Decisive Victory

[34 NC Co. H]

Today is the 147th anniversary of the infamous (from the Union perspective) Battle of Fredericksburg. This made me think, what was the most decisive victory (or defeat depending on your point of view) in the war? Open to any answers.

 

[The Iron Duke]

I think it has to be Nashville. Hood got absolutely clobbered and if Thomas' pursuit had been better managed or if Walthall hadn't been the equivalent of Marshal Ney the AoT probably would have completely dissolved.

 

[Freddy]

Well, Burnside and the AoP were stopped in their tracks suffering heavy casualties and a lowering of morale. After their success at Antietam in stopping Lee and the AoNV's invasion which boosted morale, Fredericksburg put a damper on the idea that the AoP's fortunes had turned. So Fredericksburg really had a decisive effect in its defeat of the AoP. It would take both victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg to put the AoP back on track.

 

[johan_steele]

I think it has to be Nashville. Hood got absolutely clobbered and if Thomas' pursuit had been better managed or if Walthall hadn't been the equivalent of Marshal Ney the AoT probably would have completely dissolved.

Nashville a CS army all but destroyed in the field.

Vicksburg a CS army captured after a siege. As to the more decisive... i have to put my coin of Vicksburg purely from a startegic sense. Nashville was equally decisive in that manner but Vicksburg was much earlier and more crippling to the CS. Nashville was a death knell IMO.

 

[gary]

I concur with Johan Steele. Civil War battles were rarely decisive and the loser retreated, licked his wounds, and prepared for a rematch. Vicksburg (and Fort Donelson) were exceptions in that entire Confederate armies were captured. Nashville wasn't even winnable for the Confederates. The quasi-siege didn't even threaten Fed. Gen. Thomas's hold on the city and the only question was how much of the Confederate army would be destroyed or escape capture when Thomas finally moved.

 

[The Iron Duke]

Nashville a CS army all but destroyed in the field.

Vicksburg a CS army captured after a siege. As to the more decisive... i have to put my coin of Vicksburg purely from a startegic sense. Nashville was equally decisive in that manner but Vicksburg was much earlier and more crippling to the CS. Nashville was a death knell IMO.

But there was still enough of an army left for Hood to turn over command to Richard Taylor. I picked Nashville because the original poster gave me the impression he was asking for a single battle. If we are talking about campaigns then I agree that Vicksburg is the cream of the crop.

 

[RobertP]

But there was still enough of an army left for Hood to turn over command to Richard Taylor. I picked Nashville because the original poster gave me the impression he was asking for a single battle. If we are talking about campaigns then I agree that Vicksburg is the cream of the crop.

The loss of Pemberton's army, very rare in the CW, and the city of Vicksburg was crippling. However, the paroled Confederates at were exchanged and continued the fight the next summer. I know, because my gGrandfather of the 36th Miss. was one. He was with Polk's army in Mobile when Sherman started for Atlanta, arriving in time for the battle at Resaca. Was subsequently wounded (and his brother mortally wounded) at Nashville. A tough road for those boys.

 

[gary]

While Pemberton's army was paroled, many corn-feds became so discouraged that they never reported back to their unit and seceded from the Confederacy and the war. I wonder if Vicksburg Chief Historian Ranger Terrence Winschel has any figures for this?

 

[whitworth]

If it was real decisive

how much territory did the Army of Northern Virginia capture because of this victory?

Did they capture all the territory 50 miles from Richmond? Did they capture all of Virginia east of the Allegheny Mountains.?
Did they capture the Virginia counties, west of the Allegheny Mountains?
Did they capture Maryland?
Did they capture Washington, D.C.
How many miles out of Fredricksburg, VA. were the Union armies driven?

Just how decisive was this Confederate victory at Fredricksburg?
It certainly didn't end the war.

 

[prroh]

how much territory did the Army of Northern Virginia capture because of this victory?

Did they capture all the territory 50 miles from Richmond? Did they capture all of Virginia east of the Allegheny Mountains.?
Did they capture the Virginia counties, west of the Allegheny Mountains?
Did they capture Maryland?
Did they capture Washington, D.C.
How many miles out of Fredricksburg, VA. were the Union armies driven?

Just how decisive was this Confederate victory at Fredricksburg?
It certainly didn't end the war.

Like Chancellorsville, it simply maintained the status quo at great cost.

 

[Ellsworth avenger]

Today is the 147th anniversary of the infamous (from the Union perspective) Battle of Fredericksburg. This made me think, what was the most decisive victory (or defeat depending on your point of view) in the war? Open to any answers.

New Orleans comes to mind ,great for Union psyche,opposite for the Confederates.
I have a question on dec. 1862.Was it the deadliest month of the war ,considering the number of eastern disease camp deaths, and combined with the same awful rate in the Pairie Grove Campaign.
Maybe this should be another thread ; Medical Stats. posted by Jenny Goellinitz on Nov. 14 2006. Death rates for Union and Confederate soldiers by disease. confederate rate of death, pummonary at 18.89%. I assume there is something in that number Im not seeing?

 

[captainrlm]

Didn't Lee express regret at not being able to gain more from such a victory? (I think it was post-Fredericksburg, but I don't have time to look it up right now).

In terms of one-sidedness (or a rout, in sports terms), Fredericksburg certainly qualifies, but I'm not sure it's truly "decisive" though I guess that depends on your definition of that word.

 

[ole]

I siezed on Ellsworth's suggestion of New Orleans. Although it wasn't much of a "victory," it was certainly decisive. Along that line of reasoning, Ft. Donelson might well qualify. It was a victory and it certainly was decisive.

Ole

 

[Scribe]

Today is the 147th anniversary of the infamous (from the Union perspective) Battle of Fredericksburg. This made me think, what was the most decisive victory (or defeat depending on your point of view) in the war? Open to any answers.

Depends on what you consider decisive.

Rather than simply what were the most one-sided victories, I define a decisive battle/campaign as one which had an important permanent military and/or political impact on the outcome of the war.

1) Fort Henry/Fort Donelson -- Broke the rebel defense line in Kentucky, opened the path to Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville, and made "Unconditional Surrender" Grant a man to be considered.
2) Pea Ridge -- ended rebel chances for a "third front" anchored by a Confederate Missouri.
4) Glorieta Pass -- ended rebel ambitions for conquest in the southwest that would extend the Confederacy to the Pacific Ocean and push it northward into Colorado and Utah.
4) New Orleans -- deprived the Confederacy of its largest city, its most important port, a major manufacturing center, and began the opening of the Mississippi River to Union control.
5) Antietam -- paved the way for the Emancipation Proclamation thus helping deprive the Confederacy its slave labor source while giving the Union a new manpower supply, pleased the Republican radicals while not alienating the War Democrats, and made it far more difficult for the British -- and therefore the French -- to consider acting on behlf of the Confederacy.
6) Vicksburg -- deprived the eastern Confederacy of the "hog and hominy" of the Trans-Mississippi, accomplished the war aim highly important to the northwest of making the Mississippi River blue water, and reinforced Grant's stature as the man of the war.
7) Chattanooga -- effectively ended Confederate advances in the Cis-Mississippi with any chance of real success (Hood's Nashville campaign had no such chance), and ensured that Grant would be brought to the command that would mean an end to the rebellion.
8) The trifecta of Atlanta/Mobile Bay/Cedar Creek -- ensured the re-election of Lincoln and the continuance of the war to northern victory.
9) Overland Campaign/Petersburg-- pinned Lee and the AoNVa in place and made its destruction at Appomattox inevitable.

 

[Henry]

Decisive

I can't state that anything "decisive" came out of the Fredricksburg combat that could be termed a strategic coup for either side. I'm with Ellsworth Avenger in his choice of the April,1862 operations on the Mississippi for a gambit that was decisive. Sherman's March, with its lasting effect on Georgia, set the stage for Wilson's Raid in the Columbus, Ga-Selma, Al area which wrecked what was left of manufacturing capability for the Confederacy in March-April, 1865. What remained of the Southern national dream meandered south to Florida to crumble.

 

[captainrlm]

In terms of routs, Richmond, KY at the end of August 1862 was one for the Confederates.

 

[RobertP]

In the East, Antietam. Lee had the AoP back across the Potomac after his decisive win at 2nd Bull Run. A big victory over Little Mac in Maryland or Penn. would have been huge and changed the political dynamic of the war.

In the West, Shiloh. Had Johnston-Beauregard moved 2 days earlier as planned and pinned Grant against the Tennessee before Buell had a chance to support, I believe the confederates would likely have won. Grant and Sherman would likely have been forced to surrender their force, changing the entire momentum in the theater.

 

[OpnOlympic]

Ft. Donelson(although one should include Ft. Henry). A major strategic victory that unhinged the confederate main line of defense of the southern heartland.
From that time on, it was a slow but steady crumbling of the southern strategic position in the West, culminating in Sherman's march to the sea and his carolina campaign that fed into(and to a certain extext, affected) the collapse of Lee's defense of Petersburg. .

 

[prroh]

In the East, Antietam. Lee had the AoP back across the Potomac after his decisive win at 2nd Bull Run. A big victory over Little Mac in Maryland or Penn. would have been huge and changed the political dynamic of the war.

In the West, Shiloh. Had Johnston-Beauregard moved 2 days earlier as planned and pinned Grant against the Tennessee before Buell had a chance to support, I believe the confederates would likely have won. Grant and Sherman would likely have been forced to surrender their force, changing the entire momentum in the theater.

Would've, should've, these things did not happen and so the dream of a world recognized CSA never happened. Had McClellan commited his huge reserves at the CSA center along Antietam's bloody lane, the war would have over in Sept 1862. Remeber that more US and CS soldiers died after Gettysburg than before. Maybe 400,000 men would have survived if McClellan had not listened to Porter.