Johnston not wounded at Fair Oaks

In the Spring of 1862 Virginia played host to a campaign fought between two generals who were not the most aggressively minded of souls.

On one side was the United States of America's first great hope for winning the war against their Southern adversaries, George B. McClellan. The Unions own Young Napoleon was held in great esteme in those early days and much hope lay on his shoulders but the pressures placed on those inexperianced shoulders were perhaps too much for that man to bare. Though showing moments of brilliance and daring unparralled at this time in the war he never quite managed to get the better of his opponents.

On the other side was the only General to leave the Union in favor of the Confederacy, Joseph Eggleston Johnston. The former Quartermaster General of the United States would soon gain the somewhat scornful nickname of "Retreating Johnston" for his refusal to fight a general engagement with an enemy that outnumbered him. Though a wise strategy it did not hold favor with his political masters and continuing arguement with his President over rank and strategies only serve to weaken his position with his own side.

The result of these two men clashing was a slow campaign up the James Peninsular until finally McClellan reached the Chickahominy River and straddled the river with his Army and waited for reinforcement he was sure were coming but that he was unaware had been diverted to the Shenandoah Valley to help fight Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson.

Johnston recognised the opportunity he had been presented with. For the entirety of the Peninsular Campaign he had been preaching concentration of manpower or else he would be unable to fight his enemy in a general engagement unless that enemy had made a mistake and McClellan had done just that.

The Army of the Potomac had split it's force and on the side of the Chickahominy that the Confederate occupied stood only two Corps of that Army while on the other side lay thre rest of that Army. This meant that only about 33,000 Union Soldiers were opposing Johnston Army of about 60,000 Confederate and around another 60,000 Union soldiers were seperated from the Confederates by the river itself.

Johnston jumped at the opening and quickly drew up a plan which, if all went well, would allow him to throw the bulk of his army against roughly a third of McClellans and thus cripple it in future engagements and turn the balance of the Campaign more to his favor.

The Battle of Fair Oak or Seven Pines followed.

Bad weather had proceeded the battle and turned Johnston's intended field of battle into a muddy bog and his plans were complex which made them harder to understand and confusion reigned supreme in the Army of Northern Virginia.

In the midst of the battle between the two inexperianced Armies, a well trained Union one and a Confederate one in training, General Johnston came up to Fair Oaks to check the condition of the battle and he judged it a winnable battle but one that would have to be fought the next moring. He gave a staff officer the necessary orders and turned to leave when suddenly a bullet tore into his right shoulder and a moment later he was hit by a shell fragment that threw him from his horse.

And so fell Joseph Johnston, wounded at the first major battle he had chosen to fight himself, and the command of the Army of Northern Virginia fell onto the shoulders of one of the greatest Generals of his time, Robert Edward Lee.

In the aftermath of Fair Oaks the Confederates were quick to send reinforcement to the Army of Northern Virginia. Upon learning that concentration of manpower was finally happening General Johnston remarked:

"Then, my wound was fortunate; it is concentration which I earnestly recommended, but had not the influence to effect. Lee had made them do for him what they would not do for me"

Lee subsequently launched on a series of battles that would become known as the Seven Days Battles and drove McClellan out of the Peninsular before turning his attention to John Pope in the Valley.

The rise of Robert E. Lee could not have happened without the wounding of Joseph E. Johnston. Though Johston might have been removed from command by Davis it is unlikely that Lee would have agreed to take command at the expense of his old friend.

So what if General Johnston is not wounded at Fair Oaks? How does the Peninsular Campaign end with McClellan and Johnston opposing each other instead of the wild card of the energetic and optimistic Lee? And what lays in store for the rest of Virginia with the prudent Johnston taking the roll that risk-taker Lee had in OTL?
 
Intresting that nobody really seemed...well...interested in this POD. It would have been a major change from OTL and could have changed the war completely.
 
It is an interesting POD, but I haven't the knowledge of the Peninsular Campaign to comment. Hopefully, someone else will take up the challenge.
 
I think a fair barometer of Johnston is how he behaved in the Atlanta Campaign. He didn't have the same kind of audacity, and the main saving grace would be that McClellan is the Union commander and not someone more aggressive. He'd be forced to try again to attack McClellan, but it took someone with Lee's willingness to throw sense out the door to neutralize the Union in the Valley and push McClellan away.

One consequence of the fall of Richmond earlier, however, would be that presuming the Western war doesn't end up lasting longer.....the Union is re-unified absent any Emancipation Proclamation. The Union is also rebuilt bereft of the mass devastation of the later part of the war in the South, which means the South has greater economic growth, but slavery will still be an issue and potentially spark another war if actual *emancipation* sentiment grows. An interesting question is if the Union, which would be nearly bankrupt at the time this ends in a victory, would not end up adopting quite different and disastrous financial policies that would handicap the rise of the USA as an economic power.

Another set of questions if the war ends earlier, as might perhaps be the case even *with* a McClellan in charge of the Army of the Potomac, would be what happens to a defeated South that absent the devastation of the war would have grudges like what happened in East Tennessee and West Virginia (which might not become a state but would have earned the enmity of the South at that point). And whether or not Abraham Lincoln would have necessarily been a good peacetime leader. Churchill wasn't one, no reason Lincoln would be.

And the last question would be what happens to the Indians in the West without the Civil War and with a greater number of combat veterans in potential likely settlers. And the long-term butterflies of the civil war casualties of 1863-1865 remaining alive and uninjured. In the North, and especially in the South. And also of what happens to the Republican Party if the Civil War is shorter and the victory while still present but a short one helping and hurting it.....
 
I think a fair barometer of Johnston is how he behaved in the Atlanta Campaign. He didn't have the same kind of audacity, and the main saving grace would be that McClellan is the Union commander and not someone more aggressive. He'd be forced to try again to attack McClellan, but it took someone with Lee's willingness to throw sense out the door to neutralize the Union in the Valley and push McClellan away.

Yes. Someone with Lee's willingness and some 37,000 reinforcements. When the battle of Seven Pines/Fair Oaks took place Joe Johnston's Army of the Potomac was at its strongest ever with a total of about 65,000 men. The battle ended with the Confederates having about 55,000 men. When Lee began the Seven Days Battles he had 92,000 men.

The difference between the two Generals personality was far from the only reason for Lee's success.

When Lee fought McClellan in the Seven Days he had been strongly reinforced by about 37,000 while McClellan had been weakened by about 20,000 thus the situation was that Lee's new Army of Northern Virginia faced McClellan's Army of the Potomac with almost equality, with McClellan's strength being around 106,000.

By contrast Joe Johnston started out the campaign with some 40,000 odd men against McClellen 120,000 odd men and recieved only Ben Huger's 5,000 men as reinforcements. The rest that made up his eventual 65,000 odd men at Seven Pine/Fair Oaks came from John B. Magruders command which joined Johnston's command at the beginning of the Peninsular Campaign. Johnston never got the chance to face McClellan from any position except that of being drastrically outnumbered.

Not arguing that Johnston wasn't as audatious as Lee just pointing out that Lee's audacity was far from the only reason for his success.

One consequence of the fall of Richmond earlier, however, would be that presuming the Western war doesn't end up lasting longer.....the Union is re-unified absent any Emancipation Proclamation. The Union is also rebuilt bereft of the mass devastation of the later part of the war in the South, which means the South has greater economic growth, but slavery will still be an issue and potentially spark another war if actual *emancipation* sentiment grows. An interesting question is if the Union, which would be nearly bankrupt at the time this ends in a victory, would not end up adopting quite different and disastrous financial policies that would handicap the rise of the USA as an economic power.
Who said anything about Richmond falling earlier? Even if Johnston can't arrange the battle the following day to get victory chances are that Davis is going to call up those 37,000 odd men he found for Lee to defend the capitol and even if they dont end up in Johnston's Army they'll probably fight McClellan anyway. I could see them being put under Lee's command as an entirely seperate army just because Davis couldn't bare to see them under Johnston.

And the wars still very young. There still and very stong feeling in the south against the Union and for there independence. The fall of Richmond, should it happen, would be a set back - quite a big one really - but it wouldn't be the end of the war. The Government would fall back to a new place of power (Danville for example) and continue to run the war from there.

Any potential fall of Richmond in 1862 is as unlikely to end the War then as any potential fall of Washington would end the War on the Union side. Loss of prestiege and some military and industrial ability sure, but not the end of the war.
 
Yes. Someone with Lee's willingness and some 37,000 reinforcements. When the battle of Seven Pines/Fair Oaks took place Joe Johnston's Army of the Potomac was at its strongest ever with a total of about 65,000 men. The battle ended with the Confederates having about 55,000 men. When Lee began the Seven Days Battles he had 92,000 men.

The difference between the two Generals personality was far from the only reason for Lee's success.

When Lee fought McClellan in the Seven Days he had been strongly reinforced by about 37,000 while McClellan had been weakened by about 20,000 thus the situation was that Lee's new Army of Northern Virginia faced McClellan's Army of the Potomac with almost equality, with McClellan's strength being around 106,000.

By contrast Joe Johnston started out the campaign with some 40,000 odd men against McClellen 120,000 odd men and recieved only Ben Huger's 5,000 men as reinforcements. The rest that made up his eventual 65,000 odd men at Seven Pine/Fair Oaks came from John B. Magruders command which joined Johnston's command at the beginning of the Peninsular Campaign. Johnston never got the chance to face McClellan from any position except that of being drastrically outnumbered.

Not arguing that Johnston wasn't as audatious as Lee just pointing out that Lee's audacity was far from the only reason for his success.

Who said anything about Richmond falling earlier? Even if Johnston can't arrange the battle the following day to get victory chances are that Davis is going to call up those 37,000 odd men he found for Lee to defend the capitol and even if they dont end up in Johnston's Army they'll probably fight McClellan anyway. I could see them being put under Lee's command as an entirely seperate army just because Davis couldn't bare to see them under Johnston.

And the wars still very young. There still and very stong feeling in the south against the Union and for there independence. The fall of Richmond, should it happen, would be a set back - quite a big one really - but it wouldn't be the end of the war. The Government would fall back to a new place of power (Danville for example) and continue to run the war from there.

Any potential fall of Richmond in 1862 is as unlikely to end the War then as any potential fall of Washington would end the War on the Union side. Loss of prestiege and some military and industrial ability sure, but not the end of the war.

Disease that incapacitated a good number of the Army of the Potomac also had a fair amount to do with it. It's worth noting that at least some of Lee's plans were aggressive because had, for instance, the unification of the armies that the Second Battle of Bull Run disrupted happened no matter the incompetence the Union troops together would have been too huge for the Confederacy to handle.

The fall of Richmond would not end the war alone, but it would also lengthen the odds of the Confederacy's industrial imbalance even further and would discredit any claim the CSA had to foreign recognition for all the rest of the war.
 
Johnston never got the chance to face McClellan from any position except that of being drastrically outnumbered.

Not arguing that Johnston wasn't as audatious as Lee just pointing out that Lee's audacity was far from the only reason for his success.

Agreed. Johnston demonstrated on more than one occasion...Bentonville in March 1865 was another good example...that he was quite capable of aggression when the opportunity presented itself of being aggressive with a fair chance of success. He was rarely presented with such opportunities during the war, and I think that has colored his reputation as being an overly defensive-minded general. Bentonville in particular is instructive, because Johnston was greatly outnumbered by Sherman's army, yet chose to attack what he saw as an isolated and possibly vulnerable portion of Sherman's host anyway.

My guess is that if Johnston is not wounded, he will attack again...perhaps not at Seven Pines, but wherever he sees a good opportunity. If he gets those 37,000 reinforcements, we may see something like the Seven Days play out at roughly the same time.

And who knows...if Johnston demonstrates that he does have some aggression in him, President Davis might revise his view of the man and develop a better working relationship with him. Although both men were quite prickly characters, and such an outcome may not be possible over the long term.

Who said anything about Richmond falling earlier? Even if Johnston can't arrange the battle the following day to get victory chances are that Davis is going to call up those 37,000 odd men he found for Lee to defend the capitol and even if they dont end up in Johnston's Army they'll probably fight McClellan anyway. I could see them being put under Lee's command as an entirely seperate army just because Davis couldn't bare to see them under Johnston.

Well, if Davis does create a second army under Lee, rather than putting the men under Johnston's command, this is going to complicate Confederate command and control. Lee would know this and do everything he could to dissuade Davis from taking such an action, quite likely successfully.

Overall, I too think the idea that Richmond is doomed is rather shaky. At best, Johnston carries off his own version of the Seven Days. At worst, McClellan places the city under siege...and Johnston might be quite a good commander in running a siege defense. McClellan might be stuck outside of Richmond for a long, long time. Possibly long enough to affect the Congressional elections of 1862, or even the Presidential elections of 1864. Either one could lead to an end to the war.

One thing to remember is that a long siege at Richmond is likely going to mean far less Confederate casualties than a series of large battles instigated by an aggressive general like Lee. The defender in a siege situation suffers far less than the attacker, in nearly every case (unless the besieged place is cut off from contact with the outside world and starvation and/or disease begin to take an inordinate toll) because the attacker is the one making frontal assaults on entrenched enemy works. This means that there are likely more men available for other fronts, and possibly the progress of Union victories in the West is slowed because of that.

If these things happen, it may well be that instead of McClellan running in 1864, you have Clement Valladingham as the Democratic candidate running on a peace platform...and quite possibly winning due to a war weary Northern public which sees no real progress being made in the war.

Or you may have a majority of Peace Democrats elected to Congress in 1862 which forces an end to the war by refusing to appropriate more money for it.

So Johnston being placed under siege might not be a bad thing for the Confederacy. :cool:
 
It should be pointed out that during the weeks leading up to the fall of Atlanta Union and Confederacy lost comparable numbers of soldiers, itself a disaster for the CSA.

However, while Johnston was in command the loss ratio favored the CSA while once Hood took over the loss ratio favored the Union to a degree the CSA simply could not stand.

The heavy losses from Sherman's army shows Johnston was able to slow an advancing army and bleed it badly without losing a battle, even if ground had to be yielded, and the events under Hood shows us what happened under more aggressive leadership.
 
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