Appomattox Campaign, any real chance of Confederate success?

major bill

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Forum Host
Joined
Aug 25, 2012
General Lee's had few other options, but did the Appomattox Campaign have a real chance of success? The Union Army did a good job of running down Lee's Army. Still could have Lee made it to North Carolina with most of his army intact? For example, I am not sure they had the horses and the feed for the horses to get all the artillery away. Once they left Richmond desertion could have reduced Lee's Army as it moved towards North Carolina. Just getting enough rations for his men would have been an issue. The Union Army would make foraging on the way very dangerous and trying to do so would slow the march to North Carolina.
 
I honestly think the attempt to 'regroup' with Johnson's Army was little more than a fool's errand. As @major bill pointed out, there would have been scant rations for artillery stock, let alone cavalry!

Furthermore, there was the Great Dismal Swamp, a stretch of desolate, soggy, almost impassable quagmire. Sure, Lee might have managed to stall the Federal advance through this region, but the condition of his Army would have made their own traverse of the swamp virtually impossible.

"No Virginia, there is no victory here."
 
Lee himself was aware that a siege atany point in the Overland campaign meant the end on the Confederate Army. After Petersburg, he was pretty sure tha his war was over, uless he could meet up with Johnston, but I think he was well aware that that was not going to happen. His army was so hungry and tired and desertion was getting worse by the day, so that it was unlike that he could do anything but surrender. He made sure that Davis et al had escaped from Richmond,and then stalled for terms, until he ran out of time. If Lee had been able to feed his army, things might have played out differently, at least for a while, with yet more death and destruction, but he knew that the writing was on the wall. Just my thoughts.
 
If the rations had arrived at Amelia Court House as planned, then there would have been a chance (albeit not a very good one) that Lee could have gotten down into North Carolina and linked up with Johnston. Even if he had done that, however, I don't think the war would have been lengthened for more than a few weeks. Lots of more men would have gotten killed, however, since we would likely have seen one last big battle on the 1863 or 1864 scales to knock Lee and Johnston out.
 
If the rations had arrived at Amelia Court House as planned, then there would have been a chance (albeit not a very good one) that Lee could have gotten down into North Carolina and linked up with Johnston. Even if he had done that, however, I don't think the war would have been lengthened for more than a few weeks. Lots of more men would have gotten killed, however, since we would likely have seen one last big battle on the 1863 or 1864 scales to knock Lee and Johnston out.


This possibility has me wondering if in a great final battle the Federals would refuse to grant quarter and instead end the rebellion in a great slaughter. During the war between Caesar and Pompey in one battle Caesar’s men refused quarter to Pompeans they’d previously defeated and spared; Caesar’s men had determined to never fight those men again.
 
This possibility has me wondering if in a great final battle the Federals would refuse to grant quarter and instead end the rebellion in a great slaughter. During the war between Caesar and Pompey in one battle Caesar’s men refused quarter to Pompeans they’d previously defeated and spared; Caesar’s men had determined to never fight those men again.

Absolutely not. First of all, they showed no inclination to do that in any other battle, so why would they start now? Second, Grant and Sherman were in full agreement with Lincoln's views on how to bring the South back into the Union, which had been perfectly articulated to them at the conference on board the River Queen on March 28.
 
Absolutely not. First of all, they showed no inclination to do that in any other battle, so why would they start now? Second, Grant and Sherman were in full agreement with Lincoln's views on how to bring the South back into the Union, which had been perfectly articulated to them at the conference on board the River Queen on March 28.
But would this have held true in a post-assassination meeting of the consolidated armies? Lincoln's views on ending the war may have been superseded by the thirst for revenge in the North; Stanton would likely have called for them to 'crush' the remaining rebel armies.

Against this backdrop, what would Lee and Johnston do? IIRC, when Johnston learned from Sherman of the assassination, his reaction was to deny any involvement whatsoever (maybe with some fear of the Union response as well?). Would the two armies link and hope to continue a fight against an enraged enemy? Would they fight to the death, fearing worse if captured? Would they seek to prevent a battle- perhaps an armistice, or negotiated surrender in hopes of being treated as military prisoners rather than criminals or traitors?
 
Johnston denied involvement in the assassination plot because he wasn't involved. He and Sherman negotiated surrender terms knowing all about Lincoln's murder, terms similar to those Grant granted Lee before the assassination.
 
Johnston denied involvement in the assassination plot because he wasn't involved. He and Sherman negotiated surrender terms knowing all about Lincoln's murder, terms similar to those Grant granted Lee before the assassination.
Right- I was responding to JeffBrooks' response to IrishTom's query about 'what if' a final battle took place. Would Johnston have attempted to negotiate a surrender as POWs on the condition they not be prosecuted as traitors? Or would he and Lee have elected to fight to the finish, knowing the civilian authorities would likely call for blood?
 
Right- I was responding to JeffBrooks' response to IrishTom's query about 'what if' a final battle took place. Would Johnston have attempted to negotiate a surrender as POWs on the condition they not be prosecuted as traitors? Or would he and Lee have elected to fight to the finish, knowing the civilian authorities would likely call for blood?

Johnston knew the game was up after Bentonville. He was looking for a way to surrender in such a manner as to save the lives of his men.

Incidentally, Secretary of War Breckinridge had decided from the moment he took over in the War Department in January of 1865 that the cause was hopeless and that the war needed to be brought to an end as swiftly as possible.
 
If the rations had arrived at Amelia Court House as planned, then there would have been a chance (albeit not a very good one) that Lee could have gotten down into North Carolina and linked up with Johnston. Even if he had done that, however, I don't think the war would have been lengthened for more than a few weeks. Lots of more men would have gotten killed, however, since we would likely have seen one last big battle on the 1863 or 1864 scales to knock Lee and Johnston out.
What the heck happend to those rations that were supposed to be at Amelia Courthouse? Were they intercepted? Did they just never make it?
 
Soldiers and commanders often fight on long after an impartial observer might think all hope was gone. Good soldiers also hold firmly to their duty: it is not for Lee or Johnston or any such commander to actually decide the fate of the Confederacy -- they are subordinate to others who should decide that. So they hold to the colors and fight on.

I expect, though, that if Davis asked Lee for his honest opinion in March of 1865, Lee may have/would have given it to him. I think it would have been close to the opinion the German commander in France, Field-Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, gave to Hitler's Chief-of-Staff Keitel in a telephone conference on July 1, 1944. Keitel asked: "What shall we do?" Von Rundstedt replied: "Macht Schluss mit dem Krieg, ihr Idioten!" (should translate as "End the war, you idiots!" but usually seen as "Make peace, you idiots!")

I do think Robert E. Lee would have been more polite and circumspect in his phrasing. Von Rundstedt was "retired" on July 4, 1944 but called back in September (he was a really good commander).
 
Lee and for that matter, any intelligent commander in the CSA, knew that the Confederacy was doomed certainly after: 1) Lincoln's reelection in November 1864, 2) the destruction of the AOT at Nashville in December 1864, and 3) the fall of Ft. Fisher and the closure of Wilmington Port in January 1865.
 
What the heck happend to those rations that were supposed to be at Amelia Courthouse? Were they intercepted? Did they just never make it?

From R. E. Lee: A Biography by Douglas Southall Freeman:
Appendix IV-2
Lee's Failure to Receive Supplies at Amelia Courthouse


The failure of General Lee to find supplies at Amelia Courthouse, when the Army of Northern Virginia arrived there on the morning of April 4, 1865, gave rise to various rumors.

Writing in 1866, James D. McCabe, Jr.,1 charged specifically that "the trains which had been sent from Danville [to Lee at Amelia] had been ordered to Richmond to help carry off the government property, and that, through the inexcusable blundering of the Richmond authorities, the cars had been sent on to the Capital without unloading at the stores at Amelia Courthouse." Fitz Lee2 quoted but did not altogether credit a report, of unstated origin, that "on that famous Sunday a train load of supplies arrived at Amelia Courthouse from Danville, but the officer in charge was met there by an order to bring the train to Richmond because the cars were needed for the transportation of the personal property of the Confederate authorities."

No foundation exists for that part of these stories alleging that supply trains were run past Amelia Courthouse after orders had been received to accumulate supplies there.
WP.gif
Mr. Davis, however, thought it necessary, in his own defense, to show that his administration had not been guilty of neglect in failing to set up a depot at Amelia. In 3 S. H. S. P., 97 ff., he caused to be published a series of letters from General St. John and other officers denying that Lee had requested them to send supplies to Amelia Courthouse. These letters are convincing proof that no specific directions naming the village had ever been received.

On the other hand, in his final report General Lee stated: "Not finding the supplies ordered to be placed there [i.e., at Amelia] twenty-four hours were lost," etc. In his appeal to the Amelia farmers,3 he said he was expecting to find at Amelia "plenty of provisions, which had been ordered to be placed here by the railroad several days since. . . ."

There is, then, no doubt that Lee thought supplies had been ordered to Amelia, and no doubt that the commissary bureau received no direct instruction to place food and provender at that point. Was Lee mistaken, or were his orders misunderstood? There are no letters in the Official Records showing that General Lee requested prior to April 2 that supplies should be collected at Amelia Courthouse. Colonel W. H. Taylor is authority for saying that no such orders were sent from General Headquarters.4 Whatever was done, then, in this particular, was done on April 2. Lee's first dispatch that day to the Secretary of War was received at 10:40 A.M. In it Lee said that he would withdraw to the north side of the Appomattox that night and could concentrate "near the Danville Railroad." He did not mention Amelia. "I advise," he said, "that all preparation be made for leaving Richmond tonight."5 It can hardly be claimed that this was notice to the War Department to accumulate supplies on the Richmond and Danville Railroad, certainly not at Amelia. After the contents of this telegram had become known in Richmond, General St. John telegraphed Lee's chief commissary, Colonel R. G. Cole, asking what should be the destination of the reserve rations then in Richmond.6 The message, of course, should have been delivered and answered at once; but it is a matter of record that the telegraph station at Edge Hill had then been abandoned,7 and it probably was some time before a field station was opened elsewhere. Late in the day Lee telegraphed the Secretary of War that he would proceed to abandon his position that night. "I have given all the orders to officers on both sides the river. . . . Please give all orders that you find necessary in and about Richmond. The troops will all be directed to Amelia Courthouse."8 This, needless to say, was indirect notice to the Secretary of War to provide supplies at Amelia. But this message, whenever sent, was not received until 7 P.M.9 Meantime, St. John had received no answer to his message to Cole. Not "until night" did it arrive. It read: "Send up the Danville Railroad if Richmond is not safe."10 This language was, in itself, evidence of a long delay in transmission, for if Cole had written late in the day he would have known that Richmond was not safe.

Colonel Taylor may now be cited as a witness. In 1906 Captain W. Gordon McCabe wrote him for information regarding this incident. On December 9 Colonel Taylor replied as follows:

"I . . . will gladly do what I can in giving an answer to your inquiry 'whether (and where) there is extant the order of General Lee touching the collection of supplies for the Army of Northern Virginia at Amelia Court House in early April 1865.'​
"I cannot say that any specific, written order for the collection of supplies at Amelia Court House is extant; nor do I assert that any such order was ever written.​
"The presentation of the matter given in Mr. Davis's account would impress one with the idea that the several reports quoted were made in refutation of a charge that sometime previous to the 2nd April 1865, General Lee had given orders for the collection of supplies at Amelia Court House. I am sure that no such order was ever issued, but that is not the real question.​
"On the second of April, however, a crisis in our affairs was reached. An emergency, not unexpected, compelled the immediate evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond and the retirement to the interior of General Lee's army.​
"At that time large collections of supplies were at Richmond, Danville, Lynchburg and other points on the railroads, from which General Lee's army was supplied daily.​
"When General Lee confronted the inevitable and notified the authorities at Richmond on April 2nd that he would have to evacuate his lines that night, he said in his telegram to the Secretary of War, 'Please give all orders that you find necessary in and about Richmond. The troops will all be directed to Amelia Court House.'​
"What more did the War Department require in the matter of notice that rations would be required at Amelia Court House? The army was being supplied from day to day; in leaving its lines, it would for some days be necessarily cut off from the railroad; but its objective point on the railroad would be Amelia Court House; in the meantime opportunity was given the Department to send supplies to that point.​
"Was it necessary for General Lee to say specifically 'Have bread and meat ready for the troops on their arrival at Amelia Court House'? To the intelligent officers directing the operations of the Commissary Department was not the necessity for providing supplies for the troops at Amelia Court House apparent, when the Department was informed that that would be General Lee's objective point?​
"Moreover, I am sure that General Lee gave verbal orders to the Chief Commissary and Chief Quarter-master of his army concerning supplies to the troops; and while I cannot say that each communicated with the head of his department at Richmond, yet, such is the estimate that I place upon their intelligence and efficiency, I am quite sure they must have done so.​
"Of one thing I can speak positively and that is that General Lee thought that he had given all the orders necessary and expected to find supplies at Amelia Court House."​
In quoting the request to Secretary Breckinridge to "give all orders that you find necessary in and around Richmond" Colonel Taylor evidently overlooked the hour of the receipt of the dispatch. He knew that orders — adequate in his opinion — had been given earlier in the day; it did not occur to him that their receipt had been delayed.

As Lee and Taylor, then, were both confident that the necessary orders had been issued, and as the internal evidence in Cole's despatch points to the fact that it was written hours before it was received, the conclusion is inescapable that there was a long delay on April 2 in forwarding some of the many telegraphic orders that must have been despatched. To that delay is doubtless due the misunderstanding and the apparent conflict of testimony. The commissary bureau, receiving no order, did not requisition the quartermaster-general for cars. Consequently, when the President asked for transportation for himself, his cabinet, the most indispensable records, and the government's bullion, he was told that it was available. When the despatch from Cole was at hand it was too late. St. John subsequently reported to Lee, "The transportation upon [the Richmond and Danville] road having been taken up by the treasury department and the personnel of the Confederate government officers. . . ."11 Had Cole's answer come explicitly and earlier in the day the cars would have been used for food, of course, and the supplies could have been sent easily and in reasonable abundance, for, it will be recalled, there were 350,000 rations of bread and meat in the capital.12 If Lee's telegram had been received prior to 7 P.M., it, too, might have served every purpose. As it was, on a delay of a few hours in transmitting a message the immediate fate of the army may have hung.
 
Once again from R. E. Lee: A Biography by Douglas Southall Freeman, discussing early 1865:

Anxiously, agonizingly, Lee awaited the response of the people. When he was asked early in March for an appraisal of the military situation, he postulated everything, in his reply, on transportation and on the willingness of the people to make further sacrifices. "Unless the men and animals can be subsisted," he said, "the army cannot be kept together, and our present lines must be abandoned. Nor can it be moved to any other position where it can operate to advantage without provisions to enable it to move in a body. . . . Everything, in my opinion, has depended and still depends upon the disposition and feelings of the people. Their representatives can best decide how they will bear the difficulties and sufferings of their condition and how they will respond to the demands which the public safety requires."74
The representatives of Virginia in the Congress were brought together to answer Lee's question. He was present and told them of lengthened lines and thinning forces, of the privations the soldiers had to meet, and of the scarcity of food for them and for the horses. The Virginians replied that the people of the state, with loyalty and devotion, would meet any new demand made on them,75 but they seemed to General Lee to content themselves with words and assertions of their faith in their constituents. They proposed nothing; they did nothing. Lee said no more — the facts were warning enough — but he went from the building and made his way to his residence with distress and indignation battling in his heart. When dinner was over, Custis sat down by the fire to smoke a cigar and to read the news, but Lee paced the floor restlessly. "He was so much engrossed in his own thoughts," wrote a silent young observer, years afterwards, "that he seemed to be oblivious to the presence of a third person. I watched him closely as he went to the end of the room, turned and tramped back again, with his hands behind him. I saw he was deeply troubled. Never had I seen him look so grave.​
"Suddenly he stopped in front of his son and faced him: 'Well, Mr. Custis,' he said, 'I have been up to see the Congress and they do not seem to be able to anything except to eat peanuts and chew tobacco, while my army is starving. I told them the condition the men were in, and that something must be done at once, but I can't get them to do anything, or they are unable to do anything.' . . . there was some bitterness in his tones. . . .​
"The General resumed his promenade, but after a few more turns he again stopped in the same place and resumed: 'Mr. Custis, when this war began I was opposed to it, bitterly opposed to it, and I told these people that unless every man should do his whole duty, they would repent it; and now' (he paused slightly as if to give emphasis to his words) 'they will repent.' "76
It was on this visit to Richmond, or on another about the same time, that he was chatting with a group of gentlemen at the President's house when one of them said: "Cheer up, General, we have done a good work for you today. The legislature has passed a bill to raise an additional 15,000 men for you." Lee, who had been very silent and thoughtful, bowed his acknowledgments. "Yes," he said, "passing resolutions is kindly meant, but getting the men is another matter." He hesitated for a moment, and his eyes flashed. "Yet," he went on, "if I had 15,000 fresh troops, things would look very different."77
 
From R. E. Lee: A Biography by Douglas Southall Freeman:
Appendix IV-2
Lee's Failure to Receive Supplies at Amelia Courthouse


The failure of General Lee to find supplies at Amelia Courthouse, when the Army of Northern Virginia arrived there on the morning of April 4, 1865, gave rise to various rumors.

Writing in 1866, James D. McCabe, Jr.,1 charged specifically that "the trains which had been sent from Danville [to Lee at Amelia] had been ordered to Richmond to help carry off the government property, and that, through the inexcusable blundering of the Richmond authorities, the cars had been sent on to the Capital without unloading at the stores at Amelia Courthouse." Fitz Lee2 quoted but did not altogether credit a report, of unstated origin, that "on that famous Sunday a train load of supplies arrived at Amelia Courthouse from Danville, but the officer in charge was met there by an order to bring the train to Richmond because the cars were needed for the transportation of the personal property of the Confederate authorities."

No foundation exists for that part of these stories alleging that supply trains were run past Amelia Courthouse after orders had been received to accumulate supplies there. View attachment 348239Mr. Davis, however, thought it necessary, in his own defense, to show that his administration had not been guilty of neglect in failing to set up a depot at Amelia. In 3 S. H. S. P., 97 ff., he caused to be published a series of letters from General St. John and other officers denying that Lee had requested them to send supplies to Amelia Courthouse. These letters are convincing proof that no specific directions naming the village had ever been received.

On the other hand, in his final report General Lee stated: "Not finding the supplies ordered to be placed there [i.e., at Amelia] twenty-four hours were lost," etc. In his appeal to the Amelia farmers,3 he said he was expecting to find at Amelia "plenty of provisions, which had been ordered to be placed here by the railroad several days since. . . ."

There is, then, no doubt that Lee thought supplies had been ordered to Amelia, and no doubt that the commissary bureau received no direct instruction to place food and provender at that point. Was Lee mistaken, or were his orders misunderstood? There are no letters in the Official Records showing that General Lee requested prior to April 2 that supplies should be collected at Amelia Courthouse. Colonel W. H. Taylor is authority for saying that no such orders were sent from General Headquarters.4 Whatever was done, then, in this particular, was done on April 2. Lee's first dispatch that day to the Secretary of War was received at 10:40 A.M. In it Lee said that he would withdraw to the north side of the Appomattox that night and could concentrate "near the Danville Railroad." He did not mention Amelia. "I advise," he said, "that all preparation be made for leaving Richmond tonight."5 It can hardly be claimed that this was notice to the War Department to accumulate supplies on the Richmond and Danville Railroad, certainly not at Amelia. After the contents of this telegram had become known in Richmond, General St. John telegraphed Lee's chief commissary, Colonel R. G. Cole, asking what should be the destination of the reserve rations then in Richmond.6 The message, of course, should have been delivered and answered at once; but it is a matter of record that the telegraph station at Edge Hill had then been abandoned,7 and it probably was some time before a field station was opened elsewhere. Late in the day Lee telegraphed the Secretary of War that he would proceed to abandon his position that night. "I have given all the orders to officers on both sides the river. . . . Please give all orders that you find necessary in and about Richmond. The troops will all be directed to Amelia Courthouse."8 This, needless to say, was indirect notice to the Secretary of War to provide supplies at Amelia. But this message, whenever sent, was not received until 7 P.M.9 Meantime, St. John had received no answer to his message to Cole. Not "until night" did it arrive. It read: "Send up the Danville Railroad if Richmond is not safe."10 This language was, in itself, evidence of a long delay in transmission, for if Cole had written late in the day he would have known that Richmond was not safe.

Colonel Taylor may now be cited as a witness. In 1906 Captain W. Gordon McCabe wrote him for information regarding this incident. On December 9 Colonel Taylor replied as follows:

"I . . . will gladly do what I can in giving an answer to your inquiry 'whether (and where) there is extant the order of General Lee touching the collection of supplies for the Army of Northern Virginia at Amelia Court House in early April 1865.'​
"I cannot say that any specific, written order for the collection of supplies at Amelia Court House is extant; nor do I assert that any such order was ever written.​
"The presentation of the matter given in Mr. Davis's account would impress one with the idea that the several reports quoted were made in refutation of a charge that sometime previous to the 2nd April 1865, General Lee had given orders for the collection of supplies at Amelia Court House. I am sure that no such order was ever issued, but that is not the real question.​
"On the second of April, however, a crisis in our affairs was reached. An emergency, not unexpected, compelled the immediate evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond and the retirement to the interior of General Lee's army.​
"At that time large collections of supplies were at Richmond, Danville, Lynchburg and other points on the railroads, from which General Lee's army was supplied daily.​
"When General Lee confronted the inevitable and notified the authorities at Richmond on April 2nd that he would have to evacuate his lines that night, he said in his telegram to the Secretary of War, 'Please give all orders that you find necessary in and about Richmond. The troops will all be directed to Amelia Court House.'​
"What more did the War Department require in the matter of notice that rations would be required at Amelia Court House? The army was being supplied from day to day; in leaving its lines, it would for some days be necessarily cut off from the railroad; but its objective point on the railroad would be Amelia Court House; in the meantime opportunity was given the Department to send supplies to that point.​
"Was it necessary for General Lee to say specifically 'Have bread and meat ready for the troops on their arrival at Amelia Court House'? To the intelligent officers directing the operations of the Commissary Department was not the necessity for providing supplies for the troops at Amelia Court House apparent, when the Department was informed that that would be General Lee's objective point?​
"Moreover, I am sure that General Lee gave verbal orders to the Chief Commissary and Chief Quarter-master of his army concerning supplies to the troops; and while I cannot say that each communicated with the head of his department at Richmond, yet, such is the estimate that I place upon their intelligence and efficiency, I am quite sure they must have done so.​
"Of one thing I can speak positively and that is that General Lee thought that he had given all the orders necessary and expected to find supplies at Amelia Court House."​
In quoting the request to Secretary Breckinridge to "give all orders that you find necessary in and around Richmond" Colonel Taylor evidently overlooked the hour of the receipt of the dispatch. He knew that orders — adequate in his opinion — had been given earlier in the day; it did not occur to him that their receipt had been delayed.

As Lee and Taylor, then, were both confident that the necessary orders had been issued, and as the internal evidence in Cole's despatch points to the fact that it was written hours before it was received, the conclusion is inescapable that there was a long delay on April 2 in forwarding some of the many telegraphic orders that must have been despatched. To that delay is doubtless due the misunderstanding and the apparent conflict of testimony. The commissary bureau, receiving no order, did not requisition the quartermaster-general for cars. Consequently, when the President asked for transportation for himself, his cabinet, the most indispensable records, and the government's bullion, he was told that it was available. When the despatch from Cole was at hand it was too late. St. John subsequently reported to Lee, "The transportation upon [the Richmond and Danville] road having been taken up by the treasury department and the personnel of the Confederate government officers. . . ."11 Had Cole's answer come explicitly and earlier in the day the cars would have been used for food, of course, and the supplies could have been sent easily and in reasonable abundance, for, it will be recalled, there were 350,000 rations of bread and meat in the capital.12 If Lee's telegram had been received prior to 7 P.M., it, too, might have served every purpose. As it was, on a delay of a few hours in transmitting a message the immediate fate of the army may have hung.
OH MAN, what a blunder! It's a literal logistical Train Wreck.
 
It can be argued that Lee did achieve a victory at Appomatox. I have a hard time framing a definition for Confederate victory after the retreat from Petersburg. If it became a war of maneuver, Sheridan & Co. would have chewed up the army in detail. As it was, Lee's forces were literally melting away like a snowball in the sun. It appears to me that the historical outcome was the best Lee could have hoped for. Men like my wife's GGGreat grandad had a chance at having a life. I don't see what good could have come by sacrificing what was left of the army chasing a pipe dream of victory in North Carolina. Lee quite rightly made the best of the situation he found himself in, which is one definition of victory.

Underlying any speculation about what Lee could have done was the debilitated state of both his men & horses. The loss of supplies from Georgia meant that for months the AoNV's soldiers were receiving about 1/2 the protein to maintain muscle mass & body mass. Men were suffering from night blindness, scurvy, & diarrhea. Many of the men were barely capable of accomplishing basic personal needs.

Lee's cavalry artillery horses were suffering from the effects of a diet of 2-2 1/2 pounds of forage per day. As a Confederate I.G. put it, "This is insufficient to keep the horses in condition, the must go down."

Simply put, Lee's men & horses were in no condition to achieve anything that could be defined as a victory in a military sense.
 
Last edited:
Absolutely not. First of all, they showed no inclination to do that in any other battle, so why would they start now? Second, Grant and Sherman were in full agreement with Lincoln's views on how to bring the South back into the Union, which had been perfectly articulated to them at the conference on board the River Queen on March 28.
Well, not perfectly, as Sherman never saw Lincoln's note to Grant on surrender terms.
 
Back
Top