KKK emerged from former reb soldiers and that was just a handful.
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I agree with you about his lack of an understanding of modern startegy and logistics. Unlike Grant.
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I don’t see him being allowed (or is willing to) serve under Grant, like Meade was. Meade had only been in-charge for one battle, one he had won, and he was not particularly senior to Grant. Lee was 14 years senior to Grant and would have been in command for nearly 3 years. They would almost have to replace him with a new Cdr for AOTP and Lee would have either been retired, or send to some prestigious post with lesser responsibility, like say Command of Washington D.C Defences. He would be remembered as the General who won most of his battles and stood up for the Union, but was unable to crush the Confederacy until US Grant showed up.
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This of course (like most Alt-Histories on this question) presumes that Lee stays East, but in charge of the Union Armies, not the Confederate ones. If he had been sent West (in one Harry Turtlelove essay, he was), then the equation changes somewhat. While his lack of understanding of modern strategy is still in place, one thing he was good at, was recognizing and promoting highly competent subordinates. And giving them exceptional leeway, especially for daring operations.
I think if he is in the West, he would have promoted Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan, plus Thomas very quickly. He would have also sacked McClernand much earlier than Grant did, and possibly Rosecrans. I think he would have approved of the operations that Grant and Co did historically on the Mississippi, and gotten credit for it. Come 1864, it would be him not Grant who is named Lt Gen. Which would be bad for the Union.
I agree with this - I think the war is either wrapped up sometime in 1862 with a rapid Union occupation of Virginia because Lee was placed in charge of the Army of the Potamic and decisively won one of the campaigns the Union lost, or Lee being on the Union side doesn’t really make a difference to the course of the war, and it drags on until Grant (or someone like him) takes over and grinds down the Confederacy. And while Lee was a good general, I’m not sure that he could take a the ponderous, less-trained, rapidly expanding Union army to the kind of victories he was known for.