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Regardless, if Bragg had followed up in Chattanooga after Chickamauga, he could have resolved the issue before Grant arrived.
He didn't, and the last real chance in the west dissolved.
BTW, Hooker would have to turn north, not south, to roll up the Confederate left on Missionary Ridge. Otherwise, he would have been wandering around at Chickamauga, wondering where everybody went.
Speaking of Chickamauga, I think some are confused because there was a Chickamauga, Tennessee (east of Missionary Ridge) as well as Chickamauga, Georgia, which is, of course, near where the Battle of Chickamauga occurred.
The little Tennessee community of Chickamauga (or Chickamauga Station as some called it) has now been engulfed by the City of Chattanooga.
Regardless, if Bragg had followed up in Chattanooga after Chickamauga, he could have resolved the issue before Grant arrived.
He didn't, and the last real chance in the west dissolved.
It's true enough that Bragg's problems would ease or vanish if he somehow managed to break up or capture the AoC at Chattanooga. The problem comes about in figuring out how he was going to do that.
Even if Bragg had acted as Longstreet and Forrest and others asserted on the afternoon of the victory, it is hard to say that the AoC would have been destroyed that day or the next. Damaged more, yes; but Thomas had the rearguard well in hand and the odds of smashing it that next day weren't good.
Once the AoC was in the city, it was starting to recover. Bragg would have had to assault. He might have won (after all, even Hood at Franklin came close to winning for a few minutes), but what would the cost be? Even worse, what happens if he launches an assault and it ends in bloody ruin under Union guns?
Wheeler's cavalry raid across the river was a disaster (deservedly so, given Wheeler's habits). Confederate options then dwindled. Starving out Rosecrans/the AoC meant cutting the supply line -- and they douldn't do it completely. They had their own supply problems, and maintaining a substantial force west of Lookout Mt. was probably impossible. They could strike Burnside at Knoxville and return in a lightning campaign -- but they had no commander who could do that, and again had major supply issues trying. The slice-and-dice political infighting simply made it all worse.
IOW, I agree with you that "something should have been done". I just don't think it is all that easy to say what was going to work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Will Posey
BTW, Hooker would have to turn north, not south, to roll up the Confederate left on Missionary Ridge. Otherwise, he would have been wandering around at Chickamauga, wondering where everybody went.
The little Tennessee community of Chickamauga (or Chickamauga Station as some called it) has now been engulfed by the City of Chattanooga.
Right, Will. IIRC, it stood about where the airport is now. That was where Bragg sent the troops to get on the train and go help in Knoxville, since he had the situation all sewed up in Chattanooga!
It's true enough that Bragg's problems would ease or vanish if he somehow managed to break up or capture the AoC at Chattanooga. The problem comes about in figuring out how he was going to do that.
Even if Bragg had acted as Longstreet and Forrest and others asserted on the afternoon of the victory, it is hard to say that the AoC would have been destroyed that day or the next. Damaged more, yes; but Thomas had the rearguard well in hand and the odds of smashing it that next day weren't good.
Once the AoC was in the city, it was starting to recover. Bragg would have had to assault. He might have won (after all, even Hood at Franklin came close to winning for a few minutes), but what would the cost be? Even worse, what happens if he launches an assault and it ends in bloody ruin under Union guns?
Snip
IOW, I agree with you that "something should have been done". I just don't think it is all that easy to say what was going to work.
Regards,
Tim
Your rationale shows the paucity of thought, existing in primarily the Union generalship, and to some extent the Rebels, re: Bragg!
Most of the time battles were fought to a more or less draw. Gettysburg, Perryville, Stone’s River, Jonesboro, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, etc. The victor being the one left on the contested ground. That’s why Grant and Thomas were the most successful of the Union group.
Thomas’s plans for annihilating Hood’s Army at Nashville were exactly what was needed earlier in the war. The reality that he only succeeded in smashing, not destroying the complete Army of Tennessee, had several contributors, weather, incomplete planning, untrained and in some cases unarmed troops, etc.
Your rationale shows the paucity of thought, existing in primarily the Union generalship, and to some extent the Rebels, re: Bragg!
Most of the time battles were fought to a more or less draw. Gettysburg, Perryville, Stone’s River, Jonesboro, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, etc. The victor being the one left on the contested ground. That’s why Grant and Thomas were the most successful of the Union group.
Thomas’s plans for annihilating Hood’s Army at Nashville were exactly what was needed earlier in the war. The reality that he only succeeded in smashing, not destroying the complete Army of Tennessee, had several contributors, weather, incomplete planning, untrained and in some cases unarmed troops, etc.
Don,
I disagree. It is not enough to sit around and criticize the generals, claiming they were all a bunch of dunderheads. While I think some were, that doesn't mean the problem they faced was easy to solve.
It is easy to believe that the last great opportunity of the war for the Confederacy slipped away on the field at Chickamauga and in the aftermath at Chattanooga. I believe it myself. I feel that Bragg (bright enough, but overly rigid and not the man for a battlefield command in a changing situation) was largely responsible for the failure through his inadequacy, and that of the Army he built and led.
That doesn't solve the problem, it merely begins to frame it.
You have to lay out how you would solve the actual problem that existed if you want to say (as Will Posey did) that "if Bragg had followed up in Chattanooga after Chickamauga, he could have resolved the issue before Grant arrived."
You say my response to him showed the "the paucity of thought" that existed. Show us the opposite. Describe to us exactly how the Confederates follow up Longstreet's smashing assault to retake Chattanooga, crush the AoC on the field, or effectively besiege them completely to starve them out.
The first choice seems obvious: crush Thomas on the field at Chickamauga somehow. We know this did not happen, for a variety of reasons. If you think it somehow should have, let us know the details of how you accomplish this.
The next is also obvious enough: a more vigorous pursuit from the field. This certainly should have been tried, IMHO. That doesn't mean it works against a man like Thomas or the hard-nut troops he led. It could easily lead, particularly in that terrain, to the sort of bloody nose Cleburne gave the Union pursuit after Chattanooga.
Even after the victory at Chickamauga, with Rosecrans penned up in the town, Bragg and the AoT were faced with a very difficult task. They were also confronted with a massive Union relief effort led by able commanders.
They could try to bag Burnside at Knoxville and return before Grant could arrive. They bungled the attempt, but it appears to be unlikely to succeed anyway.
They could try to operate north of the Tennessee to completely isolate Rosecrans and starve him out before help arrived. Supply issues probably precluded using any large infantry force, and Wheeler's cavalry raid was ruthlessly repressed and repelled.
They could try slow starvation -- which would be very slow indeed as long as they did not have complete control of Rosecrans' supply routes. This is what they did try; it didn't work, whether because of Union effort or their own failures.
They could have tried to operate West of Lookout Mountain in stronger force. Perhaps they could have used Longstreet's Corps reinforced by some others (i.e., go west against Hooker instead of northeast against Burnside). Any material success here (such as driving Hooker from the railhead on the river) will surely doom Rosecrans and the AoC. But how do you supply such an effort -- particularly since Longstreet's corps is strategically immobile due to the wagons, animals, etc. left behind in Virginia?
If you don't like any of those, you can mass your force and assault Chattanooga itself, hoping to drive Rosecrans into the river. Spectacular and costly if you win, bloody ruin and disaster if you fail. Failure also means Grant arrives to find you even weaker, and may crush you completely if you don't retire first.
Sometimes great leaders take hazardous, confused situations like this and find some way to make them work out. That is why we call men like Napoleon brilliant. If Stonewall Jackson is commanding the right wing of Bragg's army at Chickamauga, maybe he crushes Thomas left, and maybe the battle of Chickamauga becomes a battle of annihilation. If you drop a battlefield demon like Benedict Arnold into the fray, or Grant, or Sheridan, or Robert E. Lee, maybe everything changes. Maybe one of those would manage the siege better, maybe they'd maneuver to make relief impossible.
But the point of the matter, I think, is that the task is very difficult, no matter what you do or who is in charge. Dropping one of these people means "Give me a genius to solve it for me!" That may indeed be what is needed -- but it also shows why the distinctly middle-of-the-road command talent in place at the time for the AoT failed to solve this difficult problem.
Yours is one of the most interesting and provocative comments I’ve seen in a long time.
Amongst several dozen other things, you say: “You have to lay out how you would solve the actual problem that existed if you want to say (as Will Posey did) that "if Bragg had followed up in Chattanooga after Chickamauga, he could have resolved the issue before Grant arrived."
I could add that if Burnside got off his dead a.., things would have been different. Or, if Rosecrans had consolidated his gains in Chattanooga, another outcome might have occurred. These all lead to the counterfactual exercise.
To respond to all your comments in specifics, at this moment, is not possible in any detail, not by me at any rate. I’ll have to chew on it for a while. It reminds me of a series of articles Mark Grimsley wrote on “counterfactuals” which I really enjoyed. His topic was on the Snake Creek Gap adventure of James McPherson and the Battle of Resaca.
Grimsley also writes: “Prof. Lebow wrote his essay on counterfactual arguments as part of a forthcoming book that is the fruit of a conference, held at the Mershon Center in 2000, which explored the utility of counterfactual history. One of the conference organizers, political psychologist Prof. Philip E. Tetlock of Berkeley, noted that many influential historians “have excoriated ‘might have been’ speculation,” adding, “The ferocity and stature of the critics are a bit unnerving.” Nevertheless, when historians explain why things happen they are implicitly employing a form of “might have been” history, for whenever they touch upon a key variable–an important decision-maker, social process, or even climate condition–they are in effect arguing that but for that variable, things might have turned out differently. Moreover, as the British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper eloquently expressed it: “To assume that what happened was bound to happen is to beg the question of why it happened and to deprive history, at one blow, both of its lessons and its life. . . . If we are to study history as a living subject, not merely as a colored pageant, or an antiquarian chronicle, or a dogmatic scheme, we must . . . leave some room for the imagination.”
You have to lay out how you would solve the actual problem that existed if you want to say (as Will Posey did) that "if Bragg had followed up in Chattanooga after Chickamauga, he could have resolved the issue before Grant arrived."
Tim
Well, I apologize. Being somewhat new to this discussion board, I had no idea about the rule I apparently violated. Being stupid, I figured there could have been the possibility of resolution by Bragg if he had taken whatever actions would have been successful.
In the future, I'll keep such observations to myself.
Well, I apologize. Being somewhat new to this discussion board, I had no idea about the rule I apparently violated. Being stupid, I figured there could have been the possibility of resolution by Bragg if he had taken whatever actions would have been successful.
In the future, I'll keep such observations to myself.
Thank you,
Will
I see no need for an apology! Don't think you violated any rules either. I think Tim is asking for more than an opinion. Also, I figure the only stupid question is the one not asked or posed or......
Don't hide your observations, that's what makes these boards fun and interesting. And I think Tim is directing his observations to me.
Well, I apologize. Being somewhat new to this discussion board, I had no idea about the rule I apparently violated. Being stupid, I figured there could have been the possibility of resolution by Bragg if he had taken whatever actions would have been successful.
In the future, I'll keep such observations to myself.
Will,
There is no such rule, and I am sorry if my answer to your message and to Don appeared angry or offensive.
However, no matter what sphere we want to act in, we always have a responsibility to substantiate what we say. I work with computers, but if I were to go around criticizing the lousy work of the developers before me, I had better be able to show how I would have done it differently.
If we want to call Bragg incompetent, we have to show what we would do in his place to reverse his mistakes. If we can't do that, then the odds are our complaint has holes in it. If we can't do that, maybe the task he faced wasn't so easy.
I think Bragg was incompetent for his position -- but not by intelligence, or training, or lack of courage which he had in plenty. His performance at Buena Vista in the Mexican War is about as flawless an example of perfection in the use of horse artillery as you will ever find: daring, aggressive, technically exquisite. His battery (and the guns that acted with him) dominated the field that day, turning defeat into victory with the aid of Jefferson Davis and his Mississippians.
But Bragg was also rigid, argumentative and a grudge-holder. He started feuds, and kept them up for decades. He even managed to turn someone who came to the AoT eager to serve again under him into an enemy in record time: D. H. Hill, who was in his battery in Mexico.
Beyond that, Bragg seemed to have become more and more rigid as his authority and responsibility increased. He could plan excellently (as his plans for the invasion of Kentucky and the counterattacks below Chattanooga show), but his passionate feuds and criticism of subordinates paralyzed his army, causing one opportunity after another to slip away. Then once the battle was joined, he seemed unable to adapt to changing conditions (as his actions at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Tullahoma and Chattanooga show). You would have to search long and hard to find a commander less suited to lead a free-wheeling pursuit started amidst the wreckage of a bloodbath like Chickamauga. He was, IMHO, simply incapable of the flexibility and emotional energy needed; he could not have inspired the troops to the heights needed.
But I don't see an officer on the field for the Confederacy who could have done it. Longstreet only perhaps; Forrest maybe, but he lacks the experience and rank; Cleburne, much as I like him, is way too junior and never had the indepence to show if he could. The rest fail to inspire me, and I see them as either proven inadequate or unknowns.
Once you have Rosecrans penned into Chattanooga, the Confederacy has a very knotty problem to solve. If they simply wait, they hand all initiative to Grant and the Union. If they act aggressively, they court disaster.
In the end, I think they chose perhaps the worst option. They tried a few things in a half-hearted way, with no real plan, acting more on the feuding of the army command than solid military concepts. They ended up badly outnumbered at Chattanooga -- and in inadequate strength at Knoxville. They accomplished nothing, got beaten in clear fashion, and lost the last real military opportunity they had.
But when I try to come up with a clear winning plan for the Confederacy, I come up short. I see difficulties everywhere, and I have no real feeling that Joe Johnston or Longstreet or Hardee or Beauregard would have somehow pulled a rabbit out of the hat to triumph at Chattanooga. Better than Bragg in that place and time, yes, I think so -- but none seem the special genius required here.
I am sure there might be an opportunity there somewhere, a way to smash the Union, surge forward to Nashville, and reverse the course of defeat -- but I have no idea how to make it happen. That is what men like Grant and Lee and Jackson, Thomas and Sheridan did in the Civil War, making victory happen. It is what men like Patton and MacArthur and Benedict Arnold and Napoleon and Frederick the Great and Gustavus Adolphus did in other times. I don't think the Confederacy can do what is needed at Chattanooga without a man like that.
As long as that's the case, I think Bragg and the rest deserve at least the modicum of an acknowledgment that this is a difficult problem, one that few could solve.
...
This is in my opinion, what you are asking for. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Don,
Any criticism needs to be substantiated, in my view. If it isn't, it loses a lot of weight.
War is difficult, perhaps the most difficult activity humans engage in as an organized body. There are no do-overs, mistakes are often revealed in stark relief against the blood of the battlefield, well-thought out plans often flounder, and brave men die in macabre scenes that unroll like nightmares to those caught in them.
It is all well and good to say Bragg blew his chance. IMHO, he did. You can say the same of Rosecrans. But to really analyze and critique the situation, you have to examine how it might have been different. I find it very hard to find a course that seems to promise success for the Confederacy after Chickamauga no matter which way I turn.
In some ways, Bragg tried the one that made sense: clamp down on the AoC, try to starve them out, and then fight the relief force when it came. I think it was done poorly, as was the effort on Knoxville, and only resulted in getting Bragg's army smashed. I see better ways to go, but I don't see a good alternative.
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