Posted on 08/26/2012 6:52:09 PM PDT by PaulZe
150th Anniversary First Bull Run
Should be fun.
Kush
" I cannot possibly detail to you now the trials of that day. Suffice it to say that the “iron hail” was so thick and my duties took me to so many different points , nothing but the protecting care of my God can have saved me from injury. My little horse and self both yielded to fatigue about the same time, but not until our most important part had been played. I found water for both and few minutes rest revived us and we again entered upon our duties.
I had the privilege of walking the battlefield a few years ago, a most moving and humbling experience.
Best commentary on McClellan as a general came from McClellan.
When Order 191 was found and authenticated, George said, “Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home.”
Unfortunately, even with the Order in hand and specific information about the size and location of each of Lee’s units, George delayed and dawdled. Instead of driving and forcing movement, he took his time and allowed his subordinates to do the same. The Order was a window of opportunity, and like all such Windows it was closing fast. If there was ever a time for fast movement, this was it.
It is interesting to imagine how Grant or Sherman or Thomas or Meade would have acted in the same circumstances. IMO any of them would have moved much faster and would have succeeded in cutting Lee’s retreat off and and probably have annihilated the Army of Northern VA.
In George’s (partial) defense, there was no reason particular to assume the Order was not a truly masterful ruse of war. It was definitely signed by Lee, but it could have been intended to be found.
However, if that had been the case the Order would have been allowed to fall into Union hands in some more obvious manner, such as the capture of a courier. For Lee to base his movements on McClellan’s response to finding an Order that he might not ever see would have been truly foolish.
Not really. Both armies were about at their peak in numbers present for duty in early 1963.
http://www.civilwarhome.com/armysize.htm
The difference is that Union numbers remained about the same from then till the end of the war, whereas CSA numbers dropped off steadily. So while you are incorrect in absolute Union numbers, you are correct with regard to their relative strength.
But it should be remembered that the Union needed more men. It just takes more men to fight an offensive rather than defensive war. Besides the greater strength needed by the attacker at the point of contact, the Union had to occupy hostile territory, protect its lines of communication and supply, etc.
It is often forgotten that the later War resembled WWI more than it did any earlier war. The rifled musket made an entrenched defense almost impossible to overcome. This advantage of the defense wasn't really overcome till the development of the tank in 1918.
Although Emory Upton developed tactics that would have worked, albeit expensive in lives, if put into wider use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emory_Upton/I
We visited Gettysburg, Antietam several years ago.. Very sobering.
It’s just hard to wrap my mind around the way battles were fought and the losses suffered.
I had an ancestor in the 49th Alabama, captured, sent to a camp in Columbus, Oh.
Released with the condition he would go home and not participate any longer. Somehow he ended up in Pickett’s Charge.
He survived the war, wounded from a mini-ball to the shoulder.
When we pulled out of the parking lot at Antietam we turned right onto Harper Ferry Rd. instead of left toward the major highway.
Wonderful drive, right along the Potomac River. The Chesapeake-Ohio canal locks clearly visible.
It doesn’t take much imagination to mentally see mule drawn barges plying the waterway.
When you get to the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers you are on the opposite side of the Potomac from Harpers Ferry. There is a little row of bldgs. that looked to be period. A really nice perspective of the site.
We stumbled upon this drive. A fortuitous ‘mistake’ of my navigating.
My kid was in that re-enactment...
Though he has a Yankee father (RI), he fought for the side of my ancestors...good kid!
The South’s only hope of winning was either a European intervention on their behalf, or just war-weariness on the part of the North.
They tried to make the war so costly in blood, material, and money that they hoped the Northern people would ultimately give up and allow the South to negotiate for permanent secession.
George McClellen’s run against Lincoln in 1864 was over that very issue, but the country and the Union army decided to complete the task of winning the war.
The South was outmatched, not by bravery or military leadership, but by shear numbers, money, transportation capability (trains/tracks), and idustrial output that the North could put against them. As Shelby Foote noted, the North fought the war with one hand tied behind its back in regard to available manpower for soldiers and industrial capabilities.
I’m not sure that Lee’s “warhorse” General Longstreet actually said this, but he is quoted somewhere as saying, “We should have freed the slaves, then fired on Fort Sumpter.” I think he was probably right. Who knows?
That's what he says in the movie. I don't know if he ever actually said it. Believing it gets complicated: you'd have to believe that he had already turned against slavery to the point of becoming an abolitionist but was still a fervent secessionist, and was willing to express this to strangers. That doesn't seem especially likely.
Is it what the South should have done? I don't know. If you have the foresight and intelligence and determination to free the slaves, are you really going to do a half-*ss*d thing like shoot up a federal fort? Wouldn't having the presence of mind to abolish slavery mean that the passions that lead to secession and war have been mastered and conquered?
In the fantasy world some people live in, Southerners could have gotten rid of slavery and still gone to war over tariffs -- or gun or health care laws that wouldn't be proposed for another century. But really, if slavery weren't an issue, if Southerners hadn't already left Congress, tariffs wouldn't have risen as high as they did. And those other issues of the next century or two certainly weren't on anyone's agenda in 1860.
If you did free the slaves, you would have had to worry about all the difficulties and uncertainties that emancipation would bring. How much freedom and how much power do you give the ex-slaves? Do you make the freedmen citizens? Do you deport them? Do you have the plantation owners pay them wages? What happens to those the planters don't want to pay? And would the planters and the rest of the Southern population really go along with emancipation?
Thanks!
re: “If you did free the slaves, you would have had to worry about all the difficulties and uncertainties that emancipation would bring. How much freedom and how much power do you give the ex-slaves? Do you make the freedmen citizens? Do you deport them? Do you have the plantation owners pay them wages? What happens to those the planters don’t want to pay? And would the planters and the rest of the Southern population really go along with emancipation?”
You’re right. Slavery, the longer it continued, became more and more difficult to remove from the Southern economy without there being serious economic and social problems.
It’s always one of those “shoulda, woulda, coulda” things you see in hindsight. You wish they had somehow fixed the whole slavery thing before the Constitution was adopted, but it didn’t happen and it seems, when you look back at it, that there was no way to stop it short of war. A great tragedy for the nation North and South (as well as for the slaves caught in the middle).
McClellan got to within 10 miles of Richmond before the Confederate General was wounded and Lee was put in. Lee took advantage of McClellan’s analytical nature, and gave him much to analyze, nearly all of it force.
Nearly all of it false” that should be.
At Shiloh, as you walk down the Sunken Road and into the Hornet's Nest, you can almost imagine seeing wave after wave of Confederate troops topping that little rise just fifty yards to your front. Over near the Peach Orchard and Bloody Pond, you can almost hear the cries of the wounded from both sides who staggered or crawled to the pond in a desperate attempt to quench their thirst.
Perryville, while not a National Battlefield, is still well worth the visit. The largest and bloodiest battle fought in Kentucky, Perryville pitted 16,000 hardened Confederate veterans against 22,000 green Union troops, most of them fresh from the training camps around Louisville. The battlefield is well maintained, with only a small visitor's center and a handful of monuments and markers dotting the landscape.
re: “If you ever get in the Kentucky-Tennessee area, be sure to visit Perryville in Kentucky and Shiloh in Tennessee.”
Will do if I ever get the chance. That’s one thing I really envy about all those who live in that part of the country who are so near to so much great history.
The first account I ever read about the battle at Perryville was in Shelby Foote’s book. Are there others that you might recommend? And, Shiloh, I would love to see that one too.
I forgot one other battlefield that I had the chance to see and that was Pea Ridge in Missouri. Also, not a large battle in regard to numbers, but had a great impact on turning the tide of the war in that region.
I don’t know about you, Stonewall, but I could talk about the Civil War (or as some say, the 2nd War for American Independence) all day long. My first real “becoming aware” of the war occured when I was a young boy living in Lancaster County, PA. My dad took me to Gettysburg when I was about 8 yrs old. I still remember it. Everyone spoke in hushed voices as though it were a cathedral. It is humbling to be there.
Thanks, again, for sharing your experience at Shiloh. I can only imagine what that was like. I would definitely love to go visit there some day.
re: “That’s what he says in the movie. I don’t know if he ever actually said it.”
Ha, you are correct, that IS where I heard that from. I have to laugh at my poor memory. I do like that movie, but they definitely went out of their way to make Longstreet appear to be the “lone” voice who tried to get Lee to not make that charge against Hancock’s division in the center of the Union lines. It appears they took a lot of liberties to put words in Longstreet’s mouth.
Anyway, thanks for jarring my memory.
The 150th anniversary of Perryville is coming up in just a few weeks, so I am hoping to get over there for the reenactment. It's only about an hour's drive, but we will be starting inventory at work that week, so I don't know if I'll be able to get the time off.
Thank you, Stonewall for recommending those two books, I will try to find them. I have never gotten to see a reenactment. Hope you get to see it.
There is an excellent series of books by Allen Nevins which gives a very comprehensive depiction of the history of the US between 1848 and 1865. But you have to be a history geek to enjoy them:
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