When Grant arrived in Virginia in March 1864, he commanded on paper the entire armed forces of the United States, 662,000 men.

When Grant arrived in Virginia in March 1864, he commanded on paper the entire armed forces of the United States, 662,000 men. On paper this seemed like an immense host. In truth however, it didn't really mean he had 662,000 armed soldiers ready for action since that number also included noncombat personnel--medics, cooks, orderlies, etc and in reality the actual number of men available for action was about 533,000 of which at least 40,000 were stationed in the nine northern and western departments where Confederate armies never came. Subtracting that gave him 490,000 men a large number of which were doing garrison duty, guarding supply lines and railroads, etc (as one example George Thomas's Department of the Cumberland had 102,000 men but he could send no more than 60,000 to accompany Sherman on the March to the Sea).

It was Grant's duty to ensure that he got as many men as possible into action, and he had slightly over a month to do it. Various impediments stood in the way of his plans, the biggest of which was Nathaniel Banks's Red River Expedition, which drew away 40,000 veteran soldiers from the scene of action, but the White House and War Department had fully blessed the campaign and Grant couldn't do a thing about it. If Grant couldn't stop the expedition, he might at least try to contain it and so he telegramed Banks. The purpose of the expedition was mainly to seize Texas and its rich cotton stores and break Confederate power in the Trans-Mississippi.

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Banks was headed to Shreveport and his army included 10,000 men under General Alexander Smith, loaned from Sherman's army for no more than one month. Grant warned Banks that Smith's men needed to be back home on schedule even if it meant cancelling the whole Red River Expedition. If Banks took Shreveport, he was to halt there, fortify the place, and rely on the Navy to do the further heavy lifting as he took his army back to New Orleans to depart for the critical Confederate port at Mobile. After Shreveport was taken, he was to take on 8,000 men commanded by General Steele in Arkansas and Rosecrans in Missouri, and Sherman could dispatch additional troops if need be. No matter what happened, the primary object was the capture of Mobile.

    Another waste was the large amount of troops guarding the border states. While this was a necessary measure, Grant thought the best defense was a good offense and these troops would be put to better use advancing, occupying Confederate territory and forcing the Confederacy to dispatch troops to face them. As one example, Franz Sigel had 20,000 men off in the West Virginia area which Grant wanted to move south. He explained to Lincoln that Robert E. Lee would feel more pressured if these troops advanced southward and Lincoln agreed. "Ah yes, I see that. As they say out in the West, the man who can't skin must hold his leg while someone else does it."

    As things would have it, Lincoln and Grant found a harmonious relationship that the president had never had with previous generals. Much of it was because both were Western men, both from Illinois and consequently understood each other so well.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >As things would have it, Lincoln and Grant found a harmonious relationship that the president had never had with previous generals. Much of it was because both were Western men, both from Illinois and consequently understood each other so well.
      Now figure Lincoln absolutely had nothing in common with McClellan, a vain, preening Northeasterner who thought he was in a Bellini opera. And nothing has changed 160 years later. It's still full of vain, preening aristocrats who want to live in Europe, which has always had close cultural ties to the Northeast.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Based Illinoisians dabbing on Southturds and Northboys

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Grant was about to run into another, nearly insurmountable headache--the problem of certain classes of generals who were untouchable due to political reasons and Franz sigel was one of them. Sigel was then complaining about two regiments, the 20th and 21st Pennsylvania Cavalry, which he believed should be added to his command. The regiments in question had been six month units organized the previous summer; their enlistments ran out at the start of the new year and they were being reorganized. Sigel telegraphed West Virginia Congressman K.V. Whaley to ask if the regiments had shown up, and if not to forward a notice to Pennsylvania asking that they be summoned. Grant learned of this and informed General Halleck, saying Sigel was to pass such orders through the military channels, not civilian ones.

    Halleck told him this was standard practice and officers were always writing Congressmen or state officials trying to get promotions, transfers, leaves of absence, etc. Grant issued a general order declaring that this would not be tolerated in the future. In truth, it was impossible for a civil war general to find under his command any number of subordinates who believed they were entitled to not have to follow his orders and officers with powerful political ties. It would be hard to find a general more inept than Franz Sigel, but he kept getting assignments because he was a leading abolitionist and for no other reason. So was Nathaniel Banks. John McClernand had been another one but Grant had had an easier time disposing of him because the White House had quietly endorsed it and because he could be gotten rid of without much political inconvenience.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      But the very worst political general of all was Ben Butler. Butler had been a Doughface (a Northern Democrat with Southern sympathies) Massachusetts lawyer who as late as 1860 endorsed the ardent pro-slavery position and had sought to get Jefferson Davis elected president. After the war broke out, Butler did a 180 and became the only Yankee that Richmond declared would not be taken alive if captured and instead simply hanged on sight. And so Lincoln, needing Democrat support, made him a general and he proved useful to the abolitionist cause by deploying his best legal skills when he decided that slaves counted as contraband of war thus they could be set free at will.

      Butler was hated in the South with a level of rage that existed for no other Yankee ever since the occupation of New Orleans in spring 1862 when he hanged a man without trial, mortally insulted the women of the city, and because he was simply a very very easy man to hate. Now with a presidential election coming up, the ultimate nightmare would be for Butler to run for president. He had the support of many Democrats as well as the hardcore faction of abolitionists in the Republican Party, and he had absolutely no scruples whatsoever.

      Grant did not know Butler, had never met the man but Halleck cautioned him about what to expect. "It seems little more than murder to give important commands to men such as Sigel, Butler, Fremont, and Banks, but there seems to be no way to avoid it," he remarked. Grant wrote that although Butler was not a trained soldier and he didn't have much of a track record of success as a general, it was hard to overlook his passion for the Union cause, obsessiveness, and political connections, so he did not suggest his removal.

      Its always fun to hear just how shitty everything was in the Civil War in terms of military organization and command.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Franz Sigel, but he kept getting assignments because he was a leading abolitionist and for no other reason.
      He was a German diversity pick.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        It was part of that and part of needing abolitionist support (German-Americans were an important abolitionist faction).

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    But the very worst political general of all was Ben Butler. Butler had been a Doughface (a Northern Democrat with Southern sympathies) Massachusetts lawyer who as late as 1860 endorsed the ardent pro-slavery position and had sought to get Jefferson Davis elected president. After the war broke out, Butler did a 180 and became the only Yankee that Richmond declared would not be taken alive if captured and instead simply hanged on sight. And so Lincoln, needing Democrat support, made him a general and he proved useful to the abolitionist cause by deploying his best legal skills when he decided that slaves counted as contraband of war thus they could be set free at will.

    Butler was hated in the South with a level of rage that existed for no other Yankee ever since the occupation of New Orleans in spring 1862 when he hanged a man without trial, mortally insulted the women of the city, and because he was simply a very very easy man to hate. Now with a presidential election coming up, the ultimate nightmare would be for Butler to run for president. He had the support of many Democrats as well as the hardcore faction of abolitionists in the Republican Party, and he had absolutely no scruples whatsoever.

    Grant did not know Butler, had never met the man but Halleck cautioned him about what to expect. "It seems little more than murder to give important commands to men such as Sigel, Butler, Fremont, and Banks, but there seems to be no way to avoid it," he remarked. Grant wrote that although Butler was not a trained soldier and he didn't have much of a track record of success as a general, it was hard to overlook his passion for the Union cause, obsessiveness, and political connections, so he did not suggest his removal.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Butler had been a Doughface (a Northern Democrat with Southern sympathies) Massachusetts lawyer who as late as 1860 endorsed the ardent pro-slavery position and had sought to get Jefferson Davis elected president
      >becomes one of the leading Radical Republicans after the war
      Literally a man of no convictions whatsoever. Can’t even claim his pre-war Southern sympathies were for the sake of the Union after he became one of its leading destroyers post-war with his “muh freedmen” autism

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        And hey, Jubal Early aggressively opposed secession until Virginia seceded so meh.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Early:
          Lee:
          Longstreet:
          >I luv me yankee nation
          >Virginia leaves
          >hate yankee nation
          What was Washington put in the water?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Longstreet was a Carolinian. Compared to his fellow S. Carolina residents, he was quite tame.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            compare Edwin Ruffin's infamous suicide note: "With my last dying breath I curse the vile, perfidious, and malignant Yankee race."

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    For his part, Grant believed generals who became hamstrung by politics got that way through their own making. He believed above all in reaching across the aisle and not making the war a vehicle to establish Republican supremacy in the nation as Edwin Stanton and others were plotting--Democrats were Americans too, as he saw it. As he later wrote, "It made no difference. Those generals who believed in issuing emancipation proclamations, of creating new ideas of state governments, and of invading Canada all came to grief as much as the generals who believed their primary objective was to protect rebel property and keep the Black folks at work in the fields while their masters were off in the rebel armies."

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    For his part, Grant was determined to get as many rifles as possible into the field and he sent directives to each department to send as many men as possible to the front lines and not retain more than the absolute minimum their departments needed. Some generals, especially William Rosecrans, now commanding in Missouri, protested. Missouri was an unstable state beset by guerilla warfare and sometimes actual invasion by Confederate armies and Rosecrans was terrified of what could happen if his department wasn't armed to the teeth. Grant sent him a sharply-worded telegram on May 1 asking if he'd followed directives and dispatched the required troops. Rosecrans replied back that bad things would happen if he denuded Missouri of troops and proceeded to list them (Grant was less than impressed by these dangers) and closed by saying if he really thought it safe, then the order would be obeyed. At length, the troops were dispatched.

    The Army of the Potomac was reported as having 97,273 men in its April returns. But in truth, the actual number of men shouldering a rifle was much less than that and in late April Meade reported to ex-General Garfield and Ohio governor William Dennison that he actually only had about 60,000 men to throw into battle and just 7,000 cavalry. These politicians immediately leaked the news. Edwin Stanton sent Meade a sharply-worded protest, and Meade admitted that Garfield and Dennison were correct--the truth was that a substantial part of any army consisted of noncombatants.

    In addition, some army reorganization was needed. The first move was in the Western armies. Grant decided to can Gordon Granger after his underwhelming performance at Chattanooga and give his 4th Corps to Oliver Howard. The 11th and 12th Corps, both badly depleted from the 1862-63 campaigns, were consolidated into a single 20th Corps led by Joe Hooker, and because Henry Slocum had had a grudge against Hooker ever since Chancellorsville, he was transferred to Vicksburg.

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Meade meanwhile reorganized the Army of the Potomac, although it was commonly assumed Grant's doing. Firstly, he dissolved the 1st and 3rd Corps, both of which had suffered more than 50% casualties at Gettysburg and were essentially skeleton units now--their brigades were dispersed among the other corps. The surviving men in the two corps had a great deal of pride in their outfits and were not happy about this. The Army of the Potomac thus contained only three corps now--the 2nd Corps, led by Winfield Hanwiener, the 5th Corps, led by Governeur Warren, and the 6th Corps, led by John Sedgewick. Not only were the 1st and 3rd Corps too undermanned but, as Meade confessed, he didn't have five generals qualified for corps command. The two corps commanders who got the boot, George Sykes and John Newton, were sent west--Sykes to exile in Siberia out in Kansas, Newton to command a division under Sherman.

    But as the Overland Campaign would prove, in fact the Army of the Potomac didn't even have three men qualified for corps command. The cancer that McClellan had afflicted the army with had made its command structure uniquely dysfunctional and full of generals scheming and plotting against one another. Henry Slocum expressed relief at being sent out west away from all this Machiavellian backstabbing. It was certainly true that some generals simply didn't have it in them to do the tasks being asked, but there seemed to be no real way to replace them either. Grant thus avoided messing with the army's command structure aside from the cavalry.

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The new cavalry head was of course Phil Sheridan, who disliked joining the Army of the Potomac for the same reason Slocum was happy to depart from it. Sheridan had to contend with another old, bad habit instilled by McClellan which was the AOP's cavalry being mainly used as an extension of the signal corps. He sought to turn them into real hardened fighters, but him and Meade were both hotheaded men and in the coming weeks they would argue about the proper role of the cavalry in the army.

    But above all, for the war to be won, the Union armies needed to work as a team since up to this point, there had been effectively no coordination at all. Each army fought its own separate war; while one was campaigning, another was loafing in camp and it had been easy for the Confederates to transfer troops from inactive to active front.

    The plan for an all-out offensive in spring 1864 had originally included William "Baldy" Smith's plan for a march from New Berne to Raleigh and another march from Sabine Pass on the Gulf Coast to Shreveport and on to the Indian Territory. Smith's idea was dropped, the Sabine Pass idea superseded by Banks's Red River Expedition, and the move to Richmond would not start from the York River as originally proposed. But the general idea was to drive on to Richmond, another drive from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and a third from Mobile to Atlanta via Selma and Montgomery. They would all begin at the same time and the Confederacy would have to muster the manpower to meet all of them.

    In fact Lincoln had had just such an idea way back in early 1862 when he directed all Union armies to advance on February 20, Washington's Birthday. The order was ignored and the president derided as a bumbling civilian who knew nothing of military affairs. In any case it was probably impossible at that early phase when the soldiers and officers were totally inexperienced. After two years of hard experience, it seemed at last a reality.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Almost every Union offensive floundered in 1864, and even Sherman’s ultimately successful Atlanta campaign was moving too slowly. Banks’ Red River tardfest was a huge waste that almost cost the Union their river flotilla. The Secesh was on the ropes but all these failures plus Grant’s stalemate probably prolonged the war another year.

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Unfortunately, Grant's plans fell apart thanks to the weak link in the chain--Nathaniel Banks. The idea of driving northeast from Mobile to link up with Sherman was now a pipe dream and whatever Sherman accomplished would have to be with his existing army. Banks had lobbied for the Mobile offensive since shortly after the fall of Vicksburg and to his and everyone else's misfortune, he had also suggested the idea of taking the Red River Valley and getting ahold of Texas's cotton supplies. The War Department had thought it over during the winter months, particularly in terms of restablishing control over Texas, and in late March issued orders to the effect that Banks was to capture Shreveport in the northwest of Louisiana. After this, he was to be in Mobile by late May when the big offensives were beginning.

    The plan started out promising. Banks had 20,000 men with him as well as Alexander Smith's 10,000 troops borrowed from Sherman, plus Frederick Steele's 15,000 men in Missouri who would march south through Arkansas to link up with him. Admiral David Porter was bringing a flotilla up the Red River, and if everything went perfectly, the plan just might work.

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    It didn't work. Steele was bogged down in Arkansas by Sterling Price and Kirby Smith's Confederate forces, his supply lines were in peril, and although he repulsed a major Confederate attack at Jenkins Ferry on April 30, he telegraphed Henry Halleck to warn that southwestern Arkansas was largely devoid of any consumables for his troops. Steele successfully parried every Confederate thrust against his army but was unable to accomplish what he was supposed to be doing, which was link up with Banks.

    Meanwhile, Banks engaged Richard Taylor's Confederates at Sabine Crossroads, about 30 miles from Shreveport, on April 8 and was soundly defeated. Another Confederate force was repulsed by Smith at Pleasant Hill the following day but Porter found the Red River dangerously low and it was impossible for his fleet to make any progress upstream. Both army and navy slumped back to Alexandria, and in the last week of the month, Grant informed Banks that his "rental" of Alexander Smith had expired and those 10,000 troops must be returned to Sherman ASAP.

    Grant wanted to terminate the Red River Expedition this instant but that still took time. The low river level prevented Porter from getting his fleet past the Alexandria shallows downstream to the Mississippi. He frantically sent Sherman a message that if Smith left, Banks would follow him and the whole fleet would be lost, and Grant agreed that Smith had to stay put until the gunboats were in a safe place. He complained that Banks tied down 30,000 good troops for nothing and he deserved to be canned. Unfortunately, that was impossible due to Banks's political ties.

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The fleet was rescued in the end and Banks extricated his troops and got them to New Orleans and safety. A Wisconsin colonel devised a series of wing dams to increase the Red River level enough for the gunboats to escape, and the whole operation was over by the middle of May. It had been an embarrassing fiasco redeemed only by how the troops and boats involved escaped in one piece, and Grant managed to neuter Banks by making a new department west of the Mississippi led by General Edward Canby with the orders to clean up the mess. Banks technically remained in command but Canby was the real source of authority now, Banks confined to a desk job in Louisiana, and nothing more was heard about launching a great Union offensive west of the Mississippi.

    It was also too late for the Mobile offensive. Sherman began his drive into Georgia without Smith's 10,000 men and Joe Johnson gained an additional 15,000 men who would have otherwise been tied up in Alabama. Grant's plans were not quite ruined, but they wouldn't go exactly the way he'd planned them either.

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The truth was, Grant and Sherman felt that many of their old West Point classmates were perfectly good soldiers done in by politics and their talents should not be put to waste simply because Edwin Stanton and Charles Sumner felt that they hadn't demonstrated sufficient hatred of Democrats and slavery. As Grant recounted in his memoirs, he was perfectly willing to reinstate George McClellan and Don Carlos Buell to command if possible. There is no evidence that Grant made any actual offers to McClellan but Postmaster General Montgomery Blair wrote to McClellan's friend Samuel Barlow saying he'd rather have him back on the battlefield than running for president. Buell was taken more seriously; Sherman and Thomas proposed giving him command of the 14th Corps and Grant offered to assign him to command in Memphis. But Tennessee governor Andrew Johnson learned of this and was not pleased; he had a frothing rage towards Buell and he sent Lincoln a hot telegram. "I trust in God that General Buell will not be sent to Tennessee. We have been cursed with him here once and do not desire its repetition." In any case, the haughty Buell refused the offers; he outranked Sherman and Thomas and made it clear that he did not wish to serve under them.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Buell was an ultimate douchebag and tool, one of those generals who saw his soldiers as chess pieces instead of human beings who needed to eat, rest, etc. Frick him.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        example

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          He would discipline soldiers for the most trivial reasons including extense use of bucking and gagging. The guy was just one of those regular officers who didn't know how to deal with volunteer troops.

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The Army of the Potomac, while not unfriendly to Grant, was a little skeptical of him. After all, they'd seen too many commanding generals come and go to still have faith in the system. They'd heard all the legends--"Grant the Conqueror of Vicksburg" and all that but felt he had had been playing on easy mode, fighting only weak Confederate armies led by bad generals like John Pemberton. He'd never faced the Army of Northern Virginia on the battlefield and had no idea what he was up against, they thought. Just wait until he faces Robert E. Lee, Jubal Early, and Jeb Stuart. Then he'll learn.

    The feeling was mutual. The Western armies thought the AOP was soft, wimpy, badly led, and had never really learned how to fight. They also resented the idea that they'd only been fighting the Confederacy's junior varsity teams. After all, Shiloh, Stones River, and Chickamauga had been nightmarish battles each exceeding 20,000 casualties if anyone needed proof that they didn't know what a real fight was.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Shiloh and Stones River were so brutal that they crippled both armies to the point where it was 6 months before they could campaign again.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      no one ever thought the AoNV was the JV.
      Grant had a mental breakdown when he first faced Lee.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >you in charge of reading comprehension
        They thought the Confederate armies in the West were the JV team and Grant was in for a rough ride as he'd never faced the ANV aka the real Confederate army.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          The soldiers weren't lacking in toughness but oh boy were they led badly. Not to mention not getting so good equipment. The ANV got first priority on everything--manpower, equipment, officers and other Confederate armies were left with the the dregs. The poor Army of Tennessee never really won a major battle but Chickamauga and victory escaped their hands because Braxton Bragg had a habit of developing sudden brain freeze at the worst possible moment. Even then, Chickamauga still featured loaned troops from the ANV. The corps, brigade, and division commanders in AOT were also (outside Patrick Cleburne) a cut below the ones Robert E. Lee had.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >you in charge of reading comprehension
            They thought the Confederate armies in the West were the JV team and Grant was in for a rough ride as he'd never faced the ANV aka the real Confederate army.

            Grant thought Virginia and the Trans-Mississippi were sideshows anyway; he believed the war would be won between the Appalachians and Mississippi.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            To be fair EVERYONE thought the Trans-Mississippi was a sideshow. And a clown show. That theater was something else.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >The corps, brigade, and division commanders in AOT were also (outside Patrick Cleburne) a cut below the ones Robert E. Lee had.
            They had:

            >William Hardee
            Confederate McClellan. A gifted military theorist but useless as a hands-on field commander.
            >Leonidas Polk
            >John Breckinridge
            Political appointees with no actual military training. And that's not getting into how none of them got along with Bragg and were constantly plotting against him.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Breckinridge did remarkably well for a non-trained soldier (he did volunteer in the Mexican War but didn't see any action). He was also one of the best-looking and most Chad Confederate generals; he looked like a Greek god.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Hardee was offered command of AoT after Joe Johnson was dropped. He declined. In fact earlier he'd left the army during the Chickamauga campaign due to disgust with Bragg but came back in time for Chattanooga.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >confederate McClellan

            Interesting take, i wonder how mac would have handled being in a subordinate role, which he never held during the civil war. Probably would have been absolute hell to command that man

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Reminder McClellan is the only Union General to actually defeat Lee in battle.
            >M-meade survived Lee
            he survived, he didnt go after Lee and win.
            Lee also surrendered without losing a battle to Grant.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            There's a famous story of McClellan coming home one day to find that President Lincoln had made an unannounced visit and was waiting in his parlor. McClellan, rather than meet Lincoln, went upstairs and went to bed.

            Of course, had he tried that with someone like Meade or Sherman he would have gotten his ass beat.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            McClellan was a BVLL and trained in hand to hand combat.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            No he wasn't

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Hardee was overrated af and his failures at Peach Tree Creek and Atlanta proves it. His undermining of Bragg made more injury to Confederate cause then Union war efforts.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            he had the disadvantage of not being a Jefferson Davis butt buddy. Davis preferred giving commands to people he knew and trusted even if they weren't necessarily qualified for the job.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >The corps, brigade, and division commanders in AOT were also (outside Patrick Cleburne) a cut below the ones Robert E. Lee had.
            They had:

            >William Hardee
            Confederate McClellan. A gifted military theorist but useless as a hands-on field commander.
            >Leonidas Polk
            >John Breckinridge
            Political appointees with no actual military training. And that's not getting into how none of them got along with Bragg and were constantly plotting against him.

            A good analogy would be John Sedgwick or William Franklin. Solid, dependable general who lacked that extra spark of brilliance or drive. Hardee declined to succeed Bragg as AoT commander after Chattanooga because army command required more responsibility than he was willing to deal with. He was later on insulted that John Hood, his junior in rank, was promoted to command the AoT and eventually left the army and requested a transfer to North Carolina after being displeased with Hood's reckless attacks during the Atlanta campaign.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            When Hardee was passed over to allow Hood to take command did Hardee's hurt feelings cause him to purposely sabotage Hood's defense of Atlanta? It appears Hood was disappointed in Hardee and did find a way to get rid of him after the fall of Atlanta. Perhaps Hardee is responsible for the fall of Atlanta.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            you mean July 22, 1864? i always guessed Hood assigned Hardee an overly difficult job by making a long flanking march around to the right barely 48 hours after his corps had been badly beaten up at Peach Tree Creek. It was in that battle that Hood actually interfered with Hardee's efforts to press his attack with Cleburne. Whatever Hardee may have thought of Hood personally, I think an objective analysis would say "no".

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The man who lost Atlanta wasn't John Hood, it was Joe Johnson. Johnson had plenty of near-impregnable hills and woods in northern Georgia to entrench and barricade Sherman but he decided to keep falling back and falling back and falling back even after the Union repulse at Kennesaw Mountain proved that digging in worked. Jefferson Davis asked Johnson just what the hell his exact plans were and he replied (I kid you not) "I'm going to give up Atlanta and make a stand somewhere to the south of the city."

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Sherman had been traumatized by the awful bloodshed at Shiloh and consequently preferred to avoid unnecessary battlefield action if he could help it. Kennesaw Mountain was the one time where he lost his patience and ordered a frontal assault.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >thought the AOP was soft, wimpy
          sorry for not quoting you exactly, I will remember to dumb things down for you.

          The soldiers weren't lacking in toughness but oh boy were they led badly. Not to mention not getting so good equipment. The ANV got first priority on everything--manpower, equipment, officers and other Confederate armies were left with the the dregs. The poor Army of Tennessee never really won a major battle but Chickamauga and victory escaped their hands because Braxton Bragg had a habit of developing sudden brain freeze at the worst possible moment. Even then, Chickamauga still featured loaned troops from the ANV. The corps, brigade, and division commanders in AOT were also (outside Patrick Cleburne) a cut below the ones Robert E. Lee had.

          AOP was better led than the Western Armies.
          Grant had one tactic, lose men till the enemy is out of ammo.
          Sherman was afraid to fight.
          Rosecrans was great but got sacked due to his politics.
          Bragg wasnt as bad as people say, he is just doing what Grant did but with less resources.
          If Bragg had 2x the men of the Union he'd win every battle he ever fought.

          He would discipline soldiers for the most trivial reasons including extense use of bucking and gagging. The guy was just one of those regular officers who didn't know how to deal with volunteer troops.

          >he disciplined them in weird ways
          thats not an example of being a douche or absentee leader.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >Rosecrans was great but got sacked due to his politics

            You think getting his army totally routed from the field and being besieged in Chattanooga was the real reason?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            They werent totally routed and being besieged resulted in a victory.
            I think it was because Grant and Halleck didnt like him, and Lincoln even shielded him against Grant.

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Why are you typing all this shit out? Just link to the page you're lifting all this text from.

    Even if you're copy/pasting, this is just ridiculous.

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >In all the war nothing matched the horror of May 12, 1864. The Bloody Angle was just one all-day melee beginning at sunrise and ending only when it had become too dark to fight. Survivors tried to describe the carnage in letters, diaries, and memoirs as best they could, noting that there was no way to adequately put it into words. Men were shot over and over until they simply fell apart into unrecognizable masses of hamburger meat. In the Smithsonian Museum is the stump of a 22" oak tree that was felled from being hit hundreds of times. Bodies were piled 6-8 deep, shot, trampled, and mashed into the mud. The most horrible part of all was the still-living men buried under corpses trying to extricate themselves. Some soldiers claimed they fired 400 rounds that day. Stretcher-bearers did the best they could to rescue the wounded but the muddy ground made it hard. George Meade noted that many of the wounded were too weak to move without help. This was new; in most battles, a wounded man, if he wasn't hit in a vital organ, could usually drag himself to a dressing station. It was especially bad in the II Corps as most of the men had been thrown into battle on empty stomachs, not even having time for coffee.

    >Confederate witnesses had much the same abysmal recollection of the Bloody Angle. One Louisianan wrote that he knew Ulysses Grant meant business and the desperation of the Union attacks proved it. "He was determined to fight us and lose his entire army in doing so if it gained him an objective."

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    if Hardee had still been there for the Franklin-Nashville campaign would it make any difference?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      probably not much. anyway Stewart, Cheatham, and Stephen D. Lee were all capable corps commanders. i don't think Hardee would have been able to avert Hood's moronation and love of reckless frontal attacks.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >reckless frontal attacks
        wrong
        >moronation
        because he almost won?
        Everyone forgets Franklin was won by a single company not routing and becoming the pin for the rest of the army, brigade by brigade to form off of.
        If Arthur MacArthur (father of the WWII general) and his men fled, Franklin is a victory for Hood.
        Nashville was just plain cheating.
        9,000 repeating rifles would smash any army regardless of its commander.

  17. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    As anon said, Hardee was very much like John Sedgwick. A capable, reliable general but an utterly unimaginative one. Any time he was ordered to attack he would always do the same identical en echelon assault, whether it was at Shiloh or Stones River or Peach Tree Creek. I do think the guy is overrated but then what was he supposed to do? The AoT never had a good commander, whether it was Bragg, Johnson, or Hood.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Was Hardee at his best at the Battle of Jonesboro? Hood thought Hardee lacked agressive impulses at Jonesboro. Hardee did face some long odds tbqh.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Hood clearly loved blaming others for his failures but that aside, he did have some less than outstanding corps and division commanders (the brigade commanders were solid). But still, he needed to work with what he had. Also it's safe to assume Hood's physical condition (missing two limbs and constantly on painkillers) worked against him and prevented him from properly supervising battles. I mean, the Confederacy by 1864 was running short on capable generals. Some of the battles Hood lost may have been helped by better subordinates. Still, he needed to make battle plans that lesser subordinates could implment and not mess up.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Hood and Hardee were about ready to kill each other by Jonesboro anyway. On August 31, the latter tried his trademark en echelon attack (Albert Castel notes in "Decision in the West" that "this expert on tactics knew no other tactic.") He told Stephen D. Lee to charge to the sound of the guns. Lee hears some of Patrick Cleburne's guns off in the distance and takes it as a cue to attack, resulting in a Cold Harbor level of bloody repulse. Hardee got away on September 1 only because Oliver Howard and Jefferson C. Davis didn't bother pursuing him.

          The long and short is Hood had some ideas on how to stop Sherman but lacked the staff work or the physical mobility to pull it off. Hardee had talents, but I don't view him too highly either. Aside from Bald Hill, I can't point to any moments of inspired leadership on his part during the campaign.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >Hood and Hardee were about ready to kill each other by Jonesboro anyway
            as was noted earlier, Hardee resented serving under a man his junior in rank and was further insulted that he'd never even been asked if he wanted command of the army.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      So what should they have done? They almost won both Shiloh and Stones River.
      Stones River would be a CSA victory with just a handful of different variables.
      3,000 men in reserve for the Final push across the pike sees a CSA victory at Stones River.
      If Buell didnt show up at Shiloh, wouldve been a draw.
      If Gunboats werent off the shore in Shiloh, possibly a victory.
      If the Confederates didnt muck up their mustering and travel and arrived at Shiloh three days earlier, hands down no question its a CSA victory.
      If Johnston isnt shot or they listen to Forrest about withdrawing, Shiloh is a strategic loss/tactical victory.

  18. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Stephen Sears wrote in "Gettysburg" that the best and toughest generals and men were always the first to die, leaving behind the weak, midwits, and skulkers. Among the Confederate losses, such outstanding generals as Alfred Iverson, William "Extra Billy" Smith, Edward O'Neal, and John Brockenbrough survived the battle without a scratch on them.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >William "Extra Billy" Smith
      Born in 1797, he was 65 at Gettysburg, one of the oldest active generals in the war.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        considering diet and health care was worse back then, the average 65 year old was probably physiologically closer to 75 than he is today

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          The Confederacy was reduced to conscripting teenagers and old men by the end. Neither are necessarily optimal soldier material. The old guys will be ok in trench fighting but probably can't hack a lot of extended marching and are more likely to be gunshy and unwilling to attack the enemy position while 20-something guys can be easily convinced to do suicidal things because they don't believe they can die and you can tell them they'll impress women by charging the enemy trenches. And teenagers are bad too because they're not completely developed yet.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            in my country's army (Denmark's) in 19th century men in their early 30s mostly did militia or garrison duty. during Schleswig wars they used men 22-28 mostly. it was held as conventional wisdom that 18 year olds made bad soldiers because they were still children.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            teens were actually pretty good, and people on both sides said the younger men had a greater enthusiam and daring than the more reserved 20 and 30 year olds.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        George Greene, one of the oldest Union generals, was a total chad at Gettysburg. He ordered his men to dig in at Culp’s Hill and held off Confederate assaults by vastly superior numbers. He’s been overlooked with all the attention given to Little Round Top and Pickett’s Charge.

  19. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    This guy fought so that the federal government could have more power over our states. I can’t respect that, or any northerner who fought for federal tyranny.

    Tell me, what did his home state of Ohio gain from this war? 200 years later it’s an urban decaying shithole. What did the “union” ever do to stop that? (Nothing)

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >mmuh right to own slaves
      get fricked, Dixieboo

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I disagree with slavery, but the ideal invoked to defend it (states rights) I am very much in favor of. I am not even saying that the South was 100% in favor of states rights (they infringed on it whenever the institution of slavery in other states and territories was concerned) but they sure as hell did more to advance states rights than the pro federal north did.

  20. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >The cost at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania had been horrible enough; in four weeks the Army of the Potomac suffered more than 40,000 casualties. An unending train of ambulance wagons brought thousands of pitiful, broken bodies to the hospitals in Washington DC. But retreat was not in Grant's vocabulary and the army was gradually getting closer and closer to Richmond. As a positive sign, it appeared that the Army of Northern Virginia was feeling the pinch as well, and its casualties were not as easily replaceable. Confederate POWs were looking increasingly demoralized and convinced that the ANV would probably never fight outside a trench again.

    >It was thus Grant's belief that the brutal fighting of the past month had been having its effect. The ANV would still fight well in its earthworks, but its offensive capability had diminished and it was no longer the swift, responsive instrument it had been in 1862; it would no longer lash out at the enemy the way it had once done. It may have also escaped notice that the AoP under Grant was not the AoP of McClellan, Pope, and Hooker, making significant tactical lapses that Robert E. Lee had been able to exploit.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >waste 40,000 men making sure the ANV cant attack
      >they attack your capital anyway
      lmao

  21. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >But the cost in experienced soldiers and officers was real and dreadful. Once legendary units like the Iron Brigade and the 1st Minnesota were mere shells of their former selves, and the sad truth was that the best and most aggressive men are always the first to die in battle. More than three quarters of the brigades in the AoP were led by colonels or lieutenant colonels by the time of Cold Harbor, regiments led by majors or captains. A brigade with a lieutenant colonel leading it, all of its regiments headed by captains, just wasn't going to accomplish very much.

    >None of the corps commanders were pulling their weight either. John Sedgwick was dead, Winfield Hanwiener hadn't been the same since his wounding at Gettysburg, and Governeur Warren was proving that he should have remained a staff officer.

  22. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >The Army of Northern Virginia had never repulsed a Union attack as effortlessly as they did at Cold Harbor, not even at Fredericksburg. A total of 12,000 bluecoats fell in the battle with 7,000 of them in a period of 60 minutes (yet it was still the least costly of the three major battles of the Overland Campaign by a long shot). Grant wrote in his memoirs that Cold Harbor was one of two attacks he wished he'd never made (the other being the May 22, 1863 assault at Vicksburg). But the Army of the Potomac was drawing ever-closer to Richmond. One officer wrote that the soldiers were saying now that the war would have ended two years ago if McClellan had not retreated and had allowed them to fight it out as Grant was doing.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      not so sure tbqh. the soldiers were green in 1862 and the ANV was much much stronger in manpower and leadership than it was in 1864.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        opposite, ANV peaked in manpower in 64.
        64 is so close to the end everyone thinks the Union was just finishing off the Confederacy, the reality was the Union was beginning to lose in 64 and only when Lee could no longer invade did the end become nigh.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          they had 85,000 men at the start of the Seven Days Battles. the ANV never had more than about 65,000 men post-Gettysburg.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            anyway, the actual gap in manpower between North and South was less than some think. There weren't many battles in the ACW where the Union army actually had a considerable numerical advantage, often the difference was a few thousand men. This was because Union armies tended to count support and logistics staff into their numbers while the Confederates only counted the number of men actually shouldering a musket. Grant said in his memoirs that he never had a major numerical advantage in any battle or campaign of his until the final days of the Appomattox Campaign.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            nope the Union distinguished between their engaged men and rear echelons in battle reports.
            Union often had a 1.5-2x advantage.
            Anti-Racists just balls at fighting Southern BVLLs
            lol

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            as one estimate, the Army of the Potomac had on paper 118,000 men at the start of the Overland Campaign. since around 30% of that was noncombat personnel, the real total of actual combat infantry was about 71,000 men (note that Meade reported having 60,000 combat troops in April 1864 before Burnside's IX Corps was added). the ANV had about 60,000 men once noncombat personnel were excluded (with those included it came out to 66,000). so the actual difference wasn't so great as it would seem.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Yet they recorded more than that present for duty.
            And you can look at their battles reports with actual brigades listed with manpower, they had over 100,000 combat troops present for the overland.
            I mean nice try though but Lee humiliated Grant and even today his grave fights against the Grantard

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            By Petersburg they were definitely down to around 50,000-60,000 men. The Overland battles had been unbelievably bloody. Making matters worse many three year regiments were going home and could not be convinced to re-enlist. It wasn't until the fall and winter months that the Army of the Potomac got back up to strength as soldiers with minor wounds rejoined the ranks and conscripts/new regiments arrived. Also as it became clear that the end was in sight, many of the three year soldiers who left during summer 1864 decided to come back as they didn't want to miss out on being there when Lee threw in the towel.

            All the while Lee's manpower was waning. Down to around 40,000 men by the fall months and having to spread the line thinner and thinner. The ANV had around 30,000 remaining for the final Appomattox Campaign.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            as one estimate, the Army of the Potomac had on paper 118,000 men at the start of the Overland Campaign. since around 30% of that was noncombat personnel, the real total of actual combat infantry was about 71,000 men (note that Meade reported having 60,000 combat troops in April 1864 before Burnside's IX Corps was added). the ANV had about 60,000 men once noncombat personnel were excluded (with those included it came out to 66,000). so the actual difference wasn't so great as it would seem.

            the AOP by 1864 was reorganizing to have fewer units but larger ones. officially a brigade contained four regiments but later in the war it wasn't unusual for one to have 5, 6, or even 7 regiments.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            As has been stated earlier, the number of troops reported in returns was very often much larger than the actual number that participated in a battle due to detachments, picket duty, etc. The Army of the Potomac literally had under 30,000 men in the Petersburg lines by the end of August 1864 (Meade reported 28,900 men present for duty) plus Ben Butler's 16,000 man Army of the James. Phil Sheridan during the Valley Campaign had about 60% of the numbers he reported in his returns for the same reason.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Late August was the low point for the Army of the Potomac's strength but the numbers began to tick up during September and were over 60,000 men by mid-October. But a big problem was the breakdown of the prisoner exchange system. Thousands of soldiers lingered in Confederate prisons, including the infamous Andersonville. A big sticking point was the fact that the Confederates did not view black POWs as legitimate soldiers and if they had been escaped slaves they were immediately sent back into slavery (plus white officers who led them, if captured, could be prosecuted for instigating a slave revolt). Grant wrote Lee a series of letters explaining that the prisoner exchange system could not be resumed unless black prisoners were treated equally to white ones. In this Lee would not do. He wrote to explain that Richmond's position was clear--ex-slaves were still legally slaves unless freed by their owner, and there was abundant legal, historical, and constitutional precedent for it. In truth, Grant didn't really want the exchange system resumed but the treatment of black POWs provided at least a good excuse to not resume it.

            The reason being that thousands of Confederates were also locked up in Northern prison camps and to free them was merely giving back perfectly good troops to the Confederate armies. Grant believed allowing all those POWs back would ensure Sherman's defeat down in Georgia. It wasn't easy--some Northern voices called for prisoner exchanges for humanitarian reasons and indeed Andersonville prisoners sent some heart-rending letters begging to resume exchanges--some politicians in the North meanwhile would prefer to keep things as they were, Andersonville's horrors being good wartime propaganda to keep anti-Southern sentiment alive.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I know at Gettysburg the ANV had 71,000 men and AOP about 80,000 after they'd recently lost a bunch of nine month regiments recruited the previous fall

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            ANV reached 100,000 in potential manpower but half of it was sent westward post Gettysburg and Vicksburg.
            The largest the Confederacy ever was, 1864 early spring.

  23. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >The fall of Richmond was still far away in July 1864 and Grant was starting to learn the unfortunate political side of the war. To end the stalemate up in the Shenandoah Valley, he wanted to give William Franklin the top command. But that would not do. Franklin had been an unabashed McClellan groupie in the old days and was generally despised by the War Department. Grant next suggested Meade should get the assignment. Instead, Grant was told that the president needed to speak to him. On July 31, Grant and Lincoln met and the latter had to be the bearer of bad news. Both men agreed to keep the details of the meeting secret, but we have a general idea of what was discussed there. Lincoln wrote on the back of a telegram sheet the following: "Meade & Franklin / McClellan/ Md & Penna."

    >Firstly, Lincoln told Grant what he already guessed--that Franklin was in Purgatory and Grant could not have him. As for Meade, he seemed eager to accept--he was desperate to get an independent command. However, there had been a lot of calls for Meade's removal and Lincoln feared he'd look weak if he gave into pressure to remove him and Ben Butler had been part of the reason for it. "I do not want [the Potomac command]," he wrote his wife, "but I want Meade out."

    >The "Md & Penna" line was no doubt the desire to put both of those states into a single military department. But who was to run it? This is where McClellan's name becomes of interest.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Two points: 1. Franklin had been blamed for the Sabine Pass disaster in September 1863 and was also involved in the Red River Expedition fiasco 2. He was also wounded in action and suffering from the injury so he couldn't command troops in the field anyway

  24. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Several prominent Republicans were calling for the reinstatement of McClellan to field command. They would rather have him back in uniform than running for president, and they felt his name still carried weight and he could help recruit troops. The DNC was to be held in late August and McClellan was the party's presumed presidential nominee. Suggestions were floated that McClellan could then run for president in 1868, once Lincoln had finished his second term. Postmaster Montgomery Blair urged McClellan to go for it but received a noncommittal answer. He seemed to have thought it better to go ahead with his presidential run, especially as the war was going badly and a useful political issue was how McClellan was not being used.

    >A peace movement was happening but a lot of it was rumors floated by the eccentric New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley. Greeley reportedly met Confederate agents in Canada and learned that the war could be settled if Lincoln just sat down them and worked out a reasonable compromise. Greeley wrote in despair at how the war was bleeding the country white and didn't grasp that Richmond would not accept any peace short of Southern independence and retention of slavery, and he didn't know the Confederates in Canada had no authorization to talk to Lincoln about anything.

  25. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >And lastly, there was the Radical Republicans. Lincoln had pocket vetoed the Wade-Davis Bill, in which Ohio Senator Ben Wade and Maryland Congressman Henry Davis, both diehards who wanted the South to suffer for its sins, had persuaded Congress to lay down harsh terms for restoration of the Union (that this restoration was not happening under any terms unless Jubal Early was removed from the vicinity of Washington DC did not seem to occur to anyone). Lincoln vowed that he would never sign the Wade-Davis Bill into law, but otherwise didn't care if a Southern state voluntarily accepted its terms. The bill's authors were infuriated and on August 5 issued a vicious denunciation of the president. One can only imagine what they might have done should McClellan be reinstated to military command.

  26. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >But the truth was, by late summer the war was definitely going against the Confederacy. Sherman had begun his drive into Georgia on May 1, the same day Grant began the Overland Campaign, and after Joe Johnson steadily fell back, giving up more and more territory, an alarmed Jefferson Davis replaced him with John Hood, who, if nothing else, had the great virtue of being an aggressive commander. And attack Hood did. The Army of Tennessee was repulsed with each thrust it made, losing 20,000 irreplaceable men as Sherman gradually tried to maneuver around Atlanta and cut off its vital railroad line.

    >Compared to the slaughter of the Overland Campaign, the Atlanta Campaign was comparatively bloodless for Sherman's army. Its worst loss was when Army of the Tennessee commander James McPherson was killed July 22 during the battles outside Atlanta. Both Sherman and Grant were inconsolable at the loss of their friend and a capable general. John Logan, the ranking general in the army, succeeded McPherson to command. Logan was a political appointee, but very popular with the men and a not-bad amateur soldier. Grant would have been satisfied leaving him in command, but Sherman felt only a West Pointer should get army command so he instead appointed Oliver Howard to command the AoTT. Logan accepted his demotion without visible complaint; the soldiers were unhappy, but the AoTT was much less quarrelsome and politicized than the Army of the Potomac so the fuss quickly died down.

    >One unexpected side effect of this was Joe Hooker's resignation as commander of the XX Corps. Hooker had wanted to kill Howard ever since Chancellorsville, not to mention the insult of being passed over for promotion by a man his junior in rank. Sherman had never liked Hooker anyway so he gladly accepted his resignation, and as one further slap in the face, he brought Henry Slocum, who had wanted to kill Hooker ever since Chancellorsville, back from Vicksburg to take over the XX Corps.

  27. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >On August 3, Sherman informed Grant "One thing is certain, whether we get inside Atlanta or not, it will be a used-up community when we are done with it." He brought up siege artillery, bombarded the city, and directed his cavalry and infantry to lay waste to the outlying areas around it. As the Democrats were nominating McClellan at their convention in Chicago and drafting a peace-now platform, John Hood was realizing that he'd better skedaddle if he didn't want to lose his entire army. He made a last-ditch stand against Howard's troops at Jonesboro, 15 miles south of Atlanta, and then departed, burning any supplies he couldn't take with him. Slocum's corps watched the deadening explosions light up the night sky and the next morning marched past the bombed remains of Hood's supply depot. He sent a self-effacing telegram to Washington--"General Sherman has taken Atlanta."

  28. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    In these threads anti-McClellan posters often say he had his HQ too far from the battle during the engagement(s) at Antietam.
    So I went out and I found his HQ and walked overland to the bridge and the battlefield.
    McClellans HQ was near exactly 1.5 miles from the main engagement at the cornfields and less than a mile from some of the fighting.
    another anti McClellan myth
    SHATTERED

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      1 mile is far

  29. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Given the considerable advantage Grant had in both manpower and artillery, Lee would not risk a fight in open country so he decided to make his stand in the Wilderness, a tangled woodland of second growth forest about 130 square miles in diameter. The old Chancellorsville battlefield was on the eastern edge of it, and a stream called Mine Run on the western edge. It was crisscrossed by several roads including the Orange Turnpike, the Plank Road, and Brock Road. Back in colonial times, the original old growth forest had been cut down for tobacco farming; once the soil was depleted, the farms were abandoned and reclaimed by the forest. It was a rough place full of thorns, briars, shrubs, scrub oaks, and jack pines cut up by aimless little streams leading nowhere in particular. The soil was poor and hardly anyone lived here outside a few ramshackle little farms in clearings.

    >The previous November, Lee had decided to dig in along Mine Run. Meade was considering an attack but found the Confederate entrenchments too strong so he dropped the idea and instead put the Army of the Potomac into winter quarters.

    >In short, the Wilderness was not a good place for a fight and Grant was marching right into it.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >The previous November, Lee had decided to dig in along Mine Run. Meade was considering an attack but found the Confederate entrenchments too strong so he dropped the idea and instead put the Army of the Potomac into winter quarters
      I live in Pennsylvania and the winters here are quite a bit colder than Virginia where they're mild and more fall-like. Actual freezing weather and snow is not as common there so it would have been possible to campaign late in the season. November down there averages about 6-7 degrees warmer than it does here.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Southern winters are mostly just rainy and nasty. it's worse than up north because cold wet rain is more miserable than ice and snow.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          no, Mid Atlantic winters are based. It makes Northerners into BVLLs being cold and wet all day.

          1 mile is far

          it was closer than Lee's HQ and leagues closer than any other subsequent Union general.

          No he wasn't

          He's right. He was trained in hand to hand.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Meades HQ was on cemetery ridge at Gettysburg

            Hookers HQ came under artillery fire at Chancellorsville.

            So that’s wrong

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      The battlefield nowadays is mostly mature forest with lots of wide open space and little undergrowth; after 160 years the second growth woods have been replaced by climax forest cover.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      It is thought that tobacco farming began in the region about 1722 but the soil was quickly depleted and the farms abandoned in about 6-7 years. Richard Byrd II toured the area in 1732 and wrote that it was full of saplings likely young trees that started sprouting as the tobacco fields had been abandoned. there was also clear cutting over the years to support local iron furnaces. one of them, Catherine Furnace, had been abandoned in the 1840s but recently reactivated to supply the Confederate war machine.

  30. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Grant never had the camaraderie with Meade that he'd had with Sherman, but the two had worked together reasonably well so far. But Meade's temper was always short and getting worse over time and he'd handled the Petersburg attacks as ineptly as possible so that Grant gave momentary consideration to replacing him with Winfield Hanwiener. But that wasn't a viable option either--Hanwiener was still suffering from his Gettysburg wound. Returning near the end of June after a month's absence, he was half the man he'd been a year ago. Like Meade, his temper was also short and he began arguing with John Gibbon, who'd once been his best friend.

    >Hanwiener's II Corps was also not what it used to be. Once the elite shock troops of the army, in the thick of the fight in every battle from Antietam to Spotsylvania, it was the smallest and weakest corps by the time the Petersburg siege began. Even worse, the II Corps was losing an increased amount of men through desertion and capture. In the Battle of Jerusalem Plank Road in late June, the corps clashed with A.P. Hill's troops and was badly beaten. Yet the actual number of killed and wounded was small, but 1,700 men were captured--entire regiments threw up their arms without firing a shot. These included once elite outfits like the 15th Massachusetts, which lost 300 men in the West Woods at Antietam but proudly escaped without losing their regimental flag. In this battle, the 15th basically gave up and surrendered, flag and all with token resistance. The corps had also lost several artillery pieces and little effort was made to prevent this.

  31. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >No question about what happened. The Overland Campaign had virtually shot up all the good men in the corps. Gibbon's division numbered 6,799 men at the beginning of May and had since then lost 7,970. The dead had wounded had been made up for by replacement soldiers but that amounted to 72% of the original number plus replacements. The division lost 40 regimental commanders.

    >The rest of the II Corps was not a lot better. In total, it had lost 20,000 men between May 1 and July 1. Over a dozen brigade commanders had been killed or wounded and over 100 regimental commanders. Of course the dead and wounded were inevitably the best and most tough men. They'd been replaced, but mostly with conscripts and bounty soldiers who were likely to run away the moment they came under fire. Legendary units ceased existing. As June ended, Gibbon consolidated the once elite 15th, 19th, and 20th Massachusetts into a single regiment as none were larger than a battalion by this point although separate regimental rolls would still be kept. The Philadelphia Brigade was also broken up and its five regiments' survivors scattered among other regiments. The men were not happy about this and cursed Gibbon. One veteran of the 106th Pennsylvania bemoaned that they could no longer carry their prized regimental flag, which had 39 bullet holes in it from three years of action.

  32. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >The other corps were not much better. Lysander Cutler, commanding what used to be James Wadsworth's division, wrote in his official report of the campaign that they'd lost two regiments due to their enlistments expiring, one brigade had been transferred whole to another division, and the remaining regiments, which numbered 3,742 men on May 1, were down to 1,324 men on July 1, and the transferred ones had suffered as badly. In addition, Cutler noted, almost every brigade, regimental, and company commander who had been there on May 1 was gone and the changes in command so frequent that it was impossible to draft an accurate report.

    >The 24th Michigan was down to under 100 men and one company had two left--one sergeant and one private. A soldier in the 12th New Hampshire wrote that his outfit had been under fire for 71 of the past 72 days. Many uninjured men became worn out and unable to function from physical exhaustion and shell shock--the colonel of the 6th Wisconsin wrote of a captain who deliberately drank powdered slate pencils in vinegar to disable himself from further duty. Many men who were once tough and fearless had become gunshy, twitchy, and mentally unstable after two months of this nightmarish campaign.

  33. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >In between all the fuss around Cold Harbor, Grant somehow found time to tend to personal business. On June 4, he dashed off a letter to his 8 year old daughter Nelly, who was currently with her brothers in St. Louis. She had just appeared at a Sanitary Commission fair that past week and all by herself, penned Daddy a letter--she was in love with a Shetland pony named Little Rebel, a part of the family entourage. And so, 24 hours after Grant ordered the attacks at Cold Harbor to cease, he wrote the following:

    >My Dear little Nelly:
    >I received your pretty well-written letter more than a week ago. You do not know how happy it made me feel to see how well my little girl not yet nine years old could write. I expect by the end of the year you and Buck (her brother Ulysses Jr.. age 11) will be able to speak German, and then I will have to buy you those nice gold watches I promised. I see in the papers and also from Mama's letters that you have been representing "the Old Woman who Lived in the Shoe" at the Fair; I know you must have enjoyed it very much. You must send me one of your photographs taken at the Fair.

    >We have been fighting now for thirty days and have every prospect of still more fighting to do before we get to Richmond. When we do get there I shall go home to see you, Ma, Fred, Buck, and Jess. I expect Jess rides Little Rebel every day. I think when I go home I will get a little buggy to work Rebel in so you and Jess can ride about the country during vacation. Tell Ma to let Fred learn French as soon as she thinks he is able to study it. It will be a great help to him when he goes to West Point. Be a good little girl as you have always been, study your lessons, and you will be contented and happy."

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >I expect Jess rides Little Rebel every day
      >Jess rides Little Rebel every day

      >I know you must have enjoyed it very much. You must send me one of your photographs taken at the Fair.
      >asking an 8 year old to send him her photos of herself enjoying...
      Oh...god...no.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >mentally ill incel, his mind broken by porn can't imagine a man's loving interactions with his children

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