Opinion of General Joseph Johnston

Opinion of Joe Johnston

  • Overall, I have a positive opinion of Joe Johnston

    Votes: 22 43.1%
  • Overall, I have a neutral opinion of Joe Johnston

    Votes: 18 35.3%
  • Overall, I have a negative opinion of Joe Johnston

    Votes: 11 21.6%

  • Total voters
    51
What I wrote is there for all to see, Mark. The short version what I posted is that while adopting an expert's opinion blindly and wholesale merely because they are an expert is a fallacy, claiming that the opinions of experts have little or no value is an even bigger fallacy.

Anaxagoras is pro-Johnston enough to have written an 800-page novel depicting Johnston as winning the war. It's not surprising he was eager to diminish this particularly strong statement by Bearss by misrepresenting what the "appeal to authority" fallacy is really about.

This is a quote from Princeton about what this particular fallacy means in logical philosophy:

Argument from authority (also known as appeal to authority) is a fallacy of defective induction, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative.

Given that we were and are engaged in a debate, and Bearss opinion was produced as evidence -- part of a case and not the entire case itself -- the fallacy charge carries little merit. Furthermore, we can reasonably assume that Bearss could produce his own argument based on voluminous facts as to why he feels the way he does about Johnston, and isn't merely pulling his opinion out of his behind. That would make the charge out-and-out false.

I'm not sure that citing an author with known expertise in the field is a fallacy per se. One is in that case citing his opinion, of course, but it would not be wise to dismiss an expert's opinion lightly, even given the possibility of the expert's being in error...
 
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Foote, as he himself said many times, was a novelist, not a historian. McPherson is primarily a social historian. He's stuck his toe into military history, but his real expertise is the social and political history of the war, particularly the African-American experience. Bearss is primarily a military historian. He's conversant with the social and political history, but his main expertise is military history.

This! I think when people think of a "civil war historian" they think they all are focusing and writing about the same thing, and have the same focus.

I took Civil war classes with Dr James Robertson at Virginia Tech in the 90s. Dr Robertson like McPherson considers himself a social historian of the war. He knows the basics of the battles of course, but even as he freely admits if you're looking for regiment by regiment blow by blow of the battles, that's not his thing. As he told me one time after class, that's never tickled his fancy or gotten him out of bed in the morning. He gladly leaves that up to other historians. He's much more interested in the people involved and their stories.
 
I have to admit a bias in favor of the "military historians," and tend to look askance at those who affect to snub the battles in favor of "social influences," etc. However the lines are not always distinct; while McPherson might be classed among the "social historians," I don't think he's one of those who actively minimizes the military aspect.
 
My take on Johnston is that in retreating he was attempting to lengthen the Federal supply line, forcing the Federals to detach troops along the way to guard that supply line, therefore weakening the Federals with every mile they moved forward. Nice theory. Didn't work so well in execution, though. When you get a McClellan who is skillful enough to shift his supply base from Fort Monroe to White House when he moved up the Peninsula, or when you get a Sherman who cuts loose from food supply lines and only needs rail to replenish ammunition, that strategy goes for naught.

Add to that the fact that in giving up territory, Johnston also gave up farmland that could feed the armies and slaves who could grow that food.

Johnston saved his men, but in saving his men he lost everything else, because the Federals, with their bigger industrial base and larger population from which to draw, would eventually win in a protracted war, as long as they retained the will to keep fighting.

^These are really good points. J Johnston was undoubtedly a highly-skilled operational commander, but his ability to 'think outside the box' [I hate that phrase, but...] was limited. And when one is outnumbered that ability is very important indeed, as Lee understood. While replacing Johnston with Hood proved to be a mistake, I think Davis can be forgiven for fearing Atlanta would fall without a fight.
 
Anaxagoras is pro-Johnston enough to have written an 800-page novel depicting Johnston as winning the war.

That's simplifying the plot quite a bit, but thanks for the shout out. In the novel, as in actual life, Johnston makes very serious errors in judgment. In actual history, his failure to guard Snake Creek Gap was absolutely inexcusable and many other choices he made were highly questionable. Still, I'd take him over Bragg or Hood any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

It's not surprising he was eager to diminish this particularly strong statement by Bearss by misrepresenting what the "appeal to authority" fallacy is really about.

If it had been explained why Bearss considers Johnston such a bad general - if the post had included details of why Bearss came to the conclusion to which he came - then it would have been a valid part of the argument. But that's not what the post said. The post simply said, essentially, "Bearss thinks Johnston is a bad general." That doesn't really advance the discussion in any meaningful way.
 
...In actual history, his failure to guard Snake Creek Gap was absolutely inexcusable ...

I disagree there. I think it's perfectly excusable.

Johnston did not have the manpower to defend all the gaps through the mountainous country around Dalton and Resaca so had to make the choice where to place the majority of his strenght. He personally though the most likely route of advance for the Federals was around Rocky Face Ridge and into Dalton from the north so he placed the AoT in that area. Another route of advance he thought likely was to Rome in the south so he had Polk keep his 20,000 men there. He then had Cantey's reinforced command dig in at Resaca to protect the line of traportation and communication between the two places.

In the mean time Johnston intended to use Wheeler's cavalry to scout the gaps and keep an eye on his enemy's movement but despite recieving almost daily orders from Johnston to conduct these operations Wheeler kept his cavalry united near Varnell's Station looking for battle with the Federal cavalry and requesting that he be allowed to ride off around the Federal Army. Johnston was thus forced to rely on far smaller cavalry units to keep a watch on the gaps and had to work with whatever information he could discover for himself about the movement of the enemy.

He had to make a choice based upon very little information and with no support from his cavalry commander and made that choice, he was wrong about where he thought the Federals would attack and as a result was wrong about the dispositions of his forces, but being wrong doesn't make his actions inexcusable or unforgivable.
 
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