John Bell Hood v Phillip Kearny in combat

Tigerdovefan34

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Jan 28, 2020
From what I've seen, both of these generals were extremely offensively minded and preferred to attack as shown at Chantilly for Kearny and Franklin for Hood. Say both of these men get their own army of equal strength (25,000 each) and face each other on a field where no one has any advantage. Who wins and how high would the causalities be?
 
But there was a big difference between the roles played by the 2 men. Hood was the army commander who planned and ordered offensive assaults whereas Kearny was a division commander who was acting under orders devised by superior officers. Moreover, as a division commander, Kearny led his troops from the front, thereby exposing himself to greater danger.
 
But there was a big difference between the roles played by the 2 men. Hood was the army commander who planned and ordered offensive assaults whereas Kearny was a division commander who was acting under orders devised by superior officers. Moreover, as a division commander, Kearny led his troops from the front, thereby exposing himself to greater danger.

Let's just use the hypothetical scenario I gave out here. What would happen, despite their differences in command and such?
 
I can't say that I'm all that knowledgeable about Kearny but given that Hood was prone to recklessness I would put my bet on Kearny besting Hood.
I mean, Kearny was kind of prone to recklessness as well. We're talking about someone who kept running around ordering units to charge (sometimes ones he wasn't even in command of) and died when he didn't believe a warning that "the enemy is over there" even when shown prisoners.

I suspect the likely situation if you put Kearny and Hood in independent command of corps-sized forces is that - all else being equal - Hood actually does the job of commanding, while Kearny fights at the front and his corps goes uncoordinated. So Hood would be expected to win.
 
I mean, Kearny was kind of prone to recklessness as well. We're talking about someone who kept running around ordering units to charge (sometimes ones he wasn't even in command of) and died when he didn't believe a warning that "the enemy is over there" even when shown prisoners.

I suspect the likely situation if you put Kearny and Hood in independent command of corps-sized forces is that - all else being equal - Hood actually does the job of commanding, while Kearny fights at the front and his corps goes uncoordinated. So Hood would be expected to win.

That makes sense. I was hinting at something similar in my post #6:

"Hood was the army commander who planned and ordered offensive assaults whereas Kearny was a division commander who was acting under orders devised by superior officers. Moreover, as a division commander, Kearny led his troops from the front, thereby exposing himself to greater danger."
 
"Hood was the army commander who planned and ordered offensive assaults whereas Kearny was a division commander who was acting under orders devised by superior officers. Moreover, as a division commander, Kearny led his troops from the front, thereby exposing himself to greater danger."
The thing is, a division commander is also meant to be a manager - Kearny in 1862 was commanding nearly as many men as some corps commanders at Gettysburg, for example - and Kearny often seemed incapable of actually acting as a division commander.

The way that command works is that it's a hierarchical organization. Once you get beyond a certain point then a commander has less and less place leading from the front, and a division in early 1862, being an organization of close to 10,000 PFD, has gone well past that point.
In other words, there are other men who can lead from the front (such as, say, the regimental colonels and the brigade commanders) but there's nobody else who can coordinate the division; Heintzelman says as such about Seven Pines when he says that Kearny "forgets he is a general". (Heintzelman had to take over Kearny's division directly because Kearny was not commanding it.)

Indeed, look at Kearny's death - he was killed trying to get the 21st Mass to advance, and the 21st Massachusetts was in Ferrero's brigade of Reno's division; Reno was also the corps commander of the 9th Corps, but Kearny was part of the third Corps.
(His division was a 16 regiment organization, and Reno's entire corps only had 12 regiments in it in the campaign so it was probably easier for one general to control than Kearny's division...)
 
So based on those details of Kearny's actions it does appear that he was acting as if he were still a regimental or brigade commander rather than a division commander. Which brings up the question as to whether he was more suitable at the lower command levels and was either promoted beyond his capabilities or chose to ignore the functions of higher command.
 
So based on those details of Kearny's actions it does appear that he was acting as if he were still a regimental or brigade commander rather than a division commander. Which brings up the question as to whether he was more suitable at the lower command levels and was either promoted beyond his capabilities or chose to ignore the functions of higher command.
His promotion took place on seniority rules, so it might be either, but evidence from his pre-ACW career seems to suggest that he was quite willing to absent himself from "boring" duties even at low ranking positions (he was at Solferino as a messenger on the staff of the Guards Cavalry, but left his post to mess around on the front lines). IIRC his charge that lost him his arm was also a charge without orders where he ignored the recall order.

He had a very high opinion of himself, but it looks like his tactical sophistication isn't much greater than "charge". I suspect he might work as the sort of person you bring in when you want a massive assault on enemy positions by infantry that needs a bit more motivation, but he seems to have preferred quite small assaults instead of big ones; I'd say he missed his chance to learn, but he was actually enrolled in a course at Saumur to learn cavalry command and got dropped within six weeks.

Possibly he'd be best off in command of a cavalry regiment, if he could learn. Union cavalry could do with someone possessed of the aggression to use the arme blanche.
 
His promotion took place on seniority rules, so it might be either, but evidence from his pre-ACW career seems to suggest that he was quite willing to absent himself from "boring" duties even at low ranking positions (he was at Solferino as a messenger on the staff of the Guards Cavalry, but left his post to mess around on the front lines). IIRC his charge that lost him his arm was also a charge without orders where he ignored the recall order.

He had a very high opinion of himself, but it looks like his tactical sophistication isn't much greater than "charge". I suspect he might work as the sort of person you bring in when you want a massive assault on enemy positions by infantry that needs a bit more motivation, but he seems to have preferred quite small assaults instead of big ones; I'd say he missed his chance to learn, but he was actually enrolled in a course at Saumur to learn cavalry command and got dropped within six weeks.

Possibly he'd be best off in command of a cavalry regiment, if he could learn. Union cavalry could do with someone possessed of the aggression to use the arme blanche.
Thanks for the info about Kearny. It paints a more balanced picture than the little that I was familiar with.
 
Thanks for the info about Kearny. It paints a more balanced picture than the little that I was familiar with.
To be honest the thing that I consider most indicative of Kearny is what he said after Malvern Hill. That was a situation where the Union army was close to running out of ammunition (Porter noted that his troops had exhausted their ammunition) and literally starving (Porter said his men hadn't eaten for 24 hours, and unlike most of the army they hadn't been in the mad scramble to Malvern the previous night so they'd been in a stable situation and could have eaten) and there was no way to resupply on Malvern, but Kearny declared that the only reasons why the army would be retreating would be "cowardice or treason".

Kearny is a man in charge of a division of ten thousand men. He should be more aware of what is going on than that.


That's why I think that if placed in independent command he wouldn't exactly shine. The job of running his corps-sized force simply wouldn't get done.


Hood on the other hand was aggressive, and I could certainly see the argument he was too aggressive. But he could manoeuvre his army (and managed to break clean when facing an army somewhat more than twice his own size, albeit after considerable loss) and he could also stand on the defence when needed.
 
Given that additional evidence, I must change my view speculating about the performance of Kearny in Corps command against Hood.
 
@Saphroneth I am enjoying your remarks about Kearny. Thanks for all that.
As to the the charge at Solferino, it had been my impression he got permission to make that charge. Is that correct do you know? And regarding his presence with the French Army generally, wasn't he more of a guest or observer than anything else? He's a fascinating guy but not quite what I thought he was.

Thank you, John
 
As to the the charge at Solferino, it had been my impression he got permission to make that charge. Is that correct do you know?
Yes, he did have permission (or to leave his post at least), but it's part of a pattern - he doesn't care for any part of the job except messing around on the front lines, but at the same time he wants high command responsibility and felt he was owed a division.

And regarding his presence with the French Army generally, wasn't he more of a guest or observer than anything else?
He was, yes. Interestingly though the French seemed unimpressed - he got the Legion d'honneur 5th class. My understanding is that the LdH was a courtesy award for all foreign participants at Solferino, and under normal circumstances his rank would have meant he got the 3rd class - the 5th class award was for subalterns.
 
@Saphroneth I would think he doesn't really have command responsibility with the French Army so this would be the place to get involved "for the fun of it". He appears to be a guy who really liked combat.

But I agree, for whatever reason he seems to forget his place when he is in command and not there "for the fun of it".

There is a new book coming out about him which I am looking forward to.

I enjoy reading your comments. Thanks for getting back to me.

John
 
@Saphroneth I would think he doesn't really have command responsibility with the French Army so this would be the place to get involved "for the fun of it". He appears to be a guy who really liked combat.
Which is fine! You can be a guy who really likes combat. I actually think Kearny's ideal role would probably have been to start the war as a regimental cavalry CO in a unit armed with the saber - it might not have been very well organized, unless his staff could do it for him, but so long as you've got someone able to tell him when not to charge he'd be a fine cavalry commander.


In command of an independent army? I can only really see that going poorly.
 
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