Better Confederate presidents than Jefferson Davis

Yep, Lee knew Grant wasn't McClellan. He wasn't going to back off and just keep coming. Longstreet told him that Grant would fight him every day and every hour until the end of the war. That wasn't a fight Lee could win. Grant knew that but McClellan didn't.
Grant didn't have to worry about the war becoming a remorseless, revolutionary struggle, as that bridge had already been crossed; the high casualties of the Overland campaign were however still dangerous to the war effort during an election year, though for the opposite reason as in 62. Other commanders made up for the high casualties and perceived stalemate, but Grant didn't 'know' anything McClellan didn't; he made his best guess and took the risks. Probably more risks than he needed to, since McClellan had gotten established on the Peninsula without the staggering casualties of the Overland Campaign.
 
Grant didn't have to worry about the war becoming a remorseless, revolutionary struggle, as that bridge had already been crossed; the high casualties of the Overland campaign were however still dangerous to the war effort during an election year, though for the opposite reason as in 62. Other commanders made up for the high casualties and perceived stalemate, but Grant didn't 'know' anything McClellan didn't; he made his best guess and took the risks. Probably more risks than he needed to, since McClellan had gotten established on the Peninsula without the staggering casualties of the Overland Campaign.

And without inflicting the even more staggering casualties on the AONV. Unlike Little Mac Grant was willing to see the job through while McClellan backed off from the brink of victory every time. If Little Mac would have actually had the guts to pull the trigger and finish the job he would have been a superior general to Grant. As is he always lost his nerve at the last moment and "snatched defeat from the jaws of victory". You can't be a great general if you constantly screw up at the last second.
 
Lee saaid that a great general must love his army, but he must be willing to order the death of that which he loves
 
Churchill was an alcoholic but it didn't stop him from being a good wartime PM.
Churchill was not an alcoholic. He liked booze and drank plenty, but it never interfered with fitness for work, and he was not a compulsive drinker. During working hours, he would take a tall glass, fill it with cracked ice, pour in one jigger of whiskey, and sip from it for several hours. "Continuous" drinking, but a trivial amount.
 
And without inflicting the even more staggering casualties on the AONV. Unlike Little Mac Grant was willing to see the job through while McClellan backed off from the brink of victory every time. If Little Mac would have actually had the guts to pull the trigger and finish the job he would have been a superior general to Grant. As is he always lost his nerve at the last moment and "snatched defeat from the jaws of victory". You can't be a great general if you constantly screw up at the last second.
Victory is never so sure a thing as you seem to think it is, and going off half cocked is also a great way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, especially when your CinC has garbled the chain of command and micromanaged deployments in theatre ('order, counterorder, disorder', as the saying goes). 'Pulling the trigger' is the wrong decision sometimes, and hammering a way is great and all until you've irreparably broken the hammer. McClellan did not shrink from victory; during the Seven Days, his tactical victories accommodated his operational goal of changing his base of operations to the James river. Good commanders do not simply chase after every apparent opportunity, but stick to their plan and accomplish it. If he 'pulled the trigger' after, say, Glendale, or Malvern Hill, it would be a march into the blue; attacking against superior forces, without ammunition, in the middle of enemy territory, without a supply line, with an enemy on an exterior line is not a recipe for success. John Pope had passed on a brittle army for the Antietam Campaign, which justified a more deliberate approach to battle (i.e. renewing the battle on the 19th instead of 18th), with the intention of rebuilding the army before going back on the offensive. While Grant's approach eventually worked, with the support of the CinC and the other armies, their situations are largely not comparable.
 
Victory is never so sure a thing as you seem to think it is, and going off half cocked is also a great way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, especially when your CinC has garbled the chain of command and micromanaged deployments in theatre ('order, counterorder, disorder', as the saying goes). 'Pulling the trigger' is the wrong decision sometimes, and hammering a way is great and all until you've irreparably broken the hammer. McClellan did not shrink from victory; during the Seven Days, his tactical victories accommodated his operational goal of changing his base of operations to the James river. Good commanders do not simply chase after every apparent opportunity, but stick to their plan and accomplish it. If he 'pulled the trigger' after, say, Glendale, or Malvern Hill, it would be a march into the blue; attacking against superior forces, without ammunition, in the middle of enemy territory, without a supply line, with an enemy on an exterior line is not a recipe for success. John Pope had passed on a brittle army for the Antietam Campaign, which justified a more deliberate approach to battle (i.e. renewing the battle on the 19th instead of 18th), with the intention of rebuilding the army before going back on the offensive. While Grant's approach eventually worked, with the support of the CinC and the other armies, their situations are largely not comparable.

The problem is he treated his tactical victories as defeats and kept backing up. If he treated them as the victories they were he would have smashed Lee. The AOTP was not that brittle. It wasn't in the best shape but Lee never , in the entire war, came close to destroying it even fighting the likes of Burnside and Pope.
 
The problem is he treated his tactical victories as defeats and kept backing up. If he treated them as the victories they were he would have smashed Lee. The AOTP was not that brittle. It wasn't in the best shape but Lee never , in the entire war, came close to destroying it even fighting the likes of Burnside and Pope.
It's not that simple. It would be nice if he could win a decisive victory by counterattacking after one of the tactical victories in the Seven Days, but doing so without a secure supply line and the bulk of the enemy army on his weaker wing menacing his communications would be to hand the best and largest Union army to Lee on a silver platter.

A green regiment breaking and fleeing in the afternoon unzipped a whole battle line on the 17th; a more deliberate approach was justified when his army had been battered with prior defeats and was fleshed out with only recently equipped regiments. It was a brittle army, whose men had entertained the feeling that 'the Confederacy would soon be recognized, and that they deserve recognition'; men prayed for the courage to desert it if it met with another defeat, as they anticipated it would.
 
Yep, Lee knew Grant wasn't McClellan. He wasn't going to back off and just keep coming. Longstreet told him that Grant would fight him every day and every hour until the end of the war. That wasn't a fight Lee could win. Grant knew that but McClellan didn't.

Exactly. Despite appalling losses at The Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House and Cold Harbor the Army of the Potomac kept pushing the Army of Northern Virginia back. Grant had supplies and manpower to spare while Lee didn't and knew he was going to be victorious in the end...
 
The first problem he shared with Davis so no change their, the second is a big minus and the third may or may not matter depending on how functional he was as an alcoholic. Churchill was an alcoholic but it didn't stop him from being a good wartime PM.

Based on their decisions about Fort Sumter, being stone cold sober didn't help Davis make better decisions than Toombs.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Jefferson Davis had this as his virtue - he concentrated on the cockpit of the war, the one state the Confederacy absolutely could not lose (Virginia) and - given what he had - played out his hand as slowly as he could, both there and elsewhere.

To make someone a more successful Confederate President you have to either prolong the war (but it was already very long) or win it (which is in large part out of Davis' control as it probably depends on either foreign intervention or an epic screw up by a Union commander - though I can think of a few possibilities, none of them are due to Davis.).

That said, I'm going to undermine my whole argument by mentioning the possible missed opportunity which was the September-October 1861 offensive (that never manifested). This was when McClellan was warning about a possible enemy move into Virginia, which they would achieve by concentrating all their force in Virginia against Washington, demonstrating against the line of the Potomac with about a quarter of the force and crossing with the rest (to work around and envelop Washington via Baltimore, with the intent to also cause a rising in Baltimore - a third of the Maryland legislature had been arrested on the 17th September, the first day of their session, on the grounds they were about to vote secession).

Obviously, this didn't happen. But:
There was a meeting in early October (IIRC) in which Jefferson Davis asked what it would take for his generals (Bragg, Johnston and Smith, IIRC) to feel they would be confident in invading the North. The answer given varied between 50,000 and 60,000 troops - there's some debate over whether this meant that many more troops or that many total troops, because it's not clear how many troops there were in the army at that time and estimates are around 40,000-50,000.
Davis said it would not be possible to provide those troops.

Now, there's two options here. Either it meant total of about 55K troops (in which case Davis should have given them the men and it'd be an easy decision he screwed up, it'd mean maybe one division) or it meant a total of about 100k troops (in which case it would be possible if risky to muster that many against the line of the Potomac - there were at a very rough estimate about 130,000 Confederate troops in Virginia, counting the troops around Hampton Roads and elsewhere, and no real non-Potomac points of contact apart from the small Fort Monroe garrison).
Either way, however, this was the period the Union was relatively weakest and the amount of troops mentioned was not totally beyond the Confederacy - but it's a massive roll of the dice, and one which a man as apparently cagey as Davis did not countenance. Ironically a more aggressive Confederate president, all else being equal, might have either won the war in 1861 or lost it in 1861-2...
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Does all Civil War discussion have to turn into Seven Days arguments?

No. It's also acceptable for them to degenerate into Trent Affair discussions about the relative strengths of the Union and British navies.

And don't you remember how bad it would get when 67th Tigers was still around?
 
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No. It's also acceptable for them to degenerate into Trent Affair discussions about the relative strengths of the Union and British navies.

And don't you remember how bad it would get when 67th Tigers was still around?

Don't forget the fallacy that only Virginia really mattered
 
...There was a meeting in early October (IIRC) in which Jefferson Davis asked what it would take for his generals (Bragg, Johnston and Smith, IIRC) to feel they would be confident in invading the North...

Beauregard, not Bragg.

The answer given varied between 50,000 and 60,000 troops - there's some debate over whether this meant that many more troops or that many total troops, because it's not clear how many troops there were in the army at that time and estimates are around 40,000-50,000.
Davis said it would not be possible to provide those troops..

G.W. Smith said 50,000 while Beauregard and Johnston said 60,000 troops and insisted later that they meant total with the Army not addition troops on top of the number already there. Davis later insisted in his post-war recollection that the request had been for an additional amount of troops on top of the number aleady in the army and that's why he refused it.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
G.W. Smith said 50,000 while Beauregard and Johnston said 60,000 troops and insisted later that they meant total with the Army not addition troops on top of the number already there.Davis later insisted in his post-war recollection that the request had been for an additional amount of troops on top of the number aleady in the army and that's why he refused it.
See, the reason I have a problem with the idea it was "total" is that that would mean GW Smith was asking for about four regiments.

The return in the ORs for 1st Corps at that time (less than half the army at Mannassas by regiment count) has the effectives number at about 23,500 for 32 regiments. This is 735 men per regiment, which means that the full number of regiments present at that time (71) would imply an army of about 51,000 men - if the 39 regiments not in 1st Corps are each only about 600 men per regiment then it implies an army of 47,000 effectives. Thus Smith would be asking for very minimal reinforcements, about a brigade.


It also fails the sniff test in that if Smith said he'd need 50,000 total effectives then he was saying he'd be able to win at distinctly inferior odds.


I think the more likely explanation, in my mind at least, is that at the actual meeting everyone agreed it was "X more troops" and that it then got cross-pollinated with the Lost Cause (which tried to minimize Confederate strength).
 
See, the reason I have a problem with the idea it was "total" is that that would mean GW Smith was asking for about four regiments.

The return in the ORs for 1st Corps at that time (less than half the army at Mannassas by regiment count) has the effectives number at about 23,500 for 32 regiments. This is 735 men per regiment, which means that the full number of regiments present at that time (71) would imply an army of about 51,000 men - if the 39 regiments not in 1st Corps are each only about 600 men per regiment then it implies an army of 47,000 effectives. Thus Smith would be asking for very minimal reinforcements, about a brigade.


It also fails the sniff test in that if Smith said he'd need 50,000 total effectives then he was saying he'd be able to win at distinctly inferior odds.


I think the more likely explanation, in my mind at least, is that at the actual meeting everyone agreed it was "X more troops" and that it then got cross-pollinated with the Lost Cause (which tried to minimize Confederate strength).

I dont think that's the amount of troops Smith said would be required for a successful campaign but rather that 50,000 was the minimum required to even consider crossing the Potomac.

There's a good breakdown of the meeting here: https://civilwartalk.com/threads/invade-maryland-meeting-10-1-1861.136915/ and this is Smith's take (I have editted it, you can see the full text via the link):

...The President asked me what number of men were necessary, in my opinion, to warrant an offensive campaign, to cross the Potomac, cut off the communication of the enemy with their fortified capital, and carry the war into their country. I answered, “Fifty thousand effective seasoned soldiers;” explaining that by seasoned soldiers I meant such men as we had here present for duty; and added that they would have to be drawn from the peninsula about Yorktown, Norfolk, from Western Virginia, Pensacola, or wherever might be most expedient.

General Johnston and General Beauregard both said that a force of sixty thousand such men would be necessary; and that this force would require large additional transportation and munitions of war, the supplies here being entirely inadequate for an active campaign in the enemy's country, even with our present force....

...The president, I think, gave no definite opinion in regard to the number of men necessary for that purpose, and I am sure that no one present considered this a question to be finally decided by any other person than the commanding general of this army.

Returning to the question that had been twice asked, the President expressed surprise and regret that the number of surplus arms here was so small; and, I thought, spoke bitterly of this disappointment. He then stated, that, at that time, no reinforcement could be furnished to this army of the character asked for, and that the most that could be done would be to furnish recruits to take the surplus arms in store here (say twenty-five hundred stand). That the whole country was demanding protection at his hands, and praying for arms and troops for defence.

He had long been expecting arms from abroad, but had been disappointed. He still hoped to get them, but had no positive assurance that they would be received at all. The manufacture of arms in the Confederate States was as yet undeveloped to any considerable extent. Want of arms was the great difficulty; he could not take any troops from the points named, and, without arms from abroad, could not reinforce this army. He expressed regret, and seemed to feel deeply, as did every one present....

...General Johnston said that he did not feel at liberty to express an opinion as to the practicability of reducing the strength of our forces at points not within the limits of his command; and with but few further remarks from any one, the answer of the President was accepted as final; and it was felt that there was no other course left but to take a defensive position and await the enemy. If they did not advance we had but to await the winter and its results.

What it all boils down to is that even at the lowest estimate (G.W. Smith's) of how many troops would be needed to cross the Potomac and take the war to the North the Confederacy was not able to supply them at that time so the invasion did not happen.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I dont think that's the amount of troops Smith said would be required for a successful campaign but rather that 50,000 was the minimum required to even consider crossing the Potomac.
Yes, and my point is that there are different accounts of this meeting (Davis says it was additional troops, Smith says it was total troops) and that 50,000 was essentially the number they actually had. Those twenty-five hundred extra arms in store would produce 50,000 troops, pretty much.

Of course, if you also count the other men along the line of the Potomac River and environs (Valley district, Aquia district) then you get well over 50,000 effectives. My position is simply that Smith would not ask for reinforcements to increase his army to the size it already was!
 
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