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!
What if on March 29th, Lee had began his retreat from Petersburg to meet up with Johnston in NC.?
He learned from the Ft. Stedman mistake he did not have enough punch left to take on Grant. He began his withdraw to gain space between him and Grant and maybe achieve a move like Grant did when he crossed the James.
Could he have gain the time he needed to reach Johnston and engage Sherman before Grant rolling in?
Instead of surrender at Appomattox, it would have been called Lee crosses the Appomattox river.....
Would four days start have been enough for Lee's gamble to work?
Is there hope for Lee....
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
I doubt it would have changed the out come of the war but I was thinking the speed Grant ran down Lee following the collapse of the line at Petersburg.
Grant had a much bigger army but moved faster then Lee's smaller army. I figure Lee would needed to have escape Petersburg days before not wait until his line collapsed.
I think it is the only way Lee's plan of meeting Johnston would have work. He's going to also need a day or two to battle Sherman before he can turn to meet Grant...
The more one thinks of the last ditch effort by Lee it was truly grasping at straws.
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
I doubt it would have changed the out come of the war but I was thinking the speed Grant ran down Lee following the collapse of the line at Petersburg.
Grant had a much bigger army but moved faster then Lee's smaller army. I figure Lee would needed to have escape Petersburg days before not wait until his line collapsed.
I think it is the only way Lee's plan of meeting Johnston would have work. He's going to also need a day or two to battle Sherman before he can turn to meet Grant...
The more one thinks of the last ditch effort by Lee it was truly grasping at straws.
Generally speaking, Lee has the longer and tougher march, given the starting position. Sheridan at Five Forks is further West than Lee is, and Lee has to get past him to reach North Carolina.
This is a lot like a running back on a sweep play. Until and unless he can "turn the corner" on the other side, he can't gain any yardage. Once he does turn it, he is rapidly gaining yards while the other side struggles to catch up or force him out of bounds. The only alternative is to try to run right over the "containment" (i.e., Sheridan) and if Lee tries that the "pursuit" (Grant, Meade, and the rest of the boys) catch up and hit him from the rear.
OTOH, if Lee ever did get around/past Sheridan, he might be able to gain a little. Grant would be getting further and further from his supplies as he pursued, while Lee would actually be getting closer to his depots. In the long run, there is nothing to be found there, but in the short run Lee might have found some temporary room and time to do some damage.
The classic military way to gain that time is to find some piece of the enemy to turn on and claw up. This is like having your lead blocker pancake the linebacker at the corner, or having your trailing blocker chop-block a couple of pursuers. Cleburne did this to Hooker right after the disaster at Chattanooga, gaining time for Bragg's shattered army. Forrest did it to Wilson late in the retreat from the disaster at Nashville, gaining time for Hood's shattered army. Lee desperately needed someone to do that for him between Five Forks and Appomattox; he got Sailor's Creek instead.
If we want to fantasize about it, Lee doesn't have many people capable of that sort of thing, IMHO. I could picture Longstreet doing it to Sheridan, particularly if Custer were in the lead -- but Sheridan and the cavalry were a bit too solid and professional at this point in the war for it to happen, and they had VI Corps for support. Maybe Gordon if his command was intact. Otherwise, the rest don't look up to it.
But if somehow it could have been done, if somehow Lee could have "turned the corner" and smacked back the head of the pursuit, he'd still be in a heck of a fix. Even if he gains a day or two seperation from Grant/Meade and gets close to Johnston, the two of them will only have about 70,000 men (optimisticly). Sherman has 100,000; Grant is following with another 100,000. Other, much smaller Union forces are in western NC or can be called to the state easily enough if needed. So we end up with Grant/Sherman/Meade with maybe 250,000 troops moving into NC to tighten the vise on Lee/Johnston with 70,000 (at most) in May. Not a pretty picture for the Confederacy.
All of this is pretty predicatable to military men in the Winter of 1864-65. I am sure that Lee and Johnston and the rest of the Confederate high command understood it. I just don't think they allowed their thinking to get much beyond "when the weather gets good in the Spring, things are going to get really bad for us".
But note that this does not make it Lee's responsibility to surrender and end the war that Winter. It is his duty and obligation to bring his concerns to his commander, and it is obvious enough he did. Lee has no reason to surrender on any particular day until Sheridan blasts Pickett at Five Forks, and even then he can be viewed as having an obligation to continue resistance to gain time until the last desperate hope (getting to NC) is shown to be gone. It might be said that he should have surrendered after Sailor's Creek (April 6), which means he would have had to make his decision on April 7th at the earliest. He surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, so there really isn't much reason to criticize Lee for not surrendering earlier.
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.
Of course, and I think pulling this off is next to impossible for several reasons (some of which named above), here's a way to radically twist this what if.
Lee and Johnston unite. Sherman is smashed...let's say two-thirds casualties.
Lee (as he's senior, I'm naming him) suffers about 20,000.
50,000 in North Carolina versus 35,000 of Sherman's men, say at most 110,000 after adding Grant and the others.
So 50,000 vs. 145,000. Even Lee would be in trouble. But if he has the supplies to take up a defensive position and say "C'mon, hit me!", that might be interesting.
Its wildly, wildly unlikely, but...
__________________ Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less. - Robert E. Lee
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. - Abraham Lincoln
Of course, and I think pulling this off is next to impossible for several reasons (some of which named above), here's a way to radically twist this what if.
Lee and Johnston unite. Sherman is smashed...let's say two-thirds casualties.
Lee (as he's senior, I'm naming him) suffers about 20,000.
50,000 in North Carolina versus 35,000 of Sherman's men, say at most 110,000 after adding Grant and the others.
So 50,000 vs. 145,000. Even Lee would be in trouble. But if he has the supplies to take up a defensive position and say "C'mon, hit me!", that might be interesting.
Its wildly, wildly unlikely, but...
There's always that ...
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 great armament centers of Richmond and Atlanta are gone. No good way to get powder from the mills in Augusta. Wilmington is toast as a port to import supplies. Lee, in running from Grant, has used up or discarded most of his supplies. His cavalry and artillery horses are toast and so most of his cavalry is on foot and he has had to abandon much of his artillery and baggage train.
He can forage around North Carolina, but with his army combined with Johnston, there are simply too many men to feed off the land. His only hope is to route a Federal army to take their supplies.
All in all, a pretty desparate situation.
__________________ "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)
Yup. It was not yet the fat lady's turn to sing, but it was on the program. Once Grant put the cork in the Petersburg situation, it was over.
I'm still trying to get into Lee's head to find out why he didn't simply say, "You guys do what you want, I'm going home." (Didn't Forrest say something like that?) There does come a point when you look at the big guy and just toss it in. (Tomorrow you can acquire his mortgage and work from there.) Oh, yes. I forgot. He was a suthern gentleman and they never, ever quit. Somewhere back there, I lost the idea of noble and "just cause." It just seems like a better idea to stay alive -- if you're alive, you can at least re-approach the problem tomorrow. If you've suffered a noble death, that option is no longer open. Somewhere, I acquired the idea that nobly dashing myself against an onrushing locomotive is inadvisable. Having "Well, he was noble," on my headstone doesn't count.
Lee was whupped. He knew he was whupped. But he was noble. Somewhere the practicability escapes me. Mustard pickle, anyone?
__________________ 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
Yup. It was not yet the fat lady's turn to sing, but it was on the program. Once Grant put the cork in the Petersburg situation, it was over.
I'm still trying to get into Lee's head to find out why he didn't simply say, "You guys do what you want, I'm going home." (Didn't Forrest say something like that?) There does come a point when you look at the big guy and just toss it in. (Tomorrow you can acquire his mortgage and work from there.) Oh, yes. I forgot. He was a suthern gentleman and they never, ever quit. Somewhere back there, I lost the idea of noble and "just cause." It just seems like a better idea to stay alive -- if you're alive, you can at least re-approach the problem tomorrow. If you've suffered a noble death, that option is no longer open. Somewhere, I acquired the idea that nobly dashing myself against an onrushing locomotive is inadvisable. Having "Well, he was noble," on my headstone doesn't count.
Lee was whupped. He knew he was whupped. But he was noble. Somewhere the practicability escapes me. Mustard pickle, anyone?
Essentially, because that wasn't his decision to make. It belonged to Davis, or the Confederate Congress, but not to Lee. As a military man, he did his duty, as he always did in his conception. While he was in contact with Davis and his situation wasn't immediately desperate, it would have been improper for Lee to surrender in military terms.
But by Appomattox the situation had changed. Now his immediate situation was desperate, and he was on his own. As soon as it became reasonably certain that further resistance was of no discernable value to the Confederacy in Lee's judgement, the proper thing for a military man to do was to surrender. Lee surrendered.
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.
Lee with his four days head start marches his army to Appomattox to the supply trains. He decides to entrench around Appomattox and trains for a last stand. He gives the option to his men to stand with him and to his surprise almost all choose to stay and die for the cause.
Grant shows up and pleads with Lee to reconsider but Lee rebuffs the idea of surrender. Grant does not overrun Lee's camp but chooses to wait him out.
On a faithful day 1865, Lee leads the charge out of his entrenchments against Grant's position and history records it as "The Last Charge" and all men perished.
Lee inspires the south on a course of armed resistance against union occupation which ends brutally years later as the north brings total war to all citizens of the south.
More blood to shed.....Lee is a saint in the south and the devil in the north for his actions that faithful day in 1865...
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
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Four day start for Lee--What if-- 
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