Gettysburg: the Ultimate "what if"...

[Rhea Cole]

Sherman did not order anything like Lee's gn order no. 72.........

Actually, you want to read Sherman's orders concerning treatment of civilians. Lee was on a raid, Sherman's task was to shorten the war by depriving the Confederate army of the food it needed to continue the war. The two campaigns are an apple to radish comparison.

 

[CowCavalry]

Actually, you want to read Sherman's orders concerning treatment of civilians. Lee was on a raid, Sherman's task was to shorten the war by depriving the Confederate army of the food it needed to continue the war. The two campaigns are an apple to radish comparison.

A raid? I suggest Lee's motives were as much an effort to shorten the war as was Sherman's.

 

[CowCavalry]

And I was not comparing the campaigns, just the attitudes of the commanding generals towards the treatment of civilians and private property.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Again, from Alexander's viewpoint (italics and bold are mine):

" Second question. I fully agree as to the necessity to General Lee of defeating the Federal army, and perhaps that army would fight better on its own soil than in Virginia, and would, therefore, be easier to defeat in Virginia; but bear in mind that the great condition to assure its defeat was to force it to attack General Lee. Moreover, he did maneuver in Virginia inviting an attack, but in vain -- at least he gave Hooker opportunities which were not availed of, and no disposition shown to act on them during the few days they remained open. It is also very certain that General Lee could never have established his army in Pennsylvania with his communications open so as to get supplies, even of ammunition; but yet I think he could easily have so manoeuvred as to force Meade to attack him. A position covering Fairfield would have given him the Valley to support himself on, and would have been so threatening to Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Harrisburg that public clamor would have forced Meade to try and dislodge him. We had ammunition enough for one good fight, and in a victory would capture enough for the next. "

Fundamentally, my study of the situation has led to the conclusion that Lee had no business being in Pennsylvania at all. It is awfully hard to force the other side to attack when & where you want time to. By definition, in a campaign of maneuver, they are going to attack when & where it is to their best advantage. Positional warfare such as the Petersburg Campaign forces the opponent to attack on ground of your choosing. That was not going to happen in Pennsylvania. In any case, the clock was ticking, from the time the first cavalryman pricked his mount's ribs, Lee was going to run out of food & ammunition at a time & date certain. Lee knew that.

So did Meade. The smartest thing he could have done was to let Lee chase him around Pennsylvania until the A.o.V. horses died. All you have to do is look at Bragg's returns in Kentucky to see what that looks like.

As Grant showed in his campaigns, the day of the one great Napoleon era battle that wins the war were long gone. I thought that lesson was learned by the Brits during the Revolution. One battle more or less was just an incident amid a whole string of incidents. That is how Grant turned Chickamauga into nothing but a tactical defeat. He thought in terms of campaigns, not one off set pieces the way his opponents did.

 

[Saphroneth]

Surely the important thing about both campaigns is that they were operating by flying-column supply for the most part (that is, they did not rely for the most part on a continual supply of food entering the theatre).

The way I've seen it put is that Lee's objectives were:

1) Forage lots of supplies in Pennsylvania.
2) Inflict heavy casualties on the Army of the Potomac.
3) Humiliate the Union north of the Potomac.
4) Kill (or cripple) the Army of the Potomac.

The first one is pretty simple, it lets his army survive for some time on Union rather than Confederate resources.
The second has the intention to reduce the capability of the Army of the Potomac to mount an attack on Richmond - especially the kind of attack he most feared, where a large force was sent to attack Richmond by sea (as the smaller the Army of the Potomac is the less strength it can spare from defending Washington).
The third has the intention of increasing the pressure in the Union to make peace and/or encourage foreign intervention.
And if the fourth is completed then the Union strategic position is in tatters; a crippled Army of the Potomac can't force Lee out of Pennsylvania and he can keep going until leaving the area entirely on his own recognizance.

 

[Saphroneth]

It is awfully hard to force the other side to attack when & where you want time to. By definition, in a campaign of maneuver, they are going to attack when & where it is to their best advantage.

Not really. By definition in a campaign of manoeuvre whoever manoeuvres best has the advantage - and since the entire basis of Prussian (-> German) military philosophy from as far back as the 17th century was to win wars with materially stronger powers through superior movement and manoeuvre, and it worked for them for hundreds of years, it seems pretty evident that a materially weaker power with superior manoeuvre can in fact win wars; that is, it is a route to victory. This can work even if facing materially superior enemies on each front.

As Grant showed in his campaigns, the day of the one great Napoleon era battle that wins the war were long gone.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but in 1866 exactly that happened. The Prussians beat the Austrians at Koniggratz and pretty much decided the war in a day.

That it didn't happen to happen in America doesn't mean it was impossible.

 

[CowCavalry]

Sherman's task was to shorten the war by depriving the Confederate army of the food it needed to continue the war

If that is not a raid, I do not know what is.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Not really. By definition in a campaign of manoeuvre whoever manoeuvres best has the advantage - and since the entire basis of Prussian (-> German) military philosophy from as far back as the 17th century was to win wars with materially stronger powers through superior movement and manoeuvre, and it worked for them for hundreds of years, it seems pretty evident that a materially weaker power with superior manoeuvre can in fact win wars; that is, it is a route to victory. This can work even if facing materially superior enemies on each front.


I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but in 1866 exactly that happened. The Prussians beat the Austrians at Koniggratz and pretty much decided the war in a day.

That it didn't happen to happen in America doesn't mean it was impossible.

The Prussians weren't fighting a war on of a continental scale. The Americans beat the cream of the British Army in the 1770's because Lord Howe thought taking Philadelphia was going to win the war. I get it that you are fixated on making this point, but a step back & survey of the campaigns that actually won the Civil War will inform a different opinion on this subject.

 

[Saphroneth]

The Prussians weren't fighting a war on of a continental scale.

Nor was Lee; Lee's campaign area, from the furthest south he ever fought to the furthest north, is about 200 miles; the Valley fighting which went on up until 1864 is the limit of the east-west distance and it's less than that.

The Prussian First Army started on 14 June at Senftenberg, fought at Koniggratz, and ended the war at Blumenau (which is a straight line distance of 300 miles) on 22 July. If this isn't a war on a continental scale, nor is what Lee did; if subsidiary theatres are also counted, we should be able to consider that the distance between Bad Langensalza and Lissa was 600 miles.

The Americans beat the cream of the British Army in the 1770's because Lord Howe thought taking Philadelphia was going to win the war.

Assuming you're referring to Saratoga, the fact that the British troops in question had been promised they'd be shipped back to Britain as a condition of their surrender probably had something to do with it.

I get it that you are fixated on making this point, but a step back & survey of the campaigns that actually won the Civil War will inform a different opinion on this subject.

Myself, I'd think it dangerous to overconclude from just one war rather than placing the war in proper context. I agree that there were very few actual manoeuvre-based destructions of enemy armies in the Civil War, but there were certainly instances where armies got outmanoeuvred to dangerous effect* and there is no reason to assert that it was simply impossible - certainly to claim something was "long gone" when it happened later the same decade should be indicative.



* Second Bull Run springs to mind

 

[John S. Carter]

The problem Lee had was the lack of logistical capability. Bragg, in Tennessee, had the same problem. Neither one of them had enough wagons or draft animals to pull them. To answer your question, I will have to establish some rules. These rules can't be violated without disabling the horses.
The railhead or landing where rations & fodder are distributed from has to be no more than 10 mile from the distribution point. You can only work horses 20 miles a day for an extended period. One load costs 26 pounds of fodder. Grant was a fanatic about the ten mile rule.
If your railhead is 20 miles away, you can only deliver one load every two dats. It costs you 52 pounds of fodder.
If, like general Bragg, your army has a fifty mile wide front & your fodder has to come from 70 miles away, disaster is only a matter of time. Each 1,000 pound load of fodder looses six days ration times four horses... That is why, in June, Bragg was thousands of draft animals & wagons short of minimum.
Compared with Rosecrans, Lee had about the same number of wagons, but he had no railhead or landing. The Army of the Cumberland had the Nashville & Chattanoonga RR & the Tennessee River. When they were cut off in Chattanooga w/o access to either, they lost approximately 10,000 mules carrying supplies over the mountains. As a result, almost all the draft animals in Chattanooga died. Rosecrans could not ship enough fodder, Total loss was twenty something thousand animals.
Even in Gettysburg, about 45 miles from the Potomac, a single wagon could only deliver one load every two days minus four day's ration of 26 pounds time four. Even that modest distance was beyond Lee's capacity. That is why his horses were starting to fail & his army was out of ammunition. That is why Lee had to fall back into Virginia however the Battle of Gettysburg came out.
Welcome to how the Civil War was actually fought. Thought provoking ¿no?

So,we the problem is ordinance? The North had established a better one than the South who had to rely on the "kindness" of locals.Sherman, after Atlanta ,relied on this with a little persuasion when required,.Did Lee's ordinance department inform Lee of the needs of the army in this march and if he had why did not take it into his plans ? Maybe Longstreet was right ,if I am correct in what I have read,that it would have been better if the army had taken a defensive position instead of marching once again into enemy turf.What if Lee had been victorious what was his plans ? Since he did not have the supplies or force to continue what was to be gained by this strategy ?This would have been just another loss for the North in a continuation of a static war.Grant may have been rushed to the front on one of these trains.As to the government ,they would have simply moved to New York or Philadelphia as did the Continental congress did to avoid the British .As to the question, "what if" Lee had remained the army in a defensive strategy? Was his reason to give the farmers to the area time to grow food or to give Virginia population a break from the war?

 

[John S. Carter]

American cavalry was fundamentally incapable of shock action until it had been properly trained, which shouldn't be surprising - that's why armies train. The Union achieved this in 1864.

Absent that, Stuart should have been either doing proper recce work or actually taking out the Union supply lines, though having a regiment available when one of the Union regiments "swung out like a barn door" would have broken the Union line quite nicely.

As for Napoleonic style of movement, again there's a lack of depth of understanding in America about Impulse Warfare and so the combat is mostly linear. Lee's moves on the third day of Gettysburg however are fairly good in terms of exploiting an opportunity, and it was found during the Wars of the Revolution that a supporting line too close to the front line often gets collapsed by the breach of the front line - so whatever units had been undeployed, moved over and deployed again could have suffered.


Arguably (like Day Two) if Day Three had been executed as expected by Lee's commanders then it would have had a lot more chance of success. The bombardment was meant to be a quick thing (~30 minutes, 2 rounds per minute) but instead it was a slow one (at a quarter of the rate of fire). It did disable most of the Union guns though so there's that.
One of the commanders also seems to have held back the "second echelon" who were meant to lend mass to the attack, which might or might not have turned the trick.


Assuming I get all the forces Lee had but am forbidden from doing either an echelon attack on Day Three or an attempt to break through the middle, the next move in the Napoleonic toolkit is fixing-and-turning. Shift the lines, dig in two thirds of the army and get the other third (Longstreet?) to undeploy, march south along the Emmitsburg Road and once you're well south of the Union positions go for Taneytown.

Meade has to react; he can't ignore it because otherwise Longstreet's corps is coming marching up his line of communication and hits him in the rear, collapsing his army.
Does it work? Don't know, but it uses the fresh troops for something other than a frontal attack and no matter how Meade reacts Lee can exploit it somehow; Meade doesn't have the reserves to fend off a Confederate corps coming from the south (because he doesn't have reserves at all) and has to strip his existing line, and even if he does form a new line he's down to one road for supply.
Which is a fine opportunity for Stuart to get involved.

Then we can agree on this WHAT IF Stuart or Lee's had used his cavalry in a proper military objective perhaps this could have resulted in a successful victory for the ANV and moved the COPPERHEADS closer to ending the war?

 

[Saphroneth]

Then we can agree on this WHAT IF Stuart or Lee's had used his cavalry in a proper military objective perhaps this could have resulted in a successful victory for the ANV and moved the COPPERHEADS closer to ending the war?

It's actually kind of tricky, because Stuart's proper role during the Gettysburg campaign was the proper role of cavalry - screening, scouting, intelligence - and any fun rides into the blue are supposed to be what you do once that's taken care of. It happens that there was a mistake in the screening of the Federal wagon trains, but finding it would be a matter of chance - albeit a good divergence for a what-if.

There is also good scope for a what-if where things go better for the Confederates if Stuart does his job properly, because it permits Lee to plan ahead of time on fighting at Gettysburg. (That's the job of cavalry when your army is marching as corps, it helps inform your decisions on where to concentrate.)

 

[Rhea Cole]

It's actually kind of tricky, because Stuart's proper role during the Gettysburg campaign was the proper role of cavalry - screening, scouting, intelligence - and any fun rides into the blue are supposed to be what you do once that's taken care of. It happens that there was a mistake in the screening of the Federal wagon trains, but finding it would be a matter of chance - albeit a good divergence for a what-if.

There is also good scope for a what-if where things go better for the Confederates if Stuart does his job properly, because it permits Lee to plan ahead of time on fighting at Gettysburg. (That's the job of cavalry when your army is marching as corps, it helps inform your decisions on where to concentrate.)

Many historians consider Stuart's foolish raid & Morgan's farcical campaign into Ohio at about the same time as the tipping point where Confederate cavalry was a net loss to the war effort. From the spring of 1863 onward confederate cavalry consumed huge numbers of scarce horseflesh & listed three to four dismounted man for every man fully equipped & ready to ride. The epitome of this diversion of precious resources was Wheeler's raid into Tennessee that destroyed the cavalry of the Army of Tennessee. One of the few cavalry leaders who was paying his way was Forrest, but he was banished to a backwater where his talent was wasted. (That is what Jefferson Davis said after the war.) Ed Bearss' discussion of how of the cavalry as leach sucking the lifeblood out of the Confederate army was one of the big eye openers that made me see the big picture of how the Civil War was actually fought.

 

[Saphroneth]

The funny thing is that in 1864 the Union promptly gathered up all their cavalry in the East and sent it off on a ride into the blue! Sheridan's raid during the Overland deprived the AotP of good scouting and screening in exactly the same way Stuart's did during the Gettysburg campaign.

 

[Rhea Cole]

The funny thing is that in 1864 the Union promptly gathered up all their cavalry in the East and sent it off on a ride into the blue! Sheridan's raid during the Overland deprived the AotP of good scouting and screening in exactly the same way Stuart's did during the Gettysburg campaign.

Of course Sherman's cavalry was a constant disappointment. The problem was that the entire doctrine that Wheeler, Morgan,et al, clung to was obsolete. By 1863, cavalry raids were like a low dose of antibiotic. All they had done was to weed out some weak officers & teach the Union army how to secure their choke points. The war had changed & the cavaliers didn't.

 

[Saphroneth]

Of course Sherman's cavalry was a constant disappointment. The problem was that the entire doctrine that Wheeler, Morgan,et al, clung to was obsolete. By 1863, cavalry raids were like a low dose of antibiotic. All they had done was to weed out some weak officers & teach the Union army how to secure their choke points. The war had changed & the cavaliers didn't.

Though once Minty had some formations trained in proper close combat work the Union cavalry did become superior to the Confederate, so there's that.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Though once Minty had some formations trained in proper close combat work the Union cavalry did become superior to the Confederate, so there's that.

It was a fact that it took two years to train a cavalryman. Recruiting for Union cavalry units came from a counter factual demographic. It was city boys who joined the cavalry in large numbers. Country boys had enough of the wrong end of a mule & were happy to walk. The absurdities of early war Union cavalry operations can be better understood if you think of a bunch of city kids at camp climbing up on a horse for the first time. After two years, the Union cavalry would be on the ascent for the rest of the war.
Of course, the one truly strategically successful cavalry raid was the one Grant ordered through Mississippi as part of his Vicksburg plan.

 

[Saphroneth]

Of course, the one truly strategically successful cavalry raid was the one Grant ordered through Mississippi as part of his Vicksburg plan.

I don't think that's the only one, because I can think of a second one straight away - the raid on Holly Springs which blew away Grant's supply base and compelled his retreat from his first attempt on Vicksburg. It delayed operations against Vicksburg for a considerable time.

As far as I can determine cavalry raids should only be conducted with whatever's left after you have the scouting and screening duties done, and the same can be said of battlefield employment of cavalry.

(Aside, but if you want to see the scouting and screening job done properly I'd point to the use of cavalry in the Loudoun Valley campaign. The cavalry operating ahead of the Army of the Potomac siezed each of the Blue Ridge passes and was able to warn of Confederate concentrations, localized the Confederate inf divisions fairly well, fended off Confederate cavalry, and then peeled off from the Blue Ridge passes once they were no longer operationally vital to switch to securing the crossings of the Hazel river. The screening job was done well enough it took Lee several days to realize the whole AotP had moved to Warrenton.)

 

[Rhea Cole]

I don't think that's the only one, because I can think of a second one straight away - the raid on Holly Springs which blew away Grant's supply base and compelled his retreat from his first attempt on Vicksburg. It delayed operations against Vicksburg for a considerable time.

As far as I can determine cavalry raids should only be conducted with whatever's left after you have the scouting and screening duties done, and the same can be said of battlefield employment of cavalry.

(Aside, but if you want to see the scouting and screening job done properly I'd point to the use of cavalry in the Loudoun Valley campaign. The cavalry operating ahead of the Army of the Potomac siezed each of the Blue Ridge passes and was able to warn of Confederate concentrations, localized the Confederate inf divisions fairly well, fended off Confederate cavalry, and then peeled off from the Blue Ridge passes once they were no longer operationally vital to switch to securing the crossings of the Hazel river. The screening job was done well enough it took Lee several days to realize the whole AotP had moved to Warrenton.)

From my point of view, Holly Springs exemplified everything that was wrong with the Southern raider doctrine. While it did inconvenience Grant, it also convinced him that conventional book solutions had their limits. It was that experience that drew his attention to successful ways to live off the land. That was one heck of an unintended consequence. Unlike Grierson's (sp?) raid through Mississippi, which was an integral part of a campaign plan, the Holly Springs raid was a one off isolated event.
More typical of Western Theater cavalry raids was the twin Forrest-Morgan forays on the eve of the Battle of Stones River. It was the certain knowledge that Bragg had lost 2/3rds of his cavalry that allowed Rosecrans to advance. His own horse soldiers were in a pitiful state. Not only did many of them have no horses, but many had no weapons of any kind.

 

[Saphroneth]

From my point of view, Holly Springs exemplified everything that was wrong with the Southern raider doctrine. While it did inconvenience Grant, it also convinced him that conventional book solutions had their limits. It was that experience that drew his attention to successful ways to live off the land.

Eh? Grant retained a supply line in subsequent campaigns - he's supplied at Vicksburg, for example (his supply base was Grand Gulf). It's not like Grant's Vicksburg Siege army could "live off the land" in the same place in Mississippi for a month better than Lee's army could in Pennsylvania while constantly moving.

Unlike Grierson's (sp?) raid through Mississippi, which was an integral part of a campaign plan, the Holly Springs raid was a one off isolated event.

It did however stall Grant's advance for several months, which seems worthwhile to me! It wasn't an integral part of a campaign plan because it won "Grant's First Vicksburg Campaign" by itself.

It's as strategically consequential as the Seven Days, if considerably less bloody.