Civil War History - "What if..." DiscussionsWhat if they had attacked instead of digging in...? What if he was in charge of the army instead...? Did you ever have a "What if..." question, and you weren't sure where to post it? Here's the place to ask these speculative questions!
I tend to believe that the problems of Lincolns reelection were overblown and seemed more dire at the time to the politicians, even Lincoln (for a time), ...
With you so far Opn. There are well-known historians willing to give Sherman total credit for the election of 1864, but I generally figure they are looking for a single reason among the stack of other probables.
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....but in actuality, the President had a winning hand from the very start of the war and the election of 1865. He couldn't lose if he played his cards half way decently and we know that Lincoln was much more than that as a politician And Commander In Chief.
I fear that you have here given Lincoln too large a hand in the control of his political future. There was strong political opposition from both sides and his victory in '64 was not a given -- looking good, but not certain.
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Please ref. Trice's post #27. He posts six critical events from Sept. thru Oct. that many assume assured Lincoln's reelection. Sherman's victory came early (just after Farragauts Victory at Mobile Bay. Like Mobile none of the other victories are tied or have any direct relationship with Sherman or Atlanta.
The relationship between all these is a simple one: they convinced a war-weary Union electorate that the Lincoln-Grant team knew how to win this war.
The period of 1861-63 has shown success followed by failure, advances followed by reversals everywhere except where Grant was. Now it appeared Grant had met his match in Lee, and that nowhere else was the Union finding success. Grant stalemated in Virginia, the Confederates running wild again in the Shenandoah, Sherman producing no victory in Georgia, Banks floundering in Louisiana, Mobile still holding itself open, embarassing losses on minor fronts. On August 1, there was no victory, no major accomplishment for Lincoln to point to after 3 months and probably over 100,000 Union casualties in the Grant-run 1864 capaigns.
Farragut broke through that line. Sherman's capture of Atlanta confirmed a trend. Then Sherman's string of victories in the Shenadoah, where the Confederates always seemed to produce miracle victories, removed another weight from Union shoulders.
Lincoln would still have gone into the elections with a string of impressive military victories. The Union victorious, the armies on the move, people began to see it.
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Originally Posted by OpnDownfall
Most likely Atlanta would have been under close siege, at the worst and like Vicksburg, would be assumed to be lost (by both sides) without immediate relief.
Hood's performance in late August is abysmal. The decision to send Wheeler off on his raid was poorly timed and thought out (and Wheeler was a disaster anytime he was out of the control of higher authority anyway). Hood's reactions doomed the defense -- and only the typical Sherman avoidance of all-out effort and concentration on physical goals instead of the enemy army allowed the AoT to escape as it did.
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Originally Posted by OpnDownfall
I tend to believe that the problems of Lincolns reelection were overblown and seemed more dire at the time to the politicians, even Lincoln (for a time), but in actuality, the President had a winning hand from the very start of the war and the election of 1865. He couldn't lose if he played his cards half way decently and we know that Lincoln was much more than that as a politician And Commander In Chief.
I suppose that you are right in 1864 -- as long as Grant/Sherman/et al produced tangible proof they were succeeding.
But if people start voting with Sherman stalled outside of Atlanta, Mobile still a viable Confederate stronghold, and Early still defiant up near Winchester, I'm not so sure.
If that happens, then McClellan starts to look more and more viable as an alternative: as a "throw the bums out" replacement for the Republicans, as a peace candidate, as a miltary man who'll straighten out the mess this amatuer soldier in the White House has made. It might or might not have been a good thing for the Confederacy to get McClellan elected at that point, but there was a lot of disgust at how things were going in late July of 1864.
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.
The Union victories in Sept. and Oct. were not related to Sherman's Atlanta campaign, in that they would have occurred anyway, whether Sherman took Atlanta early or late.
Atlanta was (to all intents and purposes) indefensible, as evidenced by both Hood And Johnston. Atlanta could only be held, by withstanding a siege. If the south could not (or would not) relieve Vicksburg in 1863, how would it relieve Atlanta in 1864?
With the other victories in hand and Atlanta under siege (at the worst) it would still be difficult for the opposition to convincingly argue that the war was not being won. .
It could be argued that the war was won as soon as Grant began the siege of Petersburg, barring any catastrophe affecting other armies in the field (although Grant apparently believed that he could lose Sherman's entire army and still win the war). The problem was convincing the electorate. The sieges at Atlanta and Petersburg were seen as stalemate when they were actually significant strategic defeats for the Confederacy.
Sorry, ole, I appear to be straying off topic.
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
No, timewalker, it is still about the same. There is often some straying to examine a contributing factor, and that works for me.
All the factors mentioned by Trice and others looked very like a Union victory in late 1864. Nobody, but NOBODY tosses in the towel when there is another round against an obviously whipped foe. (OK. There are some exceptions, but the bulk of the electorate really knows when the tide has turned. They are almost never as stupid as the politicians would like to believe.) The problem is when the leaders looking for reelection cannot confidently gauge the real feeling of the electorate. So far as Lincoln was concerrned, he didn't have it in the bag. (We might remember that he was a bit of a worry-wart.)
Back to the "what if." What was Hood to do? He couldn't very well chase Sherman across Georgia over some rather thoroughly picked-over ground. He couldn't very well get ahead of Sherman and oppose Sherman's advance at any point before Savannah. His only hope was to make Sherman turn back. Atlanta became untenable after Sherman took that last RR track into Atlanta (I forget the name.) He had to leave or surrender his army as well as Atlanta -- those who fight and run away, live .... etc.
What he didn't know is that Sherman figured Thomas could whip his army into shape and take care of Hood. And that Sherman was confident enough in Thomas' abilities to just give it over. (An assumption that proved to be a correct call. Which makes no nevermind as Sherman would not likely have turned back even if Hood had taken Nashville. Mainly because Nashville was no longer important to the Confederacy -- starve at Florence or starve at Nashville.)
So Hood has to do something desperate. Gots to smash Thomas and take Nashville. Maybe that will make Sherman turn back. The vagaries of a battlefield commander. Atlanta was gone, Augusta was gone, South Carolina was going -- what good would Nashville be? A cross-country march over barren territory, with a starving army to rescue a starving army?
All hope was gone. It was finished. When Sherman took Savannah and moved to Columbia, having Nashville would have been an empty victory. Lee's boys would still have starved -- there was no relief for Lee's army in having possession of Nashville.
But. I digress.
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
All the factors mentioned by Trice and others looked very like a Union victory in late 1864. Nobody, but NOBODY tosses in the towel when there is another round against an obviously whipped foe. (OK. There are some exceptions, but the bulk of the electorate really knows when the tide has turned. They are almost never as stupid as the politicians would like to believe.) The problem is when the leaders looking for reelection cannot confidently gauge the real feeling of the electorate. So far as Lincoln was concerrned, he didn't have it in the bag. (We might remember that he was a bit of a worry-wart.)
Ole,
I think it is very hard to view these things today the way people did then. What follows is an exercise in trying to do so:
As of May 12, 2008, reported US casualties in Iraq come to 4,077 dead (all causes) and 30,004 wounded, military and civilian. This is over a period of about 62 months. The population of the US today is roughly 304,067,525.
During the Overland Campaign of 1864 in Virginia, the Union forces immediately under the command of Grant/Meade suffered roughly 60,000 casualties to get to Petersburg. This covers the major battles of The Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor and the rest of the actions. It was referred to at the time as "The Forty Days", a deliberate biblical allegory. This is a period of less than 2 months. The population of the US in 1860 was about 31,400,000 , and the Union portion of that was perhaps 22,000,000 in 1864.
So in rough terms, with a population about 7% of the size of the US today, the Union suffered almost double the casualties we have suffered in Iraq to date. The Union did this in about 3% of the elapsed time. I think this does not even include the casualties out in the Shenandoah or Bermuda Hundred in Virginia; it certainly does not include any Sherman, Banks, etc. suffered in the rest of the campaigns outside of Virginia.
So, to look at it in perspective, suppose we suffered the same as the nation did then, just in the case of Grant/Meade. Let's say 60,000 casualties, maybe 8-10,000 dead, between last week and the end of next month. At the end of it, let's say the result was inconclusive, with exhausted forces locked up around Baghdad and the fighting continuing with no end in sight.
How do you think the electorate would react? Would they be calling the US commander in Iraq a "Butcher"? What would the opposition be saying in their campaign? What would the media be saying? Assuming the sitting President Bush was running, how do you think he'd feel about his chances in the Fall elections?
I think we have far too rosy a picture of how inevitable Lincoln's re-election chances were. Without those victories by Farragut, Sherman, and Sheridan (much of which are closely related to Grant pinning Lee down in the trenches outside Richmond-Petersburg), how would things look?
If you really want to look at a scary number, multiply the casualties to account for the increase in population: 14 * 60,000 = 840,000 dead and wounded. Plus the losses outside the main front in Virginia, so maybe 1,000,000 casualties in 7 or 8 weeks.
Sorry for the digression
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.
In any event, if Hood decides not to invade TN, assuming the election is over, Lincoln is in, then the question is really what Hood is going to do with the army. There really is only one thing to do and that is to go after Sherman.
After Lincoln's election, the thing to do would have been to disband the army and send the soldiers back to their homes and save them from from a useless sacrifice to a lost cause or keet the army together and out of harms way until the war was over ala Johnston.
If there was no point in trying to keep the war alive in the west, then there was equally no point in trailing in Sherman's wake as he moved towards Grant, with Thomas on your tail.
.
In any event, if Hood decides not to invade TN, assuming the election is over, Lincoln is in, then the question is really what Hood is going to do with the army. There really is only one thing to do and that is to go after Sherman.
The underlying premise of Hood's campaign was that Sherman would have to weaken or abandon Atlanta and move towards Nashville in response to the threat of Hood crossing the Tennessee River. Davis and Hood seem to have been confirmed believers in this, perhaps along with Braxton Bragg. Beauregard supported the plan, but only with an earlier crossing well to the East of what actually happened.
Hood continually moved West without informing Beauregard -- who was in charge of organizing the logistics. Naturally enough, this fouled up arrangements for supply and support (like bridging the river). Hood blamed all this on others.
When the news of Sherman marching for Savannah reaches Hood and Beauregard, they are in Tuscumbia, Alabama glaring at one another. Sherman has a 300 mile headstart, and there are no good roads to use to chase after him. Neither Hood nor Beauregard thought for a minute they could catch him (although they apparently finally found a point they could agree on: Joe Wheeler's incompetence). Hood reacts by crossing the river and heading for Nashville in a futile gesture. Beauregard, glad to see the last of him, heads East to try to organize whatever he can -- screaming to Richmond for a replacement cavalry commander (since Hood has left him Wheeler).
The entire Tennessee campaign is based upon this fallacy, that Sherman would have no choice but to retreat to TN when Hood moved north. Sherman, tired of the useless pursuit of Hood into the Alabama hills, was glad to have the already suggested plan for a march to the sea approved. With Hood gone, it wasn't even hard, although it appeared worrisome to those not sufficiently informed.
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.
Sherman was long gone on his march when Hood finally got into Tennessee. From Sherman's viewpoint, Hood was a figment of an army that Thomas was well capable of dealing with.
Now. To go back to a point earlier made by Tim:
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So, to look at it in perspective, suppose we suffered the same as the nation did then, just in the case of Grant/Meade. Let's say 60,000 casualties, maybe 8-10,000 dead, between last week and the end of next month. At the end of it, let's say the result was inconclusive, with exhausted forces locked up around Baghdad and the fighting continuing with no end in sight.
Americans have always paid the price when in hot pursuit. We're kinda funny that way; when there is an end in sight, we will do what it takes. If there had been no end there is a definite opposition. By the time the opposition against the fighting for Baghdad, there was an end in sight. By the time the Bulge was in doubt, there was an end in sight. By the time the Marines were being slaughtered on the Pacific Islands, there was an end in sight. When we got hoodwinked into Nam, there wasn't one. And therein lies the difference.
When Grant was given the title of "butcher," the end was just there. At least, that's one thing from which we haven't backed off. And, with few exceptions, never did. The end is what we look for, and we hope it will be a successful end.
Now, to reiterate what others have said, a defeated Lincoln does not relinquish his office until March of 1865. He is still CnC of the armed forces of the United States and what he says, goes. Does McClellan sue for peace when the opposing AoNV is starving and the AoT has been smashed into virtual nothingness. Not even the Mahatma could have sold that bill of goods to the public. The election of 1864 had next to zero importance to whatever Union government was in power. Would the people have stood for four years of costly war and then tossed it off? I don't think so.
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
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