Lee and Longstreet die at Chanclorville: Jackson wages ruthless war in the North

Stonewall Jackson thought the South should have used more ruthless methods such as taking no prisoners and burning down Northern towns. What if he were able to do that? I think it would backfire BIG TIME. It would enrage the North like nothing else and Northern Armies wouldn't take prisoners either. Since the North had more people than the South and recruiting in the North would suddenly become much easier. I think the South would be ground down faster and harder than OTL.
 
Longstreet wasn't at Chancellorsville, but assuming he is killed/incapacitated/otherwise out of the picture, I wonder if Davis would really appoint Jackson (next most senior in the ANV) or try to transfer someone.
 
Longstreet wasn't at Chancellorsville, but assuming he is killed/incapacitated/otherwise out of the picture, I wonder if Davis would really appoint Jackson (next most senior in the ANV) or try to transfer someone.

I thought he was, my mistake! :eek: I don't see why Davis wouldn't appoint him as he was next in line(behind Longstreet) and popular with the public. In any case I don't think it wasimpossiblee. Assume for the moment he does and Jackson does what he said he wanted to do.
 
Longstreet wasn't at Chancellorsville, but assuming he is killed/incapacitated/otherwise out of the picture, I wonder if Davis would really appoint Jackson (next most senior in the ANV) or try to transfer someone.

Who else is there?

Joe Johnston's Commander of the Department of the West and has seniority over every other General in the field with Lee's death but, as we all know, Davis and Joe dont get on so he's unlikely to get the job regardless of the, no doubt, vigerous campaigning from his political supporters in the Confederate Congress for him to get it.

P.G.T. Beauregard's next most senior but he's still in Charleston being punished for going AWOL after Corinth. Such a scenario as Lee and Longstreet's death might be enough for him to be considered for recall to a major theater but Davis hates him more than he hates Joe so that's not likely either.

Transfer Bragg from the AoT perhaps? Or bring Kirby Smith back from Kirby-Smith-Dom?
 
Who else is there?

Joe Johnston's Commander of the Department of the West and has seniority over every other General in the field with Lee's death but, as we all know, Davis and Joe dont get on so he's unlikely to get the job regardless of the, no doubt, vigerous campaigning from his political supporters in the Confederate Congress for him to get it.

This is the same Joe Johnston that got the AoT after Bragg was removed. It shouldn't be ruled out of all consideration.

P.G.T. Beauregard's next most senior but he's still in Charleston being punished for going AWOL after Corinth. Such a scenario as Lee and Longstreet's death might be enough for him to be considered for recall to a major theater but Davis hates him more than he hates Joe so that's not likely either.

Transfer Bragg from the AoT perhaps? Or bring Kirby Smith back from Kirby-Smith-Dom?
Perhaps. I think Joe is at least a debatable possibility, but Smith is distant and Beauregard is roundly despised. Bragg just leaves deciding what to do with that army.

Polk is the senior most lieutenant general in the Confederacy :):shudder::), and Hardee and Jackson have the same seniority without the former having Jackson's glory.


@ John: Assuming Jackson is promoted, how able is he to get what he wants strategically? Lee had considerable influence and eloquence when it came to getting his plan for May-June, Jackson probably doesn't - he's popular with the public, but that's not the same thing.

And if he's weakened, he's going to be in a worse spot for even getting up north.
 

Flubber

Banned
I don't see why Davis wouldn't appoint him...


You yourself explain why Davis wouldn't appoint him:

Stonewall Jackson thought the South should have used more ruthless methods such as taking no prisoners and burning down Northern towns.

I think it would backfire BIG TIME. It would enrage the North like nothing else and Northern Armies wouldn't take prisoners either.

Humanity is fortunate that Davis was a titanic egotistical asshole. Humanity is also fortunate that Davis wasn't stupid enough to allow a holy rolling, Bible thumping, psychopath like Jackson off the leash.
 
I didn't know he was ruthless. "Who touches a hair on yon gray head dies like a dog. March on, he said".
But actually, it was a lady named Quantrell who waved the flag.
 
Going by that poem as a judge of Jackson's character is misleading, and I say this as someone who thinks "psychopath" is rather exaggerated.

But at best, Jackson was Shermanesque.
 

Flubber

Banned
Going by that poem as a judge of Jackson's character is misleading, and I say this as someone who thinks "psychopath" is rather exaggerated. But at best, Jackson was Shermanesque.


Did Sherman ever suggest not taking prisoners? Or seriously consider arming his men with pikes?

Sherman wanted to make Georgia howl in order to make the South hate the war and pray for it's end. What's that quote of his? "The South chose this remedy..." Sherman made sure the South got a heaping dose of their own remedy.

Jackson, on the other hand, was a holy crusader channeling the Daleks; "Exterminate..."

Jackson had severe body image issues, "one of my arms is longer than the other", had several psychosomatic illnesses, and routinely fell asleep while chewing his food. A recent forensic psychiatric analysis of him also suggests he may have been on the autism spectrum. His religious beliefs were marked by their severe fanaticism and this when professions of religious faith were a normal part of daily life. He also was a well known martinet, extremely secretive, and only dealt with his subordinates in an exaggeratedly formal manner.

Jackson was fortunate that he died when he did, when the ANV was still winning. A Jackson still alive when it became apparent that the CSA was circling down to defeat is a Jackson who would have become unhinged. An "incident" would have most certainly occurred. Another unwarranted court martial as with Garnett and, worse, a massacre similar to Fort Pillow.
 
Did Sherman ever suggest not taking prisoners? Or seriously consider arming his men with pikes?

Given that this is Sherman we're talking about, I wouldn't be surprised if we could track down some letter somewhere involving a no quarter attitude.

As for pikes - better than no arms at all. And I do point you to Rush's Lancers (and I know there were at least lances made for Confederate equivalents). If that wasn't madness, neither was requesting pikes in absence of muskets.

Jackson had severe body image issues, "one of my arms is longer than the other", had several psychosomatic illnesses, and routinely fell asleep while chewing his food. A recent forensic psychiatric analysis of him also suggests he may have been on the autism spectrum. His religious beliefs were marked by their severe fanaticism and this when professions of religious faith were a normal part of daily life. He also was a well known martinet, extremely secretive, and only dealt with his subordinates in an exaggeratedly formal manner.
Autistic and psychopathic are considerably different things. And I'd dearly love to see what was so fanatical about Jackson's beliefs in the context of the 19th century (if he's only a little more extreme than his peers, calling it psychopathic seems rather unjust - speaking of the war as a crusade when the Battle Hymn of the Republic is practically proclaiming it ). Neither does being a secretive martinet whose interactions with his subordinates make him meet this: http://www.minddisorders.com/Flu-Inv/Hare-Psychopathy-Checklist.html

or any other objective medical definition other than "he was a crazy shithead" - which looks to be what you're using.

Jackson was fortunate that he died when he did, when the ANV was still winning. A Jackson still alive when it became apparent that the CSA was circling down to defeat is a Jackson who would have become unhinged. An "incident" would have most certainly occurred. Another unwarranted court martial as with Garnett and, worse, a massacre similar to Fort Pillow.
I would give a great deal to see the medical, rational, objective basis for this.
 
Not to "me too", but body image issues != sociopathy. Grant couldn't even UNDRESS IN FRONT OF HIS WIFE, and bragged about it, and while I could call him many things, a "monster" is hardly one of them. I know Jackson was no saint, but I agree that he was at worst on Sherman's level (that is to say, willing to do morally dark things to achieve defined goals), not a butcher or sadist. Remember, the burden of proof is on the one making the claims, not los demás.
 
Not to derail the thread, but where's that from? On Grant, I mean.

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About America's Presidents* *But Were Afraid To Ask | ISBN: 0978587219 | ISBN 13: 9780978587215.

I found a reference to it on a less-than-reputable site (Cracked.com, to be precise), but apparently there are numerous other sources out there highlighting Grant's issues with being naked around others (if perhaps less blatant about that phrasing). According to the same tome, he was also afraid at the sight of blood, and wouldn't bathe around his men. Bear in mind, he was married with (IIRC) two children, and still joked that he hadn't been seen naked since birth (same source, and likely in jest, but still).

EDIT: Mind you, I don't bring this up to slander the man, but to highlight the fact that behavior we might find eccentric doesn't a bloodthirsty killer make. I've never seen ANYTHING even hinting that Jackson was a merciless butcher (no more than most of his contemporaries anyway), and frankly take issue with that characterization.
 
when stonewall jackson was in frederick he attended a local. When the preacher made an anti-rebel reference, Stonewall Jackson did not disturb him. He seems to have been quite civil there.
 
The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans is the definitive work on this subject as far as I can tell.

If Jackson had been given free reign to his vision of a war of the "black flag" then it would have differed as much from Sherman's March to the Sea as the Rape of Nanking differed from strategic bombing. Given what I have read I have little doubt that Jackson would have waged as cruel of campaign as possible against the North. He was motivated by religious zeal and felt as though the hand of God guided his actions.

Such a campaign would have galvanized the Northern war effort in such a way as to make Sherman's March look like a stroll in the park. Lincoln would have been greatly saddened but even those Democrats who sympathized with the Copperhead movement would have called for harsh punishment towards the South. It's likely that Reconstruction would have lasted far longer and been much harsher with state boundaries being redrawn and war trials held in the aftermath. Hangings of the Confederate government would likely have followed. And there would be no Lost Cause ideology.

Benjamin
 
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About America's Presidents* *But Were Afraid To Ask | ISBN: 0978587219 | ISBN 13: 9780978587215.

I found a reference to it on a less-than-reputable site (Cracked.com, to be precise), but apparently there are numerous other sources out there highlighting Grant's issues with being naked around others (if perhaps less blatant about that phrasing). According to the same tome, he was also afraid at the sight of blood, and wouldn't bathe around his men. Bear in mind, he was married with (IIRC) two children, and still joked that he hadn't been seen naked since birth (same source, and likely in jest, but still).

I've heard about Grant and blood before, but not the nudity thing. I know he had at least a kid, can't remember if it was more than one.

So Grant being a little more eccentric than we generally imagine him wouldn't surprise me all that much.

EDIT: Mind you, I don't bring this up to slander the man, but to highlight the fact that behavior we might find eccentric doesn't a bloodthirsty killer make. I've never seen ANYTHING even hinting that Jackson was a merciless butcher (no more than most of his contemporaries anyway), and frankly take issue with that characterization.

Indeed. I think an argument could be made Jackson had a few screws loose - but there's a wide gap between "atypical" and "deranged".

I doubt Jackson in full authority to rage "ruthless war' would be a good thing, but it would be a bad thing more because it would have the consequences John mentioned than because Jackson was going to butcher prisoners.

Although it might be just as well he never fought any USCT. I can see Jackson standing rigidly on the letter of the orders for what was to be done there, just as he was on other orders, even if he wasn't taking any particular glee in it.

And well, that is disturbing.
 
Given what I have read I have little doubt that Jackson would have waged as cruel of campaign as possible against the North. He was motivated by religious zeal and felt as though the hand of God guided his actions.

Why?

And Jackson being "motivated by religious zeal" - unlike all his athetistic contemporaries, who never claimed God had anything to do with their actions.

That doesn't even merit an eye roll.

Was Jackson zealous? To all appearances, yes. But that doesn't translate into Jackson having delusions of being Joshua smiting the Caanites.
 
The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans is the definitive work on this subject as far as I can tell.

If Jackson had been given free reign to his vision of a war of the "black flag" then it would have differed as much from Sherman's March to the Sea as the Rape of Nanking differed from strategic bombing. Given what I have read I have little doubt that Jackson would have waged as cruel of campaign as possible against the North. He was motivated by religious zeal and felt as though the hand of God guided his actions.

Such a campaign would have galvanized the Northern war effort in such a way as to make Sherman's March look like a stroll in the park. Lincoln would have been greatly saddened but even those Democrats who sympathized with the Copperhead movement would have called for harsh punishment towards the South. It's likely that Reconstruction would have lasted far longer and been much harsher with state boundaries being redrawn and war trials held in the aftermath. Hangings of the Confederate government would likely have followed. And there would be no Lost Cause ideology.

Benjamin

That's your interpretation thereof; bear in mind, the author (Charles Royster) IMHO wrote that book with Vietnam-era blinders on in terms of wartime intent and so-called "terror tactics". The kind of devastation that might've allegedly been wrought by Jackson was one also entertained by the North (and not just by Sherman, may I add), and deliberately NOT put into place by the CSA government (who, for all their numerous flaws, knew what such actions would yield them should the war not turn out in their favor). Besides, much of the book uses recollections of of authors whose works were written 75 to 150 years after the Civil War occurred, which frankly takes away somewhat from the objectivity of the piece overall (rather fresh memories and such).

Remember this as well, that the author himself caveats the book as an overlong essay, not a character study insomuch as looking at Sherman and Jackson's adaptation of new "shocking" tactics that stood in contrast to the generally less sanguineous attitudes (on BOTH sides) towards the war's conduct at its outset. Once the initial shock of just how bloody the fighting had gotten had dissipated, it was up to somebody to start trying to figure out how to knock the other side out of the war (much alike the development of strategic bombing, blitzkrieg, the atomic bomb, etc.). How anything Jackson DID is somehow comparable to the Rape of Nanking (and the Chambersburg Raid, for example, hardly counts) is beyond me; personal memoirs are not necessarily smoking gun proofs of intent.

Arggh, hopefully this doesn't come across as rambling, I unfortunately have been pecking away at this reply on and off :rolleyes:
 
to answer the OP... 'taking no prisoners'... that's a horrible idea from the start; it basically means that the enemy will do the same to you, and I doubt the south would have risked it. 'Burning northern towns'... that might have been done without widespread slaughter. However, in the end, any ruthlessness done in the north is going to rebound on the south, as such tactics aren't going to win the war for them, and the north will now have a grudge that will be repaid on the south tenfold...
 
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