Northern Victory in 1862 Peninsular Campaign

[Elfwine]

Not to say I don't find it funny (it is very funny), but it's also interesting to anaylze it as far as looking at Bragg's later problems as a general:

Bragg is conscientious about doing things properly to and past a fault. Diplomacy, compromise, anything that gets in the way of that be damned.

I'd say that's a pretty good description of at least some of his problems as an army commander (along with him having a rather irritable disposition, but not all ill-tempered guys had as many problems with their subordinates as he did).

 

[daveg1967]

Is there any way for McClellan to change his actions from May 28th 1862 or later that would lead to a Northern victory in the Peninsular Campaign? At first I thought a simple bum rush on the Southern position would work. Then I remembered the battle of Fredericksburg in OTL didn't work.

The thing about the Peninsular Campaign is that the Army of the Potomac wasn't beaten, McClellan was beaten. McClellan had the army retreat even after draws or victories. Generals Hooker and Kearney urged counterattacks. McClellan wasn't even present at Malvern Hill.

 

[marktaha]

Bragg has a similar reputation. I've joked that we should keep Fort Bragg named after him because he was the Union's MVP.

The name shouldn't be changed just to.appease PC whingers with chips on their shoulders.

 

[marktaha]

I'm not a big Joe Johnston fan, but the main thing I'd pick on as relates to him and McClellan being similar is they both had an appallingly poor relationship with the president (of their respective sides). One can say Davis is far from innocent there and it's most certainly true, but that's not the point.

I do broadly agree with this:


And if we're going to pick a Confederate actively undermining their own cause, I'd pick Leonidas Polk.

Have flippantly wondered if McClellan and Johnston would ever have got round to fighting each other. The Confederate general who did most harm to their own cause was Hood - unless you count Davis' choice of commanders !

 

[TRH]

Have flippantly wondered if McClellan and Johnston would ever have got round to fighting each other.

what happens when a stoppable force meets a movable object

 

[Elfwine]

Have flippantly wondered if McClellan and Johnston would ever have got round to fighting each other. The Confederate general who did most harm to their own cause was Hood - unless you count Davis' choice of commanders !

Davis sure had ideas there, although he had few good options for army command.

 

[Valentinian]

Davis sure had ideas there, although he had few good options for army command.

This is a very good point. The Confederacy did so well in the first ~2 years, combined with Davis' friends network, that many junior officers had no room to move up. The big exception was Hood, but that was due to Davis being a fan.
For the North, their initial high command failed so spectacularly (Grant excepted) that promotion was rapid. Remember, Meade commanded a brigade on the Peninsula, and a year later he commanded the army.
Many good Southern commanders who may have made good army commanders had no room for promotion until it was too late, i.e. Forrest or Richard Taylor.

 

[Elfwine]

This is a very good point. The Confederacy did so well in the first ~2 years, combined with Davis' friends network, that many junior officers had no room to move up. The big exception was Hood, but that was due to Davis being a fan.
For the North, their initial high command failed so spectacularly (Grant excepted) that promotion was rapid. Remember, Meade commanded a brigade on the Peninsula, and a year later he commanded the army.
Many good Southern commanders who may have made good army commanders had no room for promotion until it was too late, i.e. Forrest or Richard Taylor.

I'm not sure there were many Confederates who would have made good army commanders in 1862 or 1863. I certainly would not pick Forrest or Taylor there, in either year.

 

[Valentinian]

I'm not sure there were many Confederates who would have made good army commanders in 1862 or 1863. I certainly would not pick Forrest or Taylor there, in either year.

Forrest was best as a nonarmy department commander near the front. Taylor was an excellent commander. John Gordon rose very slowly and made a very good commander. Dorsey Pender was another who never reached higher than division but could have done well higher.

That goes to another point. Lee, despite everything, burned through regimental, brigade, and division commanders through his hyper aggressive battlefield tactics. Many good commanders with potential, like Pender or Winder did not survive.

 

[Elfwine]

Forrest was best as a nonarmy department commander near the front. Taylor was an excellent commander. John Gordon rose very slowly and made a very good commander. Dorsey Pender was another who never reached higher than division but could have done well higher.

That goes to another point. Lee, despite everything, burned through regimental, brigade, and division commanders through his hyper aggressive battlefield tactics. Many good commanders with potential, like Pender or Winder did not survive.

To be entirely honest on Pender I'd give him an incomplete here (very promising, but incomplete), but I agree with this in general here on the ratings for what ranks people did reach. Forrest seems like if he wasn't commanding a department he was best around division level - corps command doesn't play to his strengths as well as something where him being personally involved is actually helpful and not his personality/habits getting in the way of being a smart man.

I don't know how much to blame Lee for the ANV burning through commanders, but it is certainly a thing that did the Confederacy no favors that they were still losing the. Not to mention that, for various reasons, most of the good ones were serving in Virginia.

The Army of Tennessee was not entirely without talent, but most of its division and corps commanders are just not impressive - not always terrible, but not great.

 

[Valentinian]

To be entirely honest on Pender I'd give him an incomplete here (very promising, but incomplete), but I agree with this in general here on the ratings for what ranks people did reach. Forrest seems like if he wasn't commanding a department he was best around division level - corps command doesn't play to his strengths as well as something where him being personally involved is actually helpful and not his personality/habits getting in the way of being a smart man.

I don't know how much to blame Lee for the ANV burning through commanders, but it is certainly a thing that did the Confederacy no favors that they were still losing the. Not to mention that, for various reasons, most of the good ones were serving in Virginia.

The Army of Tennessee was not entirely without talent, but most of its division and corps commanders are just not impressive - not always terrible, but not great.

One of Lee's biggest faults was sending commanders west that he did not like. Several were decent-ish like DH Hill or McGruder. It was Davis' fault that dead wood like Holmes or Huger took up spots that better men could have been promoted too. Lincoln may have shunted senior commanders he did not want to the side like Dix or Wool, but the Union had the resources to spare. The South didn't.

 

[Elfwine]

One of Lee's biggest faults was sending commanders west that he did not like. Several were decent-ish like DH Hill or McGruder. It was Davis' fault that dead wood like Holmes or Huger took up spots that better men could have been promoted too. Lincoln may have shunted senior commanders he did not want to the side like Dix or Wool, but the Union had the resources to spare. The South didn't.

Yeah. I don't blame Lee as much as Davis as far as said dead wood - Holmes and Huger don't even count as "but politics has to be considered as well as military ability" decisions (something Davis was not great at), unlike Banks or Butler.

But now we're getting rather away from McClellan or the Peninsula.

 

[SWS]

Unlike McClellan, who seemingly abandoned any notion of seizing Richmond via frontal assault after the retirement of McDowell's Corps, Bragg was still willing to seize the tactical initiative at Murfreesboro despite being deprived of 3/4ths of his Third Corps.

After Jackson's strategic coup at Winchester, the 'little Napoleon' is far more interested in James River, it would seem.

Speaking of the civilian autodidact Dick Taylor, his observation was thus:

'Foregoing criticisms have indicated the tendency of engineer service to unfit men for command. It was once said of a certain colonel that he was an admirable officer when absent from soldiers. No amount of theoretical training can supply the knowledge gained by direct and immediate association with troops. The ablest and most promising graduates from West Point are annually assigned to the engineer and ordnance corps. After some years they become scientists, perhaps pedants, but not soldiers. Whatever may be the ultimate destination of such young men, they should be placed on duty for at least one year with each arm of the service, and all officers of the general staff below the highest grades should be returned to the line for limited periods. In no other way can a healthy connection between line and staff be preserved. The United States will doubtless continue to maintain an army, however small, as a model, if for no other purpose, for volunteers, the reliance of the country in the event of a serious war. It ought to have the best possible article for the money, and, to secure this, should establish a camp of instruction, composed of all arms, where officers could study the actual movements of troops.'

 

[Elfwine]

The ablest and most promising graduates from West Point are annually assigned to the engineer and ordnance corps. After some years they become scientists, perhaps pedants, but not soldiers.

I think this is - well, a statement on what he thinks "a good soldier" should be concerned with/doesn't need to see as important - as much as any convincing argument for what he goes on to say.

 

[Belisarius II]

The name shouldn't be changed just to.appease PC whingers with chips on their shoulders.

Can you think of a reason for U.S. Army Posts to be named after Americans who fought against the United States? What would you think of a Ft Bennedict Arnold?

 

[daveg1967]

Davis sure had ideas there, although he had few good options for army command.

Jefferson Davis would rather have been General in Chief instead of President. He was the only experienced general (save Winfield Scott) in the country.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

Jefferson Davis would rather have been General in Chief instead of President. He was the only experienced general (save Winfield Scott) in the country.

Say what? Davis left the Army as a First Lieutenant. He waa a Colonel of volunteers during the Mexican War. But he was never a general. He could have had a command, but he wasn't close to qualified for army commander..

 

[Maniakes]

Joseph Johnston and Albert Sydney Johnston were both Brigadier Generals in the US Army in 1860, Joseph was a permanent BG, having recently been promoted to that rank to fill the role of Quartermaster General. Albert was a brevet BG in charge of the Department of the Pacific. Both had recent combat experience as colonels: Joseph against the Sioux in Wyoming Territory in 1855, and Albert as the US military commander during the 1858 Utah War.

I think the two Johnstons were the fifth and sixth most senior officers in the US military just prior to secession, after Scott, Wool, Twiggs, and Harney. Wool and Harney stayed in Union service, as did Scott of course, while Twiggs joined the Confederate army briefly before resigning for health reasons.

 

[aaronupright]

Unlike McClellan, who seemingly abandoned any notion of seizing Richmond via frontal assault after the retirement of McDowell's Corps, Bragg was still willing to seize the tactical initiative at Murfreesboro despite being deprived of 3/4ths of his Third Corps.

After Jackson's strategic coup at Winchester, the 'little Napoleon' is far more interested in James River, it would seem.

Speaking of the civilian autodidact Dick Taylor, his observation was thus:

'Foregoing criticisms have indicated the tendency of engineer service to unfit men for command. It was once said of a certain colonel that he was an admirable officer when absent from soldiers. No amount of theoretical training can supply the knowledge gained by direct and immediate association with troops. The ablest and most promising graduates from West Point are annually assigned to the engineer and ordnance corps. After some years they become scientists, perhaps pedants, but not soldiers. Whatever may be the ultimate destination of such young men, they should be placed on duty for at least one year with each arm of the service, and all officers of the general staff below the highest grades should be returned to the line for limited periods. In no other way can a healthy connection between line and staff be preserved. The United States will doubtless continue to maintain an army, however small, as a model, if for no other purpose, for volunteers, the reliance of the country in the event of a serious war. It ought to have the best possible article for the money, and, to secure this, should establish a camp of instruction, composed of all arms, where officers could study the actual movements of troops.'

This was in reference to a criticism of Lee himself.

In truth, the genius of Lee for offensive war had suffered by a too long service as an engineer. Like Erskine in the House of Commons, it was not his forte. In both the Antietam and Gettysburg campaigns he allowed his cavalry to separate from him, and was left without intelligence of the enemy's movements until he was upon him. In both, too, his army was widely scattered, and had to be brought into action by piecemeal. There was an abundance of supplies in the country immediately around Harper's Ferry, and had he remained concentrated there, the surrender of Miles would have been advanced, and McClellan met under favorable conditions. His own report of Gettysburg confesses his mistakes; for he was of too lofty a nature to seek scapegoats, and all the rambling accounts of that action I have seen published add but little to his report.

 

[daveg1967]

Say what? Davis left the Army as a First Lieutenant. He waa a Colonel of volunteers during the Mexican War. But he was never a general. He could have had a command, but he wasn't close to qualified for army commander..

He commanded a regiment in battle in the Mexican War. Polk offered to make him a brigadier general. He refused. As of 1860, Davis had commanded more men in combat then any American officer save Winfield Scott. He had also been Secretary of War. He was definitely qualified to be General in Chief, but probably not the best qualified for field command.