Antietam WI: Not A Confederate Victory Thread

With the unfair proportions of Confederate Victory timelines, I pose a question. What if McClellan's victory at Antietam had been total rather than just tactical? Let's say Lee is unable to escape and even with McClellan's morose attitude towards battle, he manages to capture General Lee and the bulk of the officers of the Army of Northern Virginia, seen as the cream of the crop for the Confederacy. Is McClellan able to push towards Richmond or does he turn this decisive Union victory into an overall Union defeat by being too slow to go after the Confederates?
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Knowing McClellan he's too slow. Isn't that why he lost at Antietam in the first place? Its not really a fault he had as a general as much as the whole North had about fighting the war in the first place.

But I'm not sure I understand. If he's captured Lee, lots of his best men and most of his staff then the war is pretty much over even without a drive on Richmond. I suppose there were other good generals and more men but not really enough to keep up too much more of a resistance since the South was so heavily outnumbered to begin with. In any case, since he's captured Lee's Army the strategic reason for trying to take Richmond now as opposed to later is pretty much moot.
 
Let me propose an alternative. Given McClellan's ego, his PR talents (you have to get to MacArthur before you find someone who has less military talent and a better touch for PR), and his inability to see disagreements as anything other than betrayal, a victory at Antietam might be a very bad thing for the North.

While the South would be crippled, it is unlikely that they would surrender on the spot, and McClellan would be the logical person to lead the March on Richmond. If anyone could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory under such circumstances, it would be McClellan. From past behavior we can anticipate that McClellan would take a LONG time to get moving, and he would move very slowly...slowly enough possibly to give the south time to mount some sort of defence. Even if he was able to take Richmond, this wasn't Grant with his manic pursuit...it is likely that the traitor's govt would have escaped to the west, which was nowhere near collapse in 1862. It is POSSIBLE therefore, that continued CSA resistance could have occurred based upon the South minus VA. This would have been a horrible blow to the CSA, but it would still be a going concern, particularly if there wasn't an aggressive attack mounted against it.

Here is where I believe McClellan would do the worst damage. I think that if the circumstances I suggest above came to pass (and I concede that these are something of a long shot), McClellan would likely oppose any significant offensive action against the CSA. After all, he would now be the hero of Anteitam and Richmond, he would posess enormous political prestige, and the last thing that he would want is for anyone to make clear that he didn't finish the job by capturing what was left of the CSA and ending the war with a complete, rather than partial victory. Moreover, McClellan was a conservative democrat (boy are those days gone forever!...) who opposed, an absolute war. It is very likely that he would have agitated for a negotiated solution with the CSA, arguing that with their capital taken, their army defeated, and the leading general in chains (or dead?), it was time to turn away from the position of the radical republicans.

Not a certainty by any means, but worth a bit of speculation?
 
Mac suffered from Yellow fever once. Have him instead suffer from it before the battle and Burnsides I believe is put into command. I believe he could have been good enough to see that Lee was in a tough jam and he only had to squish quick for a total victory.
 
Grimm Reaper said:
I sense some are touchy about the seemingly endless flow of Southern victory scenarios... :p

No, but I felt any Confederate victory timeline would have been just another drop in the pond. This may not be a timeline, but it's a good discussion piece.

And yes, I do like the idea about Burnsides. He could have at least done what McClellan could not have done. But could Burnsides have bolstered morale in the same fashion McClellan did? Well, I suppose it would be possible.
 
Victory boosts morale, and an unambiguous victory at Antietam would have done the trick quite nicely....

On the constant refrain of Southern victory TLs, while I consider them fantasy (the south simply wasn't going to win short of some sort of ASB), they are amusing enough for good conversation...
 
Ace Venom said:
With the unfair proportions of Confederate Victory timelines, I pose a question. What if McClellan's victory at Antietam had been total rather than just tactical? Let's say Lee is unable to escape and even with McClellan's morose attitude towards battle, he manages to capture General Lee and the bulk of the officers of the Army of Northern Virginia, seen as the cream of the crop for the Confederacy. Is McClellan able to push towards Richmond or does he turn this decisive Union victory into an overall Union defeat by being too slow to go after the Confederates?

Without the ANV on the field, the Confederacy would be in a quite difficult situation. Without Lee, the Confederacy would be in serious problems. Without both of them, the Confederacy would be lost.

The problem to see that victory posible is contained in the last sentence.

Ace Venom said:
Is McClellan able to push towards Richmond or does he turn this decisive Union victory into an overall Union defeat by being too slow to go after the Confederates?

If he's able to defeat Lee, one would think that he was not as slow as usually, so he would be fast enought to capture Richmond. If he's slow and allows the South to recover from such a blow, he's unable even to defeat Lee in a definitive way, I think.
 
Justin Green said:
Mac suffered from Yellow fever once. Have him instead suffer from it before the battle and Burnsides I believe is put into command. I believe he could have been good enough to see that Lee was in a tough jam and he only had to squish quick for a total victory.


Bunsides was almost as bad as Mac but I think quicker moving as he hardly could be slower. I tend to think he could take Richmond with Lee out of the way unless he makes a big blunder. Unfortunately with Burnsides that is far from ruled out.
 
Scott Rosenthal said:
Victory boosts morale, and an unambiguous victory at Antietam would have done the trick quite nicely....

On the constant refrain of Southern victory TLs, while I consider them fantasy (the south simply wasn't going to win short of some sort of ASB), they are amusing enough for good conversation...

Agreed, even with such twits as McClellan and Burnsides it won in the end.
 
NapoleonXIV said:
Knowing McClellan he's too slow. Isn't that why he lost at Antietam in the first place?

No, the reason the Union victory was not total is that McClellan...due to a personal feud he had going with Fitz John Porter, did not commit his reserves when Burnside broke Lee's right flank. This allowed the single division of A.P. Hill to halt the Union move toward Lee's escape route and save the day for the Confederates.
 
With the loss of the entire ANV, along with Lee, Jackson & Longstreet, the Confederacy hasn't got a hope in Hell. Even if McClellan is slow in moving on Richmond, what major Southern command is in a position to stop the Army of the Potomac from taking Richmond? There maybe a few definant last stands, by small Southern units, but that's about all.

The more important aspect to consider is, when Richmond falls, does the Confederacy fight on indefinitely, however impossible that may seem, or does Davis surrender?
 
DMA said:
With the loss of the entire ANV, along with Lee, Jackson & Longstreet, the Confederacy hasn't got a hope in Hell. Even if McClellan is slow in moving on Richmond, what major Southern command is in a position to stop the Army of the Potomac from taking Richmond? There maybe a few definant last stands, by small Southern units, but that's about all.

The more important aspect to consider is, when Richmond falls, does the Confederacy fight on indefinitely, however impossible that may seem, or does Davis surrender?

The Confederacy moves to its capital to Atlanta and fights on.
 
Or perhaps they move it back to Montgomery? Anyone who opposed moving it to Richmond will be vindicated now--some who objected said it was too close to the North, and in TTL, they were right.
 
Brilliantlight said:
The Confederacy moves to its capital to Atlanta and fights on.


But what do they use to defend Atlanta or Montgomery with? The ANV is no longer there. The best Southern generals are captives. The main western army of the Confederacy has been hit hard at Shiloh & the only other Confederate army is being pushed out of Tennessee hotly followed by Union forces. I'd give the Confederacy three months, maybe six, before much of it is occupied by Union forces.
 
Not sure what Scott's basis is for believing MacArthur was without talent...

..not going to dispute his comment about MacArthur and PR. I believe Eisenhower once said that he studied theatrics under General MacArthur. :p

Determining how McClellan can win is a real poser. He had every conceivable advantage and still couldn't score a real win. Numbers? Check. Armaments?
Check. Defender's advantage? Check. Total knowledge of the enemy army and said army's breakdown into constituent parts? Check. Easy victory over enemy divided forces rolled up in pieces? Nope.
 
The Union army still wasn't big enough to both defeat and occupy the Confederacy. Two separate problems.
The Union army would base it's army at Richmond/Petersberg. Then the fight would be on for Wilmington, and Atlanta, and Vicksburg.
More blacks behind Union lines means more black troops to recruit. The emancipation proclamation would go out, and then there would be a very large number of new Union recruits and an obviously beaten Confederacy to motivate them to join for an offered 40 acres and a mule. Or 160 acres in Texas and Florida and you provide your own mule from some Confederate farm along the way.
 
Confederate guerrillas in Virginia, perhaps? Some "Mosby"-like groups may rise in those states occupied by the Union. Imagine some of them fighting in the Shenandoah Valley in a Jacksonian way....
 
McClellan is left in command by Lincoln, and the Civil War lasts until 1872.
McClellan doesn't have to fight anyone to get to Richmond. It just takes him 10 years to march there :p .
 
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