Did the Union or Confederacy Produce Better All-Around Soldiers?

lurid

First Sergeant
Joined
Jan 3, 2019
From my experience in the USMC, the south enlisted the most people but the north and Midwest produced more quality than quantity. I really don't know about the CW, except that maybe at the beginning the south might had the better quality soldier, but during the middle and end of the war it was the north. In all fairness to the south, a lot were conscripted and we all know a lot of times conscription constituted dissent. Subsequently, desertion was prevalent and it started to fall apart. It seemed like morale picked up momentum for the Union rank & file as the war progressed. Nevertheless, at the start of the war who had the better trained soldiers?
 
I agree that Confederate morale deteriorated as the war dragged on. None the less Union troops in 1862 did manage to win some battles even though outnumbered. The AoP under General McCellen did achieve the CEVS of any commander of the AoP. I would argue overall when properly led the Union soldier was always the equal of his Confederate counterpart.
Leftyhunter

I would argue it was how they fought wars back in that era. It appears, wins and losses depended all on the generalship and the number theory. The number theory that people on this board so earnestly cling to stems from how they conducted wars. My grandmother could have got hers' with all those bogus frontal assualts.
 
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Well, Confederate folklore depicts that the Confederate soldiers were so vibrant and full of valor they could have easily overcome these obstacles.
The North thought that this war was going to be a short trip into Dixie,till Sharpsburg/Antietam.The start of all wars are depicted as short with the soldiers who will overcome all obstacles.Russia at the start of WWl and even the British at the start of the Revolution.Obstacles can be overcome if the people have the means and the will to endure,with the leadership to maintain the final objective.Valor can only maintain one for so long compare to dedication,.
 
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I would argue it was how they fought wars back in that era. It appears, wins and losses depended all on the generalship and the number theory. The number theory that people on this board so earnestly cling to stems from how they conducted wars. My grandmother could have got hers' with all those bogus frontal assualts.
Not sure what you mean by number theory. Yes leadership certainly matters. As a general rule wars are fought based on many factors . Wars in a sense weren't fought much differently then today other then the huge caveat of ever changing technology.
Frontal assaults are like any other war strategy ; sometimes they work I.e. the Confederate assault at Chickumungua and sometimes not so much I.e. Pickett's Charge.
Leftyhunter
 
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Edited.
Refusing to accept a source like the 1860 census made by the federal government, is NOT a view that in any way should be acceptable to people who claim to be (amateur) historians.

Historical debates should be made based on sources and proper historical method... not wishful thinking and refusing primary sources just because you don't like what they tell us.

Accepting that people can just refuse a source this central to our understanding of the period totally undermine any chance of a serious debate.
You are not following what I am saying. I am not refusing to accept what is shown in the 1860 Census. I am refusing to accept what one author of a book claims he found in the 1860 Census by using a computer program to find all who were living in the household of a slaveholder. Do you understand the difference?
 
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We have a number of ORs on Confederate desertion. We have quotes on muster lists on Unionist regiments composed of Confederate defectors. I will take primary sources over Randall any day.
Leftyhunter

Randall is a primary source, read his book and take the time to check his footnotes and bibliography.
 
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Not sure what you mean by number theory. Yes leadership certainly matters. As a general rule wars are fought based on many factors . Wars in a sense weren't fought much differently then today other then the huge caveat of ever changing technology.
Frontal assaults are like any other war strategy ; sometimes they work I.e. the Confederate assault at Chickumungua and sometimes not so much I.e. Pickett's Charge.
Leftyhunter

Number theory: many members here believe whatever army had the most men during a given battle should have won, or all victories during the CW were attributed to numbers advantage. I'm talking about those crazy frontal assaults that seemed to take precedence over every other strategy. Like I said, my grandmother could have got all she wanted once the enemy was in the kill zone. Those canisters and repeaters did some serious damage. I'm not arguing with you Lefty, I'm just trying to look at a different angle.
 
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The North thought that this war was going to be a short trip into Dixie,till Sharpsburg/Antietam.The start of all wars are depicted as short with the soldiers who will overcome all obstacles.Russia at the start of WWl and even the British at the start of the Revolution.Obstacles can be overcome if the people have the means and the will to endure,with the leadership to maintain the final objective.Valor can only maintain one for so long compare to dedication,.

According to the pundits on this board, the Confederates figured that "one" Confederate soldier could take out "ten" Union soldiers. If the people on this board got their story correct then the Confederates figured the Yankees trip to Dixie wouldn't be long.
 
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Randall is a primary source, read his book and take the time to check his footnotes and bibliography.
No his work is a secondary source, just like all other work done by later historians.

His works can include primary sources if he included them in their entirety, but that don't make his work one.

It is actually the same with the OR. The OR in its entirety is not a primacy source.
It is a secondary source that is a collection of primary sources.
 
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He's been dead for like 70 or 80 years.

Does this mean you don't believe the scholarship of dead historians to be relevant? I would ordinarily be skeptical of a northern-born historian named for James Garfield and a noted Lincoln scholar but on closer reading of works I have have found him to be quite balanced at least when compared with a number of post-1960s agenda driven revisionists still alive.
 
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Does this mean you don't believe the scholarship of dead historians to be relevant? I would ordinarily be skeptical of a northern-born historian named for James Garfield and a noted Lincoln scholar but on closer reading of works I have have found him to be quite balanced at least when compared with a number of post-1960s agenda driven revisionists still alive.

No, this means I believe there's been a lot of time to debunk his work, which members in this thread clearly posted rebuttals.
 
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We have a number of ORs on Confederate desertion. We have quotes on muster lists on Unionist regiments composed of Confederate defectors. I will take primary sources over Randall any day.
Leftyhunter

James Randall and David Donald, Civil War and Reconstruction, footnote 28, pp. 329-330.

“On September 11, 1865, the provost marshall general estimated the total number of desertions from the army to be 195,255, not including drafted men who failed to report. Offic.Rec., 3 ser., V,109. On December 31, 1865, it was stated that 278,644 desertions had been reported, but many of those reported had been sick on the march, injured, without official knowledge, or otherwise justifiably absent. According to the same report the monthly desertions in 1863 averaged 4647; in 1864 they averaged 7333. Ibid.,757-758. See Shannon, II, 179 n., and, for a general treatment of the whole subject, Ella Lonn, Desertions during the Civil War.”

Seems to me Randall's sources are more solid than the muster rolls of a few cherry-picked muster lists of Unionist regiments
 
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James Randall and David Donald, Civil War and Reconstruction, footnote 28, pp. 329-330.

“On September 11, 1865, the provost marshall general estimated the total number of desertions from the army to be 195,255, not including drafted men who failed to report. Offic.Rec., 3 ser., V,109. On December 31, 1865, it was stated that 278,644 desertions had been reported, but many of those reported had been sick on the march, injured, without official knowledge, or otherwise justifiably absent. According to the same report the monthly desertions in 1863 averaged 4647; in 1864 they averaged 7333. Ibid.,757-758. See Shannon, II, 179 n., and, for a general treatment of the whole subject, Ella Lonn, Desertions during the Civil War.”

Seems to me Randall's sources are more solid than the muster rolls of a few cherry-picked muster lists of Unionist regiments

Listing official Unionist muster roles is not cherry picking. No one especially myself who has a threat entitled " How serious was desertion in the Union Army" has ever stated desertion was not a major problem in the Union Army.
On the other hand we should not ignore the fact that there was considerable desertion in the Confederate Army has well to offset Union desertions.
Si far no evidence had been presented that thousands of Union soldiers defected to the Confederate Army.
If the Confederacy didn't have any major problems with desertion but the Union Army did then the Confederate Army should of won.
Leftyhunter
 
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James Randall and David Donald, Civil War and Reconstruction, footnote 28, pp. 329-330.

“On September 11, 1865, the provost marshall general estimated the total number of desertions from the army to be 195,255, not including drafted men who failed to report. Offic.Rec., 3 ser., V,109. On December 31, 1865, it was stated that 278,644 desertions had been reported, but many of those reported had been sick on the march, injured, without official knowledge, or otherwise justifiably absent. According to the same report the monthly desertions in 1863 averaged 4647; in 1864 they averaged 7333. Ibid.,757-758. See Shannon, II, 179 n., and, for a general treatment of the whole subject, Ella Lonn, Desertions during the Civil War.”

Seems to me Randall's sources are more solid than the muster rolls of a few cherry-picked muster lists of Unionist regiments
Desertions at the end of 1865 had zero impact on the course of the war. Got any relevant desertion numbers from the actual wartime?
 
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