Grant Grant v Lee

[wausaubob]

Grant defeated the Confederates because he managed the business of war. Grant defeated the other United States generals because he got excellent political advice, and he followed it.

 

[wausaubob]

General Lee has a superb year of tactical success, from May of 1862 to June 1863. But he was spending resources above the replacement rate.
As the United States utilized its advantages in transportation, logistics and combined arms, it was going to win. Bad decisions prolonged the war, good decisions shortened the war. Grant finally got the operations to close Mobile Bay and then to capture Fort Fisher. The war ended soon thereafter.

 

[Saphroneth]

Using the Civil War as the criteria, i.e., accomplishments in fighting the war to a successful conclusion. seem, to me to be the most objective(reliable).

Okay. When does Grant beat someone who outnumbers him 2:1?

Fuller's perspective in interesting. Both Grant and Lee were slow to adapt to the rapid increase in range and accuracy of modern weapons.
The soldiers and junior officers adapted by utilizing cover, and entrenchments.

I'm not at all sure that Fuller's correct there because there was no such rapid increase in the Civil War. It was happening in the rest of the world, to be sure, but it doesn't show up in America because the training simply was not there.

 

[Saphroneth]

The thing that we have to realize when considering the performance of a general is that whether they won or lost is controlled by the resources they had available to them, and that they can be criticized or lauded for what falls within their span of action.
We should also consider what they had available as alternatives.

So for example we could praise Grant for making the decision to move south to draw supply from the York, but we couldn't praise him for opening up the York in the first place because he didn't do it - it was done before he got to the east.

Lee kept Richmond from being taken until almost the very last act of the war - by the time it was finally rendered untenable and he had to evacuate it the Confederacy had been hollowed out completely. In the process he was involved in keeping it from being taken in the 1862, 1863 and 1864 summer campaigns as well as the 1862-3 winter campaign (and to some extent the 1863-4 winter campaign), usually while outnumbered, and invaded the North twice to boot.

Grant was on the offensive throughout, and that has advantages as well as disadvantages. Of the three Confederate armies he compelled to surrender, two were surrounded and shut up in fortifications - functionally a siege, in the old meaning of the word - and he had significantly superior forces in all cases. When you're on the offensive you can wait to move until you have the right situation in the first place.

Grant didn't make any mistakes he couldn't recover from, but neither did Lee - his defeat in Petersburg is the result of months upon months of siege operations rather than from any actual error as such, and he tried to force Washington to withdraw Grant but Lincoln had toughened up since 1862 - and Lee had a smaller army opposed to a larger one so less margin for error.



This is why "did this general win" isn't sufficient to judge them; you have to look at what they could have done instead and what they did it with.

 

[leftyhunter]

Grant ultimately defeated Lee on a strategic level, but the amount of force that this required was extremely large.

If you look at CEVs (i.e. the casualty count per battle compared to Lanchester Square's expectations) then it is apparent that Grant's battle management was not significantly different to that of Hooker, Burnside and Meade (or Pope) in terms of how effectively they damaged the Army of Northern Virginia relative to damaging the Army of the Potomac to do it.

If you look at the strategic concept of the Overland campaign as conducted, it can be fundamentally summed up as getting over the Rappahanock and then repeatedly moving around the eastern flank. This can be explained as a series of attempts to catch Lee out of his entrenchments, but if so they all failed; it can be explained as a series of attempts to get between Lee and Richmond, but if so they all failed.
The success of the Overland campaign was that - albeit at great cost - it moved the Union army into a position it could draw supply from the tidewater rivers of Virginia and besiege Petersburg.

The thing is, short of defeating a much larger army on the attack, there's not really much Lee could possibly have done to stop Grant doing that - and Grant could have achieved that at significantly less cost if that was his objective. (Leaving aside the idea of landing on the Peninsula, Grant could have literally just skipped all the assaults he made and taken the same march route...)

It's also possible to criticize Grant's handling of his army, in that he threw it into so many heavy assaults against entrenchments that the army lost the will to attack (that's the case as of Cold Harbor). I've seen the idea that this is because Grant's experience in the West had led him to think that entrenching was something that an army did only when it was already suffering in morale terms.

Arguably, the hardest thing Grant did was get over the Rappahanock, and since that's after three failed attempts by the main Union army (Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Mine Run) that's no small thing. After that the rest of the campaign sort of looks like Grant trying things and then defaulting to his least useful option (the flank move), but he did always have that option to fall back on.



After the Overland you have the Petersburg siege. The main criticism of this one is that it was largely conducted as a siege, rather than regular approaches. Lee's attempt to draw off the force at Petersburg failed, but this is as much a function of the government as anything.

We should also keep in mind that the Overland Campaign was Lincoln's idea not Grant. Grant did propose to Lincoln to invade Virginia via North Carolina. Cash actually posted Gran's plan that was listed in the ORs.
Leftyhunter

 

[Saphroneth]

We should also keep in mind that the Overland Campaign was Lincoln's idea not Grant. Grant did propose to Lincoln to invade Virginia via North Carolina. Cash actually posted Gran's plan that was listed in the ORs.

Was that Lincoln ordering it or requesting it?

This actually then raises a question. If a plan ultimately worked but at high cost, and it was imposed over the objections of the field commander:

To whom does the success accrue?
Does the field commander or the person who imposed the plan get the blame for the high casualties?
Do the field commander's modifications to make it workable mean he was compromising the spirit of the plan?


(That last one is because I strongly doubt that Lincoln intended Grant to move to and invest Petersburg, because if you want to besiege Petersburg you can just sail there...)

 

[rbasin]

It was an election year, so...

 

[leftyhunter]

Was that Lincoln ordering it or requesting it?

This actually then raises a question. If a plan ultimately worked but at high cost, and it was imposed over the objections of the field commander:

To whom does the success accrue?
Does the field commander or the person who imposed the plan get the blame for the high casualties?
Do the field commander's modifications to make it workable mean he was compromising the spirit of the plan?


(That last one is because I strongly doubt that Lincoln intended Grant to move to and invest Petersburg, because if you want to besiege Petersburg you can just sail there...)

I will try to find Cashs post and get a link.
Leftyhunter

 

[wausaubob]

Okay. When does Grant beat someone who outnumbers him 2:1?


I'm not at all sure that Fuller's correct there because there was no such rapid increase in the Civil War. It was happening in the rest of the world, to be sure, but it doesn't show up in America because the training simply was not there.

Fuller may not have been correct. But if memory serves me, his opinion was that both Lee and Grant adjusted faster than the WWI generals. Both had to adjust to the fact that the soldiers were becoming much better at killing by 1863.
Fuller's opinions are interesting, though he admits his was not an in depth study.
I think that after three months of huge, destructive battles, Grant shifted towards logistical support, battles only when there was overwhelming strength and finishing the blockade. His success was not in inventing a new strategy, but getting the political support to do what Scott and McClellan thought possible from the start. Always good the hear from @Saphroneth.

 

[Saphroneth]

Fuller may not have been correct. But if memory serves me, his opinion was that both Lee and Grant adjusted faster than the WWI generals. Both had to adjust to the fact that the soldiers were becoming much better at killing by 1863.

I'm not really sure they were, certainly not in 1864 - the armies were "used up" by then or at least the Army of the Potomac was. They didn't have the will to press attacks any more by Cold Harbor.

Even as late as the Petersburg siege huge chunks of Warren's corps hadn't so much as fired a musket, let alone done marksmanship training. You need marksmanship training to get good at shooting a rifle-musket...



If you want an example of someone who got the "WW1 style" right in the first place, it's actually McClellan - his approach to a fortified position he couldn't outflank was to bring up the guns and blast his way through.


Lee didn't launch many big charges, but when he did it was generally with at least a solid reason as to what he was planning to achieve - at Gettysburg you have the attacks on both flanks and then the middle, at the Seven Days he's trying to lever McClellan away from his supply lines. At the Wilderness he catches all but one of Grant's corps to bottle them up, and at Chancellorsville he manages to do the same to all of Hooker's corps.

 

[BillO]

Using the Civil War as the criteria, i.e., accomplishments in fighting the war to a successful conclusion. seem, to me to be the most objective(reliable).

As many on this board know already, I have usually answered this particular question, by just noting that Lee's major achievements, were confined to a a small corner of the War, while achieving stalemates, while Grant was fighting through all the major dept's of the War from the Mississippi to Appomattox; against most of the most famous and experienced Generals of the confederacy, including Lee, with uniform success.

Granted Lee's acomplishments in one small part of the War was out of porportion to what could have been expected, he managed only to extend the war in Va. between the Rapidan and the Rappahanock, while the North under Grant, et. al., in the West was continuously rolling up the confederacy from the West to the East. It can be argued that Lee would have been even better on a larger stage, but, in fact we do not know because he didn't, while Grant did.

Hannibal lost his war but is still remembered as a great leader several thousand years later.

 

[wausaubob]

I'm not really sure they were, certainly not in 1864 - the armies were "used up" by then or at least the Army of the Potomac was. They didn't have the will to press attacks any more by Cold Harbor.

Even as late as the Petersburg siege huge chunks of Warren's corps hadn't so much as fired a musket, let alone done marksmanship training. You need marksmanship training to get good at shooting a rifle-musket...



If you want an example of someone who got the "WW1 style" right in the first place, it's actually McClellan - his approach to a fortified position he couldn't outflank was to bring up the guns and blast his way through.


Lee didn't launch many big charges, but when he did it was generally with at least a solid reason as to what he was planning to achieve - at Gettysburg you have the attacks on both flanks and then the middle, at the Seven Days he's trying to lever McClellan away from his supply lines. At the Wilderness he catches all but one of Grant's corps to bottle them up, and at Chancellorsville he manages to do the same to all of Hooker's corps.

Grant tried to win the campaign within the constraints of the expiring enlistments, and the ensuing election. He did not do it. By then he gave up on Hancock and Warren. Burnside had been an earlier suspension, and he got permission to get rid of Butler, too. Sigel did not last long in the Valley, and neither did Hunter.
I think from November 1864 to April 1865 Grant essentially rebuilt the army. The VI Corp replaced the II Corp as the main strike force, and the African/American divisions were trained better, with better officers.
What happened to the Army of No. Virginia was complex. But with Confederate territory shrinking, and the railroad system collapsing, the ability of the Confederates to maintain a horse powered army was slipping away. There were only shreds of a logistical system left by April 1865, and that system was full of spies.
Grant understood the business side of war.

 

[wausaubob]

Lee's greatness was in some degree expressed in his unwillingness to evacuate Petersburg earlier, which would have prolonged the war for another summer. It might have forced an armistice.

 

[Saphroneth]

Lee's greatness was in some degree expressed in his unwillingness to evacuate Petersburg earlier, which would have prolonged the war for another summer. It might have forced an armistice.

I'm not sure I follow? If Petersburg is in Union hands then Richmond is untenable, or that's always been my understanding, because it allows outflanking of the existing defences and the opening of the river by means of taking Fort Darling.

 

[wausaubob]

I think that once Mobile Bay was closed, the US navy was able re align on Wilmington. From that point on the Army of No. Virginia was in trouble in Richmond. In January 1865, Grant got permission to sack Butler. That ended most of the trading through the lines, and Fort Fisher fell. By then Lee had stayed in Richmond too long. Still, he could have gotten out of the area with part of his army, while sacrificing the other part. But he did not try that.
There was always the hope that the 1865 army would pursue sluggishly, like the 1864 army had maneuvered. However, that was not to be.

 

[wausaubob]

McClellan thought that if he captured Richmond, the Confederacy would fall, in European fashion. He was not alone in those ideas. By 1864 Grant knew that Confederacy was visibly shrinking.
If it had been a parliamentary system, or the enlistments had already been renewed, the US would have fought differently. The fighting in 1864 had a political purpose.

 

[Saphroneth]

I think McClellan's strategy in that was correct - after all, it's what Grant focused on, and Richmond is among other things the key to the whole state of Virginia (most populous Confederate state), the capital, and the only real source of artillery.

It may not end the war at a stroke, exactly, but it's a powerful symbol and hugely impactful on the war.

 

[Georgia Sixth]

vicksburg- csa army surrenders, last confederate stronghold on the mississippi falls. so yeah, fairly significant.
shiloh- Johnston's attempt to destroy Grant before Buell arrives fails. western third of of tenn is in union hands.

but none of lee's victories settled anything. his victories simply indicated lincoln's change in army commanders.

I think you have to use an entirely different definition of success for the two sides. In the case of the Union, it was a war of conquest and its aim was to re-establish Federal government control of as much geography as possible. So in that case, the fall of significant cities and ports are absolutely successes.

For the Confederate side, the goal was to remain intact, defiant and to continue resistance. Even if Johnston had won at Shiloh and Pemberton had won at Vicksburg, there would have been no expansions of the Confederate territories. They would have maintained their space and remained to fight the next attempt to subdue them. Only Lee had a remote chance (in my estimation) of actually causing the fall of important cities had he won at Gettysburg, and even then, it would have been temporary.

So, in this perspective, Shiloh was actually a success for both sides. For the Union, holding the field meant Grant secured his gains in Western Tennessee. For the Secesh, their army had demonstrated a fierce fighting ability and remained a threat, as evidenced by the uproar created by Bragg when he took this army a few months later into Kentucky.

 

[Andersonh1]

Simple "what if" for you. Give Lee the AoP in the spring of 1864 and give Grant the ANV and how do you see it playing out?

Lee wins under those circumstances. It's not downplaying Grant's abilities as a general to admit that he had an enormous advantage in men and resources, because if that's all it took, Hooker or Meade could have done what Grant did, but they didn't. Grant clearly made more effective use of his army than previous generals. Lee would have made effective use of such an army as well, given how well he did with less men and much more limited resources.

The question is, give both Lee and Grant equal men and equal resources, and who wins?

 

[Saphroneth]

It may be useful to compare Lee to Washington, at least in terms of their role in their respective wars of independence.

There's a really big difference.

The basic difference is that Washington didn't have anywhere he needed to defend, and his role was essentially to preserve his army. He could employ Fabian tactics because of that, giving battle only on the most favourable terms.
Lee, on the other hand, couldn't employ Fabian tactics because he had to protect Richmond and thus Virginia. He had to keep exposing himself to risks and he had very little margin for error.

The question is, give both Lee and Grant equal men and equal resources, and who wins?

Probably Lee. Lee was actually a pretty good attacking general overall - if you had the whole of Gettysburg except Pickett's Charge then Lee would have inflicted about 20,000 casualties at the cost of ca. 17,000 of his own, which is pretty rare for the smaller army attacking in ACW combat, and his attacks all have a larger operational sense to them (Day Two in concept is a nicely done echelon attack) while he can certainly manoeuvre and defend.
Grant OTOH isn't a very good attacking general when it's Lee he's attacking (or for that matter when he's attacking the forts at Vicksburg), and while we don't have much evidence on how well he defends we do know that he started out thinking entrenchments were bad for the men.
He also has a bit of a problem in that he's very aggressive, and against someone who's good at defending that's actually a problem - it means the Active Defence doctrine can actually work properly, letting Grant beat himself bloody against entrenchments.

Of course, every battle is different, which is why I say probably - but Lee rarely made an unforced error.


If they're in the historical strategic situation, OTOH, then Lee almost certainly wins. Grant has to attack, and historically Lee's small army cost Grant huge casualties - give Grant and Lee equal numbers and Grant quickly has a much smaller army than Lee does. If Grant reaches the outskirts of Petersburg then Lee can hold him and detach a massive force to invade the north, probably with enough force to take Washington.