Civil War History - General DiscussionFor Discussions on Civil War Era Personalities, Politics, Issues, Campaigns, Battles, and more. Serious Civil War Discussions Only Please! All other posts will be deleted.
begin to get a clue that it wasn't going to be thirteen states, or thirteen states and any U.S. territory. That the thirteen stars in its battle flag was not going to happen. Less perhaps, but never the territory the Confederacy initially sought.
Anyone ever read a historian that asked or answered that question? None I've ever seen. But much has been written, and some of it surely ignored.
It was as if the surrender at Appomattox was a sudden collapse, and not a collapse that had surely taken years, but had been occurring since the first year of the war.
By even mid-1862 there was severe loss of territory, but seems over shadow as historians later covered Fredricksburg, Chancellorsville and Chickamauga. As if these Confederate victories were turning the tide away from defeat.
begin to get a clue that it wasn't going to be thirteen states, or thirteen states and any U.S. territory. That the thirteen stars in its battle flag was not going to happen. Less perhaps, but never the territory the Confederacy initially sought.
Anyone ever read a historian that asked or answered that question? None I've ever seen. But much has been written, and some of it surely ignored.
It was as if the surrender at Appomattox was a sudden collapse, and not a collapse that had surely taken years, but had been occurring since the first year of the war.
By even mid-1862 there was severe loss of territory, but seems over shadow as historians later covered Fredricksburg, Chancellorsville and Chickamauga. As if these Confederate victories were turning the tide away from defeat.
Certainly the Confederacy believed the border states would join them into the second half of 1862, and the diehards probably into late 1863 ay least. And their reasoning wasn't too bad on at least three of them: MD, KY, MO.
In early September of 1862, Lee is across the Potomac; Bragg is in KY; Van Dorn and Price are moving North near Iuka and Corinth. A major victory in either KY or MD held great promise (the rebels assumed) of bringing those states into the fold.
Bragg was disheartened by October and November as he retretaed out of KY. Antietam was in the wrong part of MD, so I think Confederate hopes were kept alive until at least Gettysburg -- and even beyond into 1864 for the hard-core, who probably thought the people would rise if they could only get a rebel army into the area near Baltimore. Lee, I think, probably started giving up on that idea in 1862 after Antietam, and for sure after Gettysburg.
MO probably held hope the longest of the three, but was always dependent on the success of Confederate arms elsewhere.
DE was impossible unless MD joined the Confederacy.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
Plus if you're the Confederacy, why wouldn't you claim those border states? At the very least its a potential bargaining chip at any potential future negotiation, it very well could incite people in those border states to rally to your flag (which did happen, though not the numbers they had hoped for), and if they had gotten them in the beginning, could've made for a much different war dynamic....
Much of the Confederacy's hopes rested in their ability to sway the Border States into joining their cause. The problem was, the divided loyalties of those states made it nigh on impossible to get the entire state to secede. Even Lincoln knew this when he said that if they lost Kentucky or Missouri, they had lost the war.
When it came to Kentucky, this state, I think, had the most divided loyalties. You had thousands who went South and thousands who went North. However, Kentucky itself claimed neutrality, and told both sides that they were staying out of it (even though I don't think that was the truth and they all knew it). However, when Polk went and occupied Columbus and created the Gibraltar of the West, he ignored their stated neutrality and ruined, I think, any chance of Kentucky ever seceding from the Union.
Maryland, I think, would have seceded had they gotten the chance. Lincoln wasn't going to allow it though and he put a stop to it. But as we can see, many a Maryland native either went to fight for the Confederacy or became a Confederate operative.
These four Border states were instrumental in the Confederacy's hopes of winning. They weren't the only thing, but they were very close to being the most important, if not the most important.
__________________ "War is, at its best, barbarism." General W.T. Sherman
"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it." General R.E. Lee
Much of the Confederacy's hopes rested in their ability to sway the Border States into joining their cause. The problem was, the divided loyalties of those states made it nigh on impossible to get the entire state to secede. Even Lincoln knew this when he said that if they lost Kentucky or Missouri, they had lost the war.
This has always sounded reasonable to me; it was at least major problem for the Union. But if Lincoln was right to worry, both these states did remain loyal despite determined efforts by the Confederacy to subvert them (along with Missouri). The truth seems to be that the majority of those states did not want to secede, although the margin may have been slim in Missouri.
Quote:
Originally Posted by J_Man0507
When it came to Kentucky, this state, I think, had the most divided loyalties. You had thousands who went South and thousands who went North. However, Kentucky itself claimed neutrality, and told both sides that they were staying out of it (even though I don't think that was the truth and they all knew it). However, when Polk went and occupied Columbus and created the Gibraltar of the West, he ignored their stated neutrality and ruined, I think, any chance of Kentucky ever seceding from the Union.
Roughly, KY divided 60% Union, 40% Confederate when it came to soldiers raised. Voters seem to have been about the same, and if you break it out by counties, you can see that it was very closely related to which counties had slaves and which didn't. The attempt at "neutrality" reflects this, and I think both the Union and the Confederacy knew that couldn't last. It was mainly wishful thinking in the KY legislature, a compromise that looks a lot like whistling past the graveyard.
Both sides were massing troops along the borders; Grant reacted to Polk's occupation of Columbus by crossing the river himself within days. Polk was just silly enough to be first, and to act without specific authority from above, jumping the gun. If he had waited, an incursion into KY was pretty inevitable by one side or the other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by J_Man0507
Maryland, I think, would have seceded had they gotten the chance. Lincoln wasn't going to allow it though and he put a stop to it. But as we can see, many a Maryland native either went to fight for the Confederacy or became a Confederate operative.
Secession support in MD is pretty much Southeast of a line drawn from Baltimore and Washington. The further west you go, the less support you find (for example, almost all of Lincoln's 1860 popular votes in the state are on the western side of that line.) Further, slavery on the Eastern Shore in MD was a different thing than it was in that SE of Baltimore-Washington area, and slavery became less and less common as you went west of it. Slavery in MD had been in constant decline since the 1790s, and the perception of MD as a Southern or slave state was a bit higher than the reality.
This is one of the reasons support for lee's invasions in 1862/63 was more polite than real. Crossing upstream of Washington, Lee and his Army were in the least-likely-to-secede area. Had they crossed downstream of Washington and moved towards Baltimore they'd have garnered more support -- but that was impossible in the face of the Federal Navy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by J_Man0507
These four Border states were instrumental in the Confederacy's hopes of winning. They weren't the only thing, but they were very close to being the most important, if not the most important.
In three of these states, one thing is very obvious: KY, MD and DE had no desire to be the northernmost Confederate state in a North-South war. MD and DE had no defensibe border in such a situation, and would have been immediately overrun or become the site of constant campaigning and battles: this is a sure path to destruction and ruin.
KY seems to have felt much the same. While the Ohio-Mississippi rivers might appear to have given them a shot at a defensible border, the reality is that the Union RR network on the northern bank, the major towens and cities to use as bases, and the ability of the Union to dominate river warfare would have made crossing that barrier easy. A Confederate KY becomes an immediate battleground. The sheer size of it would require some effort to conquer, but the difficulty to the Confederacy in supporting forces there would make Union success likely. Combine this with the divided loyalties of the populace and it is difficult to see how the Confederacy could have held KY in a long war.
In MO, I think loyalty to the Union probably predominated, but the fierceness of the Confederate sentiment and the more primitive nature of the country made the war hard to control there. It became largely a thing of raids and ambushers, of bushwhackers and guerillas.
In DE -- well, DE was barely a slave state and barely "Southern". Her position and size made it virtually impossible to join the South unless the Confederacy could first control MD and provide a strong deterent/support force in DE.
Rarely mentioned is that the Confederacywas openly trying to suborn the loyalties of these three states. VA was supplying arms to Confederate sympathists in MD in April of 1861; Jeff Davis was supplying arms (including heavy artillery) and advice on how to seize the St. Louis Arsenal to secessionists in MO in the same month. Confederates are recruiting in KY, arming men, and setting up training camps there.
Now the Union was also making efforts in those states -- but those states were still part of the US even by their own admission then; if the Confederacy really existsed, it would have to be considered a "foreign power" trying to encourage treason in the US. The point is that when people point to Lincoln acting to preserve these states in the Union they rarely point out the Confederate actions he was countering.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
"Throughout the struggle, it was in his logistic inability to maintain his armies in the field that the enemy's fatal weakness lay. Courage his forces had in full measure, but courage was not enough. Reinforcements failed to arrive, weapons, ammunition and food alike ran short, and the dearth of fuel caused their powers of tactical mobility to dwindle to the vanishing point. In the last stages of the campaign they could do little more than wait for the Allied advance to sweep over them." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Amateurs study strategy, professionals study logistics”
As long as most of the historians concentrated on the strategy and tactics, the Confederacy had a chance, and historians passed that view to their readers. If some concentration had been placed on logistics, more students of the Civil War might have understood that holding some Confederate territory was impossible, even early in the Civil War. That the words Eisenhower said of the German army applied to the Confederate army equally well.
"Throughout the struggle, it was in his logistic inability to maintain his armies in the field that the enemy's fatal weakness lay. Courage his forces had in full measure, but courage was not enough."
The Confederacy could not "maintain his armies in the field" in Missouri and Kentucky; it was not a lack of valor, that led to their defeat there.
"Throughout the struggle, it was in his logistic inability to maintain his armies in the field that the enemy's fatal weakness lay. Courage his forces had in full measure, but courage was not enough. Reinforcements failed to arrive, weapons, ammunition and food alike ran short, and the dearth of fuel caused their powers of tactical mobility to dwindle to the vanishing point. In the last stages of the campaign they could do little more than wait for the Allied advance to sweep over them." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Amateurs study strategy, professionals study logistics”
As long as most of the historians concentrated on the strategy and tactics, the Confederacy had a chance, and historians passed that view to their readers. If some concentration had been placed on logistics, more students of the Civil War might have understood that holding some Confederate territory was impossible, even early in the Civil War. That the words Eisenhower said of the German army applied to the Confederate army equally well.
"Throughout the struggle, it was in his logistic inability to maintain his armies in the field that the enemy's fatal weakness lay. Courage his forces had in full measure, but courage was not enough."
The Confederacy could not "maintain his armies in the field" in Missouri and Kentucky; it was not a lack of valor, that led to their defeat there.
I agree about the logistics in general.
In order to wage a successful war in Missouri (i.e., to have a reasonable chance of winning the fight for the state), the Confederacy needed to be able to use the Mississippi up to St. Louis (at least). That's unlikely or impossible without control of both banks up to that point, since Union riverine units will always have an advantage on the water over time.
In KY, Confederate control of western KY was also pretty dependent on control of the Mississippi (at least to deny it to the Union). Logistics probably prevented any reasonable effort in eastern KY -- unless they controlled central KY and the RR there.
Control of central KY is a pipe dream unless the Confederacy can maintain control of Nashville and drive forward from there. That in turn means control of (or denial of Union passage on) the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. So once Henry and Donelson fall, KY is a doomed Confederate dream as long as the Union controls Nashville.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
Last edited by trice : 04-29-2008 at 10:57 AM.
Reason: spelling
Missouri and Kentucky. I read many of the "valor" books, most of the historians write. The place where the battles took place. And many important battles did not occur in Missouri, Kentucky and the western counties of Virginia(beyond the Allegheny Mountains)
Beginning my study of the Civil War and specifically logistics about four years ago, I saw the connection. Show me a place where the Confederacy had poor logistics, and one finds few monumental battles. Start studying those few and you come to a realization that battles, many of them, were beyond the capability of the Confederates to even fight in those areas.
I started studying bland inventories. The kind I prepared for Army Ordnance so many years ago. Inventory of the forts in Washington, D. C. and the amount of cannon in each fort and ammunition available.
An inventory of steamboats on the Mississippi and Ohio River; the number of boats and their capability to move troops and supplies. River barges available to move the necessary coal supplies. The tugs available to move the barges; the coal supply depots; the places steamboats were built; the places where the steam engines were constructed; new gunboat designs; places for amphibious landings from Cincinnati to New Orleans with distances.
And some may wonder, how Fort Henry and Fort Donelson fell; why the Confederates abandoned Columbus, Kentucky; why Nashville fell; why the Confederates abandoned Island #10; why Memphis would fall; how Grant got much of his army to Shiloh. Most, if not all, never read the inventory reports.
Right there in the inventory report of U.S. steamboat and supply assets the Confederacy never possessed.
I agree with 5fish. I believe that Jefferson Davis was in
complete denial about the fate of the Confederacy.
Even after Richmond fell, and he was on the run, he still thought something might turn the situation around.
I believe most of the Confederate generals saw the handwriting on the wall, especially after Gettysburg.
How many men would suffer and die because of Davis'
denial?
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
When did the Confederate Leadership, 
Linear Mode
