Army of Potomac question

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sentinel28a 10/20/2009 3:05:06 PM

Hamilcar, I will never criticize McClellan for putting together the Army of the Potomac. The ideal situation would've been using McClellan in the same fashion Lesley McNair served in WWII, as head of training, with a fighting general like Grant or Sherman running the combat operations of the AoP. McClellan might've even made a good chief of staff, where his timidity might have been compensated for by aggressive field generals and Lincoln's grasp of overall strategy.

McClellan's biggest problem was his gigantic ego. Take that away, and he might have accomplished even more than he did.

If you're interested in the Patton vs. Bradley rivalry, Carlo d'Este's A Genius for War and Stephen Ambrose's Citizen Soldiers does a good job in analyzing it. D'Este clearly has a pro-Patton bias, and Ambrose clearly dislikes Patton, but both are pretty fair and balanced on the subject.

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Hamilcar 10/21/2009 1:14:48 AM

The WW II US Army Army Ground Forces staff was not the brightest bunch. They made some terrible mistakes in doctrine and equipment choices. In some ways they remind me of Civil War James W. Ripley and his Ordnance Department.

There are things that the Army Ordnance passed on and refused:

-breech-loading carbine as a general issue infantry weapon. (Berdan and Sharps)

-repeater for the cavalry. (Henry)

-Remington revolver (opposed by Colt)

-Gatling gun, as even in its early trouble plagued versions it was better than much of the rapid fire weapons invented. Butler was actually able to employ some successfully.

The QM made some bad mistakes.

- Cotton uniforms. The Union used WOOL.

-rations, I still can't believe that an army fought on 80% hardtack and coffee as their main diet.

To the end that I think you are right that McClellan, the railroad engineer, was a genius as a trainer, and organizer, I can see him as head of the general depot and training establishment. It would be hard to beat Meigs as the Quartermaster though. Butler as head of Ordnance would be somewhat better than Ripley who was honest but technically backward looking.

McClellan's biggest problem was his gigantic ego. Take that away, and he might have accomplished even more than he did.

How? As an egotist, he would be hard to rein in to be self objective-even if the press had not fed his sense of self-worth. He was already a man of considerable achievement in the Army and in industry. He had a certain actual concrete justification for thinking he was better qualified than most of his contemporaries for he had the measured results to prove it. His West Virginia campaign was just the factor that put him into the delusion column. It's success dissociated him from a real sense of his tactical prowess. he manged bit could not lead a success in other words.

I'll look at them. As I said, I am not that much up on Bradley as the self promoter. I'm more tuned into Eisenhower, and MacArthur, two very political and self-promoting and somewhat morally dubious generals who are a lot more alike than some people realize.

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Tancred So much to rant about, 10/21/2009 12:43:58 PM

so little time to do it. and yeah I am provoking.

Lil Mac made the AoP but he made it badly, executed a good plan badly in the 7 days and was arguably a crossing into treason thereafter.

The cavalry problems date from him (and its only Hooker that starts to rectify it) leaving the AoP blind, utterly failed to establish any intelligence analysis process and gave it a logistics train that hobbled the Army for the duration. The corps organization was a disaster ? not entirely his fault but he then absents himself from the field through the entire peninsula and lets individual commanders ? he did not trust, try and make do best they can by nicely asking their neighbours if they can help.

The other main Union armies (and rebel) exhibited just as strong an esprit without it being related to the genius of one man ? normally by himself. I would also question whether except for the very early war period possibly the organization of the armies can be laid at the feet of the US as opposed to the several states. The idea of a common military doctrine is sensible but not really historically possible until after 1871. Also having Lil Mac in charge of training would mean that the US army would have been sitting on the Potomac while they waited for the full compliment of Sherman?s to be issued.

The Peninsula campaign was a neat idea but it derailed going up Yorktown. The intel problem where he chose to believe one of several interpretations knowing that the reasoning is flawed, and the commanding general executing his concept in defiance of reality as reported by his forward units. Whatever is said about frontal attacks, at Gaines Mill the attack broke Mclellan if not the AoP. Lil Mac started to run away. Everything after for all Lee knows is the retreat of a routed army ? until the actual attack at Malvern Hill one sharp rap and the whole edifice collapses and the South wins the war. That the average union infantryman and gunner (and on up through to division really) was not routed is a tremendous tribute to them. But the result is a massive strategic defeat for the Union ? it takes until 64 to get back into that position.

But is a brilliant plan. There is no reason to panic and retreat after Gaines Mill. A commander who was not morally broken or determined to fail (cos he hadn?t got his own way) or deluded into terror would have looked at his army realized it was full of fight and carried on and eventually ? like in a week, be besieging Richmond. And whatever else Richmond was it was the biggest industrial centre in the south. Lee has to break the siege and would wreck his own army against the AoP guns in the process or he has to fall back to the Carolinas as there is no natural barrier until there.

The failure to support Pope is criminal. The intriguing with the Dems and attempts to impose policy on the Govt. is odd for a commanding general ? Fremont had already got fired for it, and combined with leaving Pope?s men to die and some of the comments from his staff in public, in a civil war when Lincoln had warned him off several times is at best insubordination and at worst a deliberate trial of strength with the presidency and congress.

I would tend to agree that an advance after Sharpsburg would be tough and a lot of the criticism is because Lincoln used that as an excuse to fire the guy ? after all he had never wanted him in command again at all. But really ? there are 40,000 fresh troops (more that the ANV had on strength) and you sit doing nothing while an inferior army hangs around a day to tend the wounded round up fresh horses and pulls back with all its guns wounded and prisoners. At the least you tap the guy and see what happens maybe try and flank him ? send a lot of dust south to close the mountain gaps.

Lee can?t attack? Apart from 7 days, Chancellorsville, 2^nd Manassas, Spotsylvania (first of the wilderness battles), First day at Gettysburg. Sure apart from that. Not to mention the first invasion leading to Sharpsburg and that only fails because of a found order.

South had the best Generals ? questionable. Grant, Sherman, Thomas are in high command from the beginning of fighting and are quite competent. McPherson seems to have been good, and Rosecrans up to Chickamauga. For every Halleck there is a Bragg and away from Va the average quality on the Union side seems higher ? but much less flamboyant. On a corps level I would argue that the north was better provided.

You are too nice to Ben Butler and too hard on Ripley.

The beast was a good political administrator so was Meigs why sack him?. But to put a keen enthusiast with no professional training in charge of weapons procurement = Nazi armaments procurements ? not a good model. Better off with Rosecrans who was just as enthusiastic had a combat record of some note and was honest. To put a famously cor

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Tancred This anaconda is a dead snake 10/21/2009 12:45:48 PM

It don?t work and its not what the Union did. Just looks like it.

Anaconda is a blockade to bring the south to its senses. The basic idea which was that the war could be fought with a minimum of bloodshed and disruption to the nation as it was in 1859 (ish).

The problem with Anaconda is that two large parts of the electorate wanted to disrupt the nation as at 1859 the Republican party wants to abolish slavery(may differ about how but all want to abolish) a significant part of the south wants secession and/or the promotion of slavery. Essentially a veto on the wishes of the majority of the electorate (who just voted republican) It leaves the status quo intact until such time as everyone comes to their senses. Why should they?

As soon as they were ready and using the forces Scott had commissioned for Anaconda the Union launched a series of land and amphib operations designed to recapture ground and bring the south to its senses by main force. That takes things a long long way past Anaconda as Scott described it. And you get Shiloh, 7 Days, Perryville the conquest of the nice bits of Tennessee and Louisiana and most of the rest of the coast that matter.

And the south still does not come to its senses and surrender.

If the Union then stands and waits here is another problem ? the Republican party wants to abolish slavery. If Lincoln holds them back you have, to the rest of the world, a bloody election dispute between two sets of uncivilized slave owning Americans which is causing hardship to the rest of the world through lack of cotton and disruption of trade. Sooner or later the Union will not be able to float paper basically on the City of London ? but one bunch of uncivilized slave owning Americans Vs a nation of civilized Abolitionist American cousins, bless and of course we will underwrite.

A long war without abolition is a losing proposition for the Union. Abolition = no end but unconditional surrender for the south

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Ispose Union Cavalry 10/21/2009 2:27:14 PM

I've always admired Union Cavalry General Buford....he deserves the credit for winning Gettysburg. If he and his troopers hadn't stopped the Conferates on the first day the Union would never had gotten to the high ground first.

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timon_phocas 10/21/2009 3:09:33 PM

To answer your question, YelliChink, most of the South's military materiel was either home-grown or captured.

to illustrate this, my son-in-law's family has a rifle one of their forefathers carried in the Confederate Army. It is stamped, "Springfield Armory" with a manufacture date in the early 1860's. Obviously captured.

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Hamilcar 10/23/2009 12:20:24 AM

so little time to do it. and yeah I am provoking.

Well ler's look at it

Lil Mac made the AoP but he made it badly, executed a good plan badly in the 7 days and was arguably a crossing into treason thereafter.

1. The AoP he received was rabble. Whatever you may criticize above the regiment level, he did standardize, training, and he did teach them how to camp, march, move and fight to the regiment level. Since no-one in the UZS Army was to well versed on division and corps operations, yet, lets cut the first guy out of the gate to try a little slack.

2. You are asking a man who has not seen military staff-work in over a decade to shift mental gears. He was a railroad engineer. For him it was OJT, Not a very good way to learn, since Lee, his opponent, was a professional soldier who at least learned how staffs work from Winfield Scott.

3. The cavalry is a lot harder to train up than infantry. Most of the available training cadre was out chasing Mormons and Native Americans. Now where are the cavalry sergeants and colonels you need in the East? Went down South in Dixie. At least Grant had some men like Grierson to work with Westerners who were as tough as the Mississippi and Alabama horsemen they faced . What did McClellan have? "Kill Cavaly" and that other fool Pleasanton. This fault is not his. Even Hooker had to use what McClellan started. Three years to train up from zero is about right.

4. Nobody in the United States Army handled frontages or manpower that approached tactical Napoleonic masses and battle-space size before. How was McClellan supposed to operate without delegation and a staff he could trust? His corps scheme actuallu was a good idea if the men who commanded the corps were sound. They weren't. More important, he personally knew some of those conniving bastards who were supposed to cooperate or subordinate to or with him (Pope, Hooker, Sickles, even Hancock) yet he had to TRUST those clowns?

5. The AoP eventually learned the "WESTERN" way of fighting as taught to them by Meade and Grant. By 1864, you have a staff, a set of corps commander, who while not the brightest bunch of dullards were at least able now to follow orders. or get fired.

6. The $300 Bounty Men were subjected to RA discipline and the firing squad and breaking on the wheel was a definite motivator to them. That AoP was a Federal Army, not an army of the states, as some New Yorkers who deserted, were caught, and shot under the RA field regulations, found out. Grant made sure that soft-hearted Lincoln didn't interfere with the object lesson.

7. Little Mac knew what technology can do (We'll get to this in a moment.) Eager Beavers who cried "On to Richmond!" had no idea about movement rates, or supply in enemy country (Lee could forage off friendly locals, McClellan had to wagon or ship everything in and guard it with troops or gunboats, the principle reason for the Peninsula campaigm) I reckon he was acutely conscious of what supply difficulties he faced in Birginia with no cavalry screen and secure LOCs. Grant at Vicksburg spent most of a year trying to figure that one out. McClellan worked it out first time out of the box. Give him som

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CJH 10/25/2009 3:13:29 PM

This is about as interesting a thread as is on this site but I have to ration my slow reading time.

So - a question occurred to me about Lee thinking about all the generals Lincoln went through.

Lee was offered the command of the Union armies by Lincoln roughly or precisely about the time Virginia decided to secede.

The question is, if Lee had actually accepted Lincoln's offer, what were the odds that Lee would have eventually been fired? That is, would Lee have become a victim of the political climate then prevailing in the government?

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Hamilcar 10/25/2009 11:14:47 PM

This is about as interesting a thread as is on this site but I have to ration my slow reading time.

It is interesting isn't it?

So - a question occurred to me about Lee thinking about all the generals Lincoln went through.

Who could have been effective?

Lee was offered the command of the Union armies by Lincoln roughly or precisely about the time Virginia decided to secede.

That was on Scott's advice. The military may not be able to test for generalship, but proven generals can intuitively pick out good candidates when they know the men in person and see their work.

Not if he won. The proof is George Thomas. Lincoln suffered enormous pressure from the Radical Republicans to fire him because Thomas' forces (2nd Franklin) kept falling back before Hood in the lead-up to Nashville. Charges of defeatism and cowardice and a vicious character assassination campaign was so successful that Grant was prepared to go and fire Thomas in person, then:

Thomas under pressure....

Thomas finishes the job....

There were four great Union generals. George Thomas, the Virginian, was one of them.

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sentinel28a 10/27/2009 5:14:40 AM

Who were the others? I would definitely include Thomas, but would add Sherman, Grant, and Sheridan. But you'd still have to say nice things about Meigs, Reynolds, Warren...lot of guys to choose from. Rosecrans was good as long as he didn't overthink the problem.

If Lee had taken command of the Union Army in 1860, Richmond falls by 1862. The CSA might still have won at Bull Run, and Lee might have taken the head-on approach to Richmond. Given his aggressiveness on the attack, though, I think he would've taken the city. Since the CSA would have had no Army of Northern Virginia without Lee, this wouldn't have ended the war, but it certainly would've shortened it considerably.

(Which will probably give Hamlicar another reason to hate Lee...)

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