Mule Shoe

[gary]

Why did Hancock's corps size attack fail?

[Dred]

I assume you're reffering to the May 12th Attack at Spotsylvania. The initial attack was very successful and carried the earthworks. But then the soldiers stopped to celebrate. about 15-20000 soldiers milling about the trenches looking for souvenirs and such. It gave Lee more than adequate time to pull up some men and launch a counterattack. So from dawn until about 9:30 AM you have a bunch of disorganized feds being hammered at as additional brigades joined the rebs one by one. It wasn't until then that the VI Corps joined the attack. So why did the soldiers stop? Why, at this point was their discipline so lax that their commanders could not keep them in line to press the attack?

[cw1865]

Originally Posted by Dred

Why, at this point was their discipline so lax that their commanders could not keep them in line to press the attack?

You tend to see this quite a bit in the Civil War, both North and South, a successful tactical attack seems to cause just as much confusion in the attackers as in the defenders.

[whitworth]

Any large attack had a common problem, if not exhibited in the same manner. It was attacking the line of the enemy, that the commander could not see.

Nashville, in late 1864, was perhaps one of the few major battles, where a battle got pushed well beyond sight of the commanding general. An army defeated in battle, need then only withdraw and put up defensive positions, or just withdraw out of reach of the victorious army.

Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Chicamauga have a commonality, in that, we never heard of a major battle two days later. I believe Stonewall Jackson was scouting at Chancellorsville on the night of his wounding, because he knew the difficulty of attacking and driving in the enemy the following day, even after a victory.

[J_Man0507]

Time to resurrect a topic.

I went to Spotsylvania in August to walk the field and see all that I had read about. I grabbed my copy of Gordon Rhea's book and headed down there, and learned some interesting things.

The reason (as I understand it) that the attack failed is a combination of Confederate resistance, the weather (bloody awful that day) and a lack of coordination. Now, Lee had made the horrible mistake of misreading Grant and pulled his artillery out of the Mule Shoe salient, leaving his troops there no real artillery support. So Hancock's men, dashing out of the fog, plowed into the lines and were able to break the salient quite easily. Grant knew it could be done because Emory Upton had lead a similar attack two days before and punched through Doles Salient rather easily as well. So breaking the sailent was the easy part. Carrying on past was the hard part.

Confederate resistance stiffened, though it wasn't going to be enough to fully stem the breakthrough. It was enough, however, for a reserve line to be formed and to hold Hancock's Corps to only holding the salient. The weather was horrid that day, so fighting conditions were even worse than usual. Fighting in the mud is no easy task, I am sure. That, teamed with Confederate resistance, enabled Lee's Last Line to be formed.

And there was the lack of coordination. Burnside was to demonstrate as well on the Confederate right flank, at what is known as Heth's Salient. However, at this point in the Overland Campaign, Burnside's IX was still and independent command, so coordinating attacks was difficult. Enough men were able to be pulled away from here to stiffen resistance around the breakthrough.

So that is my take. I will have to go back and read that part of Rhea's work again. Hope that helps a little bit!

[Blockaderunner]

I think cw1865 has summed it up quite well. There were very few occasions in major battles where breaking the lines at one point lead to a complete victory. Exceptions would probably have to include Missionary Ridge, Nashville and the collapse of the lines around Petersburg.

[johan_steele]

I think it a combination of things, largely being the difficulty in passing reserves through thoise units disrupted by the succesful attack, a difficult manuever at the best of times. At one point I read (I don't recall where)that many of the Senior commanders of Hancocks X Corps didn't expect the attack to work and were so stunned that it did that by the time they got their minds around the fact that they needed to support the attack it was too late.

[OpnDownfall]

It is notable that the entire 1864 -1865 Campaign is dotted with notable failures of AoP Corps Commanders and if one does a closer study of those commanders, I think of a comment about 'not knowing what affect they might have on the enemy, but I confess they scare me'
IMO, the only Corps Commander really up to his job was Hancock, but his Gettysburg Wound had not healed properly and even he was not always at his best during the Overland Campaign.
All during Grant's time with the AoP, the command system was continually breaking down, more often than no the direct result of some failure(s) by one (or more) of it's corps commanders at crucial times before, during or after a battle (sometimes all three) and often on the march.
Lee had the same problem, but had fewer corps commanders to baby sit.

[M E Wolf]

Dear List Members;

I saw in Gettysburg and Stories of Valor DVD, that focused on General W. S. Hancock; that after the wound at Gettysburg, he had to travel by ambulance to the battlefield to direct things. And, when President Lincoln was assassinated, was he assigned to Washington DC to take charge of it.

So, indeed--traveling in an ambulance and not being on horseback to swiftly get to the front and assess the battlefield and operations; I would assume General Hancock had to rely on his aides and field commanders for information. But, I find it even in my own case--people can tell me of a situation and when I come up to it--its not the same situation. I would say General Hancock was handicapped in many ways but--not his mind.

Just some thoughts.

Sincerely,
M. E. Wolf