By what metric can we determine if the Confederate Army is the best?

leftyhunter

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
May 27, 2011
Location
los angeles ca
Has we all know me and my best friend CSA today go back and forth on how effective the Confederate States Army ( although in a different context CSA can mean Confederate States of America) is. CSA Today claims they are supermen for holding out for four years against an army that outnumbered it two to one or per McPhearson's estimate in "Battle Cry of freedom two and 1/2 to one.
How does one come up with an objective metric that the CSA was really the best army their ever was? best compared to what? Did the all the soldiers of the CSA stay loyal to it/ Did the CSA achieve a remarkable feat by not surrendering after four years or they did about has well has any other military of that time in a more or less similar situation?
Years ago I read a book about the Israeli Army that did give metrics on how one Israeli soldier was worth x amount of Arab soldiers. I forgot the methodology how the author did so .How can we do so for CW era soldiers I have no idea.
Thanks
Leftyhunter
 
If we add Southern white men plus Southern black men who enlisted in the Union Army yes we get 104k white men plus over 150 k black Southern men so not to far from 300k not including Unionist guerrillas and home guards.
Leftyhunter

I find it fascinating how you manage to deduct from a finite manpower pool available to the Confederate army while at the same time seemingly add to it to a point that the opposing army from a much more populous country had less than a two-1 numerical advantage.
 
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The battlefield averages speak for themselves. You have not even taken the time to use alternative sources to dispute my findings that on the average the Union Army only outnumbered the Confederate Army 1.86 to one at the battlefield.
Leftyhunter
Why would I do that I have never questioned 1.86 to 1 as a rough average for the major battles?
 
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As far as I can tell, man-for-man and taking into account leadership, and over the whole war, the Confederate army was better than the Union one.
However, the ability of the Union army to raise more men and to sustain industrialized combat (after a ramping-up period) allowed it to win.

The Union army naturally developed to rely on their superior manpower because to not exploit the manpower would be a failing.

Once you try to factor out leadership, you start to have problems. Once you look at individual campaigns, you start to have problems (mostly the same ones).
 
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Is there a point?
Yes my original point was simply that in the battlefield field the average manpower superiority ratio of the Union Army was only 1.86 to one. After pages and pages of argument we both agree that said figure is correct. An offensive army was such a slight manpower superiority ratio on the battlefield can not be expected to win a major conflict overnight.
Leftyhunter
 
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In terms of raised manpower, the fact of the matter is that the Confederacy raised a higher % of their citizen manpower because of desperation, and because they could rely on slave labour to replace jobs which in the Union were done by citizens.
 
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As far as I can tell, man-for-man and taking into account leadership, and over the whole war, the Confederate army was better than the Union one.
However, the ability of the Union army to raise more men and to sustain industrialized combat (after a ramping-up period) allowed it to win.

The Union army naturally developed to rely on their superior manpower because to not exploit the manpower would be a failing.

Once you try to factor out leadership, you start to have problems. Once you look at individual campaigns, you start to have problems (mostly the same ones).
Perhaps overall in terms of CEVs the Confederate Army was a bit better.
Arguably Confederate leadership in certain battles was superior.
On the other hand absolutely the Union Army when outnumbered did indeed defeat the Confederate Army at Prairie Grove, Pea Ridge, Mills Springs and Hooker won a battle outnumbered in Georgia.
Therefore it appears that the Confederate Army was not superior to the Union Army by a large degree.
It is more a matter of individual leadership then individual soldiers being superior to another.
Leftyhunter
 
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Yes my original point was simply that in the battlefield field the average manpower superiority ratio of the Union Army was only 1.86 to one. After pages and pages of argument we both agree that said figure is correct. An offensive army was such a slight manpower superiority ratio on the battlefield can not be expected to win a major conflict overnight.
Leftyhunter

Then you should be clearer you mean only battlefield ratios and not the overall sizes of the Confederate and Federal armies and in particular not the sizes of the opposing forces scattered over the vastness of the Southern Confederacy.
 
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Then you should be clearer you mean only battlefield ratios and not the overall sizes of the Confederate and Federal armies and in particular not the sizes of the opposing forces scattered over the vastness of the Southern Confederacy.
I thought I made that point perfectly clear when I cited various battles also in my many other posts.
Leftyhunter
 
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Especially late in the war when the South ran low on replacements. Another thing to consider it is important to remember that included in Confederate army totals were many over-aged and underaged reservists who served for the most in the state.

North Carolina historians, Hugh Lefler, and Albert Newsome estimate the state furnished approximately 125,000 men to the Confederate army [some sources go as high as 130,000]. Of the 125,000, about 111,000 were frontline troops, about 10,000 reserves (mostly in the Junior and Senior reserve brigades) and about 4,000 Homeguards.
I had an ancestor(GGG Grandfather) who served in Virginia reserves. He was 50 yrs old when mustered in. They were sent to help defend Richmond. He was from Wytheville (far SW corner near Tenn). He was captured, & became a POW at Point Lookout, MD. He wasn't released until well after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Had to be a helluva walk home from MD.
 
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I thought I made that point perfectly clear when I cited various battles also in my many other posts.
Leftyhunter

I'm glad and relieved that it's finally clear that the 1.86 to 1 applies only to the Federal battlefield numerical advantage and not to the greater disparity in numbers of the opposing armies overall.
 
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I had an ancestor(GGG Grandfather) who served in Virginia reserves. He was 50 yrs old when mustered in. They were sent to help defend Richmond. He was from Wytheville (far SW corner near Tenn). He was captured, & became a POW at Point Lookout, MD. He wasn't released until well after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Had to be a helluva walk home from MD.

Those fellows did a lot of walking back then. I don't know how far it was, but my paternal grandmother told me once that her father walked from Nelson County, Virginia to Culpeper Court House, Va. to enlist in Company G (the Nelson Greys) 19th Va. Infantry. He wanted to be with friends, neighbors, and people he knew.
 
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The link only goes up to p.16. Does page 90 show a source on how the author knew that the Communist forces knew to avoid the USMC? Moshe Dyan the then Israeli Minister of Defense who visited South Vietnam was told by the US Military that Communist forces initiated 90% of all military contacts.
Leftyhunter
 
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I'm glad and relieved that it's finally clear that the 1.86 to 1 applies only to the Federal battlefield numerical advantage and not to the greater disparity in numbers of the opposing armies overall.
Yes but many Union troops were tied down in other capacities. It is what is commonly referred to as " teeth to tail". In the ACW it took approximately one Union soldier in the rear to support two at the front. Now the figure is approximately thirteen troops to support one troop at the front.
Leftyhunter
 
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The link only goes up to p.16. Does page 90 show a source on how the author knew that the Communist forces knew to avoid the USMC? Moshe Dyan the then Israeli Minister of Defense who visited South Vietnam was told by the US Military that Communist forces initiated 90% of all military contacts.
Leftyhunter

I was talking about the Korean War: but if you type in the exact quote scroll down to Pg.90

https://books.google.com/books?id=K...ved=0ahUKEwiBi4zEw47gAhVmU98KHVXVBBcQ6AEIKDAA
 
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Yes but many Union troops were tied down in other capacities. It is what is commonly referred to as " teeth to tail". In the ACW it took approximately one Union soldier in the rear to support two at the front. Now the figure is approximately thirteen troops to support one troop at the front.
Leftyhunter
Yes but many Union troops were tied down in other capacities. It is what is commonly referred to as " teeth to tail". In the ACW it took approximately one Union soldier in the rear to support two at the front. Now the figure is approximately thirteen troops to support one troop at the front.
Leftyhunter

That would be true to a certain extent of all armies, unfortunately for the much smaller Confederate army, they were stretched pretty thin in those duties.
 
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