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I have driven throughout the southeast United States. Not just interstate, but many local routes. In doing so, it has helped me grasp some of the difficulties faced by both sides.
Today’s US95 pretty much runs the land route that Grant took towards Richmond(as did all Army of the Potomac leaders through the course of the war, other than McClellan’s one lost opportunity). He had no choice because east of that is disrupted by lowland and rivers, an ideal right flank for the southern forces.
In reviewing the seven days battle, i see McClennan had the absolute right concept merged with a weak will. had he not succumbed to fantasies of being outnumbered, and had he not initially slowed to build entrenchments where not needed, he very well would have beat the southern reinforcements to Richmond and probably destroyed the southern armie piecemeal. But he didn’t, and history has treated him rightly unkindly. (Yet, as I will point out, beating the South at that time could have brought disaster).Some argue had the Confederacy played defensively, closing itself off from Fredricksburg west to the Shenendoah Valley, that it would have kept the Union at bay, closed up tight with no choice but frontal flanks against well entrenched defenders. Defenders who had to do little but create a strong front flank because the east topography of rivers and wetland and the west topography of mountain wall made the Confederate necessity of diverting resources there not needed.
The Union knew this. And this is why Rosecran’s Army(and other middle Armies) proved so vital. However, looking at the map, this army simply could not cut due east over the mountains and strike that way.
Mother Nature, in the guise of multiple slanting mountain ranges parallel and always slightly south and west of each other forced Rosecran(and successors) to slide always south and a little west. One look at maps makes it clear that the focal point for an army having any hope of turning east then back up north to confront Lee had to be Northern Georgia.
This confluence of states: Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina makes for the southern end of that great stretch of Appalachian mountains. Yet enough terrain exists there for Union forces having to make it necessary, as it was, to go south to Atlanta before such a hooking east and north can begin.
it is easy to see why Sherman went there, other than the vital reason to capture a main enemy city and supply route. Once he did that, he knew very well that simply heading northeast would prove fruitless. It would lead him to Grant and Lee, but why, when with a bit more distance, he could head far east then north nearer the coast, while capturing and damaging other important southern cities, and destroying any remaining supply bastions like Wilmington, North Carolina-Lee’s and Richmond’s lifeline.
Backtrack: before he could do that, the Union needed the vital Rosecran Army to drive Bragg’s rebel forces towards Georgia in order to swing under those mountains. We can see how Chicamauga and Chattanooga played such roles, and Murfreesboro and Stones River, and the other battles in that critical area were needed.
Chattanooga to Atlanta provides the last slanting southwest mountains in support of southern positions. It is a triangle of rugged, forested, mountainous terrain. The Union army(now under Sherman) deserves tremendous accolades in assaulting these near impregnable positions…positions that with foresight could have been made more impregnable had Pres. Davis been inclined. yet in hindsight who knows because by then Richmond was under the grinder and getting priority.
General Winfred Scott, old and irrascible, devised the perfect plan when he thought up Anaconda. Closing off southern ports on the Atlantic and Gulf was critical. As was the taking of the Mississippi. And this made Grant’s Army of the West as vital as all others.
The Union needed not only to cut off Confederate ports, but they needed to isolate the producing states that fed the Mississippi river because the river provided access to the goods which, if unable to be sailed around to Atlantic ports, could be carried by railroad, wagon, or small river craft up through Alabama into Georgia, into North Carolina to Virginia. Along the way, they could supply Bragg’s army when they reached that critical Northern georgia area.
By the Grant’s army seizing forts, capturing cities like Vicksburg and supporting generals and admirals capturing New Orleans and mobile, they began the final crippling of the South. By armadas of iron working in close tandem with troops, they controlled waterways. in doing so, they brought any production in that portion of the Confederacy to a stage, where if they weren’t producing…and they were for a long while, they couldn’t move the stuff. The end result is the same whether they destroyed production or kept it in place.
We see how vital all three Armies were to the Union cause. Yet once the Western army successfully stymied the Mississippi area we can understand why Lincoln moved Grant to Chattanooga. Had Rosecrans not faulted at Chicaumauga and defeated Bragg there, it is not too off the mark to say that he could very well have somersaulted to the fame that Grant finally achieved. Rosecrans came up so, so short of full glory.
Nevertheless, he failed and Grant had the opportunity of the second to last vital attack on the Confederacy, that of moving from Chattanooga south to Atlanta. Fortunately Lincoln again knew he needed him for the final showdown in Richmond, and equally fortunate that Grant appreciated and rewarded his subordinates. Thus he gave Sherman command over tRosecran’s old Army and allowed Sherman to reap laurels of history by completing the hook into the underbelly of the Confederacy.
So complete did Rosecrans/Grant/Sherman defeat the western and mid-western theaters, and then roll up the North Georgia theater, that Sherman exhibited his commanding general’s sense of command and sent other generals off to defend Kentucky with the not so sublte provision of destroying southern general Hood.(I believe that they knew Hood had some serious mental issues and would destoy himself by his tactics, which he did).
So it can be argued, that while Gen. Thomas, the rock of Chicamauga, and a favorite of mine, was one of our finest, that the defeat of the remaining Confederate army at Nashville was a necessary but not critical sideshow.
Grant’s Army and Rosecran/Sherman’s Army had completed their mission by December 1864. All that remained was the final assault by the Army of the Potomac to defeat Lee.
While the Army of the Potomac suffered in terms of both losses and publicity, they really had no choice. In front of them was the best supplied, most mobile Confederate army led by its most capable commanders, most always fully entrenched.
The Confederacy, as said, had walls of mountains and oceans of water working for them. The Army of the Potomac didn’t have the luxury or leisure of manuever. They attacked entrenchments, or shorter lines of battle-ensuring Confederate reinforcements reached critical points before Federal ones could. And warfare dictates that assaulting forces, standing and not under cover will suffer far more proportionally than forces in trenches, behind fixed cover, and waiting for them.
So the Grant’s (Meade’s) Army of the Potomac mets its goals as surely as had Grant’s Western Army or Rosecrans(Grant’s/Sherman’s/Etc.) Army.
The Union strategy depended on three weapons of a street fight: Grant and associates jabbed their way down the mississippi just like a boxer…pop…pop…pop..keeping the Confederacy flatfooted and off balance.
Rosecrans and those who benefitted by following him(Sherman for one) slugged it out down mountainous terrain, delivering and receiving thunderous hooks into their vitals, each side but a hook away from final knockout; yet each sucked it up and each hooked and hooked, until North Georgia when the Union’s hooks became telling and the Confederacy gasped for air. In effect, the Union had battered the rebel boxer’s arms down by its side, leaving the body defenseless.
And so it was, the final body of the Confederacy at Richmond/St. Petersburg, limp, laying on the ropes, occasionally throwing a telling right that stunned Grant and his men, but so out of air, out of resources. The Union shook off the blows like a healthy enraged grizzy that smelled, sensed, and tasted the weakening of its foe. The Union pummeled with straight rights, crashing into the body of the south, over and over and over and over…and up to the head and the final thunderous knockout at Appomatox.
This ended in a grand victory, one we owe to Scott, among others, including our generals, who we owe to Lincoln for sorting out the hesitating generals. The war could not have been completed any differently if we had wanted the results that we got.
And we got them: we got a unified America after that; and an America that was embraced again by the Southern States. If we had beaten them earlier, leaving them not as we did at Appamatox-thoroughly beaten, bloodied, and battered; thoroughly spent and thoroughly knowing they had fought their best-we might have wound up with a guerilla war for years fought by Southern men with enough resources to eventually compell negotiation.
Thankfully a tremendous strategy, fulfilled by three great armies, led by men born for that particular mission and place in time, won the war the only way it could have been won if we had desired the future we eventually got.
Three cheers for those three great Union Armies.
Sorry, Grant did not defeat Bragg at the battle of Chattanooga. He was there, but it was Gen. George H. Thomas who actually conducted the battle. His army, the Army of the Cumberland, was the most technologically advanced army in world at the time. See my website "Army of the Cumberland and George Thomas Source.
bragg defeated himself and on missionary ridge the great army of the cumberland conducted themselves
Sorry kakman, the truth is just a little more complicated, but not very complicated. Read my article on the battle. A normal general would not have defeated Bragg there. Against Grant’s "better judgement" (he had his own non-military agenda there), Thomas sent Hooker (whose life-long mission was to atone for Chancellorsville) to attack Bragg’s left flank. One of Hooker’s division commanders, Osterhaus, got pretty far around the flank, in fact to almost behind Bragg’s HQ fact. The Confederate soldiers in the center knew they were almost surrounded, and naturally panicked. Thomas held his AotC troops in the center back (again, against Grant’s "better judgement") until he knew (from the sound of the battle and messages from his signalmen on Lookout Mountain) that Bragg’s left was collapsing. See my page of excerpts (with commentary) from the reports of the Confederate defenders of Bragg’s left at www.aotc.net/chatt-stewart.htm. Look before you leap, read up before you post.
dear sir thomas gave no orders to hooker that was grants job,there was no orders for the aoc to go to the top of mission ridge,confusion,mis-understandings,whatever.the officers and men conducted thier own attack up to the crest[thomas trained part of that army so yes give credit to george[who i believe is underated as sherman i believe was overrated sometimes]many of thomas generals seem to be of the opinion there was no order to the top.grant and granger and thomas on orchard knob seemed to be suprised. bragg in large part it could be argued did defeat himself-infighting with senior generals,allowing good commanders to leave with thier troops making the aot weaker,allowing his own army to have shortages of food and clothing,bragg mismanaged or at least was lacadaisical with regards to wauhachie and lookout operations,plus his center line contained gaps between units,had a better defence been mounted perhaps center could have held. so please dont say thease points cant be argued that they may be correct-this is a discussion forum i doubt any one person has all the answers. it doesnt help that grant and sherman play up thier parts here-thomas did great work and the aoc is the forgotten army of the war. your arrogance in pronoucing"look before you leap,read up before you post"is unwarranted for i did not mean that towards you in my reply -i apologize if i offended.
Kakman, please visit my Stewart’s Division’s Reports (link above) to learn how the Confederate defenders experienced Hooker’s devastating attack on their left flank in order to better understand why the charge up the middle succeeded. Then read my battle summary at www.aotc.net/Chattanooga.htm. I’m just tired of reading that Bragg was stupid. True, he wasn’t as good a general as Thomas (nobody was), but he also didn’t have at his disposal the resources the Northern armies had, including a preponderance of trained engineers in the officer corps. As far as taking care of his soldiers is concerned, there was a tremendous amount of corruption in his supply system (starting at Richmond and reaching to the top of his army), and Lee was served first anyway. When we then consider what Polk, Hardee, and Longstreet did to undermine Bragg’s authority, then his successes or near successes at Perryville, Murfreesboro (a very close call) and Chickamauga begin to seem pretty impressive. To call Bragg stupid doesn’t further our understanding of the Western Theater, and also diminishes Thomas’ performance.
I found this blog post very insightful and perceptive. It shows a good grasp of the operational dilemmas and opportunities available to Union commanders. Except for brief interludes in the east, the Union pretty much held the operational initiative throughout the war. The CSA had little choice but to react to Union moves rather than initiate their own — even the Maryland (1862) and Gettysburg campaigns by Lee were more raids than invasions. The problem for Union strategists was the fact that the operational commanders at the beginning of the war simply didn’t know HOW to act operationally. They had to learn to command large forces spread over big areas. Their military training did not train them specifically to handle large forces or think Big Picture. That’s one reason its hard for me to fall into "coulda, shoulda, woulda" thinking. We can’t judge any CW commander on any basis except what he knew or reasonably should have known at the time. Once they learned to think on an Army or theater scale, they began to exploit the strengths provided by their forces. This happened in the wider open, less-politicized Western theater more quickly than it did in the East. The blog very perceptively discusses the operational possibilities and how the Union commanders who learned and grew from the lessons taught by early experiences exploited these opportunities. Excellent blog post.
Ajhall,
If you like these comments, then you’ll really like my website (www.aotc.net). I go into exhaustive detail with all of the battles of the AotC, plus a treatment of Rosecranz and Iuka and Corinth and of Grant/Sherman at Shiloh. Thanks for the appreciation. I sometimes wonder if all my years of effort at building this website and this case was worth it.
I will check it out. I’m glad to find someone interested in the Cumberland. I’m currently finishing up "Nothing But Victory," a history of the Union Army of Tennessee, Cumberland’s sister Army.
My site has been online since 1998. Bobrick cited it 5 times in his Thomas book. Go to Amazon.com to read my review of his book, and of Broadwater’s and Einolf’s. The 3 reviews sum up, in my opinion, what modern authors writing on the subject have yet to put in print. Namely that, without Osterhaus’ and Hooker’s envelopment of Bragg’s left flank, Thomas’ charge up the middle could not have succeeded, indeed would not have taken place. There was no miracle. Also, Sherman’s map wasn’t defective.
I think overall, Hooker has gotten a bad rap. I’m currently reading "Mountain Touched by Fire," one of the better accounts of the Chattanooga campaign, including a look at Chickamauga for context — I think it’s awesome how you unknowingly stumbled across the battlefield. I can see how it would move you. "Mountain" does justice to both Hooker and Osterhaus, while calling Sherman to task for his tactical role (the author doesn’t think much of Sherman as a tactical commander, but rather as an excellent operational conceptualist). Re: Hooker, Sears is much more sympathetic to his conduct of Chancellorsville than most authors. I’ll check out your site tonight, and read your Amazon reviews. I’m always looking for new books on the Civil War.
You might be interested in my blog here on the forum. I’m new to blogging, so it’s a work in progress. I’ve had some trouble working with the blog editor software, so the first posts need cleaning up, a task Sue is undertaking.
Although I have devoted most of my attention to the Western Theater, I of course read about the East. As I understand Chancellorsville, Howard let him down. I believe Sherman later put Howard over Hooker to replace MacPherson just to get Hooker to quit. Grant & Co. didn’t like Hooker’s mouth. It didn’t matter to them that Hooker from Chattanooga to Atlanta had many good days. By the way, how do I find your blog here?
Here’s a link to my blog here: http://www.americancivilwarforum.com/ajhall/blog/
I think Howard is a fascinating character. A lot of his problems came from inept subordinates, but as corps commander in the east, it was his responsibility to make the best use of them — he can’t escape being called to task. However, he did do OK in the West under Sherman, though as you point out, his elevation was primarily to get at Hooker. He was a very religious, evangelical man, wholeheartedly "temperance", which did not endear him to the men in his first command, the 3rd Maine (though Maine was officially a "dry" state at the time). Abner Small was not at all impressed with him. Still, he aquited himself reasonably well later in the war. He was from Maine, and the town I live in has a National Guard armory named after him — the very place I took my ASVABs when I enlisted, Lo these many years ago.
As you’ve clearly grasped, it’s impossible to pigeonhole any part of the CW in a neat little drawer. It’s extremely complex, with so many interelated cogs meshing, some not yet fully understood. Blogs like yours help enhance the understanding of this seminal event.