Saphroneth
Lt. Colonel
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2017
In fairness to Butler, he was given quite a big task to deal with in quite a short space of time - and his distraction effort was at the very least proportional to the strength he had.
The disembarkation is May 5, at which point there were already six brigades (Hunton, Gracie, Barton, Clingman, Bushrod Johnson) in the Richmond/Petersburg defences of which all except Hunton's were facing Butler by the 6th. By the 9th four more have arrived (Hagood, Wise, Hoke, Kemper) and another five arrive by the 17th (Ransom, Colquitt, Corse, Martin, Evans).
Functionally at this point Butler is facing off against 14 brigades and there's a fifteenth in the form of Hunton; for comparison at Spotsylvania Lee has 35 brigades.
May 22nd Grant's ordered most of Butler's field force stripped from him; this effectively reduces the ability of Butler to keep a large enemy force contained. Given how out of Grant's total campaign strength (north of 200,000 PFD counting the residue of Butler's forces) Butler amounted to less than 20% of it, I would argue that if Butler kept 20% of Lee's total available forces focused on him before having troops stripped from him then Butler would be doing a good job at distracting Lee.
20% of Lee's total brigade count as of the 17th is 10 brigades, so at that point Butler was doing a good job.
After more than half of Butler's force is stripped from him, he'd be doing a good job if he kept perhaps less than five brigades occupied.
The disembarkation is May 5, at which point there were already six brigades (Hunton, Gracie, Barton, Clingman, Bushrod Johnson) in the Richmond/Petersburg defences of which all except Hunton's were facing Butler by the 6th. By the 9th four more have arrived (Hagood, Wise, Hoke, Kemper) and another five arrive by the 17th (Ransom, Colquitt, Corse, Martin, Evans).
Functionally at this point Butler is facing off against 14 brigades and there's a fifteenth in the form of Hunton; for comparison at Spotsylvania Lee has 35 brigades.
May 22nd Grant's ordered most of Butler's field force stripped from him; this effectively reduces the ability of Butler to keep a large enemy force contained. Given how out of Grant's total campaign strength (north of 200,000 PFD counting the residue of Butler's forces) Butler amounted to less than 20% of it, I would argue that if Butler kept 20% of Lee's total available forces focused on him before having troops stripped from him then Butler would be doing a good job at distracting Lee.
20% of Lee's total brigade count as of the 17th is 10 brigades, so at that point Butler was doing a good job.
After more than half of Butler's force is stripped from him, he'd be doing a good job if he kept perhaps less than five brigades occupied.