Robert E. Lee remains loyal to Union during the civil war

67th Tigers

Banned
To see what Lee was capable of in 1861, look to the West Virginia campaign: incoherent orders poorly carried out with no overall plan, to the point that Old Rosey started his reputation with a decisive curbstomp that George McClellan stole the credit for. McDowell at least clearly communicated his plan, in a battle where the actual troops committed were even on both side. Lee might well blunder through it far worse than McDowell did. Now, if we factor in that he's doing this with inexperienced troops....but he's a Southerner commanding an army mostly made of Northerners........

Dolchstosslegende, anyone?

Well, not disputing Lee's order, but I will dispute Rosecrans "cumbstomp", because it wasn't - he screwed his attack up and got a whole brigade hung up on a single company outpost, and decided to bivi for the night rather than advancing on the main body.

As dusk approached, McClellan realised Rosecrans had failed (his artillery position could see everything that was happening) and had his men Bivi and prepare for a dawn assault up a steep wooded hillside. "Hey diddle, diddle - straight up the middle", now he had a battery in place for fire support.

The Confederate quit their position because McClellan had sent an aide to find out what Rosecrans was upto, as he'd stopped bothering to communication with McClellan. The aide was captured and told them McClellan would assault in the morning. They withdrew rather than face the assault. He later caught them manoeuvring in the open and took them.
 
Well, not disputing Lee's order, but I will dispute Rosecrans "cumbstomp", because it wasn't - he screwed his attack up and got a whole brigade hung up on a single company outpost, and decided to bivi for the night rather than advancing on the main body.

As dusk approached, McClellan realised Rosecrans had failed (his artillery position could see everything that was happening) and had his men Bivi and prepare for a dawn assault up a steep wooded hillside. "Hey diddle, diddle - straight up the middle", now he had a battery in place for fire support.

The Confederate quit their position because McClellan had sent an aide to find out what Rosecrans was upto, as he'd stopped bothering to communication with McClellan. The aide was captured and told them McClellan would assault in the morning. They withdrew rather than face the assault. He later caught them manoeuvring in the open and took them.

That clashes with almost every account of the campaign I've ever read. Almost all other accounts have McClellan advance in P.G.T. Beauregard fashion of Brobdingnagian pronouncements and Lilliputian execution, and as far behind the line as Grant at Corinth, minus the acoustic shadow factor as an excuse. In this regard just as Lee in West Virginia shows precisely why he went on to surrender to Grant, so did McClellan show precisely the same failures on a small scale as on a big one.

Lee was frankly-put addicted to unclear orders placing too much reliance on his subordinates to carry them out, while Old Rosey did all the actual fighting in this particular campaign and won the victory. McClellan, however, did accomplish a victory in *his* own right earlier, the one that led Davis to send Lee to repair the damage in the first place. And in that case there's a fair argument here that when Little Mac put his mind to actually fighting instead of inventing 10,000 and 1 excuses not to, he could actually do a decent job of it.
 
I seem to remember a timeline called "Lee of the Union" in which...well, you can guess by the title. Putting it bluntly, it was somewhere between ASB and dire, Lee's Army of the Potomac routs Beauregard at Manassas, takes Richmond, and ends the Civil War early. He then becomes president, and gets assassinated on Good Friday 1865. Oh, and I think it had Abraham Lincoln being a Democrat.

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: I read that timeline in its entirety on another site (I think it was Other Timelines). It gave new meaning to the term "liberal Democrat wank" and was so blithely contemptuous of technological reality and the butterfly effect as to be fascinating in a horrifying kind of way. The author tried to post it here too but I think he gave up when he found it being chopped to pieces criticism-wise (he was NOT good at taking criticism, his favorite response to critics was "write your own damn TL").
 
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