Civil War Q&A

[cyberia]

This is one I have always wondered about...

Pickett's charge at Gettysburg is regarded in historical retrospect as an suicide charge.

It is well documented that Pickett was beside himself over the charge and never forgave Lee.

My question is, how was this charge and the loss of life viewed by the Southern population at the time?

Did it diminish Lee's standing as a leader in the eyes of Southern civilians?

[Jason G]

It's an endlessly debated question, but from what I've been able to tell, "Pickett's Charge" at the time was considered less dramatic than the fight at Culps Hill. When tourists came to G-burg, they flocked to Culps Hill and practically ignored the area of Pickett's Charge.

While the casualties were heavy, they weren't, as some people believed, astronomical for the time. Yes, several regiments were practically destroyed on paper, but throughout the night and into the next day, (during the retreat), many rejoined their units and brought them back up to strength.

While Pickett did blame Lee for "the charge", and the fault is ultimately his, the attack was poorly coordinated with other elements to begin with. Longstreet, whose overall command this was, really should get more of the blame (and has in recent years).

The Southern people as a whole, for a good while, actually saw Gettysburg as a victory, according to the press at the time, and it wasn't "propaganda". While Lee did see it as a defeat, the long term strategic goals, were met, as the 2nd Invasion drew Union troops out of Virginia, brought the war home to civilians, and bought more time for the Davis gov't, likely at least another year or more.

[Airchallenged]

I agree with Jason on most of his post. Culp's Hill probably got more visitors because it was a large Confederate force assaulting a smaller, and thinner Union line. It may have amazed them that a line that thin, I think at one point it was less than a one rank line, was able to hold off multiple Confederate attacks (albeit they were up hill and against wooden palisades of sorts) where as they may have just seen Pickett's Charge as another assault by one side against another side that was using the environment to their advantage. They only thing that may have caught them off guard could have been the scale of the casualties (Pickett 67%, Pettigrew 60%, Trimble 52%) but then againt it may not have coming just shy of six months after Fredericksburg which had a similar assault times three or four by the Union army instead of the confederate.

Although the North Carolinian's made it the furthest and suffered high casualties they may have been more in shock that two of their rising stars had been killed in the Battle (Burgwyn-Killed on the 1st, and Pettigrew- killed in the rear guard action yards from the "border"). They may have wanted to put these memories out of their heads so instead of dwelling on this they talked out Culp's Hill and the Round Tops.

Just my $0.02,
Matt

NC - "First at Bethel, Furthest at Gettysburg, Last at Appomattox"

[Geek44]

G'day guys. ().
I don't know a heck of a lot about the ACW as you can imagine, other than what I've gleaned from US made TV of which we get a lot. I suppose I think the war was about slavery but I get the vibe that it's much more complicated than that. I don't know how long it lasted exactly or when it started...I think it was the 1870s but that's a fifty fifty stab in the dark from me. I'm also pretty sure Lincoln was Prez.
Without wishing to open too big a can of worms for you guys, can anyone please give me a brief outline? Remember...'Civil War For Dummies' here.
It's my understanding that the Springfield Rifle was innovated during this war which I believe was the first rifle one could aim rather than just point because it wasn't firing balls and that it was the first 'mass produced' weapon too. Thanks.
Peace.

[Airchallenged]

Originally Posted by Geek44

G'day guys. ().
I don't know a heck of a lot about the ACW as you can imagine, other than what I've gleaned from US made TV of which we get a lot. I suppose I think the war was about slavery but I get the vibe that it's much more complicated than that. I don't know how long it lasted exactly or when it started...I think it was the 1870s but that's a fifty fifty stab in the dark from me. I'm also pretty sure Lincoln was Prez.
Without wishing to open too big a can of worms for you guys, can anyone please give me a brief outline? Remember...'Civil War For Dummies' here.
It's my understanding that the Springfield Rifle was innovated during this war which I believe was the first rifle one could aim rather than just point because it wasn't firing balls and that it was the first 'mass produced' weapon too. Thanks.
Peace.

Sure Nick,

I try and keep it as simple as possible. For the debate on the reasons of the war see the thread "Was the Civil War Really About Slavery?" below this one. Anyway tensions were high in 1860 when Lincoln was elected to office and some in the south spread "propaganda" (best word I can think to call it) that Lincoln would abolish slavery and what not which scared the South because as you may know it was the major economic activity and with it went many of the other economic goodies (tobacco, cotton, etc). In reality he only wanted to stop the expansion of it but this still would be bad for the south because the number of slave and free states would become unequal (I think it was somewhere around 18 each side when war broke out). Then they would have lesser say in Congress and the Senate if (more like when) the expulsion of slavery was brought up. On the same level the north were already feared that the Gov't was going to hell in a hand basket and being run by pro-slavery south.

This made every one uneasy both north and south. South Carolina acted first and on 24 December 1860 it seceded under the premises that it wanted to protect the state rights of South slave states (basically it wanted to prevent itself from losing slavery which they feared would come soon). Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama followed on 9, 10 and ,11 Jan 61 respectively. On the 19th Georgia seceded, Louisiana on the 26th, and Texas on 1 February. This happened all before Lincoln had even taken office in the beginning of March. On 4 February they met in Montgomery, Alabama and formed the CSA with former Secretary of War Jefferson Davis as their President. All things were going nicely until 12 April 1861 when Southern forces under PGT Beaureguard shelled Fort Sumter, with Davis and Sec of War Stanton's approval, as it was being supplied. The garrison surrendered the next day without any casualties (until one of the "honor guns" misfired killing a union soldier) and was paroled soon after.

This sparked Lincoln's anger and he sent out the call for 75,000 90 day volunteers. The four "border states" refused to send troops against their fellow southern states and Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina seceded from the Union. Missouri and Kentucky, although never seceding from the Union still got stars on the Confederate flag.

To be continued... Any one want to take the torch or should I continue?

[Airchallenged]

Okay it looks like I will continue....by posting clips from wiki and explaining them a little

First up the Anaconda Plan:

This was the North's strategy of blockading the south, cutting it in half by the Mississippi River and constricting its economy thus the name anaconda. Details:

Winfield Scott, the commanding general of the U.S. Army, devised the Anaconda Plan[60] to win the war with as little bloodshed as possible. His idea was that a Union blockade of the main ports would weaken the Confederate economy; then the capture of the Mississippi River would split the South. Lincoln adopted the plan, but overruled Scott's warnings against an immediate attack on Richmond.

In May 1861, Lincoln enacted the Union blockade of all Southern ports, ending most international shipments to the Confederacy. Violators' ships and cargos could be seized and were often not covered by insurance. By late 1861, the blockade stopped most local port-to-port traffic. The blockade shut down King Cotton, ruining the Southern economy. British investors built small, fast "blockade runners" that traded arms and luxuries from Bermuda, Cuba and the Bahamas in return for high-priced cotton and tobacco.[61] When captured, the blockade runners and cargo were sold and the proceeds given to the Union sailors, but the British crews were released. Shortages of food and other goods triggered by the blockade, foraging by Northern armies, and the impressment of crops by Confederate armies combined to cause hyperinflation and bread riots in the South.[62]

The Campaign in the East:

I don't think I can explain it any more than what wiki says but the Eastern theater was really just from the Appalachians (Western North Carolina and Virginia) to the coast:

Because of the fierce resistance of a few initial Confederate forces at Manassas, Virginia, in July 1861, a march by Union troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell on the Confederate forces there was halted in the First Battle of Bull Run, or First Manassas,[64] whereupon they were forced back to Washington, D.C., by Confederate troops under the command of Generals Joseph E. Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard. It was in this battle that Confederate General Thomas Jackson received the nickname of "Stonewall" because he stood like a stone wall against Union troops.[65] Alarmed at the loss, and in an attempt to prevent more slave states from leaving the Union, the U.S. Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution on July 25 of that year, which stated that the war was being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.

Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan took command of the Union Army of the Potomac on July 26 (he was briefly general-in-chief of all the Union armies, but was subsequently relieved of that post in favor of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck), and the war began in earnest in 1862. Upon the strong urging of President Lincoln to begin offensive operations, McClellan attacked Virginia in the spring of 1862 by way of the peninsula between the York River and James River, southeast of Richmond. Although McClellan's army reached the gates of Richmond in the Peninsula Campaign,[66][67][68] Johnston halted his advance at the Battle of Seven Pines, then General Robert E. Lee and top subordinates James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson[69] defeated McClellan in the Seven Days Battles and forced his retreat. The Northern Virginia Campaign, which included the Second Battle of Bull Run, ended in yet another victory for the South.[70] McClellan resisted General-in-Chief Halleck's orders to send reinforcements to John Pope's Union Army of Virginia, which made it easier for Lee's Confederates to defeat twice the number of combined enemy troops.

Emboldened by Second Bull Run, the Confederacy made its first invasion of the North, when General Lee led 45,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River into Maryland on September 5. Lincoln then restored Pope's troops to McClellan. McClellan and Lee fought at the Battle of Antietam[69] near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, the bloodiest single day in United States military history.[71] Lee's army, checked at last, returned to Virginia before McClellan could destroy it. Antietam is considered a Union victory because it halted Lee's invasion of the North and provided an opportunity for Lincoln to announce his Emancipation Proclamation.[72]

When the cautious McClellan failed to follow up on Antietam, he was replaced by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. Burnside was soon defeated at the Battle of Fredericksburg[73] on December 13, 1862, when over twelve thousand Union soldiers were killed or wounded during repeated futile frontal assaults against Marye's Heights. After the battle, Burnside was replaced by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker. Hooker, too, proved unable to defeat Lee's army; despite outnumbering the Confederates by more than two to one, he was humiliated in the Battle of Chancellorsville[74] in May 1863. He was replaced by Maj. Gen. George Meade during Lee's second invasion of the North, in June. Meade defeated Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg[75] (July 1 to July 3, 1863), the bloodiest battle of the war, which is sometimes considered the war's turning point. Pickett's Charge on July 3 is often recalled as the high-water mark of the Confederacy, not just because it signaled the end of Lee's plan to pressure Washington from the north, but also because Vicksburg, Mississippi, the key stronghold to control of the Mississippi, fell the following day. Lee's army suffered 28,000 casualties (versus Meade's 23,000).[76] However, Lincoln was angry that Meade failed to intercept Lee's retreat, and after Meade's inconclusive Fall campaign, Lincoln decided to turn to the Western Theater for new leadership.

The Campaign in the West:

The "West" was really everything west of the Appalachians to the Mississippi River not the actual west.

While the Confederate forces had numerous successes in the Eastern theater, they were defeated many times in the West. They were driven from Missouri early in the war as a result of the Battle of Pea Ridge.[77] Leonidas Polk's invasion of Columbus, Kentucky ended Kentucky's policy of neutrality and turned that state against the Confederacy.

Nashville, Tennessee, fell to the Union early in 1862. Most of the Mississippi was opened with the taking of Island No. 10 and New Madrid, Missouri, and then Memphis, Tennessee. The Union Navy captured New Orléans[78] without a major fight in May 1862, allowing the Union forces to begin moving up the Mississippi as well. Only the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, prevented unchallenged Union control of the entire river.

General Braxton Bragg's second Confederate invasion of Kentucky ended with a meaningless victory over Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell at the Battle of Perryville,[79] although Bragg was forced to end his attempt at liberating Kentucky and retreat due to lack of support for the Confederacy in that state. Bragg was narrowly defeated by Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans at the Battle of Stones River[80] in Tennessee.

The one clear Confederate victory in the West was the Battle of Chickamauga. Bragg, reinforced by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's corps (from Lee's army in the east), defeated Rosecrans, despite the heroic defensive stand of Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, which Bragg then besieged.

The Union's key strategist and tactician in the West was Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who won victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, by which the Union seized control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers; the Battle of Shiloh;[81] the Battle of Vicksburg,[82] cementing Union control of the Mississippi River and considered one of the turning points of the war. Grant marched to the relief of Rosecrans and defeated Bragg at the Third Battle of Chattanooga,[83] driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee and opening a route to Atlanta and the heart of the Confederacy.

[Airchallenged]

Trans-Mississippi Theater was the regions directly west of the Mississippi where fighting in Missouri and Arkansas eventually seized that area for the north.

Guerrilla activity turned much of Missouri into a battleground. Missouri had, in total, the third-most battles of any state during the war.[84] The other states of the west, though geographically isolated from the battles to the east, saw numerous small-scale military actions. Battles in the region served to secure Missouri, Indian Territory, New Mexico Territory, and Arizona Territory for the Union. Confederate incursions into Arizona and New Mexico territories were repulsed in 1862 and a Union campaign to secure Indian Territory succeeded in 1863. Late in the war, the Union's Red River Campaign was a failure. Texas remained in Confederate hands throughout the war, but was cut off from the rest of the Confederacy after the capture of Vicksburg in 1863 gave the Union control of the Mississippi River.

End of the War (kinda big quote but here goes)

At the beginning of 1864, Lincoln made Grant commander of all Union armies. Grant made his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, and put Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in command of most of the western armies. Grant understood the concept of total war and believed, along with Lincoln and Sherman, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces and their economic base would bring an end to the war.[85] This was total war not in terms of killing civilians but rather in terms of destroying homes, farms and railroad tracks. Grant devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the entire Confederacy from multiple directions: Generals George Meade and Benjamin Butler were ordered to move against Lee near Richmond; General Franz Sigel (and later Philip Sheridan) were to attack the Shenandoah Valley; General Sherman was to capture Atlanta and march to the sea (the Atlantic Ocean); Generals George Crook and William W. Averell were to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks was to capture Mobile, Alabama.

Union forces in the East attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles during that phase ("Grant's Overland Campaign") of the Eastern campaign. Grant's battles of attrition at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor[86] resulted in heavy Union losses, but forced Lee's Confederates to fall back again and again. An attempt to outflank Lee from the south failed under Butler, who was trapped inside the Bermuda Hundred river bend. Grant was tenacious and, despite astonishing losses (over 65,000 casualties in seven weeks),[87] kept pressing Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back to Richmond. He pinned down the Confederate army in the Siege of Petersburg, where the two armies engaged in trench warfare for over nine months.

Grant finally found a commander, General Philip Sheridan, aggressive enough to prevail in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Sheridan defeated Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early in a series of battles, including a final decisive defeat at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Sheridan then proceeded to destroy the agricultural base of the Shenandoah Valley,[88] a strategy similar to the tactics Sherman later employed in Georgia.

Meanwhile, Sherman marched from Chattanooga to Atlanta, defeating Confederate Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood along the way. The fall of Atlanta,[89] on September 2, 1864, was a significant factor in the reelection of Lincoln as president.[90] Hood left the Atlanta area to menace Sherman's supply lines and invade Tennessee in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign.[91] Union Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield defeated Hood at the Battle of Franklin, and George H. Thomas dealt Hood a massive defeat at the Battle of Nashville, effectively destroying Hood's army.
A dead soldier in Petersburg, Virginia 1865, photographed by Thomas C. Roche.

Leaving Atlanta, and his base of supplies, Sherman's army marched with an unknown destination, laying waste to about 20% of the farms in Georgia in his "March to the Sea". He reached the Atlantic Ocean at Savannah, Georgia in December 1864. Sherman's army was followed by thousands of freed slaves; there were no major battles along the March. Sherman turned north through South Carolina and North Carolina to approach the Confederate Virginia lines from the south,[92] increasing the pressure on Lee's army.

Lee's army, thinned by desertion and casualties, was now much smaller than Grant's. Union forces won a decisive victory at the Battle of Five Forks on April 1, forcing Lee to evacuate Petersburg and Richmond. The Confederate capital fell[93] to the Union XXV Corps, composed of black troops. The remaining Confederate units fled west and after a defeat at Sayler's Creek, it became clear to Robert E. Lee that continued fighting against the United States was both tactically and logistically impossible.

Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House.[94] In an untraditional gesture and as a sign of Grant's respect and anticipation of folding the Confederacy back into the Union with dignity and peace, Lee was permitted to keep his officer's saber and his horse, Traveller On April 14, 1865, Lincoln was shot. Andrew Johnson became President when Lincoln died the next day. Johnston surrendered his troops to Sherman on April 26, 1865, in Durham, North Carolina. On June 23, 1865, at Fort Towson in the Choctaw Nations' area of the Oklahoma Territory, Stand Watie signed a cease-fire agreement with Union representatives, becoming the last Confederate general in the field to stand down. The last Confederate naval force to surrender was the CSS Shenandoah on November 4, 1865, in Liverpool, England.

[Airchallenged]

Nick I hope that helps here are some wikipedia links with further details:

Naval Battles

Union Blockade

Eastern Theater

Western Theater

Trans-Mississippi Theater

[Geek44]

Thanks for your time with this Matt, I appreciate the effort you've gone to to answer my (very broad) question. There's plenty to digest here and as I suspected, things were far more complicated than I've known.
American history is something one needs to 'specialize' in at tertiary institutions...sadly, at the time I was at school, all high school history was Australian. Further, without viewing American history as 'trivial' by any means, your average Aussie has little use for it other than what he learns from TV and movies which of course offer a more 'theatrical' version of events rather than being accurate representations. I'm sure the converse is true also...I'm certain there are members here who think of Crocodile Dundee when they think of Australia. Luckily, Crocodile Dundee is a pretty good indication of how we all live down here...and how we dress
Interesting conflict for me in some ways. My main interest in military things stems directly from my modelling and the ACW doesn't offer much in that respect but the ironclads have me fascinated.
Thanks again mate...I've learned plenty.
Peace.

[Brett]

Originally Posted by Airchallenged

Brett,

I think the generals fell in to multiple categories. There were those that fell in to the defensively offensive category, like Lee and Meade. Those that were aggressively offensive Like Grant and sometimes Sherman. Those that were more logical, like Jackson at the aggressive side and and Longstreet at the more reserved. And then there were those that were just stupid or incapable in certain aspects, like Burnside, Little Mac, Hooker.

When I say Defensively Offensive I mean that they would go on the offensive often but when they could they would draw the opponent onto there own fighting grounds. They would pick the better ground, like at Ball's Bluff and Fredericksburg, and draw the opponent towards them. In my mind Meade did the same sort of thing at Gettysburg. Although he was on the defensive really he used the same sort of principles. FInd a good defensive ground and then hold it. he didn't try to attack the rebels but instead let them come to him.

Personally I am a logical person and lean towards the Lee-Jackson-Longstreet trio. Somehow I think they kept each other in check. Lee was an engineer by military profession and seemed to think like an engineer through out the war. find the best defensive position and either try to out maneuver the enemy or inflict heavy losses before having to fall back. Jackson was an Artillerist and seemed to always work that into his plans if able to. Although he was prone to make elaborate plans, he made something like 5 before Lee approved the idea of Chancellorsville, he always knew how to push the right buttons in the union army to scare them or hold them off where needed. Longstreet on the other hand was the only infantry man of the trio, ironically his closest friend at West Point was Grant. On a side note Julia Dent Grant was Pete's fourth cousin and he introduced the two of them at a party. Pete was Grant's best man. Back to the question He seemed to keep the other two in check and prevent them from getting any really insane plans into action. Although he was aggressive at first he became more reserved after three of his four children died in one week from a Scarlet Fever Epidemic. Something about the three of them together seems to work logically for me.

Thanks for your reply -- great post!!

I wonder if anyone has an opinion on Grand Strategy -- i.e. strategy on
a national scale (that which Lincoln & Davis were responsible for)

For instance, could the USA have ended the war sooner and/or with
less casualties by concentrating on the East or West? Or used more
amphib invasions?

Is there anything the CSA could have done differently to win the war?