Re: Was Maclellan a southern sympathizer?



He got caught with his pants down. Intelligence that an attack was
coming was available and ignored. Surprise doesn't usually take place
in a vacuum...it usually takes both sides to accomplish.

sherman was in command of the encampment. grant was at pittsburg landing at
the telegraph head communicating with washington. halleck and buell.
it was sherman who recieved and discounted the reports from the pickets.

Grant was in command...he was responsible.



A failed attack is a blunder. If it wasn't a blunder it would have
been successful.

only on your planet. sometimes a defense is successful.
at shiloh you have grant blundering but by your reasoning the CSA blundered
even more by failing in their attack.

Yes. A failed attack is a blunder. If it fails, it should have
been done differently or not at all. I know I'm using 20/20 hindsight,
but that doesn't make it untrue.




He supplied Confederate armies in both the Valley and Trans-
Mississippi. His defeats helped Confederate morale.

the amount of supplies taken in the valley lasted a few days, in the red
river campaign the union destroyed what they couldn't carry off.
any morale boost was ephemeral at best and were nothing compared to the
yankee elation at holding off taylor at new orleans and the fall of port
hudson which completely freed the mississippi of confederate control and
allowed the union to use the river again "unvexed to the sea"

Any defeat set the Union back. Obviously, all of the setbacks
didn't keep the Union from winning.




There were loads of botched attacks....the whole Red River
Campaign comes to mind. I don't disagree that it was a total screwup,
I'm just quibbling with "most".

grant never approved the red river campaign which was meant to overawe the
french in mexico. it was a sideshow of no import. its failure meant nothing
as indeed its success would have meant nothing.
at seven pines{fair oaks} a chance to seriuosly hurt the AoP was thrown away
by CSA incompetence. it mattered in the great sheme of things.
the loss of 2 union corps isolated and exposed south of the pamunkey river
was there for the taking.

You're shifting the goalposts....the question wasn't the most
botched attack that would have resulted in the most damage to the
other side.


with the capture of port hudson and vicksburg the trans-mississippi ceased
to have any importance to the war being cut off from any hope of
communication with the rest of the confederacy.

There was plenty of communication. The Union didn't control the
whole length of the river at all times. There weren't enough forces to
do that. The problem was the Confederacy could no longer shift large
amounts of men or material.



My problem with Sherman (not a big one since I put him 4th) is
that he wasn't a good battlefield commander. I think that's a pretty
important aspect of generalship.

strategy is more important than battlefield tactics.
take the the revolutionary general natanial greene, he lost every battle he
fought yet he won every campaign he conducted.
hannibal won all his battles in italy and failed completely.
sherman never won any amazing famous victories yet he still advanced after
all of his fights and took atlanta and then he was able to so confound the
CSA that he was able to march his army unmolested through the very heart of
the confederacy in a campaign bold in the extreme. he completely discredited
the richmond government while fighting no battles at all. that is great
generalship.

Agreed, but battles are important enough to move him to #4 from
2-3.


Longstreet was so inconsistent. When he was good, he was very
good...but his independent commands weren't too successful. Hell,
Rosecrans beat him.

his independent campaigns were never big affairs. the suffolk campaign was a
waste for both the union and the south and at the siege of knoxville.
burnside had near impregnable works and the besiege force had more supplies
than the besieger.
but as a subordinate he was very good except at seven pines{fair oaks} it
was his attack that won 2nd manassass. his counter attack that saved lee at
wilderness and his attack that broke rosecrans at chickamauga.

when did rosecrans ever beat longstreet? the only battle they were both at
was chickamauga and longstreet's attack routed the union.

I meant Burnside. Losing to Burnside was much worse than losing to
Rosecrans.


I ambivalent with Meade because he was pretty weak on offense. He
had McClellan's caution but actually had a set of balls.

he broke lee's line on the 2nd day of the wilderness only longstreets timely
arrival and burnsides non-arrival saved lee
he beat lee's counter attack at mine run and he beat up lee at bristoe
station in 63.
meade suffered from the infortunate message he sent after gettysburg when he
bragged about driving lee off "our" soil.
lincoln fumed about his generals not understand that virgina ,the carolnas
and the rest were "our" soil.
after that letter lincoln never trusted meade but the fact is meade beat lee
badly on several occasions

Meade never seemed comfortable on the offensive. That's one of the
main reason that Grant chose to personally accompany the AotP. His
lack of pursuit after Gettysburg is understandable. He'd only been in
command for a few weeks and had just lost 3 corps commanders...which
brings me to another who died too soon...Reynolds.


Sheridan is over-rated as a cavalry commander. His success in the
valley gives him points, but he did have a 3-4+/1 advantage. He gets
points for seeing what needed done and doing it.
Jackson was another who could be brilliant but also had some
pretty big screwups. His paranoia and the fact that he was a total
prick to the point of hurting his command also hurt his ranking.

he is overrated, but so is jackson, which is why i consider them equals
but when faced with disaster he didn't panic he rallied his troops and
completely ruined early's force
at 5 forks he held firm enough on the previous day and then kept things
going on april 1st so that when the southern leaders thought the battle over
and held a cookout he still thought the battle was on and attacked and swept
them away. he then moved hard and fast in the pursuit that followed and he
got ahead of lee and cut him off.

both were bold movers between battles, a not to be scorned skill.
many a general when not confronted by the enemy panics and stops until they
have lost the chance {lucas at anzio for a modern example}

Agreed, that's where my "seeing what needed doing" comment came
from.


That being said, I guess I'd have to ask myself who was better. On
the Confederate side, I've always thought Gordon, Hampton,Taylor and
Cleburne haven't gotten their props. For the Union, Logan and Han***.
I'd have a hard time putting any of them ahead of those you mentioned.
Also on the Union side, there are the ones who died too
soon....Stevens, Lyon, Kearny, McPherson, Reno. On the Confederate
side....how badly did injuries affect Ewell and Hood?
Then there's always Forrest....

gordon talked a great game and he wrote his memoirs well after the war when
any who might dispute his take was dead.
i find it hard to believe lee asked him for advice as to who he should take
the wounded longstreets place after the wilderness.

Gordon, an amateur, worked his way up through the ranks to corps
commander by merit. He sure didn't do it through any kind of
connections.


hampton was the best cavalry leader in the east but he wasn't from virginia
or related to lee nor a west pointer so the fact that he commanded the ANV
cavalry better than featherhead stuart or , since hampton had those major
flaws it led lee to send hampton away to the carolinas for the extremely
important duty of buying horses, even though any lt colonel staff office
could have easily done this.
this opened up the command of the cavalry corps for the laughing boy,
nephew fitz lee.
somehow i doubr hampton would have snuck off to a cookout like fitz did on
april 1st at five forks with an active enemy in front. fitz didn'r even
inform his staff or subordinates because he didn't want to alert whf lee
his cousin that there was p;entiful food available because rooney was known
to have a heartyu appetite.

cleburne also suffered for his being an outsider, he also seems to have had
more talent than many over him like polk, hardee or hood.

He also had the audacity to suggest, through official channels,
that the Confederacy start using black soldiers.


taylor had some talent but he also had an unfortunate mouth, he even might
have spoken the truth on most occasions but his way of doing it alienated
everybody.

It took a lot for a man with his connections to get shipped off to
the boonies. Still, he was pretty good.

it was the same with beauregard, he made things happen but his attitude
made everybody who dealt with him hate him.
d.h.hill too. foot-in-mouth disease was rampant at times in the CSA.

those union guys you mention, isaac stevens, phil kearney, jesse reno seemed
to be all excellent prospects but unfortunately their own bravery got them
killed early. especially with kearney and stevens getting killed at so minor
affair as chantilly.

ewell seems to have been over his head with a corps, i don't think the lost
leg hurt.

He never seemed the same afterwards....he lost his previous energy.
He might well have grown into the position.


hood was always just a brave madman who would lead a charge into the teeth
of hell and cannister, but he never showed much intellect.

Great division commander. So-so corps commander. A disaster as an
army commander. Still, without the wounds, who knows?



Just think if Joe hadn't been injured...who knows how long the
Peninsula Campaign might've lasted....maybe until the western armies
came up through the Carolinas?

jeff davis summed up joe when he declared johnston if unrestrained would
retreat to key west and then cry for transport to cuba.

but i also wonder how the atlanta campaign would have played out if he had
not been repaced by hood, joe would not have wrecked his own army in futile
attacks like hood did and he wouldn't have been as easilt sppoked by
sherman's move to jonesboro if sherman would even have made it when facing
joe e.

rosecrans is an enigma too. he was slow to get going but when he did he
moved fast and brilliantly, he fought hard at corinth and won a nice
victory.
at stones river he moved firmly against bragg and when he was hit hard by
braggs attack he acted with great bravery and firmness and saved the day and
won the battle which following closely after the defeat at fredricksburg was
a great union morale booster and alsu threw the CSA out of tennessee for
good.

he was brilliant again in his capture of chattanooga but then he fell apart
at chickamauga and when his army was routed like it was at stones river he
didn't rally anybody, instead he drifted away with his fleeing army. he
never again regained his nerve.

herman wouk's book the caine mutiny could have been written with the army of
tennessee in mind, bragg was the perfect captain queeg.
his quirkyness and regular army ways put off his subordinates and a culture
of mutual distrust blossomed that crippled the command

Bragg was a total ass. Of course, having Polk, etc around would try
the patience of a saint.

What's your opinion of AS Johnson? (I think he was in way over his
head, but managed to get killed before his reputation suffered)


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