So both Lee and Stuart must share some of the blame for Stuarts absence. Lee for not being clear enough in what he wanted and Stuart for running off and leaving the ANV blind.
I'll agree here, although Lee should have made it clear, considering the vital importance of Stuart's mission in this campaign, what he wanted from Stuart in his orders.
And yet Lincoln was the commander in chief of the Union forces, as Lee eventually became for the CSA, and a lot of the responsibility of the eastern theatre ((as the West is often overlooked in referance to Lincoln except for a few moments)) falls on his shoulders.
Nevertheless Lincoln isn't a professional soldier. He doesn't directly control an army in a battle or even during a campaign. That's Lee's job. Thus they have different roles to play & thus different duties to attend.
As for McClellan, well Lincoln could not have been expected to know that the general who much of the north called the Young Napoleon early in the war would prove to be as bad a general as he was. I wouldn't blame Lincoln for McClellan as Little Mac deserves all the blame to fall on his own shoulders.
Yet it soon became obvious that McCellan was no Napoleon. He ignored requests, even orders, from the President to get into action. He basically sat on hs butt & moaned & moaned he didn't have enough this, that, or something else. Grant, at the same time, got on with his job & was thankful for whatever he got, then made the most out of his opportunities & troops. It was only when Lincoln was getting ready to sack him, that McCellan finally did something. So the warning signs were appearing long before Fair Oaks. But more importantly, in the end, Lincoln sacked him & moved onto another general. And kept on moving on until he got to competent ones.
Nope, no Grant. I judge my list on whether or not the generals in question would have done as well had the roles been reversed. Sort of if Lee, Jackson and Longstreet had the Union advantages and Thomas, Sherman or Grant were in the Confederate position.
I'm sure you're just winding me up about Grant...
Lee and Jackson without a doubt would have done much better than the Union generals had they had the Union advantages. With the men and supplies they would have had they could have ended the war quite quickly.
Longstreet similarly would have been able to showcase his genius properly had he had the numbers and supplies that the Union force did.
Yet they would have been hamstrung by all the incompetent underlings in the AOP in the first years of the war. So they may not have gained the same high regard as you may think.
Sherman had good grasp of tactics and strategy and was fully prepared to take the war to any of the people opposing him, no matter what he had to do or the concequences that came from his actions. While I dont personnaly like Sherman there is no denying his ability.
Actually Sherman had a mixed war in regards to true success. Yes he was competent at First Manassas, then they locked him up because he went nuts, & the debacle of the Union's first day at Shiloh rests solely with Sherman. He, though, learnt from his mistakes & Grant was prepared to give him a second chance. Still, Sherman's attack at Kennesaw Mountain (1864) was a blunder.
Thomas I concider to be the best Union general. He was excedingly good at man-management, very good at organising his supplies and had an very good grasp of strategy and tactics. What is more Thomas not only stemmed the tide of the Union rout at Chickamauga he destroyed a Confederate army completely Nashville, which regardless of whether or not he face Hood is impressive. I think had Thomas ever faced Grant or Sherman in battle he would have won.
Thomas was good, but he wasn't the Union's best. Yes he was the Rock of Chickamauga, but he was able to do so thanks to the prepositioning of Granger's Union Reserve Corps & then Granger using his own initiative in supporting Thomas' position on the second day. In doing so he ensured that Thomas had enough to conduct his famous rearguard stand. But it wasn't necessarily all thanks to Thomas. More to the point, Thomas forgot to order his US Regulars Brigade (King's 3rd Brigade/1st Div) to withdraw. In doing so Thomas ensured their annihilation. The next thing is, Thomas' famous victory at Nashville was all thanks to the Union victory at Franklin - a battle which Thomas had no influence over whatsoever.
Grant however relied heavily on his superior numbers to gain victory. You could point to the Vicksburg campaign as the one that showed Grants genius however I would lay his victory more on the fact that Pendleton and Joe Johnston were not up to facing him. He may have been one of the better generals of the Civil War but he wasn't really one of the best, he just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I believe that had Grant been moved east instead of Pope then Grant would have been defeated like Pope and buried in the history books just like Pope is.
Every Union general relied on superior numbers for victory. Yet no other union general has such a long list of victories as Grant. Vicksburg is merely one of them. There's also Fort McHenry & Fort Donaldson - both won whilst no other Union general was winning such important battles. Then he snatched victory from defeat at Shiloh, again whilst the more fancy Union generals were lossing. And again there's Chattanooga in 1863, which was the battle that more or less ended hopes for a CSA victory in the western theatre. And all this before he ventured east to defeat Lee in the only way Lee could have been defeated. But the fundamental strength of Grant was he didn't scare. And he was also prepared to slug it out for weeks on end, as he did in the OTL, although he'd rather have a battle of manoeuvre anyday I'm sure. He is by far the best Union general.
Actually his army only got close to Harrisburg. Ewell, who was closest to Harrisburg, was ordered to move to Gettysburg when the initial clashes began.
It got close enough to Harrisburg to identify that location. Otherwise I don't see the point of pedantically saying it got some 2 miles or so to the south of Harrisburg before turning towards the south-west...
As I said after the initial conflict Lee may have believed that he had no choice but to fight there. As we know now he could have left Gettysburg without many problems and remained a treat in Pennsylvania for a bit longer but Lee didn't know that at the time. He didn't know where all the Union forces were or how many men they had and that was something Lee normally worried about.
I can't see how he had no choice when an entire corps wasn't even at the battlefield on the day in question & he had little knowledge as to where the rest of the AOP was either. Plus, as I've said before, his orders to the army were to avoid any major engagement until the ANV had concentrated together. Now on 1 July that certainly wasn't the case. Ewell's corps was heading south from Carlisle, where it had stayed on the 29 June, although Early's Div was coming back from a raid in York, which spread Ewell's corps out even more; Hill's corps was just to the north-west of Gettysburg; whilst Longstreet's corps was back past Cashtown. That is far from great deployments of major units, if one is considering fighting a major action against an army which is even larger than yours.
Perhaps it was a bit of arrogence from Lee however with the intelligence he recieved throughout the battle he would have believed that victory was posible. It just didn't help that the intelligence was wrong.
Actually he didn't receive much intelligence at all, but that which he did, as you point out, wasn't too good.
You may be familiar with the Lost Cause movement. In this movement Longstreet bore the brunt of the attack from former Confederate generals, mostly Early, and Longstreet reputation was dragged through the mud repeatedly for a long time after that.
That is why Longstreet got the blame leveled on his shoulders.
Oh I don't take any notice of that bunch of morons for an accurate historical analysis of Longstreet's behaviour at Gettysburg. More to the point, the real reason why they attacked Longstreet was for political recriminations after the ACW, where Pete had joined the Republican Party in 1868, then supported Grant's Presidential campaign, not to mention his Administration. Then Longstreet went on to work for Grant as a general of the Union militia in Louisiana. In truth Gettysburg had nothing to do with it - it was just the excuse they used in order to attack Longstreet.
I do indeed know of Lee's reaction and his reaction to the Gettysburg loss is no doubt the reason his reputation survived the battle. If he had gone blaming Longstreet or Stuart or anyone else his reputation would have been destroyed but Lee accepted full responsibility for the Gettysburg loss and did try to resign but Davis did not accept his resignation, as you said.
Which indicates Lee knew what really happened, regardless what Ewell, Early, & company argued otherwise after the war which, as I've just said above, had nothing to do with Gettysburg.
Yet Lee's forces were facing an army of almost double their numbers. An army that was far better supplied than his own and didn't face the ANV's problem of desertion.
Which again wasn't overly new in the experience of the ANV.
I will admit that had Jackson been alive at that time then Grant would have suffered more defeats than he did in the east however it would only be a minor set back for the superior Union forces.
Depends how bad the defeat is. Afterall if another Chancellorsville takes place, even Grant maybe forced to withdraw & think again. And in 1864, time does start to become even a factor for Lincoln if there aren't any battlefield successes.
Your right that the west would still be the key to Union Victory.
Especially if Grant is making no headway in the east. Whether it's enough to save Lincoln's Presaidency is, though, an interesting issue. So what if Lincoln loses the election, Grant is in stalemate, yet Sherman is burning the CSA to the ground, has reached Savannah & has begun his march into South Carolina - does President elect McClellan continue or send out peace initiatives regardless that the USA may win the war in mid to late 1865?
Though actually, having thought it through, if the CSA had Wellington and Napoleon they would have been employed in the west in place of Hood and Johnston and Thomas wouldn't have been able to gain victory and Shermans march to the sea would have been halted.
Wellington is too slow. Sherman will outflank him easily. And it depends which part of Napoleon's career we're talking. Afterall his latter years weren't all that flash...
