Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ole Thank you, NB, for your thoughts on that. Grant is an enigma. Not great, but unique in his "talent" brought to bear at the right place and the right time. It would be interesting to speculate on who else might have better handled the situation in the west.
Grant, given the circumstances, didn't have it. But, given the circumstances, managed quite well. I'd have liked to have been the fy on the wall in Washington when that (Vicksburg) situation was developing.
NB, there were no "great" generals in that conflict.They were, as all "great" generals since, learning on the job. Great is something we assign some years after the fact. Grant learned. Sherman learned. Bobby Lee learned. Every day had a new general. When you consider the progression of the "big three," they learned several new things every day.
There was no one day that defined their generalship. To say there was is a snapshot of a moment. Lee's generalship was not defined by the surrender. Grant's was not defined by Vicksburg.
By taking Vicksburg under circumstances that were, at best, really strange, Grant secured for himself the near-unquestioned trust of Lincoln. He converted Sherman from a skeptic to a believer, and the rest is history.
No. Grant was not great. Sherman was not great. Lee was not great. Jackson was not great. They were all ordinary people in command at a great time. |
British military historians studied the ACW intently over the decades. During the Civil War (1864) they saw it as something that simply demonstrated the existing principles with a few new technology wrinkles. From 1866 to the 1880s they were caught up in the glorification of all-things-Prussian, like all of Europe.
But then G. F. R. Henderson rose up as the leading light of British military history. He was an unabashed devotee of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. He was also the brainy staff officer who helped crush the Boers in South Africa in the Boer War, and teacher/mentor of generations of young British officers -- such as Allenby who conquered Palestine. By the early 1900s there was almost always a serious essay question on the Civil War on the British Army's officer promotion exams. Special cram courses were offered on the Virginia campaigns to bone up before the annual test.
As a result, the British Army had a particular affinity for Lee, Jackson, Longstreet and Stuart. After WWI, a new generation of military analysts and historians, revolting against the slaughter of the trenches, went back to the Civil War to look for ways to avoid it. These were led by B. H. Liddell-Hart and J. F. C. Fuller.
Liddell-Hart fell in love with Sherman and developed the theory of the "Indirect Approach" in his studies of Sherman. Fuller studied Grant and they engaged in a (probably) friendly feud for about 25 years as a result.
Fuller said that when he began, he considered Lee the "great general" and Grant simply a competent butcher who succeeded because he had the numbers on his side. By the end, he concluded Grant was a greater general than Lee.
Grant is not really an enigma, I think. He is merely hard to see accurately. He was not ordinarily great, on an everyday basis -- but he seemed to become so at exactly the moment of crisis. In many ways, when the chips are down, he and Lee are the same.
Lee was obviously a much better prepared professional soldier, with the sort of career a Grant did not even dream of. Much better read, educated, and trained than Grant on military topics -- just as Sherman was, just as Thomas was, just as Beauregard and Joe Johnston were, just as Halleck was, just as Pemberton was.
Yet, Grant ended up beating them all on the other side, and IMHO would have smashed Sherman in the field if he had commanded against him. Thomas ... well, that would be fun to study; I think Grant would have taken him as well.
Part of this is the see-saw nature of Grant's career. His Henry & Donelson campaign is brilliant. Being surprised in camp at Shiloh is inexcusable; his back to the wall fight there with Sherman is all that redeems it. His actions against Price & Van Dorn in 1862 deserved better, but he may have been responsible for missing at least one chance there. His campaign against Vicksburg may have been long and often thwarted, but he ends it with a lightning move that looks like he was channeling the young Napoleon of 1796-1806.
He then arrives in Chattanooga to find a situation even worse than he thought. Within a month, the siege is lifted and Bragg is decimated, fleeing in disgrace. If Burnside had not been bleating like a sheep in Knoxville, the AoT might have been hurt even worse.
To that point Grant looks like a generally competent officer who has flashes of brilliance or luck, with a few pratfalls. He is aggressive and he is always, always looking to get at the enemy and strike him. He makes mistakes, but he always recovers from them and succeeds.
In comparison, all the other Union commanders have shown shortfalls. Even Meade, the best the AoP has produced, a master of detail and technique, lacks something. While Grant could not have moved his troops in the picture-perfect Meade did advancing to Gettysburg, IMHO, he would also have been sure to fight another battle as Lee sought to get back to Virginia. That battle might have been won or lost, but Grant knew what Lincoln knew: a defeat for the Confederates would hurt much worse than a defeat for the Union would, and Union victory would have laid Virginia and the Confederacy open to the Union sword. Where Meade almost risked that battle (to his credit), I can't imagine Grant coming away without fighting it.
During the Civil War, Grant was not thought of or described of as a "butcher" when he came East. Other than the "Bloody April" at Shiloh when he was surprised in camp, his battles are remarkable for their
low casualties in comparison to the Eastern struggles. It was the stunning casualties of the 1864 "Overland Campaign" (also called then "The Forty Days") that began to build that false image then, followed by the seemingly endless siege of Richmond-Petersburg with the ongoing bloodletting there..
But Grant is now in the East, facing the best the Confederates have in strong defensive terrain, and hampered by politics in the selection of commanders like Sigel and Butler. IMHO, without the disasters that befell those commands in 1864, Grant would have taken Richmond that Spring.
Even then, Grant's maneuvers are not those of a "butcher". They are clearly aimed at getting around Lee's right to cut him off from Richmond, and to pin the most dangerous enemy down while he was at it. Lee never fought a more dangerous opponent. Even the move at Cold Harbor should have succeeded and smashed into Richmond -- if launched when originally planned and not 24 hours later. But then, Lee personally found and sent forward Breckinridge's troops to close that gap when his staff had lost them, so we can once again point to Lee as the major cause of Grant's lack of success.
The move to Petersburg is a move that is so beautiful it should have ended the war. It fails through bad leadership at the point, and a certain lack of communication from Grant/Meade to their commanders once the river was crossed. More than anything, perhaps, the leadership was burned out by this point.
On the Grand Strategic level, Grant's guidance of the war effort across the entire South was incredible. Sudeenly, all of the Union moved to a plan, gnawing away at the Confederacy and hacking pieces off it. If he could not kill it with a single stroke, he would let it die of a thousand cuts.
But when not faced with a great challenge, Grant seems mediocre, maybe bored and disinterested. Maybe that is why people have so many differing views on him.
Regards,
Tim
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Ancestors in the 28th, 38th, 46th, 59th and 22nd Btn. Virginia Infantry and 2nd Virginia Cavalry. 
Linear Mode
