North Anna River: Chance for the CSA?

Was the Battle of North Anna a Lost Opportunity for the Confederacy?

  • Yes, the Confederates lost a chance to inflict a decisive defeat on the Federals

    Votes: 13 31.7%
  • No, the Federals were not really in any danger of defeat

    Votes: 20 48.8%
  • I don't know

    Votes: 8 19.5%

  • Total voters
    41
Lee is uniquely singled out by people who use alleged ill health to excuse any military failings on his part. Grant suffering from migraines when he avoided the trap at North Anna and won the Appomatox Campaign is seldom mentioned.

Not uniquely, other losers of wars who become heroes also get this as an excuse to cover up that just maybe they got outgeneraled by the winning side.

Not unique - doesn't Napoleon's illness at Waterloo get mentioned on occasion?

Certainly, it couldn't be the British that won that battle, after all. Heroes on losing sides never lose wars, they're just overwhelmed by numbers. ;)

Not know much about the American civil war you'll have to excuse my ignorance if I'm asking a blatantly obvious question but even if Grant lost a third of his army is that really enough to be 'war-winning masterstroke' as you termed it?

Yes, because his army has suffered crippling losses and is marooned in enemy territory. That move was the inverse of Orders 191, daring in concept but a recipe for disaster against an enemy with even a minimal willingness to attack. Given the exhaustion and enervation of Grant's army after six weeks of endless, sustained combat, Lee's army would have been successful all out of weight to the numbers both had.....:eek:
 
This is 1864, the confederacy is already done for. Even if they win a decisive victory its not going to change the outcome significantly.

Not entirely, a decisive victory over the Army of the Potomac following Cold Harbor (no matter anything of the truth in that scenario) of the sort that a Battle of the James would have represented would have been the very stroke Lee was so desperately seeking in his entire career. Grant's genius was in denying him precisely that opportunity when his army was most vulnerable and Lee most likely to press forward without regard for cost when that would have actually been the best thing the CSA would have hoped for. Lee had his chance and fumbled it, just as McClellan had his and fumbled *his*.
 
Cold Harbor wasn't actually that bad, but ignoring that: when Federal forces initially crossed the river, the NVA was not deployed and was in a pretty dandy position for annihilation. Rapid, and largely lucky, extemporization on the part of Lee and Hotchkiss, along with general exhaustion on the part of the Federals, converted the situation from an incipient traitor rout into a stalemate.

What is your source for this? It varies from every account of the battle I've ever read. Considering that Lee had already arrived at the North Anna and the Confederate defensive position had been constructed BEFORE Grant crossed the river, your statement would seem to be less than likely.
 
Thanks for the info. Perhaps I should have said uniquely among ACW generals.

Well...not quite. Less charitably John Bell Hood has been accused of making poor decisions during his time in the Army of Tennessee because of a combination of the lingering pain of losing his leg and the pain killers he took for that. This is a view which had been thoroughly debunked by Eric Jacobson but it is still used by the less well informed as an excuse to explain how such an effective divisional commander became such a dreadful Corps and Army commander.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
This is 1864, the confederacy is already done for. Even if they win a decisive victory its not going to change the outcome significantly.

I disagree. It could have resulted in Lincoln losing the presidential election in November. Combine that with the war-weariness of the North, the fact that Republicans would refuse to support the war effort were it led by McClellan (who did not support the abolition of slavery), and the severe financial constraints facing the Union, a decisive battlefield victory for the Confederacy at this juncture could have tremendously impacted the outcome of the conflict.
 
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