Famous and disastrous blunders

[MikeyB]

Did any of the following have a prayer? Were they all equally doomed? Is there one action on the list that had an exceptionally LOW chance of succeeding and might be regarded as particularly incompetent generaling?

Longstreet's Assault
Malvern Hill
Franklin, TN
Marye's Heights
Cold Harbor

 

[ArcticState]

Cold Harbor had an EXCEEDINGLY low chance of success. Frontal assault on entrenched positions always lowers your chances but other factors were at play to make Grant's attempts fruitless (although I hesitate to say an "impossibility" because, war).

Postponement of the action by Hancock's delay, 7,000 Union casualties in a single *hour* ... all of these amounted to what Grant admitted was his greatest failure. However the loss at CH must be taken within the larger context of flanking of Lee's Army since the Wilderness, finally pursuing the destruction of the ANV, as a larger success.

 

[Irishtom29]

Longstreet's Assault?

 

[Jimklag]

Longstreet's Assault?

PPT Charge.

 

[Stratagemo]

Did any of the following have a prayer? Were they all equally doomed? Is there one action on the list that had an exceptionally LOW chance of succeeding and might be regarded as particularly incompetent generaling?

Longstreet's Assault
Malvern Hill
Franklin, TN
Marye's Heights
Cold Harbor

Regarding Marye's Heights, I think it depends on whether you're taking the assaults on Marye's Heights as isolated from the fighting on Jackson's front.

I think on their own the assaults on Marye's Heights were never likely to succeed. But if Franklin had exploited Meade's efforts better, the outcome of the battle may have been different and the Union forces may have been able to turn the position on Marye's Heights.

 

[Irishtom29]

PPT Charge.

Ahh, Pickett's Charge.

 

[Jimklag]

Pickett's Charge?

Pickett, Pettigrew, Trimble

 

[Irishtom29]

Pickett, Pettigrew, Trimble

Oh yeah, I know who was in Pickett's Charge. ;-)

I'll shut up now.

 

[Coonewah Creek]

Oh yeah, I know who was in Pickett's Charge. ;-)

Ah, but who is buried in Grant's Tomb...now that is the real question!

 

[Ole Miss]

Franklin! Head on assaults at an enemy that is entrenched with artillery support at near dark has to be the top contender for stupidity! Hood left his artillery behind and ordered his men into a hopeless attack without any surveillance or proper use of cavalry.
Regards
David

 

[diane]

Have to say...I think ALL of them had plenty of prayers! I can figure out some reasons for most of them, and a couple looked as if they might or should have succeeded. Nothing is certain in any battle, after all. Cold Harbor is the one I can't fathom, however. None of the generals ordering these disasters was incompetent, stupid or anything other than very good, nor were their troops and subordinates anything but very good. There were other factors at work in the making of them.

 

[MikeyB]

Have to say...I think ALL of them had plenty of prayers! I can figure out some reasons for most of them, and a couple looked as if they might or should have succeeded. Nothing is certain in any battle, after all. Cold Harbor is the one I can't fathom, however. None of the generals ordering these disasters was incompetent, stupid or anything other than very good, nor were their troops and subordinates anything but very good. There were other factors at work in the making of them.

I may have to respectfully disagree with regards to Hood! But admittedly, I am far from an expert on his career

 

[diane]

I may have to respectfully disagree with regards to Hood! But admittedly, I am far from an expert on his career

I would agree with you there as well - I've always felt he was promoted out of his ability range - which he didn't know. It's important to know what you can't do as well as what you can! (Burnside, for instance, knew his limitations.) As a division commander, Hood was indispensable.

 

[jackt62]

None of the assaults mentioned stood a chance. Longstreet himself, (PPT or as you have designated it Longstreet's assault), asserted before hand it would not succeed, and would not have ordered it himself. All 5 of those assaults were disasters for the attacking force, which proved that frontal assaults over open ground against an opponent that was entrenched and/or had well emplaced artillery could not succeed.

 

[jackt62]

To be sure, 2 of the assaults (Longsteet and Malvern Hill) were ordered by Lee, who understood the difficulty of such assaults and tried to compensate in both cases by employing his own artillery to devastate the enemy force before sending in the infantry, and in the case of PPT to support the assault with flanking force. But the planned artillery configurations never really got going at Malvern Hill, and although E.P. Alexander more effectively used his artillery at PPT, the attack remained unsupported.

 

[gary]

Firing on Fort Sumter instead of starving Anderson out. Anderson said he was nearly out of food.
Lee's invasion of Maryland in 1862 and Pennsylvania in 1863.
Davis putting Hood in command of the Army of Tennessee.
Lovell should have been given command of all Confederate forces including the naval assets around New Orleans.
Pemberton allowing himself to be bottled up in Vicksburg instead of abandoning a city.
Giving Franz Sigel command of anything other than artillery. His massing of artillery was brilliant at Elkhorn Tavern.
Butler and the Army of the James. Butler needed administrative assignments, not field commands.
Putting Sibley in command in the SW Theatre. When Sibley resigned his commission and went to Richmond, Davis should have sent him packing. Alcoholics tend not to be good leaders.