WI Jefferson Davis and Joseph Johnston Had Gotten Along?

Anaxagoras

Banned
Jefferson Davis and Joseph Johnston had known one another for decades before the Civil War, though stories that their personal rivalry went back to their West Point days seem likely to be retrospective additions. The real source of their wartime feud lay in the passage of a law by the Confederate Congress, stating that the seniority of full generals in the Confederate Army would depend on what rank they had held in the prewar United States Army.

The law made no distinction between staff rank and line rank, but Davis choose to interpret it as specifying line rank. This meant that Joseph Johnston was ranked fourth behind three officers who had held line rank as full colonels (Johnston had held the line rank of a lieutenant colonel). As he had been Quartermaster General and had held the staff rank of a brigadier general in the U.S. Army, Joe Johnston felt that he should have been ranked first.

Johnston was furious at Davis for the perceived slight and wrote him a strongly worded letter of protest. Davis, being Davis, refused to consider the matter from Johnston's perspective and the two prideful men began a feud that greatly hampered the Confederate war effort and played a not insignificant role in the eventual Confederate defeat.

Suppose that the law specifically stating that seniority would depend on line rank, rather than simply "rank". Johnston might have been irritated with Congress, but would have had no real beef with Davis in such a situation. Conceivably, their feud would have been greatly diminished, if not eliminated altogether. Let's assume for the sake of argument that it does.

How does the lack of a strong Davis-Johnston feud impact the course of the Civil War?
 
Even with the start of the supposed feud in August 61, Johnston is already in command of the Confederate Army of the Potomac. And then becomes head of the Department of Northern Virginia later that year. He's in place for the Peninsula Campaign against McClellan in the Spring of 62. So there doesn't appear to be much extra benefit here so far to Johnston for NOT having a feud at this point.

With better Davis-Johnston relations, is Lee near Richmond as an adviser to Davis when Johnston gets wounded at Seven Pines?

Though I suppose Lee'd get the call to take over anyway, what with Albert Sydney and Beauregard out in Tennessee, and the other full general, Sam Cooper, pretty much a non-entity.

If Lee pulls off OTL beat off of McClellan, Davis would still most likely ride with the hot horse, Lee's; so I don't see Johnston being put back in charge once he recovers from his wounds.

Does Johnston's health/recovery allow Davis to put him in overall charge of the West any sooner than the Fall of 62?

Did any of Johnston's decision/recommendation NOT to replace Bragg as commander of the Army of the Tennessee have anything to do with the state of his own and Bragg's personal relationship with Davis? If so, perhaps this might be the first big POD, getting Bragg out before the campaign season of 63 and putting himself in charge.
 
This is one of those ACW personality things that keep getting greatly exaggerated.

This is really the Army of Tennessee problem. The issue is that judging from their tenures in command of that army, it would have worked better for the CSA to just have Joe Johnston in command all along, and not deal with the Bragg and Hood tenures. Then the personality thing is blamed for this not happening. Everyone seems to think that Lee was a better commander of the eastern army than Johnston.

My view is that the health/ physical fitness of Bragg and Hood at the time they were in command of the Army of Tennessee made them unfit for command, PTSD or something similar in the case of Bragg, and Hood's physical injuries in the case of Hood. But I'm not sure how people in the nineteenth century, given the state of medicine at the time, could have understood this. On paper, Bragg should have been excellent, and his activities were defensible, just the whole tone was wrong, so it would take awhile for people to grasp that he had to go. With Hood there were better options on paper, either keeping Joe Johnston or picking another corps commander, but really by that time it was too late for the CSA.

Davis' concern that Johnston didnt realize that he needed to stand and fight sometime was unfair but not unreasonable, and a pretty normal dynamic between generals and political leaders. Lee was unusual in being aggressive and being able to get away with it.
 
I like what the Drifter suggested re: a better relationship between Johnston and Davis being a way to stop Bragg from getting named commander. Also, a better relationship between Johnston and Davis would have prevented Johnston from being removed during the Atlanta Campaign in favor of Hood. Johnston maintained that he had Sherman right where he wanted him when he was recalled. Now, that's not true, but given the apocalyptic Confederate army-wrecking disaster that was Hood, Johnston would not have done worse than Hood, because Luigi Cadorna could not have done worse than Hood at Atlanta (despite what the plaques outside the Georgia State capitol building read).

A less successful Sherman campaign, on conjunction with the war fatigue over the casualties in the East could have led to a very different election in November of 1864 in my view.
 
Problem is Johnston is due to get injured in the Peninsular Campaign. This might butterfly it away, or it might butterfly into a worse CSA defeat that leaves nothing to salvage. Since the POD doesn't give an obvious hint which way it happens, I'm going to speculating this doesn't change much and he still gets hurt (hey... assume similar things happen unless prompted to change by the original POD or a butterfly can't be that likely to go wrong)
 
During his time in charge of the Army of the Potomac(CS)/Army of Northern Virginia, Joe Johnston had to deal with a lot of interferance into his command from the Richmond Authorities coming to terms with their new role and trying to establish the limit of their powers.

As such the Adjutant, Quartermaster and Commissary Generals were conducting petty showings of power just to establish the authority of their offices to do so - for instance, refusing to allow Johnston or any of his subordinate to enlarge their staff without permission from the War Office, or demanding supplies raised in Northern Virginia be sent to Richmond for redistribution back to Northern Virginia, or requiring weapons of ill or wounded soldiers be returned to Richmond instead of staying with the army - and not to forget the efforts of the Secretary of War to send his agents into the Army trying to coerce infantrymen to sign up for transfers to Cavalry or Artilley by issuing furlough without even consulting Johnston or his senior commanders.

If Johnston relationship with Davis had not been soured by the issue of the Five Full Generals then he may have been able to convince Davis to get the Secretary of War and Adjutant, Quartermaster and Commissary Generals to back off which would have made it easier for him to organize and administrate his army in 1861.

A better working relationship with Davis might also have allowed him to avoid having to undertake regimental election during the Peninsular Campaign, and might have given him more sway in convincing Davis in deciding what strategy to employ in that campaign overall.

But, largely, beyond this I dont see how it would have had much of an impact on the early part of the war.
 
Last edited:
I see I already commented on this one, but to summarize and to add something new:

1. A good part of the differences was Davis wanting to take a more aggressive approach than Johnston, which is the sort of fundamental command difference you can't get rid of that easily. It wasn't (just) a personality conflict.

2. JE Johnston was used in important command positions as much as any other CSA general except for Lee -and Johnston and Lee got along well- and he did get wounded in 1862. So him not being employed enough is something of an exaggerated problem. The best outcome is basically that JE Johnston is sent to command the Army of Tennessee once he is sufficiently recovers, and is kept there, avoiding the Bragg and Hood experiments.

3. This one hasn't been brought up, but the logical way to employ JEJ is not just at his pre-war rank, but in his pre-war job as Quartermaster General. If he had just been made Quartermaster General of the Confederacy, then likely no field command at all. Though if this had come with real authority over supply as well as ordnance there would be a net benefit to the CSA, because though they did ordnance really well their supply situation was a mess and something JEJ would have been good at straightening out. They definitely come out ahead in this situation if it means the Lee is put in field command in Virginia right from the start and kept there, though who to replace Bragg with later on becomes a problem and they could really screw that one up, though its probably too late by that point anyway.
 
If Johnston relationship with Davis had not been soured by the issue of the Five Full Generals then he may have been able to convince Davis to get the Secretary of War and Adjutant, Quartermaster and Commissary General to back off which would have made it easier for him to organize and administrate his army in 1861.

Considering that Lee was already an advisor to Davis, and good friends with Johnston, could Lee as Secretary of War work?
 
The Confederacy would’ve have a better chance if Lee was made Commanding General of the Army much earlier than OTL (say in 1863 before the fall of Vicksburg). Lee would’ve given Joe Johnston real authority as the Commander of the Western Theater which means Bragg gets shuffled out of field command and becomes Lee’s chief of staff (Bragg is a much better paper pusher than a field commander). Hardee would’ve been willing to permanently take command of the Army of Tennessee knowing that Johnston has his back. Even if Johnston and Davis continue their beef as OTL the effect isn’t as damaging with Lee serving as a buffer between the two.
 
Top