J. Johnston Thoughts on Joseph E. Johnston

[jackt62]

Interesting how the voting is now showing that Johnston was underrated. I heartily agree!

 

[Jamieva]

PS. One argument against Johnston was that as the confederacy lost territory it lost recruiting in these areas. I maintain that these areas were pretty much picked clean already. Things like pemberton's surrender and lee's causalities cost much more.

Maybe, but would need more data than "i maintain". Also keep in mind that CSA armies lost soldiers who would go awol to go back home when their home area had been overrun by Union forces, so they are losing men that way

 

[Jamieva]

Interesting how the voting is now showing that Johnston was underrated. I heartily agree!

Because how would you possibly say he was overrated? The historiography of JEJ for decades has been how poor he did as an army commander. I dont know how you could make a cogent argument that he has been overrated because everyone has piled on the man for decades. That's not the definition of an overrated person.

 

[John Fenton]

Maybe, but would need more data than "i maintain". Also keep in mind that CSA armies lost soldiers who would go awol to go back home when their home area had been overrun by Union forces, so they are losing men that way

Lee was too aggressive. With one-quarter the manpower resource s of his adversary, Lee exposed his forces to unnecessary risks and ultimately lost the gamble. The gamble was unwarranted because Lee only needed to play for a tie; instead, he made the fatal mistake of going for the win. Lee failed to accept the reality that the North had to conquer the South; instead, he tried to conquer the North—or at least destroy its eastern army. Military historian Russell Weigley blamed Lee's stubbornness for Gaines' Mill, Malvern Hill, the mistaken Maryland Campaign, and his risking his entire army by fighting at Antietam. Bevin Alexander compared Lee unfavorably to Jackson on the issue of over aggressiveness: "Jackson was a military genius. He had found a way to avoid making frontal assaults against the massed power of the Union Army. This was the essence of his intellectual breakthrough. But Lee had not absorbed the lesson. And this sealed the fate of the Confederacy."
Incomplete figures show that Lee, in his major campaigns and battles, commanded a cumulative total of 598,178 soldiers, of whom 121,042 were either killed or wounded—a total loss of 20.2 percent, about one-third higher than Grant. Other major Confederate commanders with higher percentages killed or wounded than Grant were Generals Braxton Bragg (19.5 percent), John Bell Hood (19.2 percent), and Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard (16.1 percent). [ Johnston is not listed here. I could not find a overall rate for Johnston but i discovered that most of the Confederate casualties of the Georgia campaign were unknown.]
Grant, during the course of the war, commanded a cumulative total of 621,912 soldiers in his major campaigns and battles and that a total of 94,171 of them (a militarily tolerable 15 percent) were either killed or wounded.These loss percentages are remarkably low—especially considering the fact that Grant's war strategy was on the strategic and tactical offensive in most of these battles and campaigns.
[and yet they called Grant a butcher and Lee a saint]
"Grant's War Strategy That Made 3 Confederate Armies Surrender" History on the Net
© 2000-2019, Salem Media.
August 8, 2019 <https://www.historyonthenet.com/grants-war-strategy-that-made-3-confederate-armies-surrender>
Johnston stopped McClellan at Seven Pines with about 6000 causalities while Lee took 20,000 driving him back in the seven days battle, a pattern he would repeat itself over and over until the overland campaign in which he performed much like Johnston except that he [Lee] became trapped . even then Lee lost half of his force.

the point here is that Lee is overrated and he and Davis had the wrong strategy while Johnston had the correct strategy, was never directly defeated, still had an effective fighting force, free to maneuver , when Lee surrendered and he was underrated. his strategy might have worked if not interfered with and would have remained illusive and viable until after the elections. he knew he did not have to win but outlast northern sentiment.
we know how davis's and lee's strategy worked out and it left the south with nothing. no slavery, no empire. johnston's might have left a independent south even if reduced in size.

 

[leftyhunter]

Lee was too aggressive. With one-quarter the manpower resource s of his adversary, Lee exposed his forces to unnecessary risks and ultimately lost the gamble. The gamble was unwarranted because Lee only needed to play for a tie; instead, he made the fatal mistake of going for the win. Lee failed to accept the reality that the North had to conquer the South; instead, he tried to conquer the North—or at least destroy its eastern army. Military historian Russell Weigley blamed Lee's stubbornness for Gaines' Mill, Malvern Hill, the mistaken Maryland Campaign, and his risking his entire army by fighting at Antietam. Bevin Alexander compared Lee unfavorably to Jackson on the issue of over aggressiveness: "Jackson was a military genius. He had found a way to avoid making frontal assaults against the massed power of the Union Army. This was the essence of his intellectual breakthrough. But Lee had not absorbed the lesson. And this sealed the fate of the Confederacy."
Incomplete figures show that Lee, in his major campaigns and battles, commanded a cumulative total of 598,178 soldiers, of whom 121,042 were either killed or wounded—a total loss of 20.2 percent, about one-third higher than Grant. Other major Confederate commanders with higher percentages killed or wounded than Grant were Generals Braxton Bragg (19.5 percent), John Bell Hood (19.2 percent), and Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard (16.1 percent). [ Johnston is not listed here. I could not find a overall rate for Johnston but i discovered that most of the Confederate casualties of the Georgia campaign were unknown.]
Grant, during the course of the war, commanded a cumulative total of 621,912 soldiers in his major campaigns and battles and that a total of 94,171 of them (a militarily tolerable 15 percent) were either killed or wounded.These loss percentages are remarkably low—especially considering the fact that Grant's war strategy was on the strategic and tactical offensive in most of these battles and campaigns.
[and yet they called Grant a butcher and Lee a saint]
"Grant's War Strategy That Made 3 Confederate Armies Surrender" History on the Net
© 2000-2019, Salem Media.
August 8, 2019 <https://www.historyonthenet.com/grants-war-strategy-that-made-3-confederate-armies-surrender>
Johnston stopped McClellan at Seven Pines with about 6000 causalities while Lee took 20,000 driving him back in the seven days battle, a pattern he would repeat itself over and over until the overland campaign in which he performed much like Johnston except that he [Lee] became trapped . even then Lee lost half of his force.

the point here is that Lee is overrated and he and Davis had the wrong strategy while Johnston had the correct strategy, was never directly defeated, still had an effective fighting force, free to maneuver , when Lee surrendered and he was underrated. his strategy might have worked if not interfered with and would have remained illusive and viable until after the elections. he knew he did not have to win but outlast northern sentiment.
we know how davis's and lee's strategy worked out and it left the south with nothing. no slavery, no empire. johnston's might have left a independent south even if reduced in size.

I appreciate the stats on Grant vs Lee in terms of showing that Grant the butcher is a Lost Cause myth.
Highly doubtful if Johnston's strategy would result in an independent Confederacy.
To begin with every major Confederate port with the exception of Galveston fell to the Union and if the war would continue Galveston would fall as well. By mud 1862there was a cotton famine in Western Europe as cotton exports drastically were reduced.
By late in the war the value of slaves had be significantly cheaper reduced. Slaves could increasing run away and no profit to be made buying and selling slaves with an increasingly worthless currency.
Also war wearing is not a one way street. The Confederacy had significant internal dissent especially in terms of desertions and Unionist guerrillas.
Lee was correct in that unless the Confederate Army can seize and hold enemy territory or at least threaten major Union cities then the Confederacy would loose.
I am not aware if any conventional war that was win on the defensive.
Leftyhunter

 

[John Fenton]

Highly doubtful if Johnston's strategy would result in an independent Confederacy.

agreed but we know that Lee's strategy did not work either. they should have found relief of their grievances, including slavery and secession, through legislation and Jurisprudence as had been done before. they might have found the wealth and power they wanted had they mimicked the northern model of agriculture and industrialization .
when i was a kid about 12yrs old i recovered a stolen item for a store and was given a reward. there was a younger kid tagging along and he felt he was entitled to a portion of the reward just because he was there. i did not give him anything and he complained to his mother. she marched him down to where i was hanging out with friends and forced him to confront me. i whipped and humiliated him although i don't think i hurt him. his mother took him home with the threat of waiting until his father got home. his mother was trying to teach him to stand up for his self but all he learned was that his mom was a itch. this is my southern understanding of "southern heritage" and the kid had a chip on his shoulder as long as i knew him. he could not win and the only way to gain a portion was through negotiation or keep his mouth shut and go without. or if he had been willing to take a whipping everyday until i relented. he was forced into conflict with no way to gain anything and i hate to think what happened when his dad got home.

I am not aware if any conventional war that was win on the defensive.

the south did not have to win but the north did or else let them go.
it should not have been a conventional war but a war of attrition .
One can be said to pursue a strategy of attrition if one makes it the main goal to cause gradual attrition to the opponent eventually amounting to unacceptable or unsustainable levels for the opponent while limiting one's own gradual losses to acceptable and sustainable levels. That should be seen as opposed to other main goals such as the conquest of some resource or territory or an attempt to cause the enemy great losses in a single stroke (such as by encirclement and capture).

 

[Henry Hunt]

@John Fenton Alan Nolan's work Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History takes a similar viewpoint. Nolan views Lee's strategy of the offense as ultimately too costly for the Confederacy but also Johnston's as too passive, he wants something in between the two.

Lee Considered

Of all the heroes produced by the Civil War, Robert E. Lee is the most revered and perhaps the most misunderstood. Lee is widely portrayed as an ardent antisecessionist who left the United States Army only because he would not draw his sword against his native Virginia, a Southern aristocrat who...

books.google.com

 

[Henry Hunt]

Because how would you possibly say he was overrated? The historiography of JEJ for decades has been how poor he did as an army commander. I dont know how you could make a cogent argument that he has been overrated because everyone has piled on the man for decades. That's not the definition of an overrated person.

Most of the recent works I read are anti-Johnston. However I think among the general populace he still has some mythical statues, that he could have saved Atlanta but Hood ruined it. As an example The Atlanta Cyclorama has Johnston leading the Battle of July 22nd even though Hood was in command. No one wants to see Hood only their hero Johnston...

 

[Carronade]

Did Johnston have enough wagons and draft animals to transport the items that he burned? A major problem for the AnV is not only where they often short of food for the troops but a draft horse requires something like si many pounds of grain plus hay a day to maintain it's strength plus so many gallons of clean water as well. Just finding non contaminated water in the ACW is not easy. Our horse experts can give the appropriate figures of feed per day per horse. It must be fairly substantial.
Leftyhunter

Good question, which is the forum way of saying I don't have a solid answer but I think the key question is was it really so urgent to destroy everything? The material had been brought forward over some period of time, largely using the railroad that ran through Manassas, so one wonders if at least some of it couldn't have ben removed the same way. The Federals were showing little sign of attacking; indeed it was their shift to the Peninsula that caused Johnston's action. As I understand it, he made the decisions to redeploy and to burn the supplies on his own; perhaps if he had consulted with Richmond he could have gotten some additional trains or other assistance.

Side note: I wonder how much forage for draft animals was included in the material burned.

Accumulating large stockpiles close to the front is mainly relevant if one envisions advancing, which AFAIK the Confederates did not at that point. Retiring or redeploying, one is moving towards one's own sources of supply rather than depending on what one has right with the army.

Losing supplies is a problem for any army, but it was particularly serious for the Confederates. I recall reading of soldiers smelling all that bacon burning.....

 

[jackt62]

Because how would you possibly say he was overrated?

Actually, I was referring to the poll in this forum, which the other day showed equal numbers believed he was under or over rated. Obviously, you are correct that Johnston has historically been underrated, a condition that is starting to become more balanced.

 

[Bear1861]

The biggest problem with the retreat from Centreville and Manassas was a lack of railroad cars, most of which were being used by various officers for unauthorized storage, and poor planning by the Commissary Dept, which was still stockpiling materiel in Manassas 2 weeks before the retreat. They burned a couple of million lbs of rations at Beverly Mills, Peck said so much bacon grease ran out the door that it dammed the creek. The other problem was his paranoia, his orders to retreat came only a couple of days before the fact. The whole thing was mismanaged and very costly. He did the same thing when he retreated from the Warwick line the following spring..

 

[MBuehner]

My take on Johnston is twofold:
1: He didnt have Lee and Davis's deeply held understanding that the South was going to lose the war if they didnt go out and win it somehow. Interestingly, Johnston had something of a popular modern take, that the South could have indefinitely played defense and worn the North down. Lee and Davis knew better- while Johnston was defending Virginia in 1861-62, they were managing the broader war and the South was on the verge of abject defeat. They saw you cant play defense against a far bigger enemy with a navy that can move around and chop you into pieces or get behind you at will, not to mention starve you out. Which is ultimately how the war was won. Johnstons Fabian instincts could prolong the war, to a degree, but was doomed to defeat.

2. Johnston demonstrated that being willing to give up space does not make you a master of maneuver warfare. Yes, he was willing to move his armies to avoid unfavorable battles, but he was rarely willing to seize that all important initiative and force his enemies to dance to his tune the way Lee or even Bragg sometimes would. His best opportunity was Seven Pines, and it was a good plan that he allowed his subordinates to wreck (well, mostly Longstreet). If he had a true sense that this was his big opportunity to change the course of the war, he should have had his butt in the saddle double and triple checking that everything was being done correctly. You get the sense that he didnt really think it was going to be the most important day of his career, or that it potentially could save his country's existence.

 

[leftyhunter]

agreed but we know that Lee's strategy did not work either. they should have found relief of their grievances, including slavery and secession, through legislation and Jurisprudence as had been done before. they might have found the wealth and power they wanted had they mimicked the northern model of agriculture and industrialization .
when i was a kid about 12yrs old i recovered a stolen item for a store and was given a reward. there was a younger kid tagging along and he felt he was entitled to a portion of the reward just because he was there. i did not give him anything and he complained to his mother. she marched him down to where i was hanging out with friends and forced him to confront me. i whipped and humiliated him although i don't think i hurt him. his mother took him home with the threat of waiting until his father got home. his mother was trying to teach him to stand up for his self but all he learned was that his mom was a itch. this is my southern understanding of "southern heritage" and the kid had a chip on his shoulder as long as i knew him. he could not win and the only way to gain a portion was through negotiation or keep his mouth shut and go without. or if he had been willing to take a whipping everyday until i relented. he was forced into conflict with no way to gain anything and i hate to think what happened when his dad got home.

the south did not have to win but the north did or else let them go.
it should not have been a conventional war but a war of attrition .
One can be said to pursue a strategy of attrition if one makes it the main goal to cause gradual attrition to the opponent eventually amounting to unacceptable or unsustainable levels for the opponent while limiting one's own gradual losses to acceptable and sustainable levels. That should be seen as opposed to other main goals such as the conquest of some resource or territory or an attempt to cause the enemy great losses in a single stroke (such as by encirclement and capture).

A lot of issues here. Definitely their should not of been a Civil War that was initiated at Ft.Sumter . Slavery could of lasted a few more decades but without expansion slavery would be on a downward spiral.
War's of attrition won't work if as in the case of the Confederacy the economy is based on agricultural exports dependent on maritime shipping. A blockade is a zero sum game either exports get through in sufficient quantities to support a viable economy or they don't. As long as the Union Navy got larger and the Union Army could seize deep water ports then the Confederacy can not wait for a war of attrition.
The only successful war's of attrition that won involve modern insurgencies. I am not aware of successful conventional wars of attrition.
The Confederacy at no point could limit their losses to an acceptable level. By the end of 1861they list what would become West Virginia. By the Spring of 1862 they lost New Orleans,Memphis and Nashville.
Leftyhunter

 

[Henry Hunt]

The only successful war's of attrition that won involve modern insurgencies. I am not aware of successful conventional wars of attrition.
Leftyhunter

The only one that comes to mind is Frederick the Great in Seven Years War. Frederick employed what Prussians called "Ermattungsstrategie" a strategy of exhaustion. Frederick was horribly outnumbered by the Allied coalition and fighting on multiple fronts but still sought bloody attritional battles like Zorndorf and Torgau. The coalition eventually broke up giving him victory. This strategy was revived by the Germans in WWI at Verdun.

Applying this to the Confederacy is another matter however....

 

[Dead Parrott]

It seems the discussion of how to rate Johnston has mutated into a discussion of what strategy would 'win' for the Confederacy.

While that progression is understandable, I was trying to assess Johnston in his performance as a commander, rather than his chosen high level 'win-the-war' strategy. After all, one could argue that NONE of the strategies used "worked", and one could then argue endlessly (without conclusion) why they should or shouldn't have.

Did Johnston ably command the armies under his control? My opinion would be 'yes'. Was he implementing a strategy that would 'win' the war? It's fun to debate: but it is not a measure of how skillfully (or not) he executed his command of his armies.

In my opinion his generalship of his armies was good.

He was skillful in executing his chosen strategic 'vision' - (woe betide him that J. Davis did not share it!).

(OPINION) I think his strategy at Atlanta was good, at Vicksburg was questionable, and on the Peninsula would ultimately have failed (as did every other strategy there).

Johnston was a competent commander who knew how to lead an army but lacked Lee's boldness (and Lee's tactical brilliance, but so did everyone else).

As to the question "what strategy would win the war for the Confederacy" … well, I respectfully submit that no general solved that one.

- K.

 

[archieclement]

I mostly agree, I just dont give him credit for "He was skillful in executing his chosen strategic 'vision'" if that vision was counter to what he specifically was being ordered to do......such as go to Vicksburg's relief, or fight before Atlanta. As the only strategic vision it matters if he was skilled at, is the one he had been actually ordered to conduct.

 

[Lt R. Blackwell 4th Texas]

Lee was too aggressive. With one-quarter the manpower resource s of his adversary, Lee exposed his forces to unnecessary risks and ultimately lost the gamble. The gamble was unwarranted because Lee only needed to play for a tie; instead, he made the fatal mistake of going for the win. Lee failed to accept the reality that the North had to conquer the South; instead, he tried to conquer the North—or at least destroy its eastern army. Military historian Russell Weigley blamed Lee's stubbornness for Gaines' Mill, Malvern Hill, the mistaken Maryland Campaign, and his risking his entire army by fighting at Antietam. Bevin Alexander compared Lee unfavorably to Jackson on the issue of over aggressiveness: "Jackson was a military genius. He had found a way to avoid making frontal assaults against the massed power of the Union Army. This was the essence of his intellectual breakthrough. But Lee had not absorbed the lesson. And this sealed the fate of the Confederacy."
Incomplete figures show that Lee, in his major campaigns and battles, commanded a cumulative total of 598,178 soldiers, of whom 121,042 were either killed or wounded—a total loss of 20.2 percent, about one-third higher than Grant. Other major Confederate commanders with higher percentages killed or wounded than Grant were Generals Braxton Bragg (19.5 percent), John Bell Hood (19.2 percent), and Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard (16.1 percent). [ Johnston is not listed here. I could not find a overall rate for Johnston but i discovered that most of the Confederate casualties of the Georgia campaign were unknown.]
Grant, during the course of the war, commanded a cumulative total of 621,912 soldiers in his major campaigns and battles and that a total of 94,171 of them (a militarily tolerable 15 percent) were either killed or wounded.These loss percentages are remarkably low—especially considering the fact that Grant's war strategy was on the strategic and tactical offensive in most of these battles and campaigns.
[and yet they called Grant a butcher and Lee a saint]
"Grant's War Strategy That Made 3 Confederate Armies Surrender" History on the Net
© 2000-2019, Salem Media.
August 8, 2019 <https://www.historyonthenet.com/grants-war-strategy-that-made-3-confederate-armies-surrender>
Johnston stopped McClellan at Seven Pines with about 6000 causalities while Lee took 20,000 driving him back in the seven days battle, a pattern he would repeat itself over and over until the overland campaign in which he performed much like Johnston except that he [Lee] became trapped . even then Lee lost half of his force.

the point here is that Lee is overrated and he and Davis had the wrong strategy while Johnston had the correct strategy, was never directly defeated, still had an effective fighting force, free to maneuver , when Lee surrendered and he was underrated. his strategy might have worked if not interfered with and would have remained illusive and viable until after the elections. he knew he did not have to win but outlast northern sentiment.
we know how davis's and lee's strategy worked out and it left the south with nothing. no slavery, no empire. johnston's might have left a independent south even if reduced in size.

Another anti-Lee screed. This is getting old:

1. If Johnston hadn't been wounded he would have almost certainly evacuated Richmond in 1862 and the war would have been over.

2. Lee made two poor decisions to attack - Malvern Hill and Pickett's Charge. Combined casualties of maybe 12,000 (many of which would have been wounded and returned to fight.) Are you saying that this is the reason the South lost the war?

3. Gaines Mill was a major victory and was essential to winning the Seven Days and saving Richmond. Would you not have attacked?

4. Second Manassas - So Lee should not have attacked and smashed Pope's left flank and won a decisive victory?

5. Harper's Ferry - I guess a bold maneuver to divide his army and capture 13,000 Union troops was a mistake?

6. Chancellorsville - I guess he should have retreated to Richmond instead of boldly stopping Hooker's huge army and then throwing it back across the river, again inflicting more casualties.

7. First two days at Gettysburg - By aggressive action, came within a whisker of a decisive victory while inflicting more casualties than the AOP and wrecking three Union corps. Really dumb, huh?

8. Wilderness - Drives in both of Grant's flanks while inflicting more casualties.

As it turned out, all of Lee's brilliance was for naught because the South lost the war IN THE WEST, due in no small part to Johnston's poor performance in the Vicksburg and Atlanta campaigns.

Johnston finally got his "dream job" in May 1864 with his defensive position high up on Rocky Face Ridge. Too bad he didn't have the smarts to post even a regiment in Snake Creek Gap to detect McPherson's flanking maneuver that forced Johnston to fall back.

 

[Carronade]

1. If Johnston hadn't been wounded he would have almost certainly evacuated Richmond in 1862.............

Can we be so sure? Johnston had just turned to the offensive when wounded, after delaying McClellan's advance long enough to concentrate sufficient forces to take the offensive. If the only thing different about Seven Pines was Johnston not being wounded, presumably it would have been followed up by further attacks just as Lee did with Johnston's army shortly after.

We might consider how Johnston would have organized the army and conducted its next battles and how his strategies and their execution might have compared with Lee's.

 

[Lt R. Blackwell 4th Texas]

Can we be so sure? Johnston had just turned to the offensive when wounded, after delaying McClellan's advance long enough to concentrate sufficient forces to take the offensive. If the only thing different about Seven Pines was Johnston not being wounded, presumably it would have been followed up by further attacks just as Lee did with Johnston's army shortly after.

We might consider how Johnston would have organized the army and conducted its next battles and how his strategies and their execution might have compared with Lee's.

I think the loss at Seven Pines would have given Johnston the excuse to evacuate Richmond. "See I tried."

 

[Henry Hunt]

Can we be so sure? Johnston had just turned to the offensive when wounded, after delaying McClellan's advance long enough to concentrate sufficient forces to take the offensive. If the only thing different about Seven Pines was Johnston not being wounded, presumably it would have been followed up by further attacks just as Lee did with Johnston's army shortly after.

We might consider how Johnston would have organized the army and conducted its next battles and how his strategies and their execution might have compared with Lee's.

Implying Johnston doesn't get wounded he has a bit of time. McClellan wasn't gonna be in a position to attack Richmond until the latter half of June. McClellan during the interim was ordered to prepare for a link with McDowell's Corps thus his flank was in the air. Would Johnston really not have recognized this and attacked?