Decisive Confederate Victory at Battle of Glendale?

I was talking with a friend about TL 191 recently and we got to talking about the Peninsular campaign, and he was saying that due to McClellan's incompetence that it could have been a decisive Confederate victory. He pointed out the Battle of Glendale specifically.

I admittedly don't have in depth knowledge of the US Civil War so I looked it up. It seems as though given the right POD the Army of the Potomac could have been devastated at the battle here. However, I'm raising this question to board members who have a far more in depth understanding of that campaign than me. I've only got a passing knowledge of the flaws therein but can try to ask some useful questions :p

Thoughts?
 
I was talking with a friend about TL 191 recently and we got to talking about the Peninsular campaign, and he was saying that due to McClellan's incompetence that it could have been a decisive Confederate victory. He pointed out the Battle of Glendale specifically.

I admittedly don't have in depth knowledge of the US Civil War so I looked it up. It seems as though given the right POD the Army of the Potomac could have been devastated at the battle here. However, I'm raising this question to board members who have a far more in depth understanding of that campaign than me. I've only got a passing knowledge of the flaws therein but can try to ask some useful questions :p

Thoughts?

It appears that Lee's plan was three columns - Huger, Longstreet, and Jackson - converging on Glendale. Huger was stopped by felled trees blocking the road. Jackson was stopped by needing to rebuilt a bridge across a river in a swamp. Magruder spent the day marching back and forth as his orders changed.

Best chance for a Confederate win is replacing Stonewall Jackson with a bold, aggressive, decisive commander. Second best was Confederate leadership sticking to one plan for what to do with Magruder.
 
Robert Cowley explores this hypothetical for a few pages in his book What If?: The World's Foremost Historians Imagine What Might Have Been - obviously riffing on that speculation by E. Porter Alexander.

There's been discussion of this scenario before on this board, like here. It's a little harder to say what was achievable for Lee at Glendale. But it's also true that Jackson was too lethargic (sleep deprivation?) to have had any chance to explore the possibility. I think Jackson had a fair chance to assist in at least smashing a few Union divisions had he made a vigorous attempt to storm the White Oak Swamp Creek; actual surrounding of a big part of McClellan's army was likely harder than Cowley makes out.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
About the best the ANV could have hoped for was isolating

I was talking with a friend about TL 191 recently and we got to talking about the Peninsular campaign, and he was saying that due to McClellan's incompetence that it could have been a decisive Confederate victory. He pointed out the Battle of Glendale specifically.

I admittedly don't have in depth knowledge of the US Civil War so I looked it up. It seems as though given the right POD the Army of the Potomac could have been devastated at the battle here. However, I'm raising this question to board members who have a far more in depth understanding of that campaign than me. I've only got a passing knowledge of the flaws therein but can try to ask some useful questions :p

Thoughts?

About the best the ANV could have hoped for was isolating five of the AotP's 11 divisions north of the Malvern Hill battlefield, which was Porter's scenario, based on his understanding of the (hoped for) situation as of June 30, 1862.

Unfortunately, to even get there requires a lot, including:

1) Jackson's corps and/or Huger's division actually both holding Franklin's rear guard in place, but also threatening it so much that the troops who basically held the line at Glendale would be substantially weakened to help Franklin;
2) Lee's force (Longstreet, AP Hill, et al) actually breaking through McCall's Pennsylvania Reserve Division;
3) Lee's force (Longstreet et al) not just breaking McCall's line, but also crashing through Sumner's II Corps (Sedgwick and Richardson's divisions) AND Heintzelman's III Corps (Hooker's and Kearny's divisions).

1, given the realities of the time and place, the obvious fatigue factors, and the fact that Franklin had both WF Smith's division and (more or less) Slocum's division to hold off Jackson and Huger's force, seems challenging. Given the approach of night, this is not a given, even if Jackson was awake and functioning at his expected level. Huger alone certainly could not have done it.
2. McCall's division went down, but they went down fighting; rebel casualties were heavy - Jenkins' Palmetto Sharpshooters, for example, suffered 69 percent casualties. Basically, the attack on McCall cost the US forces an infantry division, but it also cost the rebel army the equivalent of an infantry division.
3. And then there is Sumner and Heintzelman and Sedgwick and Richardson and Hooker and Kearny for Lee, Longstreet, and Hill to deal with...and despite the fact the corps commanders and even some of the division commanders were fighting independently (the AotP's commander was, of course, elsewhere:rolleyes:), the US forces held the line and even counterattacked in several locations.

By the end of the day, casualties were almost equal: 3,673 rebels dead, wounded, missing, and prisoner, to 3,797 US.

So while it looks like a close run thing, just about everything would have had to go right for the rebels, and that demands more than chance and skill.

So, with all due credit to EP Alexander, I don't think so.;)

Best,
 
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