Antietam

Well, this is the Burnside who bungled Fredericksburg we're talking about.......

Yeah, but someone should have noticed it.

In an even more Wallbanger moment there was a possibility to roll up Lee's lines if he'd put the full weight of the attack there and held him at Marye's Heights with a token demonstration. Either way, he wins and Lee is in deep shit if he has to move a lot of his army for a fight in the open.

Yeah. Not a good possibility, but some chance. And wasn't the division which made the penetration Meade's?

Well, even with generals-in-chief like McClellan and Halleck who tended to have more narrow visions the Union was able to bisect the Confederacy for the first of the two times it did so and then actually get Chattanooga. However it's not so easy to see them winning the war so soon as they did without someone who like Grant could co-ordinate army groups at the same time.

Fair enough.


I'm not so sure, a Confederate victory at Pea Ridge would have limited opportunities for Donelson-like strokes and would have made that part of the Trans-Mississippi one of the two strategic areas there (the other, of course, is New Orleans).

I suppose, but its still not an area that produces very much in the way of supplies - so the more the Confederates can tie up Union troops without having to tie up large numbers themselves, the better.
 
Yeah. Not a good possibility, but some chance. And wasn't the division which made the penetration Meade's?

Yes, that was the division.

I suppose, but its still not an area that produces very much in the way of supplies - so the more the Confederates can tie up Union troops without having to tie up large numbers themselves, the better.

True, but unless they end up doing something that averts the division of their country in half the Trans-Mississippi becomes entirely irrelevant anyway.
 
Now, if you think that the text quoted is a Lost Causer myth, I would dearly love to see the sources - based on what the men who had to survive on the rations in question had to say, as close to the time as possible (so memory can't play a role one way or another).

67th Tigers is prone to dismissing anything that disagrees with his opinions as Lost Cause mythology or radical Republican propaganda or excuses made by period generals.:rolleyes:

For example, to get the numbers 67th claims Lee had at Antietam, he dismisses claims of heavy Confederate straggling as Lee and the Lost Causers making up excuses. Unfortunately for 67th's theories, Lee was complaining about heavy straggling in official reports sent to Jefferson Davis over a week before the battle was fought, let alone lost.

Not that evidence has ever changed 67th's opinions. He's even dismissed his fairhaired boy, George McClellan, when McClellan contradicts 67th's opinions.

If you're just going to reference Harsh as saying otherwise, I'm afraid that's not very useful. At least quote him.

When 67th does quote his sources, he frequently gets it wrong. He misread a source that concluded Robert E Lee won more battles than average, but took average casualties as the source claiming Lee had only average skill as a general. 67th thought the 1st Minnesota was so disorganized at Gettysburg that they fired into their own ranks when the source clearly shows the Confederate Brigade this Union regiment charged was the one who fired into their own ranks.

67th claimed that official US War Plans concluded the Japanese Empire could have seized everything west of the Rocky Mountains. The actual plans, which were for a two front war against Britain and Japan and involved the US almost ignoring Japan to concentrate on Britain concluded the Japanese could raid the Panama Canal and the West Coast and possibly capture Hawaii. A different US study, done over a decade earlier concluded that if a first rate power could land 200,000 troops on the West Coast and support them they could seize everything west of the Rocky Mountains. It did not conclude that Japan was a first rate power nor that any power could land that many troops on the West Coast nor that they could support them.

Perhaps that's why 67th seldom quotes his sources any more.

To the original poster: Does "the Army of Northern Virginia being in the condition 67th Tigers and his fellows argue it was?" count as an acceptable POD?

I see three ways of doing that:

The first requires Confederate Commissary General Lucius Northop to be replaced by someone competent and Robert E Lee be better at inspiring his men and that both Lee and the other man be significantly better at getting Jefferson Davis to support them than their counterparts in OTL. That requires big enough butterflies far enough back that there's probably no Battle of Antietam.

The second requires Alien Space Bats infuse Lee's army with the ability Confederate mythology assigns to them and they gain the ability to lick more than twice their weight in Yankees

The third involves about 30 thousand anti-McClellan time travelers merging seamlessly into existing units of the Army of Northern Virginia.;)
 
Again at Antietam? 75,000? What measure is this? 38,000? What measure is this?

The 38,000 is easy. It is the number of bayonets (i.e. Corporals and Privates in line of battle) in line on the morning the 17th that were engaged. it excludes uncommitted reserves etc., let alone the officers, skirmishers etc.

75,000 is also pretty easy. It is the aggregate present of the formations on the field on the 17th (i.e. all bar Couch's and Humphrey's divisions and some cavalry detachments.

To get this 2:1 ratio the Lost Causers love requires an extreme apples-oranges comparison. The highest possible category of Federal strength is compared with the lowest possible category of Confederate strength.

Got some evidence to back your opinions?:)
 
I think part of the problem with McClellan's ability to do anything strategically with tactical wins is that he never, ever was willing to fully commit to a strategy with Union victory as the goal. There always has to be something left in reserve, there always has to be ample supplies to avoid running out of things...there always has to be something prepared for the possibility of defeat.

Its never "how can I destroy Lee's army?". Its always "how can I keep Lee from destroying my army?"

This is not how aggressors, and for purposes of strategy the Union is the aggressor, win wars.

"Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do." - Ulysses Grant, Battle of the Wilderness.
 
That was another key difference between Lee and Grant. Grant both formed one and was Genre Savvy enough to leave Halleck in charge of press relations, while Lee kept fighting the Civil War with the methods of Winfield Scott against Mexico.

I think that's a bit unfair to Winfield Scott.
 
Fiver said:
I see three ways of doing that:

The first requires Confederate Commissary General Lucius Northop to be replaced by someone competent and Robert E Lee be better at inspiring his men and that both Lee and the other man be significantly better at getting Jefferson Davis to support them than their counterparts in OTL. That requires big enough butterflies far enough back that there's probably no Battle of Antietam.

The second requires Alien Space Bats infuse Lee's army with the ability Confederate mythology assigns to them and they gain the ability to lick more than twice their weight in Yankees

The third involves about 30 thousand anti-McClellan time travelers merging seamlessly into existing units of the Army of Northern Virginia.;)

I want to write a timeline involving one of the last two here. It would be a fun story. Forget AK-47s, we have anti-McClellan time travelers who want to see the Confederacy win.

No, but I think they would have tried to get Hill out of their army.

The question must be asked though "And replaced him with who?"

Lee, by mid 1863, is running out of qualified candidates for even brigade command.

This is not to say he's the best of the options, but its not as if Lee had an arbitrary preference for Virginians that overran all other considerations and deliberately ignored brilliant nonVirginians. Or West Pointers etc.

I'm not saying he wasn't partial, but "Lee was prejudiced in favor of Virginians and West Pointers" seems oversimplifying.

So since this thread has diverted away from the initial question/s, I'm going to bring that up. Lee's shortage of qualified commanders.

As of his post-Chancellorsville reorganization, who would you give command that did not receive it OTL, and how would you make it match these criteria:

1. the requisite seniority for the position
2. if not the love of the men, then at least their confidence and respect
3. a proven record on the battlefield
4. the confidence and trust of the commanding general

Taken from this thread http://www.madminutegames.com/MadMinuteBB/viewtopic.php?t=7477 though there it relates to Jackson as a corps commander, the general criteria apply for any rank through out the war.

#5 should be "The acceptance, if not enthusiasm, of Davis and the Confederate Congress." Not very important, but not irrelevant.
 
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I want to write a timeline involving one of the last two here. It would be a fun story. Forget AK-47s, we have anti-McClellan time travelers who want to see the Confederacy win.

In 67th's world they just want to see McClellan lose since they never show up to fight McDowell, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, Meade, or Grant. :D

The question must be asked though "And replaced him with who?"

Someone who wasn't dying of syphilis. Hill was an empty uniform at Gettysburg and should have been sent home afterwards to die quietly.

As of his post-Chancellorsville reorganization, who would you give command that did not receive it OTL, and how would you make it match these criteria:

1. the requisite seniority for the position
2. if not the love of the men, then at least their confidence and respect
3. a proven record on the battlefield
4. the confidence and trust of the commanding general

#5 should be "The acceptance, if not enthusiasm, of Davis and the Confederate Congress." Not very important, but not irrelevant.

Of course AP Hill would have gotten the position after Jackson's death as he looked the most qualified at that point. His later physical debility means he should have been furloughed after Gettysburg.
 
I think that's a bit unfair to Winfield Scott.

Key words "in Mexico." In 1861 he came up with the strategy that in the long term did win the Union the war, by bisecting the Confederacy once, which let the Union accumulate sufficient power to capture Chattanooga and then to divide the Confederacy again and capture Richmond. In Mexico, however, Scott's commanding style was extremely similar to Lee's, with the crucial difference that Scott really did defeat much larger armies by audacity and won his war. Lee lost his.
 
In 67th's world they just want to see McClellan lose since they never show up to fight McDowell, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, Meade, or Grant. :D

Oh right. Seriously, why is it that only McClellan in the East is facing larger-than-he-is armies? Hooker overestimated the Army of Northern Virginia a little, but he is within the ballpark. If he did think he was outnumbered, it was only after losing all those two years men.

Someone who wasn't dying of syphilis. Hill was an empty uniform at Gettysburg and should have been sent home afterwards to die quietly.

Fair enough, but how much would Lee know that this is a problem? Being curious here, because that should have become obvious after awhile (when?), but whether it would have been obvious before Hill became a corps commander to begin with, I don't know.

Of course AP Hill would have gotten the position after Jackson's death as he looked the most qualified at that point. His later physical debility means he should have been furloughed after Gettysburg.

Yeah. Certainly by the point Ewell was quietly sent to Richmond, methinks. The idea that Ewell was more unfit for corps command than A.P. Hill seems...:rolleyes:

A pity Harvey Hill had almost as much trouble working with Lee as McClellan with Lincoln. He might have been a better choice to begin with. Healthier, too, as a bonus. But he was a pain in the behind of the first order.
 
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