How would you rate Rosecrans?

[67th Tigers]

Sorry cannot disagree more. Since as commander he botched the battle desperate measures were called for to salvage the army.

Indeed, yet you seem to be insisting that he shouldn't go to the crisis point (his broken wing) but rather ignore the crisis on his right and go to and stay with his left, where Thomas is getting on fine.

Mission command - he assigned a mission to a trusted subordinate (withdraw in good order back on the rest of the army) and allowed him to prosecute it.

It is a cop out to blame Garfield's reluctance--his not to reason why. Rosecrans acts courageous in a rear guard action and he keeps his job. If these generals are so politically in tune (and I don't think they are) would this not occur to him? We would see a statue of him in DC if he took a minie ball in the brain fighting it out.

Indeed, he could have committed "suicide by cop" but that's the easy way out. Instead he acted like a professional soldier and saved his army. Indeed maybe it takes far more moral courage to sacrifice your career to save your army than it does to take the easy way out....

It is not false bravado to attempt to change flagging morale. Heck Sheridan became famous for his "ride". Albert Sidney derelict for urging on his men? Not in my opinion. Lee reckless for wanting to lead a charge? That takes guts. This was still the era of close up fighting and the fallen leaders are still viewed as martyrs and heroes. Rosecrans was expendable and replaceable. He thought otherwise so history is not kind.

Lee's exhausted attempt to go forward was probably an attempt to "suicide by cop".

Sheridan's ride was simple desperation after he'd completely lost control of his army. As he himself said:
"Crook, I am going to get much more credit for this than I deserve, for, had I been here in the morning the
same thing would have taken place, and had I not returned today, the same thing would have taken place."

See, we're dealing with the difference between the appearance and style of command, and the actuality of it. Rosecrans did what was necessary, in in saving his army sacrificed his career. Maybe if he'd "done a Jones" history would have been kinder to him, yes.

 

[67th Tigers]

Was Grant busy or was he busy? Whether he initiated the attacks as in 18 of the incidents or whether the confederates did the probing/attacking as in only 9 of the incidents, he was not inactive.

Ah, so he was boldly doing nothing? With great courage he didn't make any serious attempt to attack the enemy for 22 weeks!

 

[Horace Porter]

Apparently some thing elevating their own personal heroes only means attacking Grant, and it doesn't have to be a truthful attack. The fact remains you claimed he was inactive and he wasn't inactive.

The best evidence of this is this particular discussion about Grant on a thread supposedly about Rosecrans. Not faulting you, cash. Rosecrans can't hold people's attention for very long on his own merits. Even his fans admit this, because they lead the charge to talking about Grant.

That's sad.

 

[Horace Porter]

David I believe everyone believes you did years of research.I think the problem is in the way you present it.it way have been better if you did a bio of Rosecrans and added your thoughts to it with documentation.your outright attack I feel turn everyone off to your book.you could have had a big market here but you went the wrong way and hurt your customer base.I had bought Varney's book and after reading it became obvious I wouldn't purchase yours.

Mr. Moore is very unhappy that no one has researched, written, and published in four years the comprehensive biography of Rosecrans that he so ardently desires. He deems this an "indictment" of the academic historical profession, and says he's still looking for a courageous historian to do this. He assails the historian who took time out from his own work to bring an ailing senior scholar's work to publication, although he likes the book (which apparently would never have seen the light of day without the assistance of the very scholar he assails).

I think it would be an indictment of an academic historian if he/she dropped their work, rushed through the archives researching, then hastily assembled, composed, and published the biography Mr. Moore so ardently craves in less than four years. I think that book would be sloppy and incomplete. Mr. Moore's been researching Rosecrans far longer than he requires of his imagined biographer, and his study is incomplete by his own admission. His behavior here suggests that perhaps he's not the best person to write such a biography, and he admits he's not the courageous historian he thinks someone else should be.

Note that when I ask him to direct his inquiry to two people he admires, Mr. Rose and Dr. Varney, he doesn't rise up to that challenge (which is telling in terms of what is and is not courageous).

Mr. Moore's posts convince me that he's composed an apologia for his hero. Doubtless there's an audience for that sort of thing. Someday I may read it, but I won't buy it. He's been too dishonest and insulting, twisting what's said and playing endless games with posters in ways that cast a damaging light on his own competency and his practices. Nor do I have much faith in his grasp of basic facts about the Civil War. Rosecrans deserves better. So do the readers of a biography that attempts to understand Old Rosey instead of simply exalting him.

 

[cash]

Ah, so he was boldly doing nothing? With great courage he didn't make any serious attempt to attack the enemy for 22 weeks!

Fighting isn't doing nothing. You apparently are unable to accurately characterize his actions.

 

[Horace Porter]

Fighting isn't doing nothing. You apparently are unable to accurately characterize his actions.

He's simply confirming his prejudices. He does so by repetition. That's not all that unusual here.

 

[Sbc]

Indeed, yet you seem to be insisting that he shouldn't go to the crisis point (his broken wing) but rather ignore the crisis on his right and go to and stay with his left, where Thomas is getting on fine.

Mission command - he assigned a mission to a trusted subordinate (withdraw in good order back on the rest of the army) and allowed him to prosecute it.



Indeed, he could have committed "suicide by cop" but that's the easy way out. Instead he acted like a professional soldier and saved his army. Indeed maybe it takes far more moral courage to sacrifice your career to save your army than it does to take the easy way out....



Lee's exhausted attempt to go forward was probably an attempt to "suicide by cop".

Sheridan's ride was simple desperation after he'd completely lost control of his army. As he himself said:
"Crook, I am going to get much more credit for this than I deserve, for, had I been here in the morning the
same thing would have taken place, and had I not returned today, the same thing would have taken place."

See, we're dealing with the difference between the appearance and style of command, and the actuality of it. Rosecrans did what was necessary, in in saving his army sacrificed his career. Maybe if he'd "done a Jones" history would have been kinder to him, yes.

Suicide by cop is hardly an apt analogy since rallying troops has an aim in mind versus self destruction. The actuality as you speak of was Rosecrans abandoning the AotC to an unknown fate, but certainly a known defeat. The man was expendable as are all soldiers. He cared more for his own life than his duty as commander in chief who had put those men in peril. You may buy those excuses of "greater responsibilty" but they ring very hollow. Again he acts just about any other way and he retains command imo.

 

[NedBaldwin]

List the lot of accusation that Rosecrans was an opium eater. dana denied saying it and that it was true.
I realize I am getting back on the merry go round of responding to opinions and hypotheticals.

I dont really now what you are doing.

I brought up the opium eater comment as a way of pointing out that newspapers would publish unsupported rumors and unsubstantiated accusations.

 

[NedBaldwin]

Indeed, yet you seem to be insisting that he shouldn't go to the crisis point (his broken wing) but rather ignore the crisis on his right and go to and stay with his left, where Thomas is getting on fine.

Chattanooga wasnt the crisis point.
Did he know Thomas was getting on fine at the time he chose where to go?

 

[leftyhunter]

I think there's a lot to that.

Rosecrans often got in his own way. He was largely a failure when he undertook offensive operations on the battlefield. Like Sherman, he's best known for a campaign that featured marching, not fighting.

That's an interesting point. On the other hand in the case of Tullomah marching worked out very well at least up until Chickamagua . In the case of Sherman marching through Ga and the Carolina's worked out very well indeed. That is a very good point that in a sense Rosecrans and Sherman where good generals but not great in terms of pitched battles against a strong foe. Some generals could do both and some not so much.
Leftyhunter

 

[leftyhunter]

That is your opinion but it is not based on anything anyone said or wrote at the time.

Perhaps it was since Lincoln allowed Rosecrans to be dismissed and reassigned to Mo. True it is my opinion I was just trying to use a semi-modern analogy. Some may like some may not. The way Grant saw it was ; dump the zero and send in the hero.
Leftyhunter

 

[leftyhunter]

I am not sure if this is the right thread as we have had so many over the past two weeks but Mr.Moore keeps bringing up Rosecrans first encounter wit R.L.Lee in W.V..well I just dug out VOL.I of Freeman's R.E.Lee and reread chapter XXXIII,Lee' First Campaign.when one reads this chapter it is just like everything in 1861 ,no real big deal.Freeman put most of his feelings that it was a union victory more on the captured union pickets tongues then any thing else because they so over inflated the strength of the union defenses.Rosecrans was lucky then as everybody was just starting their learning curve.

McPhearson also points out that CSA logistics and command structure ( at first Davis had three co-generals with Lee has a senior advisor ) has well has very poor logistics made it very difficult for the CSA to retain Wv. . Not that it was Rosecrnas or Mchellans duty to give their foes a fair fight .
Leftyhunter

 

[David Moore]

Ask him.

You have know thoughts about it? Or does your silence speak volumes?

 

[David Moore]

Well I have never posted any comments on eating preferences. The quote is mine as it sums up my thoughts on Rosecrans. And yes it is opinion. What is not opinion is that he was not with Thomas and Granger on Snodgrass Hill nor was he returning there with troops he rallied. I think you will find that this is were most find fault with him. Lack of personal courage.

I think Mr Porter brought up popcorn. If Rosecrans had been killed at Snodgrass Hill and the Confederate army had taken Chattanooga would that have made Rosecrans a hero? Would that have been a better result for the Union? Btw there are at least two versions (Garfield's and Rosecrans') about why he went to Chattanooga. Do a little research.

 

[David Moore]

Well I have never posted any comments on eating preferences. The quote is mine as it sums up my thoughts on Rosecrans. And yes it is opinion. What is not opinion is that he was not with Thomas and Granger on Snodgrass Hill nor was he returning there with troops he rallied. I think you will find that this is were most find fault with him. Lack of personal courage.

I think Mr Porter brought up popcorn. If Rosecrans had been killed at Snodgrass Hill and the Confederate army had taken Chattanooga would that have made Rosecrans a hero? Would that have been a better result for the Union? Btw there are at least two versions (Garfield's and Rosecrans') about why he went to Chattanooga. Do a little research.
(This is identical to my response to DanHawk)

 

[David Moore]

Rosecrans certainly did play the political game, and not only to bolster his "military situation." He wrote Lincoln directly, jumping over the heads of his superiors, asking that Lincoln back-date his promotion as a "personal favor," so he that he would outrank Grant, Thomas, and Burnside.

I was referring to presidential politics. I do believe Grant was at best a passive participant but Washburne was quite active.
Hard to respond without actual documentation to back up your statement.

 

[David Moore]

Most of what you're calling "spade work" was begun under Rosecrans and continued to fruition under Grant - BUT the actual conception and completion of it seems to have been the inspiration of engineer William F. "Baldy" Smith. Grant only deserves credit for leaving the plan in place and Smith (who he knew previously from either West Point or Mexico - or both) alone to finish the job. Smith is another of those interesting and virtually unknown characters of the war: a failure or at least disappointment under McClellan he was shunted west to a lackluster job which he performed admirably. His reward from Grant was corps command, in which he again proved a disappointment and so he became largely "lost" to history.

I'd say Garfield was personally ambitious and was willing to criticize Rosecrans to promote himself. Dana's dispatches, which he later admitted were probably unfair and misinformed, also a played a big role. In the 1880s Dana said he had a letter that would prove Garfield was responsible for Rosecrans' removal but he never did produce such a letter. The third player was the War Dept which neglected to reinforce Rosecrans before Chickamauga. Whether that was intentional or not is an interesting question.

 

[DanSBHawk]

I was referring to presidential politics. I do believe Grant was at best a passive participant but Washburne was quite active.
Hard to respond without actual documentation to back up your statement.

Without documentation? In your decades of research, I would've thought you'd seen the letter Rosecrans sent to Lincoln asking for a "personal favor."

 

[David Moore]

Without documentation? In your decades of research, I would've thought you'd seen the letter Rosecrans sent to Lincoln asking for a "personal favor."

Send a link of it to me so I can read and perhaps comment on it.

 

[Sbc]

I think Mr Porter brought up popcorn. If Rosecrans had been killed at Snodgrass Hill and the Confederate army had taken Chattanooga would that have made Rosecrans a hero? Would that have been a better result for the Union? Btw there are at least two versions (Garfield's and Rosecrans') about why he went to Chattanooga. Do a little research.
(This is identical to my response to DanHawk)

Yes Mr Porter seems to have a low opinion of either Rosecrans or your work. That however has nothing to do with me. To answer one theoretical, yes he would be a martyr and a hero if KIA. It is not a certainty that this would occur, nor that Bragg would recapture Chattanooga. If he was killed yes it would have been better for the Union as his remaining service was unremarkable. On the contrary he might have stemmed the tide and prevented Bragg from besieging Chattanooga. Lastly the differing accounts are of no interest to me and I decline to research. Their excuses are just hot air. Research will only confirm that he was not on the field when needed. This is the man who merits a statue? I value action over words, courage under fire over self-preservation. Rosecrans was expendable.