Primarily a land war?

[Rhea Cole]

Napoleon did say " An army marches on it's stomach". Of course there's another old saying from probably way back in the ancient era but Lt.General John " Blackjack " Pershing said something to the effect " Amateurs study strategy professionals study logistics or depending on the source Lt. General Omar Bradley said it. It's hard to know why Davis who himself was a Colonel during the Mexican American War and a West Point graduate did what he did in terms of firing or not firing various officers but I guess he had his reasons.
Leftyhunter

The next paragraph to your post is that Grant was a supply officer in Mexico. The close attention to the logistics & needs of his men / animals is a hallmark of his generalship.

Because of Fortress Rosecrans, Stones River living history programs focus on logistics more than most. So, I have learned a lot about the nuts & bolts of CW logistics.

Grant was very particular about where his distribution points were. A railhead or riverboat landing had to be no more than 10 miles away.

Horses have a 20 mile daily range. Beyond that a breakdown is inevitable. So, ten miles out & ten miles back was one of Grant's dictates.

 

[Old Soldier]

Not really because Confederate vets autobiographies talk a lot about hunger in the ranks.
Leftyhunter

Priorities. Food on a continent like N America is rarely imported but comes from the land. Trouble is, getting it to a place you can distribute it from is quite another thing. There are few railroads in the South - even those that weren't dysfunctional - so you have to use the roads from the railhead. That is no mean task to supply an army in the field. Looks like the Rebs failed miserably in that aspect.

 

[TallTallMan]

There would've been no Henry or Donelson if not for Foote on the river.

 

[wausaubob]

The RR connecting the 60 mile wide A of TN in Middle TN with its base in N Alabama was completely dysfunctional. In the month leading up to the June 23, 1863 Tullahoma Campaign there was absolutely no meat ration for Bragg's soldiers.

The Atlanta / Dalton depot was exclusively supplying Lee's army in Virginia. Using his revolutionary resource map, Sherman was able to cut Lee off from the meat, corn & leather goods he depended on.

During the winter at Petersburg Lee's soldiers were not receiving enough protein to maintain muscle mass. The onset of scurvy meant that large numbers of men were night blind & suffering the debilitating effects of that scourge.

Note: Anybody who has more than a slight knowledge about the Civil War is aware of the most hated man in the CSA. For inscrutable reasons, Davis clung to the Commissary General Northcut & his cohort of incompetents until the very end. There was, in fact, plenty of food was produced in the CSA to feed the men & animals of the army. It was only rampant competence that allowed the armies to starve.

Note: Here in the West the best account of the dire state of the A of TN's logistics is in Connelly's 'Army of the Heartland' & 'Autumn of Glory' history of the A of TN.

I can't imagine that anybody wanting to comment on the Western Theater has not read Connelly. It is the seminal work. Unlike him, we don't have to drive endless un-air conditioned miles to access the cornucopia of references.the pr

The problem becomes significant once Rosecrans makes it to Chattanooga and Burnside is sitting in Knoxville. With Texas already cut off from the eastern Confederacy and Tennessee under US control, the Confederacy was already short on food that could be shipped to the armies. In all the 11 Confederate states there was only one major city, New Orleans. But New Orleans was a river town and a Gulf Coast town. It was supplied by down river traffic and cattle shipped in from Texas. Neither resource could be diverted from New Orleans to a Confederate army because the US controlled New Orleans and the US was still blockading Texas.
And what is an army? Its like a city of 40-60K hungry men and their even hungrier horses and mules.
The food may have existed. I don't know. But unless its pork, well salted, and live beef on the hoof, it can't be shipped.
The US did not have a similar problem. The US was set up to deliver all the coal, forage, food, lumber and everything else a city needed. Diverting some of those deliveries to the docks at NYC or to the wharves at Washington, D.C. was not hard. The US was actually shipping large amounts of wheat and pork to Britain during the Civil War. One thing keeping the war protests under control in the US: there was enough food and freight rates stabilized as freight volume increased.

 

[wausaubob]

One look at the railroad network of 1861 says a lot about the long distance logistics of both sides. Don't forget that the Southern ports were blockaded too.
View attachment 493997

Its a pretty map. But its misleading. With respect to railroads, it matters how many miles were double tracked. And it matters how much was spent on the original rails and the maintenance of the rails. The census did not count how many locomotives there were in each state. The total revenue for each railroad was private and confidential information.

 

[wausaubob]

There would've been no Henry or Donelson if not for Foote on the river.

Really? Foote was wounded in his foot. And yet and individual captain by passed Island No. 10 and demonstrated what was possible. And without Foote the river fleet seems to have won at Vicksburg in a quick and decisive battle. The US was never short on naval talent because as Craig Symonds noted: it had the ships and boats and the prospects for rapid promotion were obvious.

 

[DaveBrt]

Its a pretty map. But its misleading. With respect to railroads, it matters how many miles were double tracked. And it matters how much was spent on the original rails and the maintenance of the rails. The census did not count how many locomotives there were in each state. The total revenue for each railroad was private and confidential information.

Revenue for all companies that were created by a state legislature and that sold shares was public information. Printed annual reports were easy to ask for from the company and many newspapers and publications published all sorts of data about every road in the country.

 

[Rhea Cole]

The problem becomes significant once Rosecrans makes it to Chattanooga and Burnside is sitting in Knoxville. With Texas already cut off from the eastern Confederacy and Tennessee under US control, the Confederacy was already short on food that could be shipped to the armies. In all the 11 Confederate states there was only one major city, New Orleans. But New Orleans was a river town and a Gulf Coast town. It was supplied by down river traffic and cattle shipped in from Texas. Neither resource could be diverted from New Orleans to a Confederate army because the US controlled New Orleans and the US was still blockading Texas.
And what is an army? Its like a city of 40-60K hungry men and their even hungrier horses and mules.
The food may have existed. I don't know. But unless its pork, well salted, and live beef on the hoof, it can't be shipped.
The US did not have a similar problem. The US was set up to deliver all the coal, forage, food, lumber and everything else a city needed. Diverting some of those deliveries to the docks at NYC or to the wharves at Washington, D.C. was not hard. The US was actually shipping large amounts of wheat and pork to Britain during the Civil War. One thing keeping the war protests under control in the US: there was enough food and freight rates stabilized as freight volume increased.

Any doubts you might harbor concerning the foodstuffs grown in Southern states can be put to rest by a gander at Sherman's map. The map he used to plot his marching orders between Atlanta & Savannah was revolutionary. Census data was superimposed on a county political map of Georgia. It is in the Library of Congress.

The bushels of corn, wheat, hogs, cattle, horses, slaves & manufacturing data from the 1860 census leaves no doubt that the bummers feasted their way across Georgia.

There is a misunderstanding about Texas cattle. Imagine the state of the meat on a wild grass fed animal that had walked all the way from the Brazos River. It was the tallow, hides, hoofs & horn that was of value.

Before Grant came across the river, Pemberton received a large herd of Texican cattle that swam the river. Sounds great, but was awkward in the extreme.

There was nowhere near enough pasterage & no salt for preserving the hides or meat. Distribution of the wild beasts was a major headache.

I have a copy of the Kennesaw Mountain Station signal log during the famous Battle of Altoona. At the same time Sherman was communicating with Gen Gorse he was also sending orders to a battalion of soldiers returning from leave.

They had marched south from Chattanooga with a large (+/- 500 if memory serves.) herd of cattle. From his perch high above the surrounding terrain Sherman kept the herd out of range from
Hood's hungry men.

 

[Old Soldier]

Its a pretty map. But its misleading. With respect to railroads, it matters how many miles were double tracked. And it matters how much was spent on the original rails and the maintenance of the rails. The census did not count how many locomotives there were in each state. The total revenue for each railroad was private and confidential information.

What really matters is the serviceable freight car count and the source of new ones. The South had little in the way of industry to produce railroad goods, particularly rails and locomotives and little to maintain and repair them apparently. Iron was imported from Btriain and that was not a priority for the blockade runners. Crossties became rotten, and rails broke (the line from Nashville to Chattanooga had 1,200 broken rails in 1862).

As for single-line working - most stations will have had a passing point - a loop line and sidings and a freight depot - otherwise they would not be a station. The other major problem with US railroads at this time was the lack of rail interchanges mainly due to changes in gauge (track width) and little cooperation between companies. Most of the railways in the South were 5-foot gauge not standard gauge (4'8.5") like most of the ajoining Northern railroads.

There was no military railroad organisation in the South and any transport was left to the civilian owners who rarely ran on other companies' track or used their facilities. All the South's efforts were for the military so there was little help for the railroads.

 

[Specster]

Definately primarly land but the Navy put a big dent in Confederate operations and complimented the army in many instances....especially helping Grant on the Vicksburg Campaign...et al

New Orleans was a prime example of US Union Naval dominance

 

[Specster]

The navy and the railroads helped mobilize the army for the battles, helped feed and support them up and down the rivers and along the coast. The blockade was also running down smugglers. But without the naval support for transportation inland, I believe more tactical in scouting operations, where railroads were always at risk from attack inland, how one could separate and divide the forces to show which was greatest, only with overlays can it be seen by association. Otherwise, it was an entire operating mechanism that functioned as one whole unit. If one miscarried, it harmed the rest. This is very true of the confederate downfall.
Lubliner.

If one miscarrired.....If I understand you to mean the Union, if one miscarried it wsnt fatal to the cause

 

[Rhea Cole]

New Orleans was a prime example of US Union Naval dominance

Keep in mind that Farragut came up river as far as Vicksburg.

 

[Drew]

The Confederacy never came close to winning enough land battles to win the war. An armies job in a conventional war is to sieze and occupy enemy territory not give up territory which is what the Confederate Army did each and every year.
Yes the Union Navy played a crucial role in defeating the Confederacy.
Leftyhunter

Abraham Lincoln would disagree with this post, insofar as he wrote his cabinet in the summer of 1864 predicting he would not win re-election, because the War. But hindsight is the gift that keeps giving.

Funny thing here, five pages of Neo-Unionists bickering and no one has pointed out that Confederate Commerce Raiders all but destroyed the Northern merchant fleet. It took decades after the war to rebuild it.

 

[wausaubob]

Keep in mind that Farragut came up river as far as Vicksburg.

Then, in 1863, Farragut cleared out of Mississippi and let David Porter have a chance at victory. I think Farragut left by horse on some back roads as Port Hudson was too dangerous to pass.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Then, in 1863, Farragut cleared out of Mississippi and let David Porter have a chance at victory. I think Farragut left by horse on some back roads as Port Hudson was too dangerous to pass.

No, he definitely never left the quarter deck. He had the blue water screw sloops. Porter had Pook's Turtles.

 

[wausaubob]

Abraham Lincoln would disagree with this post, insofar as he wrote his cabinet in the summer of 1864 predicting he would not win re-election, because the War. But hindsight is the gift that keeps giving.

Funny thing here, five pages of Neo-Unionists bickering and no one has pointed out that Confederate Commerce Raiders all but destroyed the Northern merchant fleet. It took decades after the war to rebuild it.

The ocean going US sailing fleet was sold off to English owners. Improved steam engines, iron hulls, and fewer masts and sails made most of the US ocean fleet obsolete. However the ships and the boats on the Great Lakes, the rivers and canals, continued to operate during the Civil War and after until the railroads made them obsolete. It seems to me that the demand for sailing ships to and from California was reduced significantly by the Summer of 1869. Does anyone want to state why that might have occurred?

 

[wausaubob]

No, he definitely never left the quarter deck.

I think it was in biography of Farragut which stated some freedmen helped with secret communication and with finding a safe route to Baton Rouge for Farragut.

 

[wausaubob]

The total shipping tonnage owned in the US in 1860 exceeded 5M tons. As you can observe from the chart produced in the preliminary report of the 1860 census. the building capacity of the US peaked at about 580,000 tons per year. The ship building and railroad mileage building turned downwards in 1856 and thereafter as the Gold Rush ended. The difference: the US advantage in ship building ended. The US advantage in manufacturing railroad equipment and building railroads grew. Semmes sank some US merchant ships. It hardly made a scratch in the US fleet. But it probably made enemies among the US merchants who otherwise might have quietly supported ending the war so that the US could get back to business. But the merchant fleet was swept into the dustbin of history by the railroads.

https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/preliminary-report/1860e-06.pdf

 

[Drew]

The total shipping tonnage owned in the US in 1860 exceeded 5M tons. As you can observe from the chart produced in the preliminary report of the 1860 census. the building capacity of the US peaked at about 580,000 tons per year. The ship building and railroad mileage building turned downwards in 1856 and thereafter as the Gold Rush ended. The difference: the US advantage in ship building ended. The US advantage in manufacturing railroad equipment and building railroads grew. Semmes sank some US merchant ships. It hardly made a scratch in the US fleet. But it probably made enemies among the US merchants who otherwise might have quietly supported ending the war so that the US could get back to business. But the merchant fleet was swept into the dustbin of history by the railroads.
View attachment 494336

https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/preliminary-report/1860e-06.pdf

Census data from 1850-1860 has what to do with the outcome of the war?

It's too late and I'm too tired to pull the numbers, but this is a non-sequitur of a post.

I'm not surprised.

 

[Old Soldier]

Tonnage is a bad comparison with today as ships then were mainly wooden and the average merchantman weighed about 500 tons burthen. What it tells you is how many ships the US started with - 50 million tons. It does not tell you the purpose of the ships. Many iron-hulled ships (not 'ironclads') and steamships, which were always smaller than wooden-hulled sail vessels, were built in Britain or Europe. As for the commerce raiders, they sank less than 100 ships, and others were taken as 'prizes' ie not sunk, however it had a dramatic effect on the US mechant marine:

In 1861 registered American tonnage in foreign trade amounted to 2,496,894 tons and in 1865 to 1,518,350, while the percent of imports and exports carried in American ships dropped in the same years from 66.2 to 27.7. The decrease of tonnage in these years of some 900,000 tons was chiefly due to two causes. The first of these was the loss sustained from Confederate cruisers such as the Alabama built and fitted out* in England contrary to the laws of warfare. The second and most important was the sale during the four years 1862-65 of 751,595 tons of shipping abroad, occasioned by (1) lack of confidence, decline in profits due to continual Confederate captures and high insurance rates, and (2) decline in export business due to the cessation of cotton shipments abroad. (Wiki)

* Built, yes, but as fast merchant ships. The 'fitting out' of weapons was done elsewhere - usually on Spanish territories.