Gen. Lee's -- "If Practical" Orders

[5fish]

There has been much debate over the way Gen. Lee issued his orders. Like: Gen. Lee would usual issue what are called discretionary orders with that famous end phrase "If practical."

Most historians claim that Gen. Lee like to encourage initiative in his subordinates; that is why he like to issue these discretionary type orders.

I argue that maybe Gen. Lee wanted initiative from his generals but unlike Gen. Stuart who developed a system to encourage initiative. Gen. Lee failed to develop a good system to encourage the development of officers taking bold action.

Just think: The only officers at the corp. level that truly took initiative{ or bold action ) was Gen. Jackson and Gen. Stuart for the rest that held that position for Gen. Lee never took bold action.

Why? History wants to blame those generals like Anderson, A.P. Hill and Ewell for their lack of initiative. I argue that if the historians say Gen. Lee wanted his generals to take the initiative then those generals under him knew this too.

So the question becomes if the generals under Gen. Lee knew he wanted his generals to take the initiative. Why did they never step up and be bold?

The only answer is Gen. Lee must have punished failure. It also means Gen. Lee never had a true system to develop initiative taking type leaders.

Gen. Lee may have wanted initiative taking type of leaders but in truth he discourage bold risk taking leaders and this does make sense. Why?

Everyone makes Gen. Lee to be this perfect person and he was a fine person but he had personality failures as any human. He was a control freak and neat freak but unlike most people with these traits who tend to be rude. Gen Lee was a southern gentleman which softens his control freak and neat freak nature to people.

Now think: a person who is a control nut and neat freak can he truly develop initiative in others rarely for their standards for one to meet is set to high. In most cases control freaks and neat freaks more often punish initiative then reward it.

A note: Gen. Lee did transfer out a lot of officers form his command and in many cases no reason can be found why. Historians just say Gen Lee was getting rid of dead weight like political appointees.

A note: An over looked item, Gen. Lee made his battle plans in private. He never develop a battle with his generals only used them for information gathering. The battle plan always came directly from Gen. Lee.


In summary: Gen Lee may have wanted his generals to be bold and take the initiative but his personal failing of being a control and neat freak made him unable to develop initiative taking leaders he wanted. He was his own worse enemy in developing the type of officers he wanted.

Remember, A control and neat freak is never able to recognized that he is one and that he discourage people from taking the initiative. JUST THINK! Of the control and neat freaks you have worked under over the years. They are demanding and hard to please. So what do you do? You wait tell they tell you what they want, Why? Because if you take the initiative and it is not what they want. You catch hell.

Think of those poor generals under Gen Lee.

[OpnDownfall]

Point, well taken. Although, we cannot know for sure, the supposition could well be more right than wrong.
Without a system for encouraging 'initiative' people do tend to interpret discretionary orders on the conservative side rather than the bold.
Very few (relatively speaking) people are born with ( or acquire) the bold aggressive temperament with just the right amount of intellect and discerning nature (even among professional soldiers) that amounts to 'genius'' which, it can be argued, was really what Lee was after, even if he might not have realized it.

[Battalion]

"practicable"

[OpnDownfall]

The original post applies to either.

[matthew mckeon]

In Gary Gallanger's book "Confederate High Command," he describes how Lee deliberately created an officer corps that emphasized aggressiveness and initiative.

Certainly if you study the campaigns of the ANV, you generally see greater initiative, risk taking than the Army of the Potomac, which had McClellan's style of trying to avoid mistakes, rather than take risks.

In an era of primitive communications, subordinate commanders needed to make decisions and take decisive action without reference to a higher commander that could be hours away. "If practicable" was a realistic recognition on Lee's part, that he couldn't control all aspects of the fighting.

[OpnDownfall]

The question does cause some speculation on whether the success of Lee's 'style' of commanding was due more to the 'style' of his opponents, commanding the AoP.
As noted above, if one general is trying to win and the other is trying not the lose, practically any style of commanding has a forbidding advantage from the very first.

[whitworth]

Of course, Ewell told the reasons why he did not make an attack on Cemetery Hill, after fighting the XI Corps that afternoon.

For those who want to blame Ewell would always probably ignore his OR on Gettysburg.
He mentioned his command was tired due to the day's fight, even if victorious. More importantly, he lacked an entire division, its artillery, and the corps reserve artillery, which traveled separately on the Carlisle-Chambersburg Pike, then onto the Chambersburg-Gettysburg Pike.

Amateurs always assume that an army can get into a good fight, reassemble, then immediately attack another objective, in a time without good communication found in modern armies.

We should also remember that Howard left artillery and one of his divisions on Cemetary Hill, hours before Ewell could have attacked the hill.

[larry_cockerham]

Wasn't Lee just giving an officer with a fresh pair of eyes in place at the last moment an opportunity to make an educated decision at the proper time a chance? Seems that would be an advantage over carrying out an erroneous earlier order after conditions had changed.

[5fish]

I worry about how Gen. Lee is presented to us by history and historians. He has been romanticise by all who write about him. It seems that history gloss over the few personal failing he might have had and there is always some poor scapegoat for his failures.

Historians never write about Gen Lee's personal black man servant he had up until his death and in death he did leave this black man servant money. The money was used by the servant to become a preacher.

I read his letters and I see stuff like his views about blacks was a head of its time for a southern in the 19th century but his views mirror the southern segregationist views of the 20th century. In a word he was "ethnocentric".

This romantic view of Gen. Lee started during the war and carries on today. I believe political correctness will keep the honest picture of Gen. Lee from us like it has for the last 140 plus years.

[samgrant]

Lee was in over his head.