St. Louis-- how the South could have won the Civil War

Graehame

Banned
In 1861 the Confederates won the Battle of Wilson's Creek SW of Springfield, Mo., in the process killing Gen. Lyon, the Union commander. Union forces withdrew in disarray to Rolla, Missouri.
The smart move at this point would have been for the Confeds to pursue all the way to St. Louis, to assault the city, take it, & to heavily fortify it. There are several reasons why this didn't happen.
1. During his march pursuing the Confeds to Springfield, Gen. Lyon seized the capital at Jeff City, drove out the Confed sympathizers, & installed a Union gov't by force. This prevented Gov. Jackson from getting a secession resolution passed, & Gen. McCullough-- commanding Confed forces from Arkansas & Texas making up half of the Confed force at Wilson's Creek-- didn't want to risk his forces on behalf of a state that hadn't even joined the Confederacy.
2. Gen. Lyon had also seized most of the firearms & other supplies that had been intended to equip the Confed Missouri State Guard. Consequently the State Guard, under command of Gen. Price, wore ragged civilian clothing & were armed with whatever hunting rifles & shotguns they'd brought with them from home-- about half of them being unarmed. McCullough was very unimpressed with their appearance, their discipline, & their performance, & he didn't want to have to rely on them so far from his base in NW Arkansas.
3. In McCullough's mind, the deeper he penetrated into Missouri the more he created a salient, with Union Illinois & Indiana to the E, Union Iowa & Wisconsin to the N, & Union Kansas & Nebraska to the W. St. Louis, to him, looked untenable. (Although, in point of fact, even half of the 140 guns that were used to fortify Columbus, Ky. at this stage of the war would have served nicely to strengthen St. Louis without appreciably weakening Columbus.)
Had McCullough marched on St. Louis, then the Union forces retreating from Wilson's Creek would probably have been reinforced from the St. Louis garrison, & possibly by Iowa & Illinois militia rushed into the breech. It is likely that the battle-proven Confeds would have defeated such a hastily scratched-together force & continued on to St. Louis, which would have fallen. This would have rung loud alarm bells from Springfield, Il. all the way to Washington DC, & orders would have been issued to recapture St. Louis at all costs. Nevertheless, it would have taken time for the Union to assemble a suitable force-- say a month or two-- during which period volunteers could have been armed from the St. Louis arsenal, cannon & Confed regulars could have been brought up from Columbus, & the city-- at least the portions lying W of the Mississippi R, S of the Missouri, & N of the Meramec, which is almost all of it-- made virtually impregnable. To this extent St. Louis is a natural fortress.
St. Louis would be supplied, not from NW Arkansas, but from NE Arkansas, on roads that ran up the W bank of the Mississippi R. It would therefore be necessary to establish heavily defended garrisons at or near Labadie, Ste. Genevieve, Cape Girardeau, & Columbus-Belmont Landing. Confed control of the Mississippi R between Columbus & St. Louis would probably rule out Union offensives vs Belmont Landing, Fts. Henry & Donelson, & possibly even Paducah, Ky unless & until St. Louis was recaptured. (Wilson's Creek was fought on 10 Aug, Paducah on 3 Sep, & Belmont on 7 Nov. By 3 Sep it would have been obvious that St. Louis was seriously threatened, even if it hadn't yet fallen. By 7 Nov St. Louis is firmly in Confed hands & fortified.) The task of recapturing St. Louis would probably involve the services of Gen. U.S. Grant, although this early in the war he'd almost certainly be working for either Halleck or his replacement.
Confed control of St. Louis secures Missouri for the Confederacy, threatens Illinois, & anchors the Confed defensive line of the Mississippi R. This is not to say that the Union can't take it-- they probably will, but doing so against an adequate Confed defense will take 6 to 12 months, prolonging the war by at least that period of time. In particular, Confed control of St. Louis gives the Missouri State Guard increased legitimacy & allows them to arm & train, releasing the Artkansas-Texas troops for other duties.
In light of the historical dissatisfaction in Northern states over the course of the war 1861-64, a Confed capture of St. Louis in Sep-Oct '61 could have been decisive.
 
The Confederates lost the battle, retreating after three attacks on the main Union body under Lyons failed, due to the exhaustion of the men and, far more significant, the near exhaustion of the gunpowder.

The fact that the CSA didn't even try to hold Columbus following defeats elsewhere hardly suggests that half that artillery will be decisive in holding St Louis but certainly leaves the Confederate position in Kentucky and Tennessee weaker.

The road network on the west bank of the Mississippi was not remotely as capable as you imagine it to be, even discounting Union gunboats.

A total of 12,000 before the battle is to take and hold the entire state, storm and then fortify St Louis which had forces of its own and was strongly pro-Union, defeat other Union forces remaining in the state along with those from Iowa, Illinois and elsewhere and establish an entire series of posts on the Mississippi that can block Union shipping.:rolleyes:

Lyons had already shipped most of the arms out of the state, much to the delight of Illinois including one Colonel Ulysses S Grant and his new regiment.

Whether this would prevent/delay the entire series of Union actions against Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, etc. is not established.




And since it's been asked before do you plan to stop using difficult to read fonts and colors and crushing your entire post into a single block soon?
 

Graehame

Banned
GRIMM REAPER
Man, I guess this is REALLY an alt-history site.

You claim that the Confederates lost the battle, yet the National Park Service site on Wilson's Creek says, "Although a Southern victory, the Southerners failed to capitalize on their success."

From wikipedia : "When General Lyon was killed...and General Sweeny wounded, Major Samuel D. Sturgis assumed command. Meanwhile, the Confederates had routed Sigel's column... Sturgis realized...that his men were exhausted and his ammunition was low, so he ordered a retreat... This Confederate victory buoyed southern sympathizers in Missouri and served as a springboard for a bold thrust north that carried Price and his Missouri State Guard as far as Lexington."

The fact that the Confederates withdrew a short distance after their 3d attack doesn't change the fact that they remained in possession of the battlefield after Sturgis & his men retreated to Rolla. At that point Sturgis had roughly 4100 men, while the Confederates had nearly 10,000. That number would have been doubled by Missouri volunteers during a march to St. Louis, & they could have drawn additional reinforcements from Polk's garrison at Columbus.
 
I see you continue to make declarations without evidence, starting with the Confederate force from Missouri being able to arm 10,000 more men when by your own admission 'the State Guard, under command of Gen. Price, wore ragged civilian clothing & were armed with whatever hunting rifles & shotguns they'd brought with them from home-- about half of them being unarmed', a Confederate force low on gunpowder being able to march the length of Missouri and storm St Louis or the Confederate garrison in Columbus, which abandoned the town without a fight, being able to float over the Mississippi and into the heart of Missouri without being noticed or stopped, when that force made no effort to support Forts Henry and Donelson.
 
The Confederates held the field at the end of Wilson's Creek, but that's about the best they could've done. They were more poorly-equipped than the Union soldiers, tired as hell, and their supply lines were terrible. A mad dash to St. Louis would have outpaced what Confederate logistics could offer, forcing them to live off the land and essentially loot St. Louis if or when they got there.

Furthermore, St. Louis would itself be a tough nut to crack. The city was fairly pro-Union after Lyon cracked down on the militia there, and housed a significant German population which never much cared for the CSA (Sigel himself being a German veteran of the '48 revolutions). It also enjoyed several rail links to other Northern towns, and was more easily accessable from Illinois or Iowa than Arkansas or Mississippi.
 
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