Grant Did Grant Fight A Pyrrhic War?

I think that bit about remaking the Army of the Potomac might not actually be the case, as such - I suspect that what actually happened was that Grant gave the Army of the Potomac months to regenerate the morale they'd had so brutally reduced by the bloodletting of the Overland.

Armies naturally recover over time; it's when someone does it quickly that you have to try and find another cause.
He greatly improved the logistical situation in Virginia. After Lincoln won re-election, re-enlistments improved. Many soldiers may have wanted to be in on the end of it all.
 
Up until July 31, 1864, I think Grant was fighting Lincoln's war. After that, the Farragut operation closed Mobile Bay. Warren got to the Weldon RR, and Hill's corp could not knock the US off the road. That improved Sherman's chances in Georgia, and he first captured Atlanta and then knocked Georgia out of the war after the election.
In the east, a small, but critical operation was sinking the Albermerle. Grant seems to have put a high priority on also closing Wilmington. Because while Sherman was marching toward the coast, Warren extended his raid down the Weldon RR. When Butler failed to follow orders and hold his position in NC, he was immediately fired, and David Porter was more or less given command of the combined arms operation to take Fort Fisher.
The simultaneous pressure begins to mount after August 1, 1864. No, it was not a war of attrition, though part of it looked that way.
 
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You know more about tactics. Fuller wrote that there were tactical solutions, given the US advantage in artillery. Advance in columns, per Upton, was one possible solution.
Artillery could have done it; the thing which taxes me is that it's not as if a solution needed to be sought as such because there were so many solutions to the problem from the Napoleonic Wars. These solutions were there but not looked for.

You don't really see battalion carre, columnar assaults and the mixed order, there's not much if any use of light artillery and cavalry to make the attacks combined-arms, grand batteries focusing long-ranged fire on a targeted point on the enemy line is barely seen...
 
Anyone else like and admire this man?
Most definitely. I was his forum host for a while and couldn't speak highly enough of him then or now. Getting to know Grant the man makes quite a difference in the interpretation of things, at least from my perspective. And as peaceable a man as he was, he could fight a war and never prepare for defeat. Does that cost lives? Yes, it does. Which is the nature of war. The opposing side does not prepare for defeat either. Both attack and defend, but the defenders, IMO, are more likely to entrench. Which makes the attackers more likely to lose more men. Just a thought to add to the rest.
 
The opposing side does not prepare for defeat either. Both attack and defend, but the defenders, IMO, are more likely to entrench. Which makes the attackers more likely to lose more men. Just a thought to add to the rest.
There are options other than attacking into entrenchments, though, especially when one's army is twice the size of the enemy. The most basic is the "fixing and turning" movement, which is to make entrenchments work in your favour instead - dig in opposite the entire enemy army, man the entrenchents with one wing of your army and send the other wing off on a turning movement.

Grant's situation in Central Virginia was really good for that sort of movement, because he had the road routes available to march around Lee's positions and he had waterborne supply that Lee couldn't possibly interdict.
 
I know all this and I appreciate your feedback. But I was talking purely from strategic and tactical maneuvers. The Confederates were dug in like an Alabama tic.
Then again not really. The Confederacy certainly wasn't dug in from Sherman's March through Georgia with Sherman's men well into North Carolina by the wars end. Digging in at Petersburg didn't do much to protect the vital port of Wilmington that was essential for receiving food supplies from Western Europe.
Digging in doesn't help at Petersburg has the AnV starts to starve to death.
In short conventional wars are not won the defense but on the offense.
Leftyhunter
 
The same thing happened at Five Forks, and Grant had remade the Army of the Potomac into an army of pursuit. But Sedgwick, Warren, Hancock and Burnside were gone.

And high time; Wright, Griffin, Humphreys and Parke were excellent corps commanders. And Ord did wonders with the Army of the James. The United States had a deep bench.
 
I'm wondering about the division of responsibilities between Grant and Meade from May 1864 to April 1865. Grant seemed to retain overall control of strategy while letting Meade handle many tactical decisions. But that neat separation is more academic than the reality of the respective roles played by both men for the direct assaults at the Mule Shoe salient, Cold Harbor and Petersburg to name a few famous examples.
 
Artillery could have done it; the thing which taxes me is that it's not as if a solution needed to be sought as such because there were so many solutions to the problem from the Napoleonic Wars. These solutions were there but not looked for.

You don't really see battalion carre, columnar assaults and the mixed order, there's not much if any use of light artillery and cavalry to make the attacks combined-arms, grand batteries focusing long-ranged fire on a targeted point on the enemy line is barely seen...
I don't think anyone ever realized the grand batteries could keep firing if the artillery angle of fire was different than the angle of infantry advance. Seems to me to be a geometry problem that has to be solved once artillery can hit targets at 1500 yds.
 
I don't think anyone ever realized the grand batteries could keep firing if the artillery angle of fire was different than the angle of infantry advance. Seems to me to be a geometry problem that has to be solved once artillery can hit targets at 1500 yds.
Eh? You handle the problem by doing massive preparation prior to the attack going in - this is Napoleonic stuff, except Napoleon didn't have spherical case shot. (Though artillery firing ball or spherical case isn't actually all that destructive at about a mile.)
 
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