Another Orientation question: Union=central command, Confederates=what?

[Suzanne A]

I've read a lot of Union telegrams to Washinton HQ in the decodingthecivilwar project and a lot of communications between higher and lower officers in the OR's. I was surprised to see all the detailed mangement, "your picket should extent to the West to Lowry's Barn", "Relieve the 49th NY and replace it with a company Cavalry from the 170th OH", "move your pickets more to the left", "Send scouts to X" -- my orders made up of course, but you get the idea, higher-ups were working with a big picture. In the War Department in DC they seemed to be maintaining current maps and are sending out inqueries like, "where is your dismounted cavalry?" They were definitely engaged in centralized strategic planning involving even Lincoln most of the time.

Apparently we don't have this wealth of written communications for the Confederacy, but I'm even wondering if Jeff. Davis and his War Secretary and War braintrust, if he had one, knew for example that Shelby was setting off on a take-no-prisoners "foraging raid" into Missouri and that their CSA in that neck of the woods was running out of clothes, hats, shoes, food for men and food and provisons for horses, according to accounts of local civilians in SE MO around Bloomfield. Did they know when they were playing the end game? What was their strategy after Lee's invasion of the North failed to discourage the Union from continuing? Burn New York City and assassinate Lincoln (some believe that was the mission of the "Canadian Conspirators" who were in communication with Davis)? Who, if anyone, was planning everything? Was Lee just doing whatever he chose, in effect the head of all operations of the Aof NV? Were the others in the West running their own shows? The South apparently didn't have a great telegraph system, understandably since so much of the South was rural. Was communication with Jeff. Davis' HQ the problem? disagreement as to strategy among the commanders? Lack of leadership in Richmond?

I'm sure there are all kinds of opinions and takes on these questions. Just curious now what the people who study the Confederacy from this angle are using for primary sources?

 

[Yankeedave]

Sometime about july 2 1863 union reports it is intercepting lee's dispatches to richmond.
In richmond davis's war clerk reports very little comunication between the capitol and lee. in fact it will be months before lee turns in in any real info on the battle beyond it didn't go well.
I am prone to beleive much info was going around. what little remained was destroyed. i doubt the south thought this info was union business anyway.

 

[Suzanne A]

Thanks Yankeedave. Probably the destruction of Confederate papers has greatly handicapped the Confederacy's own historians, but they wouldn't have been thinking that way with surrender at hand.

 

[Yankeedave]

The union is able to micro manage because of their telegraph system. it was possible to lay the wire at the speed of a mile and a half to two miles an hour. this is the speed a man walks. the telegraph moved at the speed of the army. the south didn't have anything like this. so any amount of paper work equivalent to the u.s. in this are would be much reduced, possibly making it appear missing. i don't know if that makes any sence lol.

 

[JAGwinn]

If I understand your question correctly, the North had to reconcile hundreds of different reasons to participate in a Civil War, thus requiring a central clearing body to move the thing forward.
The South had the purpose in common and could allow autonomous military leaders to react at their own discretion as needed.

 

[atlantis]

Davis resisted creating a General of the army post until it was too late.

 

[Suzanne A]

Davis resisted creating a General of the army post until it was too late.

Fascinating.

 

[gunny]

Just my two cents but, I think there is clear evidence that Davis was as much a micromanager as Lincoln perhaps. When Richmond was burned the papers went with it. There is a multitude of evidence that supports the fact that Davis was very involved in what was going on in the east and west.

 

[gunny]

In fact, Davis was probably too involved while being nowhere near a front to actually take in the tactical situation.

 

[Suzanne A]

@gunny, this is not a criticism, but I'm just curious. You refer in your two very interesting posts to "evidence", what evidence are people using, post War memoirs? letters? I don't want citations, I'm just wondering what kind of material is out there.

 

[gunny]

@gunny, this is not a criticism, but I'm just curious. You refer in your two very interesting posts to "evidence", what evidence are people using, post War memoirs? letters? I don't want citations, I'm just wondering what kind of material is out there.

By reading anything on Bragg or Jefferson Davis you'll see that there was constant communication between Davis and the heads of his various departmental commanders. This is especially evident in the correspondence volumes of the official records. Just look at the amount of correspondence that is taking place during the Atlanta campaign.

 

[Suzanne A]

gunny -- thanks. I've read a bit of the Confederate correspondence and reports, but don't remember seeing Jefferson Davis addressed, just my small sample probably. Did Davis ever issue orders back to accomplish a strategy of his headquarters' making?

 

[GELongstreet]

Thanks Yankeedave. Probably the destruction of Confederate papers has greatly handicapped the Confederacy's own historians, but they wouldn't have been thinking that way with surrender at hand.

Some did ... Gen. Samuel Cooper, the Adjutant (& Inspector) General of the CSA, had taken the records of the War Department with him when Richmond was evacuated. After consulting with Joe Johnston, writing him that he, as well as Davis, wanted the records to be preserved he surrendered the material at Charlotte, NC; and Schofield gave the numbers as:

Five boxes, marked Letters received; 3 boxes, marked Certificates of disability; 13 boxes, marked Adjutant and Inspector General's Office; 5 boxes, marked Captured flags; 1 box, marked Books and papers, General Lee's headquarters; 1 box, marked Official reports of battles; 1 box, marked Provost-marshal; 1 box, marked Lieutenant Blackford, C. S. Engineers; 1 box, marked Col. John Withers, C. S. Army; 3 boxes, marked Dept. Office; 7 boxes, contents unknown; 11 boxes, marked War Department, C. S. A.; 21 boxes, marked Regimental rolls; 1 box, marked Signal glasses; 6 boxes, marked Miscellaneous papers.

Which is what makes up a sizeable portion of the Confederate stuff found in the ORs.

 

[Yankeedave]

Let me take it another step down the rabbit hole. John B. Jones was Davis's war clerk. spent the war behind a desks across the hall from each other. in early '65 Jones makes two statements. one that lee's army is the best equipped and best driilled army in the world. the other is that with some thirty k surrendering with lee, that 120,000 men are missing from that army. this includes the defenses of richmond/petersburg. in battles and leaders vol. four page 768 the official return for lee's army on jan. 1 65 is 155, 000. minus lee's surrendered is the 120, 000 that Jones wondered what happened too

 

[Suzanne A]

Gunny, I was working on a question posed on civilwartalk by someone as to what would have happened to his Confederate ancestor who was in Richmond when it was taken, wasn't he taken prisoner by the Union? I looked for any records I could think of and found nothing, so I consulted a staff member at NARA in DC who is very good on the Civil War Army records and activities (I've got to learn his name) and he said in all liklihood, the ancestor just started walking home along with many others, it was chaos they understood the end was near. Do you think 120,000 walked home? During Petersburg and the preparations that led up it, in the OR's for Aug, Sept and Oct 1864 that I've been skimming looking for mention of a particular event, the Union is taking a few prisoners from time to time and it is decided to offer them release if they agreed to enlist in the US Army and be sent to the far West. Such a regiment was formed and this was done. Incidentally if you're familiar with the 1950's TV show Maverick with James Garner and Jack Kelly, that was the premise of the show, that Bret and Bart Maverick were Confederates from Texas who were made Indian fighters by the Union after their capture. Thus they could have the romance of the Old Confederacy in their story lines as well as adventures with the Native Americans in the Western outposts and the Maverick brothers could be well versed in both worlds. It's surprising what that show got right about its period setting.

Returning to the ORs of those months in 1864, there also seem to be reports almost daily of intelligence obtained from deserters. The deserters with something to say were sent to HQ. Don't know what happened to them after that. Is there some kind of tally somewhere of CSA prisoners taken in this time period of the fighting and seige of Petersburg? It would be a few months before the Union would just parole them and cut them loose.