Hooker not outflanked and crushes Lee at Chancellorsville

That, however, assumes he has enough troops to attack with and enough time to form a kind of solid front. In this case the victorious Union armies may or may not give him that time, that depends on their own losses in the ATL campaign and what Hooker decides to do after said losses.

Indisputably.

And Longstreet trusts refuge in audacity (this timeline even more than ours after Lee has had it blow up in his face worse than any OTL campaign) about as much as Jackson trusts his subordinates.

I wonder if Longstreet tries to remove Jackson on that note. Not as a "can't stand the man", but as "this guy is not an asset to the army. Srsly. Why do I have to keep him?"
 
Indisputably.

And Longstreet trusts refuge in audacity (this timeline even more than ours after Lee has had it blow up in his face worse than any OTL campaign) about as much as Jackson trusts his subordinates.

I wonder if Longstreet tries to remove Jackson on that note. Not as a "can't stand the man", but as "this guy is not an asset to the army. Srsly. Why do I have to keep him?"

I think instead of removing Jackson Longstreet might ask for Jackson to be assigned to the west as a means both of conciliating the move west crowd and also ensuring the Confederate armies in the West are saddled with that particular troublesome war hero. They get propaganda benefits, he gets the Eastern Braxton Bragg off his hands. The one problem for the Union if Hooker decides to rest on his laurels and retool is that Longstreet has the time thus to build the kind of strong defensive works that damaged Grant's army IOTL and the Union may decide that Fredericksburg was a glitch due to Burnside's mistakes, not to the strength of fortifications. Then things get really interesting.
 
I think instead of removing Jackson Longstreet might ask for Jackson to be assigned to the west as a means both of conciliating the move west crowd and also ensuring the Confederate armies in the West are saddled with that particular troublesome war hero. They get propaganda benefits, he gets the Eastern Braxton Bragg off his hands.

:D

Now, hopefully Longstreet is able to have his potential for being a real bastard be a magnificent bastard, because that would be one of the best ways to salvage the situation.

I don't want the CSA to recover from this, but I do want Pete getting at least one campaign to his credit before the fact the ANV is doomed from the POD on crushes it. He deserves it.
 
:D

Now, hopefully Longstreet is able to have his potential for being a real bastard be a magnificent bastard, because that would be one of the best ways to salvage the situation.

I don't want the CSA to recover from this, but I do want Pete getting at least one campaign to his credit before the fact the ANV is doomed from the POD on crushes it. He deserves it.

I think that particular possibility has a very strong probability. In this case Hooker would be extremely cocky and interpret Longstreet's actions as a sign that the "Rebels are really and truly whipped and it will take only one more battle and the war's over." Then he orders some rather disastrous attacks and meets with a new Fredericksburg, the victory enabling Longstreet to start constructing a cohesive force and leaving the Union with a strange sense of Deja Vu.

A Virginia army answering to the most skilled Confederate tactician of the war and one who did have some strategic skills is a much more formidable foe than Lee's army, Longstreet would have a proper staff and focus on building an army with as competent a group of subordinates as he can reasonably get. A reversal against a strong line of breastworks might after the ATL Chancellorsville Campaign be psychologically more damaging than Chancellorsville.
 
I think that particular possibility has a very strong probability. In this case Hooker would be extremely cocky and interpret Longstreet's actions as a sign that the "Rebels are really and truly whipped and it will take only one more battle and the war's over." Then he orders some rather disastrous attacks and meets with a new Fredericksburg, the victory enabling Longstreet to start constructing a cohesive force and leaving the Union with a strange sense of Deja Vu.

A Virginia army answering to the most skilled Confederate tactician of the war and one who did have some strategic skills is a much more formidable foe than Lee's army, Longstreet would have a proper staff and focus on building an army with as competent a group of subordinates as he can reasonably get. A reversal against a strong line of breastworks might after the ATL Chancellorsville Campaign be psychologically more damaging than Chancellorsville.

Some good possibilities here, in the short run. Long run, Longstreet is not in a good position even more than Lee was.

Though Longstreet vs. Grant (no reason butterflies will keep Grant down) will be...interesting...

Longstreet knows exactly what to expect of his old buddy. Unfortunately, that's not in a way that really helps.
 
Some good possibilities here, in the short run. Long run, Longstreet is not in a good position even more than Lee was.

Though Longstreet vs. Grant (no reason butterflies will keep Grant down) will be...interesting...

Longstreet knows exactly what to expect of his old buddy. Unfortunately, that's not in a way that really helps.

The long run simply does not favor the Confederacy, unfortunately Lee's particular way of trying for a short run does not offer anything but ultimate defeat. Longstreet has the best chance of preserving and recreating a powerful Virginia army, and that for the Confederacy will keep it around for a few more years. The war in the West is pretty much impossible to reverse post-Pittsburg Landing and the Trans-Mississippi will be irrelevant.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
I don't want the CSA to recover from this, but I do want Pete getting at least one campaign to his credit before the fact the ANV is doomed from the POD on crushes it. He deserves it.

Does he? In the two campaigns where he served independently (Suffolk and Knoxville), he did not perform very well at all. I suspect that corps command the ideal level for him and that promoting him to army command would have resulted in a classic case of promoting a man to his level of incompetence.
 
Does he? In the two campaigns where he served independently (Suffolk and Knoxville), he did not perform very well at all. I suspect that corps command the ideal level for him and that promoting him to army command would have resulted in a classic case of promoting a man to his level of incompetence.

Suffolk was a commissary campaign, not a combat one, and Longstreet faced two different tactical-strategic dilemmas without adequate force to meet either. I'll grant the Knoxville one as his attempt to replace Bragg brought that one on himself. The difference between Jackson in independent command and Longstreet in independent command, however, has more to do with Longstreet focusing on the men he commands and a broader end, Jackson had no tolerance for weakness in anyone, even himself, and kept making obvious tactical mistakes into Chancellorsville.

I think the mere reality that when the CS Virginia army consisted of multiple divisions that Longstreet was the only division commander to drill on division level speaks volumes as to his suitability to lead large numbers of troops, relative to the rest of the Confederate high command.
 
I think that particular possibility has a very strong probability. In this case Hooker would be extremely cocky and interpret Longstreet's actions as a sign that the "Rebels are really and truly whipped and it will take only one more battle and the war's over." Then he orders some rather disastrous attacks and meets with a new Fredericksburg, the victory enabling Longstreet to start constructing a cohesive force and leaving the Union with a strange sense of Deja Vu.

A Virginia army answering to the most skilled Confederate tactician of the war and one who did have some strategic skills is a much more formidable foe than Lee's army, Longstreet would have a proper staff and focus on building an army with as competent a group of subordinates as he can reasonably get. A reversal against a strong line of breastworks might after the ATL Chancellorsville Campaign be psychologically more damaging than Chancellorsville.

That could happen if Longstreet is able to get to the high ground and entrenched before Hooker gets there. He will need some time to do that.
 
That could happen if Longstreet is able to get to the high ground and entrenched before Hooker gets there. He will need some time to do that.

Which is where the open-field fight portion of things comes in. Those parts of battles were always hideously expensive and it's more than possible for Joe Hooker to take enough casualties in the open-field part of the fight for him to demand re-inforcements with some real reason and get into a bit of a kerfluffle with Lincoln over it, which would buy Longstreet enough time to create his defensive works. Too, Hooker would share the general 1863 Union attitudes that breastworks were useless, and would dismiss Fredericksburg as "Burnside was a stupidhead" and thus walk right into a similar kind of trap thinking he's so invincible nothing could stop him.
 
Which is where the open-field fight portion of things comes in. Those parts of battles were always hideously expensive and it's more than possible for Joe Hooker to take enough casualties in the open-field part of the fight for him to demand re-inforcements with some real reason and get into a bit of a kerfluffle with Lincoln over it, which would buy Longstreet enough time to create his defensive works. Too, Hooker would share the general 1863 Union attitudes that breastworks were useless, and would dismiss Fredericksburg as "Burnside was a stupidhead" and thus walk right into a similar kind of trap thinking he's so invincible nothing could stop him.

Especially as the Eastern theater Union forces are kind of small. The AotP has most of them, particularly with the aid it got OTL (leading up to Gettysburg) - if Hooker demands even more than that, such as say 7th Corps from SE Virginia, one way or another that will take up time.
 
Especially as the Eastern theater Union forces are kind of small. The AotP has most of them, particularly with the aid it got OTL (leading up to Gettysburg) - if Hooker demands even more than that, such as say 7th Corps from SE Virginia, one way or another that will take up time.

Not to mention that the AoTP will win the open-field fight, but the losses it takes will still be huge, perhaps not crippingly so but certainly enough to impair an immediate advance on Richmond. Of course whether or not Lincoln would see it thus is a different question.
 
Not to mention that the AoTP will win the open-field fight, but the losses it takes will still be huge, perhaps not crippingly so but certainly enough to impair an immediate advance on Richmond. Of course whether or not Lincoln would see it thus is a different question.

Yeah. I imagine a lot depends on how Hooker handles this.

Grant was able to call for large reinforcements because Lincoln trusted he really needed them and would use them.

Hooker boasting that he's smashed the ANV, but oh by the way needs another twenty thousand men, is going to be far more McClellan-like than he'd realize until well into the conflict with the president. :eek:
 
Yeah. I imagine a lot depends on how Hooker handles this.

Grant was able to call for large reinforcements because Lincoln trusted he really needed them and would use them.

Hooker boasting that he's smashed the ANV, but oh by the way needs another twenty thousand men, is going to be far more McClellan-like than he'd realize until well into the conflict with the president. :eek:

The bad part would be that this time he really has smashed the ANV, but to Lincoln this is McClellan all over again, and raises the question of why if he's smashed the ANV he doesn't just barrel onward. So here the same political situation would contribute to Longstreet's reconstructing a defensive line, by the time Hooker does get his chance to move he runs into a buzzsaw.....
 
The bad part would be that this time he really has smashed the ANV, but to Lincoln this is McClellan all over again, and raises the question of why if he's smashed the ANV he doesn't just barrel onward. So here the same political situation would contribute to Longstreet's reconstructing a defensive line, by the time Hooker does get his chance to move he runs into a buzzsaw.....

Someone less boastful than Hooker would probably be able to navigate this, but Hooker will present his smashing in terms that make Lincoln think the ANV is destroyed as an army, not merely gutted.

And the rest is going to be a rather deja vu all over again situation.
 
Someone less boastful than Hooker would probably be able to navigate this, but Hooker will present his smashing in terms that make Lincoln think the ANV is destroyed as an army, not merely gutted.

And the rest is going to be a rather deja vu all over again situation.

Exactly. It's how Hooker is likely to phrase his statements more than the request itself, tact was not one of Hooker's strong suits and he'd probably hit all the wrong buttons in the proper sequence to create for the ATL one of the most infamous misunderstandings in the history of warfare.
 
Exactly. It's how Hooker is likely to phrase his statements more than the request itself, tact was not one of Hooker's strong suits and he'd probably hit all the wrong buttons in the proper sequence to create for the ATL one of the most infamous misunderstandings in the history of warfare.

Unfortunately for the Union, but amusingly in a twisted way to historians.

Of course, the other question is how well Longstreet does at communicating with Davis.

Longstreet seems to have had a trace of...something...that makes him less than diplomatic. Just enough that if the ANV lasts long enough to matter, it will matter.

Davis being the kind of horrible boss that he was.
 
Unfortunately for the Union, but amusingly in a twisted way to historians.

Of course, the other question is how well Longstreet does at communicating with Davis.

Longstreet seems to have had a trace of...something...that makes him less than diplomatic. Just enough that if the ANV lasts long enough to matter, it will matter.

Davis being the kind of horrible boss that he was.

The same was true of virtually every other Confederate general. Davis, however, will grin and bear it if Longstreet makes it worthwhile. He gave Johnston a lot of rope to hang himself with, and he'd be willing to support Longstreet when Longstreet alters the tactical position of the Confederacy from inevitable destruction to something more typical of the Eastern Theater. Longstreet's rise would offer Davis the unique chance to outfox his political opponents without excessive damage to Davis himself.
 
The same was true of virtually every other Confederate general. Davis, however, will grin and bear it if Longstreet makes it worthwhile. He gave Johnston a lot of rope to hang himself with, and he'd be willing to support Longstreet when Longstreet alters the tactical position of the Confederacy from inevitable destruction to something more typical of the Eastern Theater. Longstreet's rise would offer Davis the unique chance to outfox his political opponents without excessive damage to Davis himself.

Yeah. Still, I do not envy this part of the job for Longstreet any more than the initial salvaging the ANV part.

Honestly, anything after 1862 for anyone in the Confederacy except the willfully blind is going to be stressful.
 
Yeah. Still, I do not envy this part of the job for Longstreet any more than the initial salvaging the ANV part.

Honestly, anything after 1862 for anyone in the Confederacy except the willfully blind is going to be stressful.


Yeah, and one thing Longstreet wasn't was willfully blind. He seemed one of the more realistic CSA generals.
 
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