J. Johnston Thoughts on Joseph E. Johnston

[Jamieva]

and yet johnston was still maneuvering. he found space.
it is said that going into the war the south had an advantage of being as large as russia which would have to be conquered and occupied, although i would counter that with the fact that it also had to be defended. Lee threw this advantage away and operated almost exclusively in virginia. johnston was charged with holding much more territory, something he knew he could not do.
Selma was only defended with 4000 troops , half of which were deemed undependable .
The Selma Ordnance and Naval Foundry, also known as the Selma Naval Foundry and Ironworks and the Selma Arsenal and Gun Works, was a leading manufacturing center for the South during the Civil War.

Johnston found space to maneuver backwards. Over and over. Please google the land size of Russia and of the Confederacy. Russia is nearly 10 times larger than the CSA was in land size.

Again you prop up Johnston by running down Lee. What advantage did Lee have that he threw away?

 

[John Fenton]

Johnston found space to maneuver backwards. Over and over. Please google the land size of Russia and of the Confederacy. Russia is nearly 10 times larger than the CSA was in land size.

Again you prop up Johnston by running down Lee. What advantage did Lee have that he threw away?

i should have guessed that you would pick on an unimportant reference. the reference which i can not find right now meant Russia proper , less siberia. the reference also mentioned another country but i can't remember which one, argentina maybe ? the point is that it was big and had to be occupied.
Lee threw away making the union invade it all , conquer it all, and occupy it all. his interest was only in the east primarily virginia which shares a border with the north, giving it interior lines as short as his. Lee's wasteful record speaks for it's self and i use it as a measuring stick , since he is infallible to most southerners, to guage other generals including Grant. if Lee had maneuvered backward alittle , before he was whipped and forced to withdraw , and placed more importance on his devoted army rather than Richmond and his "country" of virginia he would have fared better and lasted longer. perhaps long enough. in comparing Lee to Johnston, while employing basically the same tactics in the overland campaign as Johnston did in north georgia , Lee lost half of his army. Because of Johnston's tactics in north georgia Hood had a numerical advantage at the battle of atlanta and even numbers at the battle of peachtree creek.

 

[leftyhunter]

i should have guessed that you would pick on an unimportant reference. the reference which i can not find right now meant Russia proper , less siberia. the reference also mentioned another country but i can't remember which one, argentina maybe ? the point is that it was big and had to be occupied.
Lee threw away making the union invade it all , conquer it all, and occupy it all. his interest was only in the east primarily virginia which shares a border with the north, giving it interior lines as short as his. Lee's wasteful record speaks for it's self and i use it as a measuring stick , since he is infallible to most southerners, to guage other generals including Grant. if Lee had maneuvered backward alittle , before he was whipped and forced to withdraw , and placed more importance on his devoted army rather than Richmond and his "country" of virginia he would have fared better and lasted longer. perhaps long enough. in comparing Lee to Johnston, while employing basically the same tactics in the overland campaign as Johnston did in north georgia , Lee lost half of his army. Because of Johnston's tactics in north georgia Hood had a numerical advantage at the battle of atlanta and even numbers at the battle of peachtree creek.

As mentioned Richmond was an invaluable manufacturing center for the Confederacy. Not seeing how the Confederacy could function without Richmond. Comparing Russia to the Confederacy is problematic.
When Napoleon invaded the Russians burned all the farms where Napoleon could expect to forage and the harsh winter cut off Napoleon from any supplies further West.
It snows here and there in the South but never enough to cut off the Union Army from any supplies from further afield.
Leftyhunter

 

[leftyhunter]

i should have guessed that you would pick on an unimportant reference. the reference which i can not find right now meant Russia proper , less siberia. the reference also mentioned another country but i can't remember which one, argentina maybe ? the point is that it was big and had to be occupied.
Lee threw away making the union invade it all , conquer it all, and occupy it all. his interest was only in the east primarily virginia which shares a border with the north, giving it interior lines as short as his. Lee's wasteful record speaks for it's self and i use it as a measuring stick , since he is infallible to most southerners, to guage other generals including Grant. if Lee had maneuvered backward alittle , before he was whipped and forced to withdraw , and placed more importance on his devoted army rather than Richmond and his "country" of virginia he would have fared better and lasted longer. perhaps long enough. in comparing Lee to Johnston, while employing basically the same tactics in the overland campaign as Johnston did in north georgia , Lee lost half of his army. Because of Johnston's tactics in north georgia Hood had a numerical advantage at the battle of atlanta and even numbers at the battle of peachtree creek.

In Lee's defense ,Lee had only so many troops so he had to concentrate in defending Virginia in particular Richmond. Lee did send a small corps under Longstreet in the Fall of 1863 to assist General Bragg and the AoT with mixed results.Arguably the Confederacy was better served if Longstreet's men were not deployed to Tennessee.
Leftyhunter

 

[John Fenton]

.Arguably the Confederacy was better served if Longstreet's men were not deployed to Tennessee.

that is primarily due to the bickering between longstreet and bragg. Longstreet was instrumental in the rout at chickamuga but failed at knoxville.

 

[John Fenton]

Comparing Russia to the Confederacy is problematic.

the comparison was only about size.

 

[John Fenton]

I can not find the reference i used before but here it is repeated time after time.

"The South could 'win' the war by not losing," writes McPherson, but "the North could win only by winning."
Although outnumbered and lacking the industrial resources of the North, the Confederacy was not without advantages of its own. It was vast—750,000 square miles the Federals would have to invade and conquer. "Thus space was all in favour of the South; even should the enemy overrun her border, her principal cities, few in number, were far removed from the hostile bases, and the important railway junctions were perfectly secure from sudden attack. And space, especially when means of communication are scanty, and the country affords few supplies, is the greatest of all obstacles."
https://www.historyonthenet.com/could-the-south-have-won-the-civil-war

To accomplish their aims, the Union would have to be aggressive and fight to win.They would have to invade, conquer and occupy the South .
The Confederacy –fighting a defensive war –would not have to win to achieve its aims of national sovereignty; it just could not lose .
https://www.phoenix.k12.or.us/cms/lib/OR50000021/Centricity/Domain/1172/ush Civil War.pdf

The South also proved to be very resourceful. By the end of the war, it had established armories and foundries [such as Selma] in several states. They built huge gunpowder mills and melted down thousands of church and plantation bells for bronze to build cannon.
The South's greatest strength lay in the fact that it was fighting on the defensive in its own territory. Familiar with the landscape, Southerners could harass Northern invaders. [as long as they were drawn away from the borders]
The military and political objectives of the Union were much more difficult to accomplish. The Union had to invade, conquer, and occupy the South.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/33b.asp

Davis was argued to have better served the cause by writing off large portions of the Confederacy's scattered territory which would enable him to focus his armies around a few key areas important to the South's survival. It has even been suggested conventional warfare should have been replaced with guerrilla warfare on Union occupation forces .
For the union a massive area of the Confederate States needed to be conquered and occupied, preferably the size of the whole of Western Europe.
http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com...e-confederate-south-have-won-the-us-civil-war

 

[Jamieva]

i should have guessed that you would pick on an unimportant reference. the reference which i can not find right now meant Russia proper , less siberia. the reference also mentioned another country but i can't remember which one, argentina maybe ? the point is that it was big and had to be occupied.
Lee threw away making the union invade it all , conquer it all, and occupy it all. his interest was only in the east primarily virginia which shares a border with the north, giving it interior lines as short as his. Lee's wasteful record speaks for it's self and i use it as a measuring stick , since he is infallible to most southerners, to guage other generals including Grant. if Lee had maneuvered backward alittle , before he was whipped and forced to withdraw , and placed more importance on his devoted army rather than Richmond and his "country" of virginia he would have fared better and lasted longer. perhaps long enough. in comparing Lee to Johnston, while employing basically the same tactics in the overland campaign as Johnston did in north georgia , Lee lost half of his army. Because of Johnston's tactics in north georgia Hood had a numerical advantage at the battle of atlanta and even numbers at the battle of peachtree creek.

The thread is about Johnston, not Lee. plenty of threads here to discuss Lee. If you feel so strongly about Johnston, you should be able to make a cogent case for him without running down Lee, Hood etc in the process.

 

[John Fenton]

Again you prop up Johnston by running down Lee.

i use Lee here as a point of reference and contrast. you use this thread as a "save Lee's reputation" thread. spin it how you like but Lee and Davis and Bragg for that matter threw away the south's best chance of stalemate, which is all it needed. Davis insisted on not giving up any territory, Lee insisted on an offensive and a win, and Bragg let Grant out of Chattanooga, over missiomary ridge and lookout mt. no less, which doomed Atlanta just ahead of the election. i don't really blame Hood who was just being Hood and a known element.

 

[John Fenton]

What advantage did Lee have that he threw away?

you asked the question.

 

[John Fenton]

List of Confederate arms manufacturers

Company	Location	Founded	Products	Output & Production Numbers
Alexander, John & Co	Charleston, South Carolina	Lightfoot Arms, Atlanta Georgia
Athens Steam Company	Athens, Georgia			experimental Double-barreled cannon
Atlanta Machine Works	Atlanta, Georgia	1848	Ordnance, rifled cannons
Beech & Rigdon	Augusta, Georgia		Rifles	Or "Leech & Rigdon"
Bellona Arsenal	Midlothian, Virginia	1810	Artillery
Bilharz, Hall	see Hodgkins
C. Chapman	Nashville, Tennessee		.54 caliber percussion muzzle-loading carbines	Less than 100
Cameron & Company	Charleston, South Carolina		Rifles	Also "Cameron, Taylor, & Johnson"
Churchill & Sons	Columbiana, Alabama		Artillery
Columbus	Columbus, Georgia		.58 caliber percussion muzzle-loading carbines	183
Confederate States Armory	Kenansville, North Carolina	1863	Various edged weapons, lances and equipment	3,700 lance spears, 6,500 bayonets, 11,700 cavalry sabers, 2,700 officers sabers, 600 naval cutlasses, 800 artillery cutlasses[1]
Congaree Foundry	Columbia, South Carolina
Cook & Brother	New Orleans, Louisiana (before 1863), Athens, Georgia (1863-1866)		Various rifles, bayonets	3,800-4,000 rifles, of them 1,000 .58 caliber percussion muzzle-loading carbines
Davis & Bozeman	Elmore, Alabama		.58 caliber percussion muzzle-loading carbines	90
Dickson, Nelson & Co.	Adairsville, Georgia, Macon, Georgia, Dawson, Georgia		Rifles and carbines	3,600 total for all rifles and carbines (.58 caliber percussion muzzle-loading carbines)
J. M. Eason Bros.	Charleston, South Carolina
Fayetteville Arsenal	Fayetteville, North Carolina		Rifles
GA State Armory	Milledgeville, Georgia	1863	Rifles, cartridges, artillery equipment
Wm. Glaze & Co.	Columbia, South Carolina		Rifles	Sometimes stamped his work with this name and sometimes "Palmetto Armory."
Griswold & Gunnison	Griswoldsville, Georgia	1862	Produced a variant of the Colt 1851 Navy Revolver	3,700 Griswold & Gunnison revolvers[2]
Hodgkins	Macon, Georgia, Pittsylvania, Virginia		.58 caliber percussion muzzle-loading carbines	400 to 700
Hyde & Goodrich	New Orleans, Louisiana		Rifles
H. C. Lamb	Jamestown, North Carolina		.50 and .58 caliber percussion breech-loading carbines	532
Maynard	see Perry by Keen, Walker. Not to be confused with northern Maynard of Chicopee Falls, MA
W. S. McElwaine	Holly Springs, Mississippi		Rifles
Mendenhall, James & Gardner	Greensboro, North Carolina		Rifles	Contract with N. C. government for 10,000 rifles. Marks, "M. J. & G."
Montgomery Arsenal	Montgomery, Alabama	1861	Rifles (1864)
Morse	Augusta, Georgia, Columbia, South Carolina		Carbines
George W. Morse	Greenville, South Carolina		.50 caliber breech-loading carbines	1,000
Murdoch Morrison Gun Factory	Laurel Hill, North Carolina		Rifles	[3]
J. P. Murray	Columbus, Georgia		.58 caliber percussion muzzle-loading carbines	Est. 1,000
Noble Bros. & Co	Rome, Alabama	1855	Various artillery pieces, artillery equipment
Palmetto Iron Works	Columbia, South Carolina	1850	Model 1842 musket with bayonets, M1841 Mississippi Rifle, M1842 dragoon pistol, M1840 Cavalry saber, M1840 light artillery sabers, 10-inch shells, various small arms and ordnance
J. C. Peck	Atlanta, Georgia		Specialty, rampart rifles
Perry by Keen, Walker	Danville, Virginia		.54 caliber percussion breech-loading carbines	280
T. W. Radcliffe	Columbia, South Carolina		Rifles	Both maker and importer
Richmond Armory (VA Manufactory of Arms)	Richmond, Virginia	1861 (1798)	Variants of the Richmond rifle	31,000 rifles 5,400 carbines 1,350 short rifles
Thomas Riggins	Knoxville, Tennessee		Rifles
S. G. Robinson Arms Manufactory	Richmond, Virginia		Produced a variant of the M1859 Sharps carbine	ca. 3,000 .52 caliber Sharps carbines. Marks, "Robinson Arms Co."
Selma Naval Foundry & Ironworks (Selma Arsenal & Gun Works)	Selma, Alabama	1861	Iron plating, Brooke rifled cannon, ironclad ships	over 70 Brooke rifles
Shakanoosa Arms Mfg. Co.			Rifles
Shelby Iron Company	Shelby, Alabama	1842	Iron plating
SC State Military Works	Greenville, South Carolina	1861		Also "State Rifle Works"
Spiller & Burr	Macon, Georgia		Rifles
Samuel Sutherland	Richmond, Virginia		Rifles
Tallassee	Tallassee, Alabama		.58 caliber percussion muzzle-loading carbines	500
Tarpley, Garrett & Co (Confederate Arms Factory)	Greensboro, North Carolina		Tarpley carbine	ca. 400 Tarpley carbines
George Todd	Austin, Texas		Rifles
Tredegar Iron Works	Richmond, Virginia	1841	Various artillery pieces including the Brooke rifle, iron plating	ca. 1,100 artillery pieces
Tyler Arsenal	Tyler, Texas		Rifles	Marks, "Texas Rifle. Tyler, C. S."
Union Mfg. Co.	Richmond, Virginia		Rifles	G. P. Sloat, formerly of Philadelphia, Supt.
Virginia Manufactory	Richmond, Virginia		Rifles

 

[leftyhunter]

I can not find the reference i used before but here it is repeated time after time.

"The South could 'win' the war by not losing," writes McPherson, but "the North could win only by winning."
Although outnumbered and lacking the industrial resources of the North, the Confederacy was not without advantages of its own. It was vast—750,000 square miles the Federals would have to invade and conquer. "Thus space was all in favour of the South; even should the enemy overrun her border, her principal cities, few in number, were far removed from the hostile bases, and the important railway junctions were perfectly secure from sudden attack. And space, especially when means of communication are scanty, and the country affords few supplies, is the greatest of all obstacles."
https://www.historyonthenet.com/could-the-south-have-won-the-civil-war

To accomplish their aims, the Union would have to be aggressive and fight to win.They would have to invade, conquer and occupy the South .
The Confederacy –fighting a defensive war –would not have to win to achieve its aims of national sovereignty; it just could not lose .
https://www.phoenix.k12.or.us/cms/lib/OR50000021/Centricity/Domain/1172/ush Civil War.pdf

The South also proved to be very resourceful. By the end of the war, it had established armories and foundries [such as Selma] in several states. They built huge gunpowder mills and melted down thousands of church and plantation bells for bronze to build cannon.
The South's greatest strength lay in the fact that it was fighting on the defensive in its own territory. Familiar with the landscape, Southerners could harass Northern invaders. [as long as they were drawn away from the borders]
The military and political objectives of the Union were much more difficult to accomplish. The Union had to invade, conquer, and occupy the South.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/33b.asp

Davis was argued to have better served the cause by writing off large portions of the Confederacy's scattered territory which would enable him to focus his armies around a few key areas important to the South's survival. It has even been suggested conventional warfare should have been replaced with guerrilla warfare on Union occupation forces .
For the union a massive area of the Confederate States needed to be conquered and occupied, preferably the size of the whole of Western Europe.
http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com...e-confederate-south-have-won-the-us-civil-war

On the other hand since the whole reason of establishing an independent was to preserve and expand slavery the Confederacy can not win a defensive war.
The Confederate economy did wholly dependent on agricultural exports. By mid 1862 there is a tremendous shortage of cotton in Western Europe resulting in massive layoffs know as the Lancashire cotton famine. We have a threads on that plus references if requested.
Confederate currency had a high inflation rate and the value of slaves plummeted.
There were good riots in various Southern cities.
The Confederacy can not survive a long term stalemate.
Leftyhunter

 

[John Fenton]

On the other hand since the whole reason of establishing an independent was to preserve and expand slavery the Confederacy can not win a defensive war.

the implication here is that they could win an offensive war. of all the "unlikelies" this is the unlikeliest .
by war's end the south would have taken what they could get in terms of territory if independent. then they could look to expand in other places.
the folks of manchester didn't want southern slave grown cotton anyway...

At a mass meeting in Manchester's Free Trade Hall, on New Year's Eve 1862, attended by a mixture of cotton workers, and the Manchester middle class, they passed a motion urging Lincoln to prosecute the war, abolish slavery and supporting the blockade - despite the fact that it was by now causing them to starve. The meeting convened despite an editorial in the Manchester Guardian advising people not to attend.
Mr Lincoln, in a letter dated 19 January 1863, 150 years ago on Saturday, replied with the words that are inscribed on his statue:
"I cannot but regard your decisive utterances on the question as an instance of sublime Christian heroism which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country."
Their support for the Union was not some abstract principle, but an expression of human sympathy with millions of black Americans that defies the historical stereotype of 19th Century workers as an uneducated mob.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-21057494

just as the confederacy would have sought to expand elsewhere , britain found cotton elsewhere.

 

[leftyhunter]

the implication here is that they could win an offensive war. of all the "unlikelies" this is the unlikeliest .
by war's end the south would have taken what they could get in terms of territory if independent. then they could look to expand in other places.
the folks of manchester didn't want southern slave grown cotton anyway...

At a mass meeting in Manchester's Free Trade Hall, on New Year's Eve 1862, attended by a mixture of cotton workers, and the Manchester middle class, they passed a motion urging Lincoln to prosecute the war, abolish slavery and supporting the blockade - despite the fact that it was by now causing them to starve. The meeting convened despite an editorial in the Manchester Guardian advising people not to attend.
Mr Lincoln, in a letter dated 19 January 1863, 150 years ago on Saturday, replied with the words that are inscribed on his statue:
"I cannot but regard your decisive utterances on the question as an instance of sublime Christian heroism which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country."
Their support for the Union was not some abstract principle, but an expression of human sympathy with millions of black Americans that defies the historical stereotype of 19th Century workers as an uneducated mob.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-21057494

just as the confederacy would have sought to expand elsewhere , britain found cotton elsewhere.

All West European textile workers had no problem working with Southern cotton until it just wasn't available in sufficient quantities.
Yes it is true that the majority of English textile workers were not advocating for a war to insure Confederate cotton got through the blockade. There was some substitution of Confederate cotton with cotton from British India and nominally independent Egypt. Confederate cotton was still used if blockade runners could get it through in which they did in small amounts. Some cotton was imported from Union occupied Louisiana and the Seaward Islands of South Carolina.
The British government did not allow the textile workers to starve.
Leftyhunter

 

[Nytram01]

Something else that occurred to me, Johnston does not seem to have been afraid to get in the thick of the fighting. As we all know he was wounded at Fair Oaks and he was also standing next to Polk when he was killed. However if we are comparing him to Hood....

Joe Johnston's personal bravery was never in question, and he was always willing to got where the action was hottest. A indiction of Johnston's reputation is that Winfield Scott once said of him that he was "a great soldier, but he has an unfortunate knack of getting himself shot in nearly every engagement"

 

[Nytram01]

Johnston ordered pemberton out of Vicksburg to join forces with him. He did not.

I am saying pemberton could not win at champion hill or black creek bridge so why in the world could Johnston who had smaller forces that had been beaten and widely dispersed at and around Jackson ?

Permberton did disobey Johnston's directions - at first - but he thought he was justified in doing so as McClernand Corps (if I'm getting the name right) was nearby meanacing him at Edward's Station and to march to Clinton as directed by Johnston would be to expose not only Vicksburg to that Federal Corps but also the flank of his army.

What Johnston had wanted to do was unite his forces with Pemberton to achieve local superiority in numbers over Grant and meet him from a position of strength, but once he was driven from Jackson he was a day or two behind events thereafter - partially because a Confederate courier turned traitor and took a copy of his orders for Pemberton to McPherson who passed them on to Grant, and Grant acted swiftly to prevent the Confederates having any chance of uniting - and Johnston's orders were out of time and out step with the campaign and directed Pemberton's Army into harms way.

One could argue that Pemberton was correct to disregard Johnston's first order, because Pemberton had a clearer understanding of the campaign and the location of the Federal forces while Johnston was operating on faulty information given to him by Gregg and Walker having been parachuted in mid-campaign after having spent most of the year to that date with the Army of Tennessee - focused on its infighting and recovering from his own illness - but what Pemberton did wrong was to abandon his own judgement of how best to oppose the Federals, to allow himself to be talked into moving from Edward's Station by his subordinates to seek out Grant's lines of supply and communication, and then, mid-march, decide that he was going to obey Johnston's orders after all (when a second message reached him telling him to march to Clinton) then turn around and get caught totally unprepared and out of position at Champion Hill.

That moment of dithering cost the Confederates the whole campaign. It was Pemberton's mistake exacerbated by Johnston's orders. Had Pemberton stood by his own judgement he could have met the Federals on his own terms at his prepared position at Edward's Station and potentially held them long - even if he were defeated still - and given Johnston the chance to get in sync with the campaign, possible even giving the Confederate the opportunity to bring their two forces together at one position to overwhelm their adversary, but Pemberton was not strong enough to stand by his own conviction when faced with orders from a superior and dissent from subordinates.

 

[Nytram01]

It was in his 12th September 1861 letter to Davis.

Davis replied: "I have just received and read your letter of the 12th instant. Its language is, as you say, unusual; its arguments and statements utterly one-sided, and its insinuations as unfounded as they are unbecoming."

Whatever can be said of how badly Johnston over-reacted to the ranking of the Five Full Generals and how personally he took it, it also must be said that Davis dealt with that reaction extremely poorly in return.

Not only did Davis send that reply to Johnston - which dismissed all of his concern and hurt feelings out of hand, did nothing to explain why the Generals were ranked the way they were, and did nothing to sooth Johnston's wounded pride or convince him that Government retained it's confidence in him - but Davis took Johnston's letter before his cabinet and denounced it and its author to them, and telling them how he was going to respond, thereby making the matter a subject of gossip in Richmond society.

It would have been a simple matter for Davis to write a polite letter back to Johnston explaining that because he had returned to Line his Staff ranking was discounted in the new ranking system, but that this was by no means any reflection upon the General's performance and that he retained the Governments full confidence, but Davis himself over-reacted and made the matter worse.

 

[alan polk]

Permberton did disobey Johnston's directions - at first - but he thought he was justified in doing so as McClernand Corps (if I'm getting the name right) was nearby meanacing him at Edward's Station and to march to Clinton as directed by Johnston would be to expose not only Vicksburg to that Federal Corps but also the flank of his army.

What Johnston had wanted to do was unite his forces with Pemberton to achieve local superiority in numbers over Grant and meet him from a position of strength, but once he was driven from Jackson he was a day or two behind events thereafter - partially because a Confederate courier turned traitor and took a copy of his orders for Pemberton to McPherson who passed them on to Grant, and Grant acted swiftly to prevent the Confederates having any chance of uniting - and Johnston's orders were out of time and out step with the campaign and directed Pemberton's Army into harms way.

One could argue that Pemberton was correct to disregard Johnston's first order, because Pemberton had a clearer understanding of the campaign and the location of the Federal forces while Johnston was operating on faulty information given to him by Gregg and Walker having been parachuted in mid-campaign after having spent most of the year to that date with the Army of Tennessee - focused on its infighting and recovering from his own illness - but what Pemberton did wrong was to abandon his own judgement of how best to oppose the Federals, to allow himself to be talked into moving from Edward's Station by his subordinates to seek out Grant's lines of supply and communication, and then, mid-march, decide that he was going to obey Johnston's orders after all (when a second message reached him telling him to march to Clinton) then turn around and get caught totally unprepared and out of position at Champion Hill.

That moment of dithering cost the Confederates the whole campaign. It was Pemberton's mistake exacerbated by Johnston's orders. Had Pemberton stood by his own judgement he could have met the Federals on his own terms at his prepared position at Edward's Station and potentially held them long - even if he were defeated still - and given Johnston the chance to get in sync with the campaign, possible even giving the Confederate the opportunity to bring their two forces together at one position to overwhelm their adversary, but Pemberton was not strong enough to stand by his own conviction when faced with orders from a superior and dissent from subordinates.

I believe Fenton was referencing Pemberton's refusal to follow Johnston's order to leave Vicksburg proper after he retreated from Big Black Bridge on May 17. But I agree with the rest of your assessment involving Pemberton's response to Johnston's irrational order of May 13.

 

[John Fenton]

Permberton did disobey Johnston's directions - at first - but he thought he was justified in doing so as McClernand Corps (if I'm getting the name right) was nearby meanacing him at Edward's Station and to march to Clinton as directed by Johnston would be to expose not only Vicksburg to that Federal Corps but also the flank of his army.

What Johnston had wanted to do was unite his forces with Pemberton to achieve local superiority in numbers over Grant and meet him from a position of strength, but once he was driven from Jackson he was a day or two behind events thereafter - partially because a Confederate courier turned traitor and took a copy of his orders for Pemberton to McPherson who passed them on to Grant, and Grant acted swiftly to prevent the Confederates having any chance of uniting - and Johnston's orders were out of time and out step with the campaign and directed Pemberton's Army into harms way.

One could argue that Pemberton was correct to disregard Johnston's first order, because Pemberton had a clearer understanding of the campaign and the location of the Federal forces while Johnston was operating on faulty information given to him by Gregg and Walker having been parachuted in mid-campaign after having spent most of the year to that date with the Army of Tennessee - focused on its infighting and recovering from his own illness - but what Pemberton did wrong was to abandon his own judgement of how best to oppose the Federals, to allow himself to be talked into moving from Edward's Station by his subordinates to seek out Grant's lines of supply and communication, and then, mid-march, decide that he was going to obey Johnston's orders after all (when a second message reached him telling him to march to Clinton) then turn around and get caught totally unprepared and out of position at Champion Hill.

That moment of dithering cost the Confederates the whole campaign. It was Pemberton's mistake exacerbated by Johnston's orders. Had Pemberton stood by his own judgement he could have met the Federals on his own terms at his prepared position at Edward's Station and potentially held them long - even if he were defeated still - and given Johnston the chance to get in sync with the campaign, possible even giving the Confederate the opportunity to bring their two forces together at one position to overwhelm their adversary, but Pemberton was not strong enough to stand by his own conviction when faced with orders from a superior and dissent from subordinates.

Davis had told Pemberton to hold Vicksburg at all costs. Johnston had removed most of his cavalry so he did not know grant's movements as you suggest and was caught by surprise at champions hill with his rear guard leading. so he first disobeyed johnston's orders by heading to edward station then reversed himself upon recieving a second order to go to clinton, rear first . if he was going to disobey this was the order he should have disobeyed.
next johnston told him if the high ground around haynes bluff were ever lost he should evacuate the city. he did not. this was the second order he disobeyed from johnston in order to keep faith with davis and protect his reputation from those who thought him a yankee.
pemberton was totally conflicted from several aspects and should not have been in command but was picked by davis as a counter to johnston. i think he demonstrated that he had no strong convictions beyond personal ones. everything he did was to cover his own keister

 

[John Fenton]

All West European textile workers had no problem working with Southern cotton

"Working men," veteran Chartist Ernest Jones told a demonstration in Ashton: "I say the South is your enemy - the enemy of your trade, the foe of your freedom, a standing threat to your property. Slave labour is direct aggression on the free labour of the world. The key that shall reopen our closed factories is the sword of the victorious North."

Lancashire cotton workers in the mid-19th Century were acutely aware, every day, that the last hands to touch the cotton before them had been black hands and unfree.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-21057494

The Manchester workmen were not content to dwell in abstractions, but declared in a resolution ...
...let all who have laboured to glorify the Slave Power, the most monstrous outgrowth of the modern world, read it, and see how vain have been their efforts to corrupt the minds of the working classes, and how wide a gulf is fixed between them and the great body of people.
https://www.jasonmkelly.com/jason-m...-antislavery-among-manchester-textile-workers

i don't remember how we got on this subject and it is off topic but it was brought up and i felt it needed a reply. i think the point was that cotton exports would be affected by whatever strategy was employed and which ever general was in command. the south exacerbated the problem with it's embargo and high causality rate. cotton was still being sold where it sat and a little forethought, better foreign diplomacy and management and husbandry of armies and resources would have given the south more time to grind down, with less causalities, the will power of the north.