Reomoving Johnston at Atlanta

[civilwarbuglertn]

Was Jefferson Davis correct in removing Joseph E Johnston at Alanta and replacing him with John Bell Hood, or would have someone else been better?

[ole]

Was Jefferson Davis correct in removing Joseph E Johnston at Alanta and replacing him with John Bell Hood, or would have someone else been better?

Jason, who would you suggest?
Ole

[gary]

I believe Johnston would have fought - but only if circumstances were in his favor. He did at Seven Pines and was hoping for a similar situation before Atlanta - and he was sacked before he could carry out his plans (that Hardee attested to it makes it more credible to me). As a corps commander, Hood began a pattern of aggressive attacks that did nothing but destroy his men for no gain. As an army commander, he didn't change.

Was there someone better? Lee or perhaps even Forrest.

[samgrant]

I'll answer this by a copy of a of a previous post:

Originally Posted by samgrant

Ole,

I think PGTB was pretty much 'out of the loop' on this:

I've been reading Jefferson Davis's Generals, ed. Gabor Boritt, and in one essay which I just read yesterday 'Jeff Davis Rules: General Beauregard and the Sanctity of Civilian Authority in the Confederacy' by T. Michael Parrish I read the following:

"In early October 1864, ... Meeting face-to-face in Augusta, Georgia, Davis and Beauregard ... conversed for several hours, exchanging information and making decisions. .... Widely considered as the likely candidate to take command of the western army prior to Davis's choosing Hood instead, Beauregard gave his willing approval to Hood's planned attempt to lure Sherman northward, away from Atlanta. At the same time, Davis gave Beauregard command of a new Military Division of the West, an area covering five states ... Fully realizing his lack of real authority as an advisor to Hood, who would report directly to Davis, Beauregard accepted his rather strange role and vowed to carry out his assignment."

Parrish cites Alfred Roman's The Military Operations of General Beauregard in the War between the States 1861-1865.

As your comments piqued my curiosity, I found a book by that same T. Michael Parrish, Richard Taylor, Soldier Prince of Dixie, in which I found this:

"On September 27 Taylor met Davis in Montgomery. ... They discussed at length the concept of Hood moving the army north into Tennessee to lure Sherman away from Atlanta. Davis considered Hood's force strong enough to warrant the strike, but Taylor disagreed .... Taylor also suggested, as had Hardee and others, that Davis transfer General P.G.T. Beauregard from his duties at Charleston to take command of the army. ... Taylor believed he had persuaded the president to adopt his recommendations. But Davis decide upon only a superficial course of action. Instead of replacing Hood with Beauregard, he set up a new administrative structure called the Military Division of the West, with Beauregard in command. .... Taylor discovered the true ramifications of the arrangement when he met with Beauregard two weeks later at Blue Mountain. Beauregard had not replaced Hood. Instead, he exercised only an uncertain, almost advisory authority. Davis still had ultimate control over Hood's movements. By elevating Beauregard, the president obviously meant to deflect the public outcry against Hood while also leaving him in command of the army. .... when Beauregard conferred with Hood on October 21, he discovered the dauntless Texas had decided that in order to lure Sherman out of Georgia, he would have to seize a new initiative: a diversionary campaign into Tennessee. .... Returning to explain matters to Taylor, Beauregard confessed that, after making a heated protest, he had finally "declined to interfere" in Hood's audacious campaign, especially when no objection came from Davis."

Not to rely on one author, I tore the shrink wrap off my copy of Wiley Sword's The Confederacy's Last Hurrah. Some excerpts:

"Hood outlined a proposal for Davis. ... Hood advocated a bold new plan ... Hood had learned from his earlier close association with Jefferson Davis that the best way to deal with the president was to flatter him and bow to his strong convictions. ... Davis, of course, was desperately looking for an acceptable practical solution. He had long sought to wage offensive warfare, even to carry the war into Tennessee and Kentucky. ... Hood was playing to Davis's most vulnerable side. ....
As for the public outcry for a change in army leadership, Davis would circumvent criticism by a ploy. ... The entire matter would thus be resolved practically and politically. On paper the theater commander would be in control and responsible. Yet in practice there would be little change in the actual operations of the army. ...
When Jefferson Davis summoned him to a conference in Augusta, Georgia, on October 3, 1864, Beauregard hoped to assume again an important field command. ... Davis wanted Beauregard in the role of a theater commander, with little more than supervisory authority. ...
Beauregard began to have serious misgivings about Hood's operational concepts. ... Beauregard thus demanded Hood's concise statement of his plans for future operations. Yet, being well aware of Jefferson Davis's posturing with Beauregard as a defacto commander with little authority, Hood didn't bother to reply for four days.
Thereafter, Hood rarely deigned to with Beauregard or his staff, instead sending his communications directly to Richmond authorities."

Etc., etc., etc.

So maybe Beauregard had not Davis disliked him?

[ewc]

Removing Johnston was a mistake, but then old Joe seemed to be almost deliberately antagonizing Davis- refusing to intimate plans, refusing to declare his intention to fight for Atlanta, refusing to share with Davis his thinking- basically a little schmoozing would have gone a long way for Johnston- a shame he found the effort beneath him, and a disaster for the Confederacy that he didn't try it. Beauregard would have been fine, but for Davis, he didn't contenance replacing an ogre, for him anyway, with a troll. Another 'Too bad' for the Confederacy. The loss of Atlanta, like New Orleans, rests first and foremost with the top guy, Davis.

[larry_cockerham]

EWC, right on. Hood was hell. Johnston might have won the war in 1864 or at least had a serious impact on Lincoln's re-election changes. We'll never know.

[ole]

Losing Atlanta was inevitable, whoever was in charge. Johnston would have lost it at less cost to the confederacy (or, at least, at greater cost to Sherman). Sherman was often exasperated in his failure to nail down Johnston so he could whip him. And for that, Sherman admired him greatly. But Johnston's willingness to do battle when circumstances were favorable to his forces amounts to little more than counting on a piece of luck. Politically, Davis couldn't afford Johnston's seeming inaction. He had his congress to fight, as well as an army of highly uncooperative, politically powerful citizens. Johnston was the most obvious target.

Woodworth pointed out in an essay I read just yesterday that Davis set the very stage on which the tragic choice played out. We've all heard Cleburne, Cheatham, Taylor, and several other names bandied about. None of these had qualifying experience or had otherwise managed to hang an anchor on their belts. The command structure would not permit the cultivation of little generals into super generals.

So, when push came to shove, he didn't have anyone from which to pick. Perhaps a bit shortsighted, but draining the swamp wasn't going too well.
Ole

[ewc]

Agree and disagree, Ole. Atlanta likely was going to fall at some point. And as you point out, it was a matter of counting the cost. But the timing of it too was going to be especially important. If Atlanta could hold on till the Federal presidential election in November, then things would look badly for the Republicans and mighty good for a change for the Confederates.

Davis had his Congress to fight, tis true, but he was always going to have that. He also had his own staunch allies there. More so, it was a matter of getting a boatload of balky Confederate horses to pull together that was always going to be a Confederate president's bugaboo. The job would have tried a master like Lincoln, and the South had noone like him.

Johnston too had his stalwarts in Congress, and he had his own men and officers in his corner (with the notable exception of a certain balky one-legged corps commander.) What the ultimate crisis for Davis was that he and Johnston thought and fought the war differently. And this beside the fact that Johnston refused to assuage the president and clue him in on his intentions, and that Davis ultimately did not trust him. Ole, your points as to the dearth of capable Confederate army commanders shows in the fact that Davis named Johnston to this all important command at all, and that he (Davis) fretted and fretted for as long as he did before pulling the plug on a man he just didn't want there in the first place. And when he does make a move, he puts into his place a man, though unproven at this new level of command, who fights the war the way Davis wants it fought. He didn't pull Hood's name out of a hat thinking anyone was better than Johnston. Beauregard, after Lee, was the logical choice, but Davis simply wasn't going to put into this place another commander he couldn't (or refused to) trust. Given his druthers, the man he probably would have liked most for the post was his good ol buddy Braxton Bragg, but for that, there was simply no political or inspirational room to maneuvre. If anything politically motivated a commander at Atlanta, it was the keeping of Bragg from the job I would think.

[Eric]

Just had to jump in here. Ole and EWC both make good points. Many are critical of Hood as the choice to take command after Johnston, but were there realistic other choices? Richard Taylor may have been the only other logical choice. As has been already stated Beauregard was out of the question in Davis' mind. Lee was not going to come West and even Longstreet had flopped at Knoxville in independent command. Cheatham and Cleburne are two names tossed about, but neither man had ever been a corps commander, something at least Hood had done. S. D. Lee and A. P. Stewart do not have the necessary experience at high command levels. Forrest is an intertesting idea, but there is no way a cavalry commander, and an independent minded one at that, was going to get command of the second largest Confederate army. So after Johnston, Davis turns to Hood.

By the way, a similar problem exists after the fall of Atlanta. Davis visited the Army of Tennessee in Sept 1864 and could have replaced Hood at that time. Now putting Johnston back in charge would have been admitting his dismissal in the first place had been a mistake so once again Davis is dealing with a limited field and the same problems. Taylor again is possibly the best candidate, but Hood ultimately gets the nod and the Tennessee Campaign begins soon thereafter. In my book I describe this situation as Hood being the best choice "of a bad lot."

[civilwarbuglertn]

I have been listening to SHelby Foote's Civil War Narrative, and he seemed to hint that at the time of his removal that Johnston was actually working to discomfort Sherman. To me also he seemed to understand that his army was what was important, not territory. He did a fairly thourgh job of removing all the important supplies out of Atlanta. I trully think that it was a mistake to remove Johnston. But that is easy to say nearly 150 years later.