Shelby Foote Quote on Lee and Gettysburg

[genbeau]

They seceded from Virginia, because, as you should know, secession was not explicitly outlawed in Virginia's constitution.

Why would I know that particular factoid?

 

[SSVilla]

That's interesting, and something I had not heard before. I wonder where Foote was getting all that.

That's why I provided the quote. I was curious at the time what Shelby Foote was going on about. I don't know where he gets that Lee was asked to go West to specifically superintendent the relief of Vicksburg, and that Lee declined. That's a big deal.

However, I found references in Gen. Longstreet memoirs to a conversation he had with General Lee about Vicksburg. Longstreet wrote that after the Battle of Chancellorsville he reported to General Lee, and as he wrote it:

"I offered the suggestions made to Secretary Seddon, in regard to the means that should be adopted for the relief of Vicksburg… I suggested that General Johnston, instead of trying to collect an army against General Grant, should be sent to reinforce General Bragg, then standing against the Union forces under General Rosecrans in Middle Tennessee; that at the same time he should send my divisions, just up from Suffolk, to join Johnston's reinforcements to Bragg's army; that the combination once made should strike immediately in overwhelming force upon Rosecrans, and march for the Ohio River and Cincinnati.

He recognized the suggestion as of good combination, and giving strong assurance of success, but he was averse to having a part of his army so far beyond his reach. He reflected over the matter one or two days, and then fell upon the plan of invading the Northern soil and so threatening Washington as to bring about the same hoped-for result. To that end he bent his energies.

His plan or wishes announced, it became useless and improper to offer suggestions leading to a different course... His confidence in making moves threatening Washington and the invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania grew out of the known anxiety of the Washington authorities as to the safety of their capital and of quiet within the Union lines."​

Excerpt From From Manassas to Appomattox, James Longstreet

‎From Manassas to Appomattox

‎History · 1904

books.apple.com

If this thread hadn't gone off course for a long while, it would have been interesting to see if there's anything else about this, particularly because I know there are some readers in this forum who have read D.S. Freeman and other books about Lee and who know him a heck of a lot better than I do and perhaps there are other references about this that I don't know about.

Incidentally if one asks AI, the answer is all over the place, but at no point makes any reference to an interview Foote specifically gave where he mentioned not attrition, but opportunity cost.

 

[damYankee]

That's why I provided the quote. I was curious at the time what Shelby Foote was going on about. I don't know where he gets that Lee was asked to go West to specifically superintendent the relief of Vicksburg, and that Lee declined. That's a big deal.

However, I found references in Gen. Longstreet memoirs to a conversation he had with General Lee about Vicksburg. Longstreet wrote that after the Battle of Chancellorsville he reported to General Lee, and as he wrote it:

"I offered the suggestions made to Secretary Seddon, in regard to the means that should be adopted for the relief of Vicksburg… I suggested that General Johnston, instead of trying to collect an army against General Grant, should be sent to reinforce General Bragg, then standing against the Union forces under General Rosecrans in Middle Tennessee; that at the same time he should send my divisions, just up from Suffolk, to join Johnston's reinforcements to Bragg's army; that the combination once made should strike immediately in overwhelming force upon Rosecrans, and march for the Ohio River and Cincinnati.

He recognized the suggestion as of good combination, and giving strong assurance of success, but he was averse to having a part of his army so far beyond his reach. He reflected over the matter one or two days, and then fell upon the plan of invading the Northern soil and so threatening Washington as to bring about the same hoped-for result. To that end he bent his energies.

His plan or wishes announced, it became useless and improper to offer suggestions leading to a different course... His confidence in making moves threatening Washington and the invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania grew out of the known anxiety of the Washington authorities as to the safety of their capital and of quiet within the Union lines."​

Excerpt From From Manassas to Appomattox, James Longstreet

‎From Manassas to Appomattox

‎History · 1904

books.apple.com

If this thread hadn't gone off course for a long while, it would have been interesting to see if there's anything else about this, particularly because I know there are some readers in this forum who have read D.S. Freeman and other books about Lee and who know him a heck of a lot better than I do and perhaps there are other references about this that I don't know about.

Incidentally if one asks AI, the answer is all over the place, but at no point makes any reference to an interview Foote specifically gave where he mentioned not attrition, but opportunity cost.

Longstreet's plan to advance toward Cincinnati to draw pressure off Vicksburg made much more sense than Lee's plan to invade Pennsylvania.
Grant may have lost his river boast fleet, which provided much mobility and artillery support, along with some of his troops.
But it seems once Lee locked on to a plan there was little chance of changing his mind.

 

[daktsk]

Nobody alive today is qualified to take credit for the sacrifice of the Americans who fought that war.
And that includes both armies.
It is not for us to claim their victories or suppose their defeats are ours.
It is right that we respect them for the sacrifice and acknowledge the conclusion, but to imagine that "WE" had anything to do with it, or the "WE" could change the outcome is best left to the writers of science fiction.
I had ancestors on both sides, and some of them left behind widows and orphaned children who had no say in the matter, nobody ever wants to identify with the widows or the orphans.

Exactly right...my father was in WW2....that doesn't make me a veteran...in that war or any other war...

 

[genbeau]

There's nothing to debate. But yes, the public memory of the war has been changing for quite a while now, and the Lost Cause is rightfully dying.

So nothing to debate? The perspective of people who look at the war different than you is no matter to you?

 

[wausaubob]

Nobody alive today is qualified to take credit for the sacrifice of the Americans who fought that war.
And that includes both armies.
It is not for us to claim their victories or suppose their defeats are ours.
It is right that we respect them for the sacrifice and acknowledge the conclusion, but to imagine that "WE" had anything to do with it, or the "WE" could change the outcome is best left to the writers of science fiction.
I had ancestors on both sides, and some of them left behind widows and orphaned children who had no say in the matter, nobody ever wants to identify with the widows or the orphans.

How strange is it, that any commentator on CWT would write about the Civil War as anything other than a demographic and economic disaster for the secessionist states? The people who died, who were crippled beyond the point of returning to their civilian livelihood, the sons and daughters who were never born because the potential fathers were away at war for years at a time, and the people who moved away, to get away from the war and Confederate conscription or to take a chance on freedom in the paid labor states numbered in the hundreds of thousands. And there is the secret cost, which can never be known, of people who passed over the race barrier when the Confederacy lost and slavery was abolished.
The standard history never holds the people who did this to the nation and to the southern states accountable. And the 21st century people still don't want to recognize what Grant aptly described as the national tragedy.

 

[damYankee]

The Prince Louis-Phillipe-Albert d'Orleans, Comte de Paris, besides having a very long name has perhaps the best critic of what Lee did wrong at Gettysburg,

 

[FZ11]

The Prince Louis-Phillipe-Albert d'Orleans, Comte de Paris, besides having a very long name has perhaps the best critic of what Lee did wrong at Gettysburg,

Thanks, Yankee. This is a very interesting site. Check out Law's criticism of Lee, at Gettysburg, on the same site. Lotsa videos.

 

[genbeau]

The Prince Louis-Phillipe-Albert d'Orleans, Comte de Paris, besides having a very long name has perhaps the best critic of what Lee did wrong at Gettysburg,

Picketts charge. Easy peazy, don't need nocount.

 

[wausaubob]

The Prince Louis-Phillipe-Albert d'Orleans, Comte de Paris, besides having a very long name has perhaps the best critic of what Lee did wrong at Gettysburg,

Did the tactical results in the eastern theater matter? The tactical results did not have any effect on stopping the US strategic gains which were based on naval dominance, combined arms operations, and the great preponderance of the railroad powered US logistical and quartermaster system. After July 1863 the Confederacy did not have a large enough agricultural area, nor a powerful enough railroad system to feed and equip the armies it still maintained.

 

[genbeau]

I love On to Petersburg but not sure it fits eintirely into the Overland Campaign.

 

[genbeau]

I love On to Petersburg but not sure it fits entirely into the Overland Campaign.

Interestingly grant was brilliant in crossing the James River, but it went up in smoke when the yankees failed to secure Petersburg.

 

[genbeau]

Picketts charge. Easy peazy, don't need nocount.

Picketts charge was duplicated at Cold Harbor by the Yankees. world war 1 was one picketts charge after another.

 

[repman66]

I might have said this earlier in this thread, but Lee was going to go at Hooker before he decided to recross the river after securing Chancellorsville. Given the strength of the Union line that would have simply been Pickett's charge two months' early. That is the price for having a Lee.

 

[genbeau]

I might have said this earlier in this thread, but Lee was going to go at Hooker before he decided to recross the river after securing Chancellorsville. Given the strength of the Union line that would have simply been Pickett's charge two months' early. That is the price for having a Lee.

The price for having a Lee is something that never happened? Lee won Chancellorsville.

 

[repman66]

The price for having a Lee is something that never happened? Lee won Chancellorsville.

No one in their right mind would order and attack on Hooker's last line and yet Lee was going to. That's madness, arrogance, overconfidence or folly.

 

[wausaubob]

No one in their right mind would order and attack on Hooker's last line and yet Lee was going to. That's madness, arrogance, overconfidence or folly.

And the situation changed as May 1863 wore on. The messages that were sneaked out of Vicksburg and relayed out of Jackson, MS to Richmond were that the situation in Mississippi had become desperate.
As June turned to July I think General Lee knew that the US was about to score a huge political and strategic victory. He was unlikely to have told anyone else about what was happening at Vicksburg.

 

[genbeau]

No one in their right mind would order and attack on Hooker's last line and yet Lee was going to. That's madness, arrogance, overconfidence or folly.

But he didn't.

 

[JerryD]

But he didn't.

Actually, he did. The attack did not come off as Hooker was able to cross the river before Lee attacked.

"The lesson of Fredericksburg was that a frontal assault on the enemy, if not absolutely necessary, was unwise, but Lee failed to learn it. After Stonewall Jackson's famous flanking maneuver at Chancellorsville in early May 1863, Lee spent the next couple of days frontally assaulting Joseph Hooker's Union lines. As a result, his army suffered almost thirteen thousand casualties while inflicting over seventeen thousand on the weakly led enemy. But Lee's army paid too high a price, including the loss of Jackson, for the Chancellorsville victory. Its butcher bill would have been even higher had Lee been able to launch a planned final assault on another strong Union position. Lee was angry, but his subordinates were relieved, when Hooker retreated across the Rapidan River before Lee could attack."

A Closer Look at General Lee's Civil War Record

General Lee left a mark on American history as one of the greatest generals during the American Civil War. Find out more about his Civil War journey here.

www.historyonthenet.com

 

[OpnCoronet]

Foote's comment was not a criticism. It was merely a comment on the kind of general that was Lee.