Gen. Pemberton had abandon Vicksburg??

[5fish]

What if on May 18, 1963, Lt. Gen. Pemberton took Gen. Johnston suggestion and abandon the city of Vicksburg, MS. to save his army?


Gen. Johnston wanted to join forces with Gen. Pemberton and then engage Gen. Grant with their combined armies. Hopefully driving Gen. Grant from MS. and recapturing Vicksburg.

Could these two questionable general have engaged an beaten Gen. Grant?

They both have engaged Gen Grant before with less then successful results.

Gen. Johnston just pie in the sky dreaming for all he was good at was the control withdrawal.

What if they had join forces outside of Vicksburg?

[timewalker]

But would Johnston have attacked Grant, even if he had Pemberton's forces with him? Johnston was defense-minded and always looking for a good place to set up a defense. Where would this have been? Would Grant have been able to give battle or would he have been required to take Vicksburg and then send a large portion of his army to Banks to take Port Hudson?

I think in this scenario, Grant takes Vicksburg, then sends a Corps (probably McClernand to get rid of him - no sacking him if there is no siege of Vicksburg) to Banks at Port Hudson. Then Grant takes Sherman and McPherson and marches back to Jackson, which Johnston again abandons and now there is a dance in central Mississippi with Grant trying to give battle and Johnston dancing away. Grant's need to keep between Johston's army and Vicksburg to prevent its recapture (no doubt a requirement from Lincoln and Halleck) limits his mobility. Grant does not force the surrender of an entire army, but since many of the parolled Confederates from Vicksburg immediately went back into the ranks (according to some reports), the only real difference is the loss of the artillery captured at Vicksburg (and Grant still has McClernand as a headache which must be dealt with - McClernand ranked Sherman).

[OpnDownfall]

I agree with Timewalke, Even if Pemberton had joined with Johnston, Johnston would still consider his force inadequate to attack Grant.
However, it would mean that there was an extra Army in the deep South near the Mississippi River under a commander difficult to pin down or force into battle.
At this time May and June, Rosecrans is building up his forces in Tn. against Bragg's AoT. In reality, Rosecrans was reluctant to attack Bragg as long as Pemberton remained a force-in-being, even though besieged at Vicksburg. One has to wonder how aggressive he would have been with a complete army under Johnston, actually in a position to reinforce Bragg?
If Johnston and Bragg joined forces, how soon could Grant been available for the Eastern Theatre?

[Nytram01]

With a larger army at his disposal Joe Johnston would be more likely to engage his enemy but would stay true to form and only attempt to engage his enemy when he had the advantage of terrain or manpower, however brief that may be.

If Grant splits his army at any time Johnston might try to take advantage of it, as he tried to do against Sherman in Cassville, but such a scenario is still questionable.

There will likely be a small force in Vicksburg that might be able to hold out for a while but the city will still fall, however the Mississippi Theatre will be contested for much longer as Johnston will not allow his army to be caught and trapped in Vicksburg or anywhere else.

The campaign between the Grant and Johnston would likely start out with Johnston adopting a strong defensive position and Grant testing those postition before he learns that he shouldn't engage an enemy entrenched in strong defensive postitions. Following that moment Grant will try to bring Johnston to battle on a field of his choosing but Johnston would be doing the same thing in reverse, trying to bring Grant to battle on a field of his choosing.

As long as Johnston is in command in Mississippi in this scenario I cannot see Grant being able to capture of destroy the Confederate Army simply because Johnston will refuse to engage Grant unless he has chosen the battlefield and if he is threatened by Grant he is likely to withdraw, regroup and redeploy else where.

Being a general fully prepared to give up cities, forts and territories to preserve an army I think that it would be a very likely possibilty that Johnston would pull out of Mississippi all together, after a while anyway, and try to link up with Bragg.

Beyond that...who knows?

[whitworth]

they might have started a real negotiation to end the war.
Much of the western states claimed by the Confederacy, were already lost.
It might have meant a negotiated settlement. Perhaps there would have been some reimbursement for freed slaves; if not the whole value, partial value.
By fighting the war to the absolute end, the slave oligarchy lost the value of all its slaves.

[ole]

If the Confederacy had taken those steps, they might have started a real negotiation to end the war. Hmmmmmm. Werrry interrresting. I think that might have been possible. I don't know that Grant would have bought into a: "hey. cut me some slack and I can cut your 47 days to 25." But it could be possible.

ole

[5fish]

If Pemberton had chosen to save the army, it could have change or delayed Grant moving east in 1864.

I believe Grant would have tried to hunt down the combined army of Johnston & Pemberton until he succeeded again keeping Grant from going east

If Johnston & Pemberton had escape from MS. and into TN. and combined with Bragg. Then the union would have spent 1864 trying to destroy this large force, leaving Lee to deal with Meade.

We know by Pemberton staying in Vicksburg did not help the confederate cause but by saving the army he could have given the confederacy more time..

The question becomes could Grant have force a fight with the combined forces of Pemberton & Johnston before the end of 1863? Freeing him to go east...

[OpnDownfall]

If left to his own devices (no interference from Pres. Davis) it is unlikely Johnston would have joined with Bragg. Strategically, Johnston, would most likelly, have seen that concentrating southern armies would only cause the Union Armies to also concentrate (not to mention, Johnston probably, preferred to be a bigger frog in a smaller army and a smaller frog in a bigger army).
However, Johnston, lost his job because of his 'trippin' the light fantastic' across Mississippi and Ga. Johnston would not change his mind set or tactics to please anyone, much less Davis. So Johnston would soon be gone and Bragg would be top dog in the West only, facing Grant, Roscrans and Thomas etc.
Bragg was no Johnston (light on his feet) so there would have been a series of hard fought battles, in late 1863 and early 1864 and then Grant would be free to move East.

[Jamieva]

And that's assuming Johnston would've met up with Pemberton. On at least 2 occasions he told Pemberton to bail on Vicksburg and meet him somewhere, and Johnston didn't show at those locations.

[5fish]

Originally Posted by Jamieva

And that's assuming Johnston would've met up with Pemberton. On at least 2 occasions he told Pemberton to bail on Vicksburg and meet him somewhere, and Johnston didn't show at those locations.

Did Pemberton show up on those two occasions?

Maybe Johnston knew Pemberton was not coming so what is the story behind those two other occasions..