Johnston v. McClellan

Johnston was taking the offensive at Seven Pines. He had gotten as much as he could from his defensive strategy, delaying the Union advance and buying time for Confederate reinforcements to join his army. And he identified an opportunity to engage on favorable terms, with the enemy force divided by the Chickahominy River.

He knew perfectly well that he couldn't give up Richmond or allow himself to be besieged there.

It's very similar to the Atlanta campaign, where Johnston again imposed maximum delay on the enemy, using the terrain to best advantage, drawing down Sherman's strength, and giving an opportunity for reinforcements to be sent using the rail lines centered on Atlanta - though by this time there were few reinforcements available. Again he recognized that he had retreated as far as he could, and that defensive tactics would not longer be feasible as Sherman's armies advanced into more open ground. Again he prepared to take the offensive and devised a plan to defeat the stronger enemy in detail. And again he was removed from command at the critical moment, though in a (hopefully) less hurtful manner.
 
And he identified an opportunity to engage on favorable terms, with the enemy force divided by the Chickahominy River.
As oft happened in the Civil War, the geography seemed somewhat to be on the side of the Confederates... the Chickahominy is a real bear of a river for its position relative to Richmond, you essentially don't have a choice but to go clear up as far as McClellan did before crossing it, but to avoid having your force divided by the river you then have to change base all the way back south to the James. You can't go around the headwaters either, not unless you're supplying down the rail line from Fredericksburg or Aquia and even then it's a bit chancy...
 
Johnston wasn't the most aggressive of generals in the Civil War especially if you're taking on someone as overcautious as George B. McClellan if he were to continue to fight him he would not have received the injury that handicapped him of command during the Battle of Seven Pines.
 
Johnston wasn't the most aggressive of generals in the Civil War especially if you're taking on someone as overcautious as George B. McClellan
Ah, now. I don't really think you can call McClellan overcautious, at least to the point he missed a genuine opportunity.
It depends of course on what you consider acceptable risk, but the only place where McClellan actually gets outmanoeuvred is the Seven Days - where his flaw is overaggression, his army having too many brigades south of the Chickahominy to attack Richmond.

It's true McClellan rarely sent troops charging unsupported into the teeth of a defensive posiiton, but that's more "common sense" than overcaution...
 
So something that occurred to me in the context of the question of this thread (and the replies to it when it was originally opened) is that basically it's two cliches clashing and people not really being able to evaluate them properly.

The Johnston cliche is "he wants to retreat in all cases even when it's not a good idea".
The McClellan cliche is "he's very slow when he advances even when he could press on faster".

The problem with these is that they can't actually both be true of the same campaign, though they can both be false.

Specifically, if Johnston's force is small enough that McClellan could easily roll over him, then slowly retreating up the Peninsula is a better way of buying time than being beaten in a battle. Conversely, if Johnston's force is large enough that he could fight it out with McClellan from a good position, then McClellan's caution is justified.

Of course, I have my own opinion... and it's that Johnston's army was close in size to that of McClellan, though not larger*. Johnston's attitude during the Peninsula is self consistent if we assume that he wanted to fight only from a position of advantage (since the armies are similar in size) and McClellan's attitude is consistent if we assume that he wanted to avoid fighting Johnston in a position to Johnston's advantage (ditto).

Thus Johnston holds at Yorktown until McClellan's siege guns are in position to blast through the forts in the position, then he falls back. Johnston then holds the third and final prepared defensive line on the Peninsula, Williamsburg, and McClellan outflanks it with the move to Eltham's Landing.
The next natural barrier is the Chickahominy, but it's too long for Johnston to hold and he fears being outflanked, so he pulls back to the Richmond fortifications as McClellan moves up to base at White House Landing. It's here McClellan's operations start being constrained by the order to fix his base there and operate against the rail lines north of the Chickahominy.
Johnston's aim during the march up the Peninsula was to pounce if McClellan's marches left a division exposed; in this light McClellan's caution seems well founded.


*In the Seven Days Lee's army had 112,000 PFD, split as:

Army of Northern Virginia
Longstreet: 14,291
A.P. Hill: 16,411
D.H. Hill: 12,318
Stuart: 2,109
Total: 45,129

Army of the Valley
Jackson: 9,604
Ewell: 6,353
Whiting: 5,537
Cavalry: 605
Total: 22,099

Confederate defensive forces south of the Chickahominy:
McLaws: 4,915
D.R. Jones: 4,503
Magruder: 5,671
Huger: 6,160
Holmes: 9,018
Reserve artillery: 1,680
Cavalry: 2,000
Richmond defenses: 9,136
Petersburg defenses: 1,909
Total: 44,992

(Harsh)

As of Seven Pines, the following Seven Days regiments are with Johnston's army.

Whiting's division: 9/9
Jackson's division: 1/18 (will carry over to Longstreet)
Ewell's division: 0/18
DH Hill's division: 16/23 (missing Ripley's brigade and a few scattered units)
DR Jones' division: 10/9 (1st KY extra, will carry over to McLaws)
McLaws' division: 9/10 (Kershaw not listed on Wikipedia but was present)
Magruder's division: 9/9 (some regiments missing on Wikipedia but were present, such as 17th MS and Cobbs brigade)
Longstreet's divison: 25/27 (missing 2 SC Rifles and 56th VA)
Huger's division: 15/27 (missing the two Dept. of NC brigades, plus 44th AL. I will treat it as 15/16 and assume the Dept. of NC is embraced in Holmes.)
AP Hill's division: 31/32 (missing 5th Alabama battalion)
Holmes: not present except for 26th VA. Will treat AP Hill's division as complete.

So the infantry PFD strength is roughly:
Whiting 5,537
16/23 of DH Hill 8,569
DR Jones 4,503
McLaws 4,915
Magruder 5,671
26/27 of Longstreet 13,762
15/16 of Huger 5,775
AP Hill 16,411
Richmond defences 9,136
Seven Pines casualties 6,134

That comes to an estimate of 80,400 PFD in the infantry formations. Given that the Seven Days infantry formation PFD is 104,000 (after Seven Pines casualties, so 110,000 adding them back) this implies that over June Lee got a total of 30,000 reinforcements, of which 25,000 were formed units (Jackson, Holmes, Ewell) and the remaining 5,000 was in loose regiments and Ripley's Brigade; this seems feasible.

Thus adding in the reserve artillery and cavalry from Yorktown Johnston's army comes out at about 85,000-87,000, or 75,000 for the field. Smaller than McClellan's, to be sure, but in a 3:4 ratio with McClellan rather than the oft-suggested 2:1.


ED: per the below Ripley and Walker had already arrived by Seven Pines. This puts Johnston's available force up to 92,000 by my estimate, which means that if he left Richmond with just 6,000 defenders Johnston could fight with 86,000 PFD against McClellan's 104,000.
This isn't quite equal numbers but it's pretty close, and the slightly different PFD-Effectives conversion factor the Confederates had makes it closer still. (Basically some of the non combat jobs done by PFD soldiers in McClellan's army were done by black non-soldiers, voluntarily or otherwise, in Johnston's.)


Assumptions made in this assessment include: no casualty returns-to-duty took place for Seven Pines casualties, no attrition took place in June for any division apart from Jackson and Ewell.
 
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Johnston's army is usually given in terms of effectives, and based on his 20th May memo. This lists 55,633 effectives, although it misses a number of units with his army. He was also reinforced by Seven Pines, primarily by Huger's Division, AP Hill's Division and the brigades of Ripley and Walker. Adding all these up gives ca. 84-85,000 "effectives", a larger force than at Gettysburg. It is in fact at least an equal force to McClellan's, and maybe even slightly superior.

Lee historically received the following reinforcements in June, before the Seven Days:

Lawton's Bde (Ga)
(deleted)
Ransom's Bde (NC)
Daniel's Bde (NC)
(plus a few regts)

For the Seven Days Jackson's and Ewell's Divisions join.

In July Lee received the following reinforcements:

Martin's Bde (NC)
Evans' Bde (SC)
Drayton's Bde (Ga)
(plus a few regts)
 
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He was also reinforced by Seven Pines, primarily by Huger's Division, AP Hill's Division and the brigades of Ripley and Walker.
Ah, okay, so if Ripley had arrived that's another four regiments for DH Hill, while if Walker had arrived that's another five for the count. That's roughly equivalent to gaining another copy of Magruder or Jones' divisions, which pushes my estimate up another ~5,000 PFD.

I think my check showed Pender's brigade was already present during Seven Pines, or at least all the constituent units were. (16th NC was with Hampton, 22nd NC and the 2nd AR were with Pettigrew, 34th and 38th NC were with JR Anderson, the 22nd VA Bn was with Field). Presumably it was just formed during the reorg.
 
Ah, okay, so if Ripley had arrived that's another four regiments for DH Hill, while if Walker had arrived that's another five for the count. That's roughly equivalent to gaining another copy of Magruder or Jones' divisions, which pushes my estimate up another ~5,000 PFD.

I think my check showed Pender's brigade was already present during Seven Pines, or at least all the constituent units were. (16th NC was with Hampton, 22nd NC and the 2nd AR were with Pettigrew, 34th and 38th NC were with JR Anderson, the 22nd VA Bn was with Field). Presumably it was just formed during the reorg.

Yes, you're correct. In fact my notes indicated it, but I missed the note.
 
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