Joe Johnston at Shiloh, Beauregard in the Peninsular

Out of interest...how would a stronger Confederate Naval presence in New Orleans fair against the Union Navy? After all, what use is a major port overflowing with merchandice ready to be sold if you cant get past the Union ships?
 
Out of interest...how would a stronger Confederate Naval presence in New Orleans fair against the Union Navy? After all, what use is a major port overflowing with merchandice ready to be sold if you cant get past the Union ships?


Well this is something I speculated about in my article. Keeping the port of New Orleans opens means exports. And exports means money - that's if, of course, the CSA navy can keep the port open. But a fleet of CSA Ironclads, based out of New Orleans, should at least make life extremely difficult for the USN.
 
Well this is something I speculated about in my article. Keeping the port of New Orleans opens means exports. And exports means money - that's if, of course, the CSA navy can keep the port open. But a fleet of CSA Ironclads, based out of New Orleans, should at least make life extremely difficult for the USN.

I supose anything we could say would just be speculation...so lets speculate.

I would imagine that the Confederacy would not have the nessesary naval strength to oppose the Union Navy during 1861 and perhaps 1862 so we can set that time asside for building ships.

The Union will have their neerly useless Moniters as well I suppose so we cannot just assume that Confedeate Ironclads would be able to give the CSA the advantage...although their Ironclads were more able to travel on the oceans than the Moniters.

Of course the British or French build CSA warships might be able to dock in Confederate territory in such a TTL and that may give the CSA some kind of help.

Any major naval Battle between the two forces would be fought at the earliest in 1862 but such things would be impossible to predict as to who would win. If the Union only had wooden ships at the time and the CSA had a number of Ironclads then the advantage would be with them but if the Union had some Ironclads of their own then who knows what the outcome would be.

Despite the problems of predicting the outcome of a naval battle between the two sides the CSA does have one thing in its favor...a major port that they can shelter in. I dont know where the Union ships would be while blockading the Confederacy so I dont know if they would have a safe dock to their advantage as well.

A large storm while the Union Navy are in open seas would cirtainly help the CSA.
 
That wasn't a mistake. The mistake was made later when he became GOC of the Army of Tennesse. Bragg was competent enough at divsional & corps command. He would have made, though, for a great CSA Quartermaster General IMHO.

Fair enough. Like Hood, he was good enough so long as he didn't have overall command of an army?

Well the War was going to start somewhere regardless of where Davis ordered the first shot to be fired. Again this isn't a mistake

Of course it's a mistake. The Confederacy didn't have to fire the first shot.

This is hardly a mistake considering the Western Theatre was a signifcant theatre of war. So it doesn't surprise me, in the least, that a senior CSA general would have been posted there.

It is a mistake because AS Johnston was not the military genius Davis though he was. It's Johnston's fault Confederate troops were initally badly dispersed, allowing Grant to gobble up the forts and it's his fault that when he did finally concentrate for Shiloh, he left New Orleans wide open.

Who? :rolleyes: Seriously that was the least of the CSA's problems.

Lucius B Northrup is probably the most important Civil War figure that hardly anyone has heard of.

The Confederacy was largely agricultural and one of the biggest sources of cotton in the world. Yet the Confederate armies were often half-starved and poorly clothed. Lucius Northrop's responsibility was to supply those armies with food and clothing and he failed miserably. some of the Confederate advance at Shiloh was blunted by hungry Confederate soldiers stopping to loot food; the initial clash at Gettysburg may have occurred because barefoot Confederate troops were trying to find shoes; Lee started Chancellorsville without Longstreet and much of his artillery and cavalry because those troops had been sent to look for food; and Hood's troops would have really appreciated boots, coats, and adequate food when they were caught in an ice storm outside Nashville.

For contrast, the Confederacy was not an industrial power, yet other men made sure Confederate Armies had weapons and ammunition. When Lee's army surrendered at Appomatox they still had 75 rounds of ammunition per man even though most of them hadn't eaten in days.
 
Fair enough. Like Hood, he was good enough so long as he didn't have overall command of an army?


Pretty much. Neither of them really had the brains to conduct the type of strategy required for a overall commander. But given a task on a battlefield, where they had a definate order to follow, & both seemed quite diligent.



Of course it's a mistake. The Confederacy didn't have to fire the first shot.


War was coming anyway, regardless who fired first.



It is a mistake because AS Johnston was not the military genius Davis though he was. It's Johnston's fault Confederate troops were initally badly dispersed, allowing Grant to gobble up the forts and it's his fault that when he did finally concentrate for Shiloh, he left New Orleans wide open.


AS was better than what else was on offer. And some senior commander had to be sent out west. AS thus inherited the mess that was the western theatre because, basically, he wasn't sent out earlier. It was that idiot Polk, who invaded Kentucky, ensuring the forts you speak of were spread out, whilst it was Bragg who suggested bringing the bulk of the New Orleans garrsion to fight at Shiloh. None of this was AS's doing.



Lucius B Northrup is probably the most important Civil War figure that hardly anyone has heard of.

The Confederacy was largely agricultural and one of the biggest sources of cotton in the world. Yet the Confederate armies were often half-starved and poorly clothed. Lucius Northrop's responsibility was to supply those armies with food and clothing and he failed miserably. some of the Confederate advance at Shiloh was blunted by hungry Confederate soldiers stopping to loot food; the initial clash at Gettysburg may have occurred because barefoot Confederate troops were trying to find shoes; Lee started Chancellorsville without Longstreet and much of his artillery and cavalry because those troops had been sent to look for food; and Hood's troops would have really appreciated boots, coats, and adequate food when they were caught in an ice storm outside Nashville.

For contrast, the Confederacy was not an industrial power, yet other men made sure Confederate Armies had weapons and ammunition. When Lee's army surrendered at Appomatox they still had 75 rounds of ammunition per man even though most of them hadn't eaten in days.


If you want to correct all these problems, then you need Jesus Christ on your side conducting miracles. No mortal, regardless how good, was going to be able to counter them within a handful of years. In fact considering the dauntless task the Confederacy had, in finding war making materiel, from here, there, & everywhere, they did very well all things considered. But they could had moved a few personnel around. Like Bragg would have made for a good Quartermaster General. Likewise Joe would have done well in such a role. But picking out this Northrup character is dubious, at best. The real villan here is Lee as he always demanded getting everything first & foremost at the expense of the rest of the country. But, oh no, we can't vilify Bobby Lee, so everyone else gets the blame for Lee's mistakes.
 
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The real villan here is Lee as he always demanded getting everything first & foremost at the expense of the rest of the country. But, oh no, we can't vilify Bobby Lee, so everyone else gets the blame for Lee's mistakes.

Again I'm not an authority on such matters but surely it should be the real Villians, with a plaural. Sure Lee has to have much of the blame but Jeff Davis and his government must also be blamed. After all Lee could only demand what he believed he needed but Jeff Davis and his government decided what actually went where.
 
Again I'm not an authority on such matters but surely it should be the real Villians, with a plaural. Sure Lee has to have much of the blame but Jeff Davis and his government must also be blamed. After all Lee could only demand what he believed he needed but Jeff Davis and his government decided what actually went where.


But it's too easy to blame Davis for everything. And he has been made the scapegoat for no other reason than he was CSA President who had an impossible task to perform. Sure he could have said no to Lee, & occasionally he did, but Lee has been turned into a saint without blemish. Yet, in reality, he wasn't.
 
Regarding Lucius Northrop.

The Confederacy was able to obtain most of the food and clothing supplies they needed. What they were unable to do is MOVE these supplies to where they were needed. Enough factories were built or expanded in the South during the war. During Sherman's March, you constantly read about the destuction of CS fodstuffs and clothing. Lee's reteat from Richmond was to gather the supplies that were sitting on a RR line, unable to move forward.

The South started the war with too little RR milage and too few cars and locomotives. The years of war weakened the RR inferstructure aNd wore out the equipment because of poor maintainance. Unable to nuild a reasonable steel and iron industry (yes, they had some but it was barely enough to take care of the military needs), this decline was inevitable. I don't beleive this can be blamed on Lucius Northrup.
 
A bit of a change from what was previously discussed in this thread:

Joe Johnston goes west in place of Beauregard and becomes second in command to A.S. Johnston. A.S. Johnston wants to strip the garrison of New Orleans to attack the Union Army of the Tennessee at Shiloh but Joe Johnston want to keep the garrison where it is.

A.S. Johnston, having the ear of the president, gets his way and Shiloh is fought.

How does the realist Joe Johnston effect that battle differently from the way the fantasist Beauregard did in OTL?
 

burmafrd

Banned
those talking about an increased CSA navy or river forces are barking at the moon. Do you recall how hard it was to even get the Virginia completed? There realistically is no chance of any stronger CSA naval forces anywhere without much more European help.

Now as regards Grants early victories- they would have happened anyway sincethe CSA was so badly organized out west. Changing the top command would really have not mattered much at all. It was the early victories coupled with his political connections that gave Grant a lot of leeway- and also the consistent beatings suffered by the eastern Union forces made his victories all that much more important. There is no way Washington removes him as long as he is not getting beaten or having horrendous casaulties without inflicting the same.
 
those talking about an increased CSA navy or river forces are barking at the moon. Do you recall how hard it was to even get the Virginia completed? There realistically is no chance of any stronger CSA naval forces anywhere without much more European help.

The idea of an increased Confederate Navy or at least a presence along the rivers was always going with the assumption that New Orleans didn't fall and that Louisiana remained firmly in Southern hands. The loss of New Orleans so early in the war cause damage immesurable to the Confederate cause and not only because it lost them their biggest and most prosperous city but also it lost them a lot of capabilities for ship manufacturing (before it fell to Union hands New Orleans was producing a number of ships for the Confederate cause including the CSS Manassas and two submarines).

If New Orleans remains in Confederate hands it means that not only does the South have an important comercial hub and a resurce for manpower that it did not have in OTL it also allows them to keep hold of one of their more effective shipyards and thus I think it is fairly safe to assume that if New Orleans remains under Confederate control we would see and increased Confederate naval presence out west, even if that presence does not change things in the long run.
 
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