Lee the Enigma

[OpnDownfall]

Again, after 2d Bull Run and after Chancellorsville, there were opportunities for the south to revitalize (and maybe win) the War in the West and Lee resolutely ignored all evidence of the need for reinforcement being sent West from the AoNV, even when Richmond and Longstreet were becoming aware of the approaching crisis in the West. The only acknowledgement of the importance of the war in the West was when it threatened to take him or part of the AoNV away from Va.

[matthew mckeon]

Great points Opn and JT,
I would only add that having the opposing capitals so close to the national frontiers, and so close to each other shaped, and even distorted military strategies. Imagine if the US capital was in Chicago or New York, or the Southern capital stayed in Montgomery.

[samgrant]

March 7, 1965: "Lee supplied Longstreet with detailed instructions for which routes to take when the time came to retreat from Richmond and Petersburg."

-Trudeau

[OpnDownfall]

There were some direct effects of Antietam and Gettysburg, that arguably, can be described as 'back breakers' to the Confederat war effort. Antietam, broadened the war, before it, the war was limited to limited gains, after it, there was no room for compromise, it became a war to the death. Gettysburg, sealed the fate of the Confederate West, even sending Lee's best Corps and Corps Commander west After Gettysburg, only delayed the inevitable denouement.
A reasonable case can be made, that not only was it a necessity of sending reinforcements West, it was a necessity that Gettysburg and Antietan NOT have happened at all.
As I have posted in other threads, I do not think a victorious South was in the cards, the south was a little too small and the north a little to big, for any particular strategy or combination of strategies to prevail. My main contention is that the South, because of Lee, did not fight to its best advantage.

[OpnDownfall]

Secondly, the south was granted another year in the West, Only because of the bungling of Lincoln and Roscrans.
After Vicksberg, the north had a complete (victorious) army with no appreciable opposition to march straight to Moble (as Grant wanted to do) or head to Braggs rear in Tn. or even Atlanta. The war in the West Should have ended, to all intents and purposes, in 1863, but for the sudden (and strange) lack of a strategic overiew and appreciation of what was really happening in the West by Lincon and the unstable emotions of Roscrans, gave Bragg and Johnston a temporary repreive. But the resources of the North was so great, that even major errors of Strategy or tactics could always be made good. The South had no such maargin of safety, it had to get it's strategy and tactics right the first time or else, only luck (in the form of Northern blunders) could save it. Depending on Luck is selfdefeating, especially as is well known Luck (or god) is more often on the side of the bigger battalions than not.

[ole]

Luck (or god) is more often on the side of the bigger battalions than not.

The race is not always to the swiftest, nor the battle to the strongest -- but that's the way to bet it. (Paraphrased author disrecollected)
Ole

[Texas2nd]

Well, I have to admit that ya'll have convinced me that Lee did - unconsciously - contribute to the fall of the western theater. IMHO there just wasn't enough to go around and he protected his AoV, as that is what he had the most control over.

Now I have to go back and re-read stuff from that POV and see what else I find.

THis is so sad....

Texas2nd

[ole]

Now I have to go back and re-read stuff from that POV and see what else I find. This is so sad....

What's sad, Tex? That you will be re-reading stuff from a different perspective? Or that you can see a connection between Lee and the Western Theater?

First, I'd say the connection, if any (remember, we've been reading some doggone logical opinions), is so tenuous that it's easy to doubt that the idea ever crossed Lee's mind; that is, nothing intentional. We need to remember that his primary allegiance was to Virginia, not Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia or the Confederacy itself. He made that absolutely clear before the shooting started. It's easy enough to show that his actions ultimately proved to be short-sighted -- as far as the CSA was concerned. It's easy enough to show that some of his attempts were desperate attempts to pull out the rabbit. It's not so easy to show that he ever broke faith with Virginia.

The problem with this board is that most are constantly being sent back to old books to re-read with the benefit of some newly revealed record or sensible observation. It makes you place a new importance on footnotes and, in many cases, to check the footnotes as well. Just don't get rid of the books you've read.
Ole

[Texas2nd]

Why or maybe a better question is how could REL not realize that what was good for the Confederacy was ultimately what was good for his Virginia?

From this POV, no matter how great a General REL was, the South was lost...

Fine'

Now on to re-reading, with a somewhat more fatalistic POV.
Texas2nd

[whitworth]

First, with the large army the Confederacy had at the start of the war, I do not think the U.S. could conquer the Confederacy in less than three years.
The North really needed two years to build up their logistics pipeline. I doubt Rosencrans was the general in the west to defeat the Confederates.

Richmond and Virginia, in the east, had to be defended. Without it the Confederacy would not survive. In fact I doubt, without Virginia, its soldiers and its logistics system, the war could have lasted two years. The Confederacy need Virginia, not because it was the capital, but because the region's logistical supply center, was central to the continuation of the war.

While both sides were pitifully unprepared to wage a war, the North had the industrial might to supply an army to conquer the South and its Confederate armies. It would only take time.

While Lee and the Confederate founding fathers could fight the war on an intellectual viewpoint, how woefully unprepared they were to ask -how do we fight this war? Where do we obtain the supplies to fight the war more than a year?

For Virginians secession seemed an easy decision, though late. But in the time leading up to this late secession, did anyone ask how Virginia was going to adequately defend Wheeling and Charleston and the Kanawha River valley?

Robert E. Lee did not think of it. Again Lee the Enigma.

He sent a dispatch to the former U.S. Senator from Virginia replying that he had forces in Wheeling to defend it. Wheeling, Virginia, directly across the Ohio River from the state of Ohio, and less than 60 miles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Lee was telling a Virginia leader, that Wheeling was "safe", as he had taken precautions to raise companies of troops in the area.
What would compel Lee to say that Virginia forces were available to defend the western part of Virginia, successfully. Except for the occasional raid, most of the western part of Virginia was strategically lost to the Confederacy by 1862, and some of the state, as early as the first month of the war.