Robert E. Lee as commander of the Army of the Potomac

67th Tigers

Banned
67th you try and act like you are reading from the official files.
Guess what- you are wrong again.
Scott convinced Lincoln Lee was the man- have you managed to get THAT?
So that he would have been given what would have been the top command.
GOT THAT?
BUT since he refused the informal offer nothing was ever OFFICIAL?
GOT THAT?
There are MORE then enough accounts of what Lincoln intended from what Scott recommended. Why do you insist on keeping up this farce?

No, I've read quite a lot more on the subject than you though, apparently.

Lincoln asked Scott to make preparations to field an army in February 1861, and one of those preparations was to have a General Staff and Operational Departments (initially 3). Lee was penciled in for command of the Eastern (Virginia) department, promoted Colonel and recalled to Washington. He conditionally accepted the offer of Eastern Dept Command, assuming Virginia did not secede.

The two other officers selected were McClellan, an ex-regular major (of 1st Cavalry, which along with 2nd Cavalry received the cream of the US officer corps) who was considered an authority on the conduct of war, and was the Major General commanding the Ohio Militia (-> Ohio Dept), and Fremont, an ex-regular Lt Col and a authority on the logistics of operations out west. All sensible choices.

BTW: Of possible interest: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C05EED8143EE73BBC4C53DFBE668383669FDE
 
67th you try and act like you are reading from the official files.
Guess what- you are wrong again.
Scott convinced Lincoln Lee was the man- have you managed to get THAT?
So that he would have been given what would have been the top command.
GOT THAT?
BUT since he refused the informal offer nothing was ever OFFICIAL?
GOT THAT?
There are MORE then enough accounts of what Lincoln intended from what Scott recommended. Why do you insist on keeping up this farce?

There's no call for this level of rudeness- reported.
 

Ian the Admin

Administrator
Donor
67th you try and act like you are reading from the official files.
Guess what- you are wrong again.
Scott convinced Lincoln Lee was the man- have you managed to get THAT?
So that he would have been given what would have been the top command.
GOT THAT?
BUT since he refused the informal offer nothing was ever OFFICIAL?
GOT THAT?
There are MORE then enough accounts of what Lincoln intended from what Scott recommended. Why do you insist on keeping up this farce?

Why on Earth are you being so rude? You've been offensive like this in other threads too. There's no excuse for that, so I'm kicking you for a week. You won't be able to post during that time.
 
67th you try and act like you are reading from the official files.
Guess what- you are wrong again.
Scott convinced Lincoln Lee was the man- have you managed to get THAT?
So that he would have been given what would have been the top command.
GOT THAT?
BUT since he refused the informal offer nothing was ever OFFICIAL?
GOT THAT?
There are MORE then enough accounts of what Lincoln intended from what Scott recommended. Why do you insist on keeping up this farce?

Got "that" ? What's "that" ? :confused: Next time if you want to call something a farce, can you bring some proofs of that with you please ?
 

bard32

Banned
No, I mean the Union Army of Northern Virginia, the one that fought at 1st Manassas under McDowell (in command vice Lee) against the Confederate Armies of the Potomac and Shenandoah.

The river thing is a fallicy BTW. The Union also named armies after states initially, at least until mid-1863. It is however, now a convenient way for people to distinguish between two similar sounding formations, even if the the "the"'s in the Union Armies are totally ahistorical.

At Shiloh BTW were:

Union Army of Western Tennessee (the state)
Union Army of Ohio (the state)
Confederate Army of Tennessee (the state)
Confederate Army of Mississippi (the state)
Confederate Army of Mobile (the bay)
Confederate Army of Pensacola (the bay)
Confederate Army of Central Kentucky (the state)
Confederate Army of Kanawha (another name for Western Virginia)

These six CSA Armies had been pulled together into one organisation for that battle, and never really separated again.

The namings in all cases (Federal and Confederate) were after the Military District that force was suborned to.

According to the PBS series The Civil War, there were two Armies of the Tennessee. The Union Army of the Tennessee, (river,) and the Confederate Army of the Tennessee, (state.) The Union named its armies after the nearest geographical feature. The Confederacy named its armies after the nearest town.
 
You have to remember that at this point the military position in the west was still solidifying. Anything larger than a division (for Union) or corps (for Confederate) was still very unofficial and were not readily termed 'armies'. Thus we speak of the Confederates at Shiloh having 3 corps plus reserve and the Union 5 divisions on day one, Wallace and 3 other divisions new on day two, and 3 more en route. Technically, as I recall, for example, Buell out-ranked Grant at the time, but it didn't really matter because Sherman, Prentiss, Wallace, Pope, and the other division commanders really controlled the goings on.
 
Stillborn more than squashed. Johnny Reb wouldn't've had time to organize its forces before Lee starts raiding. His example would probably encourage other Southerners, or at least other Virginians, to choose the federal gov't rather than the rebellion. The whole thing would've been over in a year or two. Doubt that that's enough time to deal with slavery...

An interesting question though, who would get command of the Army of Northern Virginia?

Naw, Lee would have been one more among the long list of Yankee failures trying to conquer the South. His idea of campaigning ruined the South, and against even a mediocre Southern general in opposition, Bobby Lee would have been a bad version of McCllelan and Grant mixed together.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
My guess is either Jackson or Longstreet.

The ANV was created during the Peninsula Campaign by combining the Armies of the Shenandoah, Potomac, Norfolk and a reinforcing column from NC.

Jackson and Longstreet were Divisional Commanders in this organisation (OTL Lee flattened it ASAP, stripping Jackson, Longstreet, Holmes and Huger of their "Corps Commander" status).

Assuming an ANV is formed, then probably one of the Johnston's or Beauregard is senior....
 

67th Tigers

Banned
According to the PBS series The Civil War, there were two Armies of the Tennessee. The Union Army of the Tennessee, (river,) and the Confederate Army of the Tennessee, (state.) The Union named its armies after the nearest geographical feature. The Confederacy named its armies after the nearest town.

This was a convention the Centinarists settled on in the 1960's, it had no basis in fact.
 
If Lee holds high rank in the Union then Virginia stayed loyal, probably North Carolina as well with Tennessee and Arkansas uncertain. The South is in deep trouble.
 
As Glen said, Lee always placed Virginia first, so it's very unlikely that Lee would accept such an offer from the Union. But even if Lee did accept GOC of the AOP, the CSA isn't squashed. Afterall there are two fundamental problems which Lee will have to face.

The first is all the incompetent Union generals will still be under his command, especially in the first year, not to mention all the other ones fighting with each other more so than their Southern counterparts. This will continue to carry on for two years if not longer. So, even though Lee maybe brillant, he won't have the likes of Longstreet or Jackson to carry out his orders. Instead he'll have the likes of Burnside & Howard just to name a few.

Secondly, half the reason why McClellan had the troubles he had, was because Lincoln kept interfering with his command, not to mention Stanton who hated him & did whatever he could to interfer as well.

Consequentially, I can't see why Lee won't have to endure the same things as happened in the OTL to the AOP until mid-1863. And that's despite the fact that he won't be 100% trusted because he's from a Rebel state. Thomas had to deal with the same crap, even though he was 100% loyal to the Union.

With regard to the incompetent subordinates, you are probably right. Of course, within a relatively short time Lee might be able to sort out the good wood (Sedgewick, Reynolds, Meade, Hancock, Hooker, etc.) from the dead wood (Burnside, Howard, etc) and solve that issue relatively quickly. He basically did that in the Army of Northern Virginia when he took over.

As for the Lincoln issue, I think Lee would have been much better at dealing with that than most of the OTL Union commanders were. Jefferson Davis liked to micromanage too, and basically Lee handled that by keeping Davis informed of what he was doing and not getting his nose out of joint when Davis asked for information (that was what Davis hated so much about Johnston and Beauregard, BTW...they acted like they were too busy to be bothered by Davis's requests for information). The same approach is likely to work with Lincoln. Also, one reason why Lincoln got in McClellan's hair so much is Little Mac's continuing demands for more troops to face the non-existent hordes of Confederates reported to him by Allan Pinkerton. Lee won't be depending on Pinkerton for intelligence and won't be making ridiculous demands of Lincoln.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
With regard to the incompetent subordinates, you are probably right. Of course, within a relatively short time Lee might be able to sort out the good wood (Sedgewick, Reynolds, Meade, Hancock, Hooker, etc.) from the dead wood (Burnside, Howard, etc) and solve that issue relatively quickly. He basically did that in the Army of Northern Virginia when he took over.

As for the Lincoln issue, I think Lee would have been much better at dealing with that than most of the OTL Union commanders were. Jefferson Davis liked to micromanage too, and basically Lee handled that by keeping Davis informed of what he was doing and not getting his nose out of joint when Davis asked for information (that was what Davis hated so much about Johnston and Beauregard, BTW...they acted like they were too busy to be bothered by Davis's requests for information). The same approach is likely to work with Lincoln. Also, one reason why Lincoln got in McClellan's hair so much is Little Mac's continuing demands for more troops to face the non-existent hordes of Confederates reported to him by Allan Pinkerton. Lee won't be depending on Pinkerton for intelligence and won't be making ridiculous demands of Lincoln.

Well, Lee's initial reorg was to completely flatten the newly formed ANV (after the 7 days that is), which was also McClellan's favoured organisation for the AoP. No real change.

As to Pinkerton, that is actually myth, not fact.
 
Well, Lee's initial reorg was to completely flatten the newly formed ANV (after the 7 days that is), which was also McClellan's favoured organisation for the AoP. No real change.

Except Lee got rid of most of the really incompetent people when he reorganized the ANV. McClellan kept the incompetents in the AOP.

As to Pinkerton, that is actually myth, not fact.

Well, if its a myth, it's a myth that all mainstream historians subscribe to. What is your source?
 
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burmafrd

Banned
http://www.civilwar.com/content/view/2006/40/

Says its content is from the US Army History site- so one would have to give this one some respect.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/People/Robert_E_Lee/FREREL/1/Appendices/1*.html

Freeman is fairly well respected.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Fs...&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result

anyone read this book? Does support the generally accepted version that Lee was offered the main command.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/334566/Robert-E-Lee/4122/Early-military-career
Encyclopedia Britannica is fairly well respected.

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Robert_E_Lee_Biography.htm

Just could not resist this one.

http://www.stratfordhall.org/rel.html

A little more restrained.

http://www.carpenoctem.tv/military/lee.html

meh.

http://www.rubylane.com/shops/purpleoxen/item/AB-111

Has anyone here actually read his Memoirs?
Granted they were compiled some years after his death but does it have any concrete info. If so one would have to give this source quite a bit of credence.

http://www.wowessays.com/dbase/ad1/keb73.shtml

Does not directly give sources so......

http://books.google.com/books?id=4b...a=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPP1,M1

This one is interesting.

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/1257/leeessay.html

not bad.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Military-History-669/robert-e-lee.htm

Wish they gave sources on this one.

http://www.leearchive.info/rel/index.html

would have to give this one some consideration

http://www.academon.com/lib/essay/robert-e-lee.html

Really have to wade through a lot to find good stuff here but it is there.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011801873_pf.html

For those that have any respect for the Washington Post.

I would now make the point that there is more then enough support for the notion that Lee was indeed offered the primary Command position of the force that became the Army of the Potomac.
 
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