WI Joseph Johnston Had Remained Loyal to the Union?

I'm not sure. IIRC, when they got rid of Buell, they offered Thomas command instead of Rosecrans and he refused. I'd have to double check.

I'm not questioning your word or knowledge, its just hard for me to believe that Thomas would ever say no. Especially if it meant becoming Rosecrans' superior.
 
Also, to his misfortune he generally went up against the best generals the Union had being Grant and Sherman while Lee went up against mainly 3rd string losers like Burnside and Little Mac. Once Lee went up against a second stringer who wouldn't panic, like Meade, he no longer enjoyed big victories.


I hate when people think Meade was a second rate commander. sure he wasn't as flamboyant as Little Mac, or as boisterous as Hooker, but he made some pretty solid decisions during the war. as I believe his was the only corps at Fredericksburg that made any sort of progress.

also, I think Johnston like a lot of southerner U.S. prewar officers would go south regardless. I believe that he and Lee were close in Mexico and even in the years leading up to the war.
 
Why not in TTL have Johnston go west?

Because I thought it was more realistic for him to be in the East. He had seniority over pretty much every field commander in the Federal forces and was highly rated by Scott - almost to the same extent as Lee - so it would only be expected that he would gain command of the most important Federal field army should he have moved to a line rank. The only way to prevent that is to remove him from the picture for a while - hence, why I had him going into self-enforced retirement and sit out the first year only to be tempted out by McClellan.
 
I'm not questioning your word or knowledge, its just hard for me to believe that Thomas would ever say no. Especially if it meant becoming Rosecrans' superior.

Thomas was offered command while the Army of the Ohio was in the middle of a campaign and he did not think it wise to change commanders at that time. Lincoln and Washington had nothing against giving him command, and he had nothing against taking command himself, but he didn't think the timing right when they offered it to him. If offered the job after Perryville and Buell's removal Thomas would have accepted command because the Confederates were no longer threatening the AotO or Kentucky and the States above it but not before the campaign had reached its conclusion. It was a case of the offer coming to the right man at the wrong time.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
also, I think Johnston like a lot of southerner U.S. prewar officers would go south regardless. I believe that he and Lee were close in Mexico and even in the years leading up to the war.

George Thomas was also a Virginian and also very close to Lee, looking up to him as a father figure and serving under him in Texas. Every Southern officer had a choice to make and any one of them could have chosen differently than they did IOTL.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Except his seniority was in the staff (QMG), not the line;

Because I thought it was more realistic for him to be in the East. He had seniority over pretty much every field commander in the Federal forces and was highly rated by Scott - almost to the same extent as Lee - so it would only be expected that he would gain command of the most important Federal field army should he have moved to a line rank. The only way to prevent that is to remove him from the picture for a while - hence, why I had him going into self-enforced retirement and sit out the first year only to be tempted out by McClellan.

Except his seniority was in the staff (QMG), not the line; realistically, odds are he probably would have spent the war as QM, and would be about as well known as Montgomery Meigs is...as a loyalist Virginian, he would have had some notice, but that's about it.

Best,
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Except his seniority was in the staff (QMG), not the line; realistically, odds are he probably would have spent the war as QM, and would be about as well known as Montgomery Meigs is...as a loyalist Virginian, he would have had some notice, but that's about it.

The difference between Meigs and Johnston is that Meigs had only ever done engineering work; he had never seen action or led troops in combat. Johnston, by contrast, had a reputation as a brave and effective combat soldier in both the Seminole and Mexican Wars. And Johnston's line rank of lieutenant colonel was pretty high up the totem pole of the Regular Army.
 
Except his seniority was in the staff (QMG), not the line; realistically, odds are he probably would have spent the war as QM, and would be about as well known as Montgomery Meigs is...as a loyalist Virginian, he would have had some notice, but that's about it.

Best,

Didn't matter in the Union. There was nothing in the US army regulations that prevented a staff officer from asserting his seniority to take control of a force in the field.

Regardless, all Johnston would have to do is request to be transfered to the line and he'd get an army command and likely the premier eastern Federal Army having recieve patronage from Scott.

And there is no way Johnston would sit the war out in an office. He didn't like office jobs - he tolerated them in peace time - and would be compelled by his own sense of adventure, if nothing else, to take a field command.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Well, this alternate Johnston's motivations remain unexplored;

Well, this alternate Johnston's motivations remain unexplored; so again, why?

It's worth remembering there was a spectrum among the southern-born prewar regulars who remained loyal, ranging from Alfred Mordechai, who resigned but managed the West Point foundry; to Terrill, who remained loyal but asked not to serve in Virginia; to (presumably) someone like Grimes Davis, who was more along the lines of "I go where I'm sent."

Volunteers and militia officers had their own spectrum, as witness Alexander Doniphan, Joseph Lane, and umpteen others.

I don't know if Thomas ever made a request like Terrill's, but given where he ended up serving, it is suggestive...

Is there any evidence JE Johnston ever expressed misgivings prior to resigning?

If not, and this is entirely speculative, it is probably worth considering that he might be closer to Mordechai than Davis, in terms of his willingness to serve anywhere.

And, although the offer was made to Lee, I wonder if Johnston would have gotten the same offer - having him serve quietly but efficiently at the QM Department might have been seen as a more appropriate path.

And as far as staff officers serving in line positions, such appointments (depending on their place in the hierarchy) were at the disrcretion of the president, secretary of war, and/or general-in-chief or department commander, not the individual staff officer. Essentially, they had to "offer their services" and it woud be considered; no staff officer simply asserted rank over line, any more than a volunteer or militia officer did over a regular, absent duly constituted authority issuing orders for such.

Best,
 
Well, this alternate Johnston's motivations remain unexplored; so again, why?

Except for my vague statement earlier about a timeline I considered ages ago where something happened to one of Johnston's brothers which so offended him that he would not fight for Virginia and retired instead was coaxed out of retirement later.

Is there any evidence JE Johnston ever expressed misgivings prior to resigning?
Johnston spent weeks on end prior to Virginia's secession debating the matter of his own loyalties to himself. People would come to see him at the Quartermaster General's office and find him pacing the room restlessly and so pre-occupied that they chose not to disturb him, others had to repeat themselves several times to get him to answer because he was so lost in his own thoughts.

He was clearly tortured over the matter regardless of the fact that in OTL he decided his loyalty to Viriginia came before anything else.

And, although the offer was made to Lee, I wonder if Johnston would have gotten the same offer - having him serve quietly but efficiently at the QM Department might have been seen as a more appropriate path.
Winfield Scott tried to ensure Johnston's loyalty just as he did Lee's. In particular he attempted to convince Lydia - Joe wife - to join him in efforts, only to be shot down when Lydia told him she could not imagine her husband staying with the Army that would invade his native state and that he had no other means to support himself and his family except through the military.

It's not a large stretch of the imagination to assume that Scott would support Johnston taking a significant field command should Johnston remain in the Union.

And as far as staff officers serving in line positions, such appointments (depending on their place in the hierarchy) were at the disrcretion of the president, secretary of war, and/or general-in-chief or department commander, not the individual staff officer. Essentially, they had to "offer their services" and it woud be considered; no staff officer simply asserted rank over line, any more than a volunteer or militia officer did over a regular, absent duly constituted authority issuing orders for such.
Which, in the particular case of Johnston, still supports me when I say he would have taken a significant field command, because it was not in Johnston to sit idle in an office when there was a major war and Johnston was one of the most famous and highly regarded soldiers in the pre-War US Army. If Quartermaster General Johnston requested to be transfered to a line command - and he would have, there is no doubt about that whatsoever - his pre-War reputation would ensure that he would command a major army.

Regardless, Johnston had seniority over McClellan, Halleck, McDowell, Buell, Lyon, Grant, Pope and Rosencrans even if we dont count his Quartermaster General's rank.
 
If he remains loyal, does he make a Terrill-like request and get sent west...

JE vs AS in the Western theater, or (perhaps) JE vs Price et al in the Transmississippi...

Best,

He'd probably prefer not to fight against Virginia directly but if that was what his fate led him to do he'd do it.
 
I'm not questioning your word or knowledge, its just hard for me to believe that Thomas would ever say no. Especially if it meant becoming Rosecrans' superior.

Just after Perryville, Lincoln and Halleck moved to replace Buell with Thomas. Thomas declined on the grounds that it would be bad to replace an army commander in the middle of a campaign.

When they dumped Buell for good a few weeks later, they brought in Rosecrans; apparently they missed the point that Thomas' refusal was for the moment, or felt that if he wouldn't step up in the crisis, he wasn't right for the job.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Well, the next question is that if he stays loyal, goes west,

He'd probably prefer not to fight against Virginia directly but if that was what his fate led him to do he'd do it.

Well, the next question is that if he stays loyal and goes west, does he get Buell's command of the Army of the Ohio - akin to Thomas?

Or way out west, and gets what amounts to Halleck's "theater" command in 1862 - given his staff background, and the size of the Mississippi theater, I actually see that as being more likely than having him remain in Virginia.

Avoids the "fighting against kin" issue, as well.

Best,
 
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