Joe Johnston not Removed From Command

Comparatively, Sherman was a weak and indecisive general, always afraid of what the Confederates could do to him. He admitted as much, and in OTL most of the time, as much as he hated it, he relied on Thomas for strategic advice.

Weak and indecisive generals do not cut free of their supply lines and march through hundreds of miles of enemy territory. And while Thomas's staff did the logistics and engineering for Sherman's entire army group during the Atlanta campaign, that's only a small segment of Sherman's career, and you're overestimating Thomas' influence.
 
The maths says Johnson would continue to beat Sherman unless Sherman got better than a 3.1:1 numberical superiority (at which point the two sides would be evenly matched in combat power). It decisively beat Johnson in a single engage would require either a better general, or an extra ca 400,000 men.

Continue to beat Sherman? The only time Johnson beat Sherman in battle was at Kennesaw Mountain.

And however beloved it is in Clauswitzian theory, the single decisive battle that eliminates the enemy is largely mythical. Napoleon's invasion of Russia, WWII in the Pacific, and the Vietnam War are all examples where the war was won by not seeking that single decisive victory.
 
The Quantitative Judgement Model and Lancester models of ground combat allows for such analysis. The theoretical force ratios are readily calculable by QJM, including factoring in ground etc. (although I admit I'm using a simplified version that actually slightly favours the Union due by assuming both sides are equally well supplied), and hence the theoretical loss rations calculable. The actual loss ratio/ theoretical loss ratio is proportional to the combat modifiers of one commander (actually entire command structure) over the other.

First, what are these models calculating? What do they mean by a better commander?

Second, any model that says a commander with inferior supply is a better commander seems seriously flawed.

Sherman seems to never done very well, his command at Chicksaw Bayou (against Pemberton) is currently calculated at the worst run battle I've yet had a look at.

Odd that a general who 'seems to never done very well' won every campaign he led, reduced his opponents to irrelevancy, gutted his opponents ability to make war, and improved his side's morale while severely damaging enemy morale.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
First, what are these models calculating? What do they mean by a better commander?

Second, any model that says a commander with inferior supply is a better commander seems seriously flawed.

Simply the combat power of both sides forces can be calculated, and the ratio of combat power squared is proportional to the ratio of casualties * other factors. The other factors apart from command ability can be solved as knowns, leaving the relative difference in command ability.

Odd that a general who 'seems to never done very well' won every campaign he led, reduced his opponents to irrelevancy, gutted his opponents ability to make war, and improved his side's morale while severely damaging enemy morale.

For the reasons for defeat we have to look elsewhere other than Sherman's abilities. Now Sherman understands the logistics of the situation and is quite good at moving armies, but that's really the province of a Chief of Staff. When it comes to contact with the enemy he's actually pretty bad. In this he's similar with Grant, McClellan, Burnside etc. who all would have made excellent staff officers but were at best average in the field (McClellan) or downright bad (Grant).

It's a feature of the ACW that efficient staff systems are never put in place. Army commanders need to act as their own COS, and often have to assume Adjutant and Commissary General functions themselves as well. The Generals who apparently did well in campaigns are often those capable of performing as COS, which of course underpins battlefield success and is a requirement.

Hood, for example, is actually a pretty good field commander, but is useless at (and indeed disinterested in) all the staff work he needs to do to have an efficient army. The lack of staff work undermines him, whereas Sherman is a Jominian General who can effectively move an army around but is useless in the face of the enemy.

Clauswitz wasn't well known in America, they continued to use Jomini as a guide, who was a proponent of defeating armies by maneouver rather than by decisive battle a la Napoleon/ Clauswitz.
 

burmafrd

Banned
Hood prior to losing his arm and getting continual laudanum afterwards is a very different general. the pre Gettysburg Hood in the west would be a very interesting POD. Sherman gets maligned by certain so called experts but reading actual military evaluations on him by modern staff colleges pretty much shoots that down.
 
Cassville

I've been trying to look up some information on Casville recently and all I found was this:

Joe Johnston's plan was to attack one of Sherman three armies while they were seperated and moving in columns. His plan consisted of William J. Hardees corps screening the movements of the rest of the army or tricking Sherman into folowing his corps (I'm not sure which), then having Leonidas Polk's corps engage the Union Army and hold them while John Bell Hood launched a flank attack.

What happened was that Sherman paid more attention to Hardee, as Johnston hoped he would, and sent only a nominal force to Cassville where Johnston hoped to spring his trap. But as Hood adavanced to attack a staff officer came running up to him and said he had seen the Union troops on Hood's flank. Uncharacteristically Hood chose to abandon his attack and fall back to join Polk in strong defensive positions.

Because of the failure in the attack at Cassville Johnston would never have the full confidence of many southern soldiers as he once did.

So if Hood acts more like himself at Cassville and attack without a seconds thought to being flanked or losing his army would the battle be won? Would the Atlanta campaign change for the better for the Southerners or would it only give the Confederate a short reprieve?
 
Does anyone think that Johnston would have held Atlanta longer than Hood did IOTL?

It all depends really.

Johnston proved that he was not adverse to abanndoning cities it he thought it could save his army. If there it a danger that he will get trapped in Atlanta he will quite happily let the enemy take it.

One thing however is clear. Johnston would never have attacked into Tennessee or allowed Sherman to march to the sea almost unapposed as his did in OTL.

So to answer your question; would Johnston have held Atlanta longer than Hood? Probably but only as long as doing so wouldn't be detrimental to his army.
 
Actually I've just finished the first draft of my Battle of Cassville two days ago. Hopefully I'll have it online within two weeks. I was planning to have it online earlier, but I took a rather nasty tumble on my motor bike yesterday, which has kind of stuffed up my schedule ... :eek:
 
I just saw this on a different site and I thoughts I bring it up here. This was from an interview with General Joe Johnston after the war. The interview took place in the presence of General William J. Hardee. Read into it what you will.

When told that a black cloud had fallen over the Army of Tennessee following his removal General Johnston replied that the speaker was biased in his favor. He was pressed again and Johnston relented and told more.

"I was in command of as splendid an army as general ever had. It was stronger and larger the day I reached Atlanta than it was the day I began to retreat. It took me seventy-three days to fall back seventy-four miles. I never lost a wagon or a caisson. I put almost as many of the enemy hors de combat as I had in my army. Men who were at home flocked to me. I had put fifteen thousand of Governor Brown's militia on the fortifications, and Atlanta was impregnable. I had 'tolled' General Sherman just to the place where I wanted him, i.e., between two rivers. I had divided his forces, and would have fallen on one part, and if the God of battles had not been against me, I would have crushed that, and fallen on the other, and an organized command would not have gotten back to Chattanooga. Three brigades had marched three miles to begin the fight when the order came."

By this time the General had become so excited, that the tears gushed from his eyes, and he strode out of the room into the piazza.

General Hardeee and I had risen to our feet, as excited as the General was, and as he went out, General Hardee fairly sobbed, as he said: "Yes, and the grand old man does not tell you, but I will. He went to General Hood, and asked him to withhold the order until the battle was fought. Johnston stipulated that if it should be a victory, it should be Hood's, if a defeat, he would not come from the field alive. If it would only be a check, Johnston could fall back on Atlanta, recruit and resume operations. Hood, however, refused. The rest we know; history will tell of the desolation and ruin that followed."
 
I think it is important to consider that Sherman's performance at Chickasaw Bayou was muddied by many different factors; notably the belief that Grant was marching down the Mississippi and that an attack, even should it have failed, was imperative to give that army time to operate. Also, he was receiving bad information on the nature of the ground from his subordinates.

Sherman tended to have very poor luck in some of his defeats, luck which continued to turn against him at Chattanooga, when he acted decisively to seize the northern end of Missionary Ridge and flank Bragg's line, only to find that a ravine between his position and the ridge proper made his swift action useless.
 
Sherman tended to have very poor luck in some of his defeats, luck which continued to turn against him at Chattanooga, when he acted decisively to seize the northern end of Missionary Ridge and flank Bragg's line, only to find that a ravine between his position and the ridge proper made his swift action useless.

I think that Patrick Cleburne must also share some of the credit for stopping Sherman at Missionary Ridge.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
I just saw this on a different site and I thoughts I bring it up here. This was from an interview with General Joe Johnston after the war. The interview took place in the presence of General William J. Hardee. Read into it what you will.

When told that a black cloud had fallen over the Army of Tennessee following his removal General Johnston replied that the speaker was biased in his favor. He was pressed again and Johnston relented and told more.

"I was in command of as splendid an army as general ever had. It was stronger and larger the day I reached Atlanta than it was the day I began to retreat. It took me seventy-three days to fall back seventy-four miles. I never lost a wagon or a caisson. I put almost as many of the enemy hors de combat as I had in my army. Men who were at home flocked to me. I had put fifteen thousand of Governor Brown's militia on the fortifications, and Atlanta was impregnable. I had 'tolled' General Sherman just to the place where I wanted him, i.e., between two rivers. I had divided his forces, and would have fallen on one part, and if the God of battles had not been against me, I would have crushed that, and fallen on the other, and an organized command would not have gotten back to Chattanooga. Three brigades had marched three miles to begin the fight when the order came."

By this time the General had become so excited, that the tears gushed from his eyes, and he strode out of the room into the piazza.

General Hardeee and I had risen to our feet, as excited as the General was, and as he went out, General Hardee fairly sobbed, as he said: "Yes, and the grand old man does not tell you, but I will. He went to General Hood, and asked him to withhold the order until the battle was fought. Johnston stipulated that if it should be a victory, it should be Hood's, if a defeat, he would not come from the field alive. If it would only be a check, Johnston could fall back on Atlanta, recruit and resume operations. Hood, however, refused. The rest we know; history will tell of the desolation and ruin that followed."

Interesting. It is quite clear that the plan to attack Thomas as he crossed Peachtree Creek was Johnston's, not Hood's. Even Hood admitted to this. So we know that Johnston intended to fight for Atlanta, not abandon it without a fight as Davis claims and which he used as the justification for the removal of Johnston.
 
Simply the combat power of both sides forces can be calculated, and the ratio of combat power squared is proportional to the ratio of casualties * other factors. The other factors apart from command ability can be solved as knowns, leaving the relative difference in command ability.



For the reasons for defeat we have to look elsewhere other than Sherman's abilities. Now Sherman understands the logistics of the situation and is quite good at moving armies, but that's really the province of a Chief of Staff. When it comes to contact with the enemy he's actually pretty bad. In this he's similar with Grant, McClellan, Burnside etc. who all would have made excellent staff officers but were at best average in the field (McClellan) or downright bad (Grant).

For such a bad general it is amazing that he is the only general in it that captured an entire enemy army and he did so three times.
 
Last week of March, 1st of April- big difference. My point is that as long as the Republicans controlled congress Lincoln would have enough support. I think you FORGET just how much hatred the Republican leaders had for the South by 1864. They wanted to destroy it totally. And no matter how the election went it would have been pretty close so thinking that the war effort would have been seriously damaged is a big stretch. No doubt the North was tired of the war but they could also see that victory was within reach. I think you are putting too much into what some newspapers reported and other events. Then as now the media was not really that good at figuring out what the common man was thinking and what he really wanted. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to read a large number of letters and diaries from 1862-1865, and from them I see a country very weary and tired but more determined to see it through to the end. I have always thought that the need to take Atlanta was over emphasized in the papers and less likely to have such a critical role in the election. I find it hard to believe that the big victory won by Lincoln in 1864 was as fragile as many think it was. Lincoln himself was easily depressed by then so him thinking he would lose is pretty much expected.

It is suprising how easy things went for Southerners after the war. There was only one execution after the war. The state lines weren't changed nor did the southern states return to being territories. For defeated traitors they got off very lightly.
 

burmafrd

Banned
True. The South for a region declared in rebellion and decisively defeated in battle got off fairly lightly. True you had carpetbaggers and the like and other things but all in all it went a lot better then it has in other regions since then in other countries. I have always thought that a lot of that was due to the radical republicans so busy trying to get rid of Johnson and not spending a lot of time getting their revenge on the south. By the time they stopped that and looked south a lot of the support they had had for punishing the south had disapeared in the North who mainly just wanted to get on with life.
 
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