Union victory

Which Civil War battle is likely to produce an early Union victory?

  • Battle of Shiloh

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Peninsular Campaign

    Votes: 24 61.5%
  • First Battle of Chattanooga

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Battle of Antietam

    Votes: 15 38.5%

  • Total voters
    39
  • Poll closed .
Which Civil War battle is likely to produce an early Union victory?

Battle of Shiloh

Peninsular Campaign

First Battle of Chattanooga

Battle of Antietam
 
Antietam. The Penninsula Campaign might make an earlier victory, but it in and of itself won't eliminate the Confederacy.

Similiarly, the western PODs, don't eliminate major Confederate armies.

On the other hand, get rid of the ANV, march on Richmond . . .

The CSA is in a very bad way.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Antietam. The Penninsula Campaign might make an earlier victory, but it in and of itself won't eliminate the Confederacy.

Similiarly, the western PODs, don't eliminate major Confederate armies.

On the other hand, get rid of the ANV, march on Richmond . . .

The CSA is in a very bad way.

Good point. I still voted for Peninsular Campaign, though. Combined with the recent lose of New Orleans, losing Richmond in June of 1862 would likely lead to a political collapse of the Confederacy even if it still had armies in the field.
 
Good point. I still voted for Peninsular Campaign, though. Combined with the recent lose of New Orleans, losing Richmond in June of 1862 would likely lead to a political collapse of the Confederacy even if it still had armies in the field.

It certainly would make it damn hard to keep going.

I don't think it would necessarily be the war is over within months, but it's probably the second best.
 
The problem is, just how plausible is that? By contrast, you can easily see how the Penninsular Campaign might have successfully taken Richmond.

IF we have a general who would actually ever try it, the Maryland Campaign is one of the better might-be-possible opportunities to do it to the ANV - even as late as Antietam (as opposed to before Lee has concentrated most of his army there).

As for the Penninsular campaign, I'm not entirely sure. The Confederate force in the way is a lot stronger than it was in '64.

McClellan's siege guns may or may not make up for that.
 
If Mclellan is willing to act more like Grant, accept Cold Harbour type casualties, and just bludgeon thru and take Richmond, where does the Confederate govt. go? Back to Montgomery? For that matter, what does the ANV [or whatever is left of it] do? Now, I know it may be too much for Mclellan '62 to be anything like Grant '64, given the huge difference of trained men, but a grim, determined Grantlike commander might just go for it, I mean, Mechanicsville is only a rock throw from downtown Richmond. For sure, the Davis govt. will set up shop somewhere, and the deep south will fight on for a bit, but effectively the heart has been torn out of the Confederacy.
 
The advantage of Antietam is that it was the closest that the Union Army in the East ever came, early in the war, to destroying the Confederate Army in Virginia on a single day.* It really was that close. One sustained breakthrough and Lee's army is hurled against the Potomac and destroyed in detail. And once it's gone, it hardly matters that McClellan would take his sweet time advancing down to Richmond, because Davis really didn't have anything to stop him except, mostly, raw militia and stragglers from Lee's army. It would take several weeks to redeploy forces from Pemberton or (especially) Bragg, Kirby Smith, armies already outnumbered by their opposite numbers in the West, and whatever Davis might cobble together by the end of October would be a small, motley, poorly led substitute for Lee's proud legions, which had the lion's share of the CSA's best commanders.

I'm trying to imagine what a successful Peninsular Campaign looks like. If we take Johnston's wounding as the easiest, cleanest POD, and keep him healthy, the result is a likely a lengthy siege, which is dictated by the strategies of both McClellan and Johnston. The Union would almost certainly win such a siege, but it might take months. Whatever else he was, Joe Johnston was tenacious in defense, and the swampy terrain worked to his advantage through the spring. It creates more uncertainty about the final result and its timing. But either way, McClellan never had the clear shot at decisive victory on the Peninsula that he did at Antietam.

_____

* You could make a very good argument for First Manassas, but that wasn't given as an option.
 
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Which Civil War battle is likely to produce an early Union victory?

Which battle, by greater success for the Union forces, is likely to lead to a Union victory in the war sooner than OTL?

All of them.

Which is most likely to lead to a substantially earlier Union victory?

Battle of Shiloh

Probably not.

Peninsular Campaign

The fall of Richmond would shorten the war substantially; it would damage Confederate prestige a lot, and would also be a major material blow. (The Tredegar Ironworks; also the effective loss of nearly all Virginia.)

First Battle of Chattanooga

Which is this? Chickamauga? The 1862 campaign to Chattanooga?

Battle of Antietam

If the ANV was truly smashed, with Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet all killed or captured... It would be both a physical and moral blow to the CSA. OTOH, it would cement McClellan in command of the AotP for at least a year (unless he could be kicked upstairs), and no one was better than McClellan at squandering opportunities and wasting time.

Other battles that could have shortened the war a lot:

1st Manassas: was a coin flip. The Confederates came close to breaking and running. If they do, the CSA may unravel at once.

The Crater: If Burnside's original plan was followed, the ANV is destroyed and Richmond falls in summer 1864. The war is over in 3 months after that.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The fall of Richmond would shorten the war substantially; it would damage Confederate prestige a lot, and would also be a major material blow. (The Tredegar Ironworks; also the effective loss of nearly all Virginia.)

It would also lead to a virtual collapse in the value of Confederate war bonds, thereby shattering the Southern economy more quickly than was the case IOTL.
 
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