I think this overlooks the reality that wearing down the North until it was unable to continue was a goal way beyond the South’s reach.
The South’s more realistic goal was to convince the North that trying to conquer the South was a costly exercise in futility, so that it would throw in the towel. (It came a bit too close for comfort to succeeding: McClellan might’ve won the 1864 election if the Sherman, Sheridan, etc. had had their victories after the 1864 election rather than before.) IMHO, Lee’s approach throughout the war was well tuned to this reality. When he could win dramatic victories over the Army of the Potomac through bluff, speed, and maneuver in 1862 and 1863, he for the most part inflicted a series of demoralizing losses on that army.
His streak finally ran out at Gettysburg, but even that was a close thing: while the heroics of Chamberlain and the 20th Maine on the second day are well known, by Catton’s account that was just the first of perhaps a half-dozen places where the Union line was just barely saved from being broken or flanked on the afternoon and evening of the second day. If Lee had won a decisive victory against the Army of the Potomac in Pennsylvania, who knows what that would have done to public support for the war in the North?
And when Grant took over the management of the war east of the Appalachians and it became plain to Lee that the tactics that had served him so well during the earlier part of the war would now fail, Lee switched to a defensive approach after the Wilderness, making sure his troops were well entrenched when Grant would come to hit the Army of Northern Virginia yet again, so they could inflict maximum damage while minimizing their own casualties, which was really the only way he had at that point to make the war a costly exercise in futility for the North. But he played that hand about as well as could be done.
When I look at Lee, I see a general whose approach to the war, even as it changed over time, was about as well tuned to the ultimate strategic goal of the Confederacy as possible, given what he had in front of him.
What do you think happened during the Seven Days? How do you think McClellan was forced to retreat from the outskirts of Richmond all the way back to Malvern Hill?
As my comment above suggests, no, McClellan didn’t hold his own during the Seven Days. And he could have ‘held his own’ at Antietam by not heading there in the first place. The whole point of Antietam, from the Union perspective, was that now that McClellan knew what Lee’s troops were doing, Antietam was a priceless opportunity to take Lee’s army apart by only having to fight one piece at a time. Unfortunately, McClellan blew that opportunity by not being in nearly as much of a hurry to get to the crucial place as he should have been. “Holding his own” in this context was failure.
Wiki sez more Confederate casualties occurred than Union ones, in the sense that more Confederates were killed and more Confederates were wounded.
It specifies that, on the last day, “Lee launched a series of disjointed assaults on the nearly impregnable Union position on Malvern Hill. The Confederates suffered more than 5,300 casualties without gaining an inch of ground.”
It adds that “Rather than flanking the position, Lee attacked it directly, hoping that his artillery would clear the way for a successful infantry assault (just as he would plan the following year in Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg).”
That was the point I was making. Fighting until the Union decided to give up wasn’t a realistic goal because the Union wasn’t planning on giving up. Both sides were committed to fighting on, not just the Confederates.
Yes, there were some people in the north who argued the United States should accept Confederate independence. But they never came close to a majority. They were the equivalent of southerners who wanted to rejoin the United States.
The closest approach was, as you said, the Democratic peace platform in the 1864 campaign. It did exist on paper. But it was repudiated by many Democrats including McClellan himself. And even so, the Democrats were soundly defeated by the Republicans in the general election. The people in the north were not interested in a negotiated peace.
You say that as if it’s an ironclad, settled fact. IIRC, there aren’t exactly accurate public opinion polls from, say, July 1864, before a series of Union victories (Mobile Bay, the fall of Atlanta, Sheridan’s Shenandoah Valley campaign, etc.) made it clear that the war was coming to a successful conclusion, which just might’ve been a significant input into the outcome of the November election.
As far as McClellan is concerned, I expect there may be some contemporary writings that would indicate just how sincere his repudiation of his own party’s platform was. Also, I’m having a hard time Googling when this repudiation took place. The Democratic Convention took place at the very end of August, only a few days before Atlanta fell to Sherman, and weeks after Farragut took Mobile. The later his repudiation, the less reliable it would be as an expression of his sentiment before the Southern dominoes started falling.
And that’s what we’re talking about here: whether the Northern public would have continued to support the war effort if it had continued to appear somewhat stalemated to the extent that it did in the summer of 1864.
I take it as a given that if the cost had been high enough, and progress hadn’t been forthcoming, the Northern people would have eventually given up on it. Why? Because that’s how people are with wars. Unless people are fighting for their own freedom, most people will give up on a war, given enough time with no successful resolution on the horizon.
Northern victories were coming in hot and heavy more than a year prior to the 1864 election; Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and so on. The Union was on a winning streak more or less from July 4, 1863 on; there were some bumps, but the smell of victory was unquestionably in the air.
If I recall correctly, most of the battles of the Seven Days were Union victories. The fact that Lee kept attacking played to McClellan’s fears of vast Confederate reserves. Lee certainly had a psychological edge on McClellan, but Lee was never able to maul him as was done to Burnside, Hooker, & even Grant.
Regardless of what errors McClellan made leading up to the battle, he still held a winning hand AT the battle. It goes back to the poker analogy; McClellan simply couldn’t bring himself to put all his chips on the table. McClellan’s nature pretty much assured that he would neither win big nor lose big against Lee.
The historian Shelby Foote once observed that the Civil War “had no villains, except slavery – and George McClellan.” Obviously not literally true - just look at Quantrill and others - but a nice illustration of how history views the general.
I get the impression there have been a lot of them pretty much throughout the history of modern warfare, just like there have been a lot of brilliant field commanders who sucked at administration.
The kind of people who are excellent at gathering together a huge mass of people and equipment and keeping everyone healthy, fed, trained, motivated and moving in the right direction at the right time are often not the same kind of people who are good at creating and exploiting carnage, chaos and confusion on the battlefield.
For some reason there is a near-universal expectation that generals will usually be geniuses at administration and also geniuses at battlefield tactics. Personally I think this is like expecting someone to be both a brilliant surgeon AND a brilliant family doctor. Sure, there are people like that around, but not enough that you want to bet your life on having one available at all times.
True, but using Malvern Hill as the basis of one’s characterization of the Seven Days is absurd. This was the battle fought after Lee had forced McClellan to retreat back down the Virginia peninsulas, away from Richmond. And though Malvern Hill was a costly defeat for Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, it didn’t change the outcome of the Peninsula Campaign: McClellan and the Army of the Potomac got back on their boats and headed home with their noses bloodied, and Richmond remained safe from direct attack for another couple of years.
The below concerns McClellan’s tactical command at Antietam/Sharpsburg:
I think what wedgeghed is referring to is the famous incident when the Confederates, stretched desperately thin, were hoping to be spared further Union attacks, while McClellan toyed with the idea of sending in an entire uncommitted infantry corps:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
Later in the day, the commander of the other reserve unit near the center, the V Corps, Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter, heard recommendations from Maj. Gen. George Sykes, commanding his 2nd Division, that another attack be made in the center, an idea that intrigued McClellan. However, Porter is said to have told McClellan, “Remember, General, I command the last reserve of the last Army of the Republic.” McClellan demurred and another opportunity was lost.[47]
[/QUOTE]
Lee didn’t force McClellan to do anything other than fret about the vast number of reserves he was sure Lee must have in order to keep attacking. McClellan was winning the battles. The failure of the campaign as a whole was not the result of Lee doing a triple-somersault & landing in McClellan’s rear. Lee had gotten into McClellan’s head. McClellan was retreating from an imaginary danger.
By that logic, why are you criticizing McClellan’s performance at Antietam? If you’re going to hate on him for one, seems you should praise him for the mirror image.
The objective of the Peninsula Campaign was Richmond. A ‘victory’ that backed the Army of the Potomac further away from Richmond left that army further from realizing its objective. After Malvern Hill, even, the Army of the Potomac called it quits and headed for home.
The objective of Antietam - the whole point of the Union Army’s advance to the vicinity of Sharpsburg - was to take advantage of the golden opportunity handed to McClellan by having Lee’s plans handed to him by fighting and destroying each piece of the Army of Northern Virginia separately, rather than having to face the entire army intact. McClellan blew that opportunity.
These two campaigns were in no way mirror images of each other.
No, do the ‘mirror image’ comparison for Lee versus McClellan at Antietam as opposed to McClellan versus Lee during the Seven Days: Lee had an objective, but “called it quits and headed for home” after inflicting more casualties on the other side than got inflicted on his own – just like McClellan before him. They’re both Lee victories?
No, Antietam was a bloody draw. (I feel like I’ve said this before.) Whatever Lee’s objectives were, he probably didn’t achieve them - but McClellan most certainly didn’t either. So in terms of objectives, no win for either side at Antietam.
But note that Lee’s objectives didn’t involve permanently establishing the Army of Northern Virginia north of the Potomac; he was going to return to Virginia whether or not he achieved his objectives. OTOH, McClellan’s objective in the Peninsula campaign was to take and hold Richmond. Getting on the boats meant that he was giving up on the possibility of achieving his objective.