Biggest union error?

[atlantis]

Was the Emancipation Proclamation the biggest union error of the conflict. It told slave owning southern unionists their property rights meant nothing to Washington and confirmed the fears of non-slave owning southern whites that the union would force them to compete with freed slaves for jobs.
The EP gave confederates whose morale was flagging reason to continue the fight thus prolonging the war.

Your Thoughts

 

[Piedone]

Instead, Lincoln decided to send a flotilla filled with weapons and soldiers to resupply and reinforce Fort Sumter and fire back at Confederate batteries. This provoked Davis into giving the order to fire on Fort Sumter, but it also provoked Virginia into seceding. In hindsight, a bad more.

I thought it always murky how that decision was made (if I recall correctly there was quite some meddling in the background)

 

[The Ninth Ohio]

For those talking about the federal inability to coordinate, let's be fair. The front of the invasion of Germany after Normandy was about 400 miles. The distance from Richmond to Memphis is about double that, and they didn't have automobiles or aircraft. Sure, there were plenty of inefficiencies, but that is a vast amount of territory to invade in any era.

 

[leftyhunter]

At the time of the EP, the war for the Union was seen to be going badly. Battles were increasing in size and casualties and recruitment was going down, the threat of foreign involvement was peaking and Union morale was falling.

Lincoln seemed to believe that before an EP was presented, the general public and Congress had to be prepared and issuing it prematurely would be counter productive, but events forced his hand.

In the first year of the War most Unionists, including Lincoln believed the war was about fighting for the Union and Constitution that existed before the war had started, in other words a limited war for a limited goal, Reunion. That war was failing and Lincoln was forced to expand the War, it was no longer only a war for Reunion but, also Freedom, from now on it was a war for Reunion and Emancipation, the two were now inextricably intertwined and under Lincoln there could not be the one without the other.

A war that started out as a conservative act to restore the Union that existed before the war had now, become a revolutionary war for Freedom and the rights of man.

One immediate outcome of issuing the EP, was that it stopped any real movement for foreign intervention in its tracks. The EP guaranteed the ACW remained an internal national struggle.

By the time of the EP the Union was winning as it captured the most important port and largest city in the Confederacy New Orkeans and drove the Conderates out of Kentucky after the battle of Perryville , plus secured Missouri after the battle of Pea Ridge and had seized what was to become West Virginia from the Confederacy.
The Confederacy was never winning in any year of the war. Winning a conventional war means siezing and holding enemy territory.
The EP was issued after the Confederate Army had to retreat from Maryland after the battle of Antietam.
No nation was seriously contemplating recognizing the Confederacy by the end of 1862.
Leftyhunter

 

[leftyhunter]

It is easy to criticize Lincoln in hindsight, because it is 160 years later, and the Lincoln Presidency was months old.

However, the way Fort Sumter was handled by both the Buchanan administration and Lincoln administration was the worst way it could possibly be handled.

The Buchanan administration allowed Secessionists/Confederates to seize weapons and forts. Buchanan made an agreement with South Carolina Governor Higgins to not reinforce Fort Sumter in return for the Confederates leaving it alone. And he attempted to reinforce it multiple times, his only action to prevent secession.

What Lincoln should have done... Is not follow in Buchanan's footsteps.

Virginia had a vote on secession, and secession lost but it was a close vote. Lincolns primary objective should have been to secure Virginia. Lincoln indicated this when he gave a public statement that he would "trade Fort Sumter for Virginia not seceding".

Likewise, Davis was trying to provoke a reaction at Fort Sumter to dog Virginia into seceding.

Instead, Lincoln decided to send a flotilla filled with weapons and soldiers to resupply and reinforce Fort Sumter and fire back at Confederate batteries. This provoked Davis into giving the order to fire on Fort Sumter, but it also provoked Virginia into seceding. In hindsight, a bad more.

Fort Sumter was both David and Lincoln provoking one another into war so they can go back to their base and justify a war. And it worked out better for Davis because he got extra and significant states.

Lincoln had an endless number of ways on where and how he wished to deal with the Confederates. Davis was limited as he was riding on public outcry to provoke secession and win states. The way Lincoln chose cost him key states which prolonged the war for years...

Or not as firing on Ft.Sumter outraged a majority of Northners to support the war effort. Civil wars happen and federal authority was challenged. Sometimes chemotherapy is needed to stop cancer. A civil war is essentially a type of chemotherapy. Civil wars are essentially inevitable the US wasn't the first or last country to have one .
Leftyhunter

 

[OpnCoronet]

By the time of the EP the Union was winning as it captured the most important port and largest city in the Confederacy New Orkeans and drove the Conderates out of Kentucky after the battle of Perryville , plus secured Missouri after the battle of Pea Ridge and had seized what was to become West Virginia from the Confederacy.
The Confederacy was never winning in any year of the war. Winning a conventional war means siezing and holding enemy territory.
The EP was issued after the Confederate Army had to retreat from Maryland after the battle of Antietam.
No nation was seriously contemplating recognizing the Confederacy by the end of 1862.
Leftyhunter

All true, but that is an objective view, not always easily seen by those directly involved in what they considered a life or death struggle. Even Lincoln lost some of his confidence at that time. He soon recovered from his temporary depression and forged on, but it shows that if even the steely resolve of a Lincoln could be shaken, even temporarily, then surely those of lesser resolution would be even more depressed. and there were many more of those than those who matched Lincoln's dedication to victory..

 

[Saphroneth]

For those talking about the federal inability to coordinate, let's be fair. The front of the invasion of Germany after Normandy was about 400 miles. The distance from Richmond to Memphis is about double that, and they didn't have automobiles or aircraft. Sure, there were plenty of inefficiencies, but that is a vast amount of territory to invade in any era.

I suspect a lot of the problem here is that there's an inexperience with how long things take to happen. Halleck is actually a good example of this, because on multiple occasions in 1862 he tries to coordinate the linking up of multiple forces by water into a single unified force and proceeds to be very surprised when it takes far longer than he expects it to. The coordination difficulties cause him to struggle and to some extent flounder, and part of this I think is that it takes much longer to move 20,000 men than it takes to move 1,000 men, and it takes much longer to move a complete force with transportation than it takes to move a raw infantry force - the logistical and coordination problems multiply greatly as the army size increases.


Halleck orders Grant up the Tennessee on March 1 (to attack places including Corinth) and complains on March 8 that he ordered Grant a week ago and that he doesn't know what's going on. In this period Halleck is getting letters from Grant that he sent at times four or more days ago (and with Buell it's worse), but doesn't seem to realize that this has implications for how quickly things can happen.

Halleck orders Buell to march to the Tennessee as quickly as possible on March 14. This too has problems; there's a flooded river (the Duck) in the way and McCook can't get over it for more than a week - the problem here isn't physically getting the men across but getting a complete army able to fight. Then once the combined armies collects around Shiloh it's not until the end of April when Halleck is reporting that he has the transportation available to move his army in the field.



As a note, Halleck wrote a book on military strategy. He's known as "Old Brains". The depth of experience with moving a large army in the US prior to the Civil War is almost non-existent and so logistical movements take ages.


Halleck then doesn't learn from this and commits basically the same errors in coordination a second time in August.

 

[DanSBHawk]

I suspect a lot of the problem here is that there's an inexperience with how long things take to happen. Halleck is actually a good example of this, because on multiple occasions in 1862 he tries to coordinate the linking up of multiple forces by water into a single unified force and proceeds to be very surprised when it takes far longer than he expects it to. The coordination difficulties cause him to struggle and to some extent flounder, and part of this I think is that it takes much longer to move 20,000 men than it takes to move 1,000 men, and it takes much longer to move a complete force with transportation than it takes to move a raw infantry force - the logistical and coordination problems multiply greatly as the army size increases.


Halleck orders Grant up the Tennessee on March 1 (to attack places including Corinth) and complains on March 8 that he ordered Grant a week ago and that he doesn't know what's going on. In this period Halleck is getting letters from Grant that he sent at times four or more days ago (and with Buell it's worse), but doesn't seem to realize that this has implications for how quickly things can happen.

Halleck orders Buell to march to the Tennessee as quickly as possible on March 14. This too has problems; there's a flooded river (the Duck) in the way and McCook can't get over it for more than a week - the problem here isn't physically getting the men across but getting a complete army able to fight. Then once the combined armies collects around Shiloh it's not until the end of April when Halleck is reporting that he has the transportation available to move his army in the field.



As a note, Halleck wrote a book on military strategy. He's known as "Old Brains". The depth of experience with moving a large army in the US prior to the Civil War is almost non-existent and so logistical movements take ages.


Halleck then doesn't learn from this and commits basically the same errors in coordination a second time in August.

Halleck had been suggesting that Buell send troops by water. Buell was not very cooperative. In August, Halleck dealt with another uncooperative general.

Many of the American officers had experience in the Mexican war, so they weren't completely inexperienced.

 

[Saphroneth]

Halleck had been suggesting that Buell send troops by water. Buell was not very cooperative. In August, Halleck dealt with another uncooperative general.

Halleck complains about Grant taking a long time, though, while Grant protests about the availability of transportation; were there ships available to take Buell? I ask this because it actually does matter - you can't move troops without transportation.

As of March 16, meanwhile, the orders to Buell were to move by land. I agree that earlier Halleck had been suggesting Buell move by water. Note that I say orders and suggesting because Halleck changes structure there.

But my point is that there's a lot of delay going on, both in messages (Halleck is regularly getting messages from both Buell and Grant days after they were sent, a thing which comes up again in August where Halleck is expecting replies to messages that his correspondents haven't even received yet) and in movement of troops; seventeen days after being ordered up the Tennessee, Grant reports that he hasn't yet finished disembarking. The cause of this is that there's not enough transports to move everyone in a single lift.

The same thing doesn't happen with Pope because Pope has enough transportation to move his entire fighting echelon, but he has to leave behind his sick and his transportation (wagons) to do it. It then takes about another week or so after Pope arrives before Halleck can say he has enough wagons to move his army.

Many of the American officers had experience in the Mexican war, so they weren't completely inexperienced.

But the scale is quite different. At that, look at the waterborne movement in Mexico - Scott sails in 1846 and doesn't land at Veracruz until March 1847, then of course it takes from March to September to advance to Mexcio City. Scott's entire force is about 20,000, which is within the scale that can operate by "living off the land".

Halleck, of course, is not Scott. He's a fortification designer and scholar; he hasn't handled any logistical or operational command before ending up as a senior general. Most of the operational and logistical experience in the Mexican-American War doesn't really go to the people who'd then be making those decisions in the ACW, though I suppose if you want to argue that Patterson showed great skill in those matters you might have a case...

 

[DanSBHawk]

As of March 16, meanwhile, the orders to Buell were to move by land. I agree that earlier Halleck had been suggesting Buell move by water. Note that I say orders and suggesting because Halleck changes structure there.

But my point is that there's a lot of delay going on, both in messages...

I believe that at the beginning of March Halleck was not yet in overall command in the west, so he couldn't order Buell.

There were other problems going on with the telegraph during this period, such as deliberate sabotage by disloyal operators.