Learning Curves

ole

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Retired Moderator
Joined
Feb 20, 2005
Location
Near Kankakee
It seems that one of the qualities of a successful general is his ability to learn.

When the war opened, few of the first generals had led so much as a regiment. Some learned from their mistakes. Some did not.

This was called to my attention by an old thread on another board discussing McClellan. Hadn't noticed it before, but one poster discussed McClellan's failure to grow into his position. The McClellan fired in November, 1862 was the same McClellan appointed after First Manassas. If he grew in that time, I'm not aware of it.

Contrast that with Grant. Or Sherman. Or Longstreet. Or Jackson.

Any observations?

ole
 
It seems that one of the qualities of a successful general is his ability to learn.

When the war opened, few of the first generals had led so much as a regiment. Some learned from their mistakes. Some did not.

This was called to my attention by an old thread on another board discussing McClellan. Hadn't noticed it before, but one poster discussed McClellan's failure to grow into his position. The McClellan fired in November, 1862 was the same McClellan appointed after First Manassas. If he grew in that time, I'm not aware of it.

Contrast that with Grant. Or Sherman. Or Longstreet. Or Jackson.

Any observations?

ole

Ole,

In the 1850s, the average US Army post was about 2 companies, and those were usually understrength. It was rare anything as big as a battalion/regiment (effectively the same in the organization of those days) was together in one place. The biggest force put together in one place during the 1850s was the expedition A. S. Johnston took to Utah to settle the trouble with the Mormons: the 10th Infantry, the 5th Infantry, Phelps’ Battery of the 4th Artillery and the 2nd Dragoons with some territorial militia, perhaps 2,500 men. Other than that, you'd be hard-pressed to find over 1,000 troops in one place.
 
Exactly what I was getting at, Trice. Lots of the generals had served in the Mexican War, but as Lieutenants and a few Captains. Can't think of anyone during the CW as holding a higher rank during the Mexican War.

In the interim, Lee and AS Johnston, at least, reached Lt. Colonel. Higher ranks were desk-jockeys (JE Johnston, Cooper, McDowell ....) So who did and who did not demonstrate the capacity to grow into a position that virtually no one ever held?

Take, for example, Sherman. When he finally decided to seek a commission, he insisted on a regular regiment as he felt himself to be inadequate to lead a volunteer regiment. His feelings of inadequacy overwhelmed him while he was watching the Kentucky border, but his performance at Shiloh shows a marked change.

ole
 
There are schools of thought that generally believe schooling (or training) merely help (or hinder) the effective use of the innate abilities of individuals.
In that line of reasoning, more experience or better training would not, necessarily, have made McClellan a better army commander (it would more likely have made him an even better administrator)
 
Ole!!

Mcclellan was an administer and just did not have the warrior within him. No matter how much more under fire training would not change that simple fact.

He could organize an army but he could not lead one into battle...
 
In the aforementioned post, the author opined that McClellan didn't recognize that he needed to learn anything at all -- he already knew more than any man alive. Not exactly a humble beginning.

ole
 
Hadn't thought of it that way, Ole, but in reading about Grant I realize that he grew considerably in knowledge and confidence throughout the war. People say "if only Grant had been in command from the beginning..." but the Grant of Belmont was certainly not the Grant of Vicksburg or Appomatox.

However, while it applies in spades to the Union side, does it apply as well to the Confederate side? To J. E. Johnston, perhaps, or Bragg, but what about to Lee or Jackson? Did they really grow much in command over the course of the war? Lee, it seems to me, made many of the same mistakes later in the war as earlier. Pickett's charge is just Malvern Hill writ large. By the end he did learn to entrench immediately, yes, but that lesson was learned by the both armies at about the same time.
 
Which is what I was looking for, timewalker. Seems that JEJ was the same guy at Bentonville as he was at 7 Pines. Drawing a contrast between Gains Mill and Petersburg for Lee is more difficult.

Any others?

ole
 
sumner

Can't think of anyone during the CW as holding a higher rank during the Mexican War.

Read that Ole and first name to come to mind was Sumner.....looked it up quick, sure enough....In 1846, he was promoted to Major and fought in the Mexican War.

Your overall point is nevertheless well taken....he clearly wasn't a General!
 
Learning Curve,

A Learning Curve is more of an age thing. Lee and Johnston were into the fifties after a lifetime of Army experience, one would expect that they knew pretty much all they wanted to know about military service and their habits and thought processes were pretty well fixed by the CW. It would be in the younger men where the Learning Curve would be the most obvious.
 
Excellent point, Opn. Might have something to do with it. Most of the others had pursued non-military careers -- Lee and the Johnstons remained in. And would the "no need to relearn" have had anything to do with anything? Interesting question.

CW: If I'm remembering correctly, Sumner became a trusted division commander who served well throughout, although he never rose higher. Is that about right? He would have been a bit old for anything overly strenuous, wouldn't he?
 
Excellent point, Opn. Might have something to do with it. Most of the others had pursued non-military careers -- Lee and the Johnstons remained in. And would the "no need to relearn" have had anything to do with anything? Interesting question.

Yet it is not merely age nor non-military careers. After all, it was Young McClellan - who had a non-military career - who was the impetus for your original post.

I know Sherman and Grant grew and learned, but I am not too up on many other generals. What about Hancock? Reynolds? Meade? Or, on the CSA side, A.P. Hill? Hood? Longstreet? Someone else will have to analyze them and I look forward to their analysis.
 
Learning Curve

Edwin V. Sumner was one of Lincoln's original corps command appointee (against the wishes of McClellan)
From what little I know, he seemed to a typicla 'Old Army' type, rigid, firm belief in the chain of command, the necessity to follow orders to the letter (and no more), dauntless courage in battle.
A good leader of men, not really fitted for corps command, but as Bruce Catton wrote of him "a fine old smooth bore".
 
What about Wilder. Though his service was somewhat cut short, and much like Forrest, he grew into the command structure. Both of these men had a sharp upward lerning curve in MHO.
 
In terms of a learning curve, there were many civilians, although not becoming Army or Corps commanders, came out of their law offices and their merchantiles and and their farms and did a creditable job.

Most of these guys, Forrest included, were never given the responsibility of managing a large command. (He had achieved the rank and was occasionally given a job but, so far as the command structure was concerned, he was a Black Ops free-lancer.)

The civilian that most comes to mind is Logan: a political appointee who almost got command of the Army of the Tennessee.

But, I digress. (Again.) Somewhere back there someone came up with an idea that can't be ignored: the man's, hmmmmm, inner self? For example, Grant had a mind set that was hardly intellectual or refined, but he had a mind set uniquely suited to an army commander: he saw what needed to be done and he didn't quit until it was done. But he started with much to learn and it would appear that he learned it.

Forrest is an approximate equivalent: he saw what needed to be done and figured out how to do it.

Don't know that much about Lee. With him, it's almost like he knew what to do from day one. Different situations and benchmarks and handicaps, I guess.

How about the lessers? The Hills. Longstreet. Early?

ole
 
Read that Ole and first name to come to mind was Sumner.....looked it up quick, sure enough....In 1846, he was promoted to Major and fought in the Mexican War.

Your overall point is nevertheless well taken....he clearly wasn't a General!

Don't be so sure :smile: -- Bull Sumner gets a bad rap over Antietam. If you go through the incidents that happened there, his movements make perfect sense -- and his third division diverted to the left, leaving a gap for the Rebel assault to run wild through. A few minutes delay in the Confederate attack, his third division moving as ordered, and Sumner might have been the hero of the day. For the command of an Army he was probably not a good choice, but the AoP had worse men come and go in division and corps command.

Sumner made Brigadier before the war (Lt. Colonel, 1st Draggons 1848; Colonel 1st Cavalry 1855; Brigadier General 16 March 1861 & commander of the Department of the Pacific).

Tim
 
Exactly what I was getting at, Trice. Lots of the generals had served in the Mexican War, but as Lieutenants and a few Captains. Can't think of anyone during the CW as holding a higher rank during the Mexican War.

In the interim, Lee and AS Johnston, at least, reached Lt. Colonel. Higher ranks were desk-jockeys (JE Johnston, Cooper, McDowell ....) So who did and who did not demonstrate the capacity to grow into a position that virtually no one ever held?

Take, for example, Sherman. When he finally decided to seek a commission, he insisted on a regular regiment as he felt himself to be inadequate to lead a volunteer regiment. His feelings of inadequacy overwhelmed him while he was watching the Kentucky border, but his performance at Shiloh shows a marked change.

A.S. Johnston was a Colonel of a cavalry regiment by 1861, and the commander of the Utah Expedition against the Mormons (after Harney refused it). He also had experience in the Texas Army in the 1830s (was shot in a duel by Brig. Gen. Felix Houston) and TX Sec. of War; Colonel of a Texas regiment in 1846 against Mexico.

J. E. Johnston made Lt. Col. in the new 1st Cavalry in 1855. He stayed there until 1860, when he took the staff spot as Quartermaster General in Washington and made Brig. General as a result. (He was the youngest of all the department heads by far at 53.)

BTW, the ACW officer most experienced in moving large bodies of troops as a result of the Mexican War was probably Joe Hooker. He had served effectively as chief-of-staff for Hamer's Brigade and Butler's Division (both under Taylor) and then adjutant-general of Pillow's Division (under Scott). Given Pillow's character and record, most knowledgable people aserted that Hooker was the brains and driving force behind that division. He seems to have been the sort of professional officer generals assigned to help organize and run the masses of untrained troops they had.

George Thomas was a Major in the 2nd Cavalry in 1861, with 1st Lt. J. E. B. Stuart (made Captain in April before resigning in May) and 1st Lt. John Bell Hood. Earl Van Dorn made Major in the same regiment in 1858, resigning in January 1861. George Stoneman was a Captain in the 2nd.

Stuart's father Phillip St. George Cooke came up through the 1st and 2nd Dragoons; he was a Colonel when the war started.

Tim
 
Of the names you listed, Trice, (thank you very much) we note a few who came out the other end with some impressive rankings.

All are somewhat illustrative of what I was exploring: the learning curve. Thomas apparently grew satisfactorily. Hooker achieved the top but apparently couldn't settle himself comfortably in his situation. (Part of the learning of a military commander is accepting your place, however temporarily, and doing your absolute best in it.)

I consider JEJ's primary obstruction to be in his rejection of the political demands on his effort. He was going to do what he had always done. (It's neither here nor there that he was right or wrong, he simply didn't answer to the civilian needs.)

Grant (here we go again) accepted that he was as subject to the political requirements as he was to the military's. So he lit another cigar and adapted. He tended to cooperate ... forcefully.

Is this sort of thing a part of the learning curve? Is adapting to the game part of the learning curve? Or is it something else?

ole
 
The higher you rise as a general office, the more political your job becomes. Those who recognized it, like Grant and Lee, did well. They worked within the political system. Those who did not, like Hooker and JE Johnston, failed.

I think the thing that Lincoln liked most about Grant (him again) was that of all the generals that he had, Grant was the old one who accepted what he had and worked with it. Have to usae Butler? Fine. Give him some Corps Commanders who hopefully take care of him. Other generals were always telling Lincoln that they could not function unless they had something else - another infantry corps, another cavalry division - and without it success was impossible, thus passing the buck for the failure before they ever began. Grant - and Lee for that matter - took what they had and worked with it.

Lee apparently already knew how to play the political game when the war began. Grant had to learn.
 
As to Grant, his early days in the war, from his memoirs:

Very early: "I received orders to move against Colonel Thomas Harris, who was said to be encamped at the little town of Florida, some twenty-five miles south of where we then were." ...

"Harris had been encamped in a creek bottom for the sake of being near water. The hills on either side of the creek extend to a considerable height, possibly more than a hundred feet. As we approached the brow of the hill from which it was expected we could see Harris’ camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my throat. I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on. When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view I halted. The place where Harris had been encamped a few days before was still there and the marks of a recent encampment were plainly visible, but the troops were gone. My heart resumed its place. It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him. This was a view of the question I had never taken before; but it was one I never forgot afterwards. From that event to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. The lesson was valuable.


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