Real importance and effect? Debate?

[Pat Answer]

I actually started listening to one of Gary Gallagher's lecturing sessions this week dealing with Lee and his generals. I've also listened to his 48 part lecture overview of the war. He definitely has an affinity for the eastern front, which is understandable considering its importance. I do think the west was overlooked by historians over the years but I think it has gotten more attention lately. The strategic importance of the city of Vicksburg is probably lessened with the loss of New Orleans but the fact that nearly 30,000 Confederate troops surrendered cannot be understated IMO.

Not IMO either.

 

[ole]

The 30,ooo troops surrendered did not stay that way long. Many if not all were declared exchanged and fed back into the mill. That's one reason Grant, Stanton, and Lincoln soured on the exchange cartel. The loss of the ordnance was possibly more damaging than the temporary loss of the men.

 

[Drew]

I would opine that Vicksburg was very important. The administration was under severe political pressure to open the river for the transshipment of goods from the mid-west. New Orleans was of little importance in this regard until the goods could make it all the way down the river. Vicksburg and Port Hudson prevented that.

"The importance of that river to the trade and commerce of the North-West is so patent as to impress itself with great force upon the most ignorant minds and requires only to be stated to be at once understood and accepted. And I give it here as my deliberate judgement, that should the misfortune of arms, or other causes, compel us to the abandonment of this War and the concession of independence to the Rebel States, that Ohio, Indiana and Illinois can only be prevented, if at all, from a new act of secession...by a bloody and desolating Civil War."

- Excerpt from Indiana Governor Oliver Morton's October 27, 1862 letter to A. Lincoln (Source: Stanton Papers, reproduced in L. H. Johnson's Red River Campaign)

Morton's authority to speak for Illinois and Ohio is of course doubtful, but within a week of his writing, the Democrats swept the mid-term elections, even in Illinois. Note Morton's lack of subtlety - open the river or we go with the South. That is indeed "severe political pressure."

 

[Nathanb1]

That's the one I can't get to work!

Aw, man. It's great. I used it in class this year.....I love CWT. Does all my teaching for me!

 

[rickvox79]

The 30,ooo troops surrendered did not stay that way long. Many if not all were declared exchanged and fed back into the mill. That's one reason Grant, Stanton, and Lincoln soured on the exchange cartel. The loss of the ordnance was possibly more damaging than the temporary loss of the men.

Is there any somewhat accurate estimates of how many of the 30,000 re-enlisted or joined up again?

 

[huskerblitz]

That's the one I can't get to work!

Have you tried updating or reinstalling your Flash player? That may fix it.

 

[unionblue]

To All,

Excellent thread and topic and just great answers from all.

Thanks again for the continuing education of....me.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Is there any somewhat accurate estimates of how many of the 30,000 re-enlisted or joined up again?

I don't see how there could be any reliable statistical data. From anecdotal data, I think it's clear that some, perhaps most, did re-enlist at some point; and I'd guess that not all did.

It wasn't an ideal situation from Grant's perspective-- he'd obviously have preferred that they go home and take up farming again-- but at least he'd wiped out the organization and their then-collected logistics, etc. That was at least a significant setback to CS operations in the area (and they never did operate in that strength in that region afterward, though obviously elsewhere in the south the struggle continued).

 

[Pat Answer]

Aw, man. It's great. I used it in class this year.....I love CWT. Does all my teaching for me!

Have you tried updating or reinstalling your Flash player? That may fix it.

Didn't do the trick, but thanks.
Wide Awake Films really did a great job on these, I have to say. You know it's a hit when your grade-schooler wants to put it in his favorites.

 

[Missouri 1st]

Is there any somewhat accurate estimates of how many of the 30,000 re-enlisted or joined up again?

Maybe not accurate, but certainly points to the probability that a great many did continue to serve. From the diary of W. L. Truman of Guibor's Missouri Battery, French's Division:

July 6th, 1863. We received our paroles yesterday, and today we marched out, but were haulted at our outer line, which was our only line of breastworks, and every one searched for contraband of war, which consisted of medicine, and musket caps. Quinine was the principle medecine, they did not want us to have. This looks unmerciful, and extremely wicked, to take the medecine away from a sick man, that he may die, or that his wife and children, at home may die for the want of it. I stood by and saw twenty-five or thirty, infantry men searched, the guard went through their knapsacks and every little bundle they had, but they found no contraband on them. When we battery boys presented ourselves, the guard noticed that we had nothing but our blankets, and haversacks and we were told to pass on. So much time was lost by searching the men that we did not get far today.

...July 8th. we arrived at the RR station near Brandon, Miss. there was a train awaiting to take us MO. troops to our selected parole camp, at Demapolis, Ala.

Sept 3rd. We are told that we Missourians, and in fact all the Vicksburg prisoners, are now exchanged, by what process, I have not yet learned officially, neither have I seen any account of it through our papers but it is the general talk among us, that many of the Yankee prisoners captured and paroled at Harpers Ferry by Stonewall Jackson, were recaptured in a few days thereafter in the battle of Antietem, and our Confederate Government learned through those prisoners that the Northern Government would not recognize Jackson parole, but put the whole batch of nine or ten thousand men back into their army, and into that bloody battle of Antietem. So our exchange is said to be in retaliation of that act, this is the way we privates and lower officers understand our exchange, came about, but this statement is not official.

We are now being reorganized, three Missouri batteries, Wade's, Guibore's, and Landis, have been consolidated, with Capt. Guibore commanding. Richard Walsh, of Wade's battery, 1st. Lieut. McBride of Guibore's battery, 2nd Lieut. and Harris of Wade's battery 3rd Lieut., more than half of our men, and non-commission officers formally belonged to Wade's battery. We still retain the name of 1st Mo. Battery. Many of our absent boys are coming in daily. We have not received our guns yet, and are just lounging around doing nothing.

Oct. 20th. Our guns are here. Four beautiful ten pound, Napoleon bronze they are the latest, and best make, light therefore will be easily handled in battle, and easy to haul on bad roads. Our brigade boys, are around with their new endfield rifles, the best mussel loading infantry gun in America. The boys know how to use them, and when they have it to do, the result will be deadly.

Oct. 29th. Have orders to leave here, and move over to Meridian, Miss. as we are now in good fighting trim, and I suppose must get in touch with the enemy. We leave friends, and sweethearts, and may not come this way again.

From this excellent website:

http://www.cedarcroft.com/about/civil-war-interests/w-l-truman-memoir/

Also consider some did go home - Texas/Louisiana/Arkansas/Missouri and continued the fight there with regular Trans-Mississippi units or Partisans.

 

[cash]

Here's Gallagher himself giving his argument within this interview:

http://chqdaily.com/2013/07/10/gall...hy-but-clearly-not-civil-wars-turning-points/

 

[Elennsar]

I think the figures on how many would fight again depends on the unit - Bowen's division seems to have largely reformed, but Stevenson's seems to have had substantial desertions (I can't remember where this is from - might be something on the Chattanooga campaign).

 

[NedBaldwin]

Here's Gallagher himself giving his argument within this interview:

http://chqdaily.com/2013/07/10/gall...hy-but-clearly-not-civil-wars-turning-points/

I think he makes several errors.

1. He focuses on the importance of New Orleans because "April of 1862 is when the Mississippi was really gone as a Confederate river." But this places the importance on when it was a Confederate river; what made Vicksburg and Port Hudson important is because they kept it from being a Union river.

2. By focusing on the river navigation/port aspect, he dismisses the linkage between the Trans-Mississippi and the rest of the C0nfederacy

3. He asks"did it make a substantive difference in how the Confederacy waged its war going forward" and answers 'no'. But I think the answer is Yes. For almost two years -- Columbus KY, to Island No 1o, to Vicksburg -- control of the Mississippi had been a major focus of the Confederacy. After July 1863, that changed.

4. He concludes that "the ultimate success of the Union was due to Lincoln's foresight in naming Grant general in chief", which seems fair yet it is Vicksburg that makes this decision possible -- one of the most important effects of the capture of Vicksburg is the elevation of Grant.

 

[Drew]

"The real battle for the Mississippi took place one year earlier, Gallagher said, when the U.S naval flotilla, led by David Farragut, secured the port of New Orleans. Gallagher said that the river was only of value if New Orleans remained open."

Of value to whom?

Gallagher apparently didn't read Morton's letter to Lincoln that I quoted in #23. New Orleans is of no use to the Union if you can't get there. You couldn't, until Grant took Vicksburg (this news compelled the 5,000-man garrison at Port Hudson to finally surrender that place to Banks' 30,000, so let's be careful about awarding credit).

 

[Elennsar]

What is it to the Confederates without New Orleans?

"Denying it to the Federals" is not a useful use of the manpower it drained away by July of 1863.

 

[JeffBrooks]

Even if Vicksburg had absolutely no strategic importance of any kind whatsoever (which isn't accurate), its capture was still massively significant because the Northern public believed that it had critical strategic importance. The Civil War, like most other wars, was a conflict in which the perception of reality was more important than the reality.

And it was critically important in reality. It was the link between the Trans-Mississippi and the rest of the Confederacy, the importance of which we have been discussing in another thread. So long as it remained a fortress in Confederate hands, it guarded the left flank, so to speak, of the entire Mississippi/Alabama/Georgia region, protecting its vast resources for the Confederate war effort.

That being said, I think the fall of New Orleans was a far more severe blow to the Confederacy than the fall of Vicksburg. It had immense diplomatic and financial impact for the Confederates, as well as costing them their biggest blockade-running port and a key industrial center.

 

[Drew]

What is it to the Confederates without New Orleans?

"Denying it to the Federals" is not a useful use of the manpower it drained away by July of 1863.

My post in #23 says the governor of Indiana was prepared to secede from the Union if the river wasn't opened. He claimed to speak for two other states as well. There's an entire forum here for "what ifs." What if Grant had failed? Would the Union have lost Indiana, Illinois and Ohio? I don't know. But clearly, control of Mississippi River navigation was a huge issue.

 

[rbasin]

I think he makes several errors.

1. He focuses on the importance of New Orleans because "April of 1862 is when the Mississippi was really gone as a Confederate river." But this places the importance on when it was a Confederate river; what made Vicksburg and Port Hudson important is because they kept it from being a Union river.

2. By focusing on the river navigation/port aspect, he dismisses the linkage between the Trans-Mississippi and the rest of the C0nfederacy

3. He asks"did it make a substantive difference in how the Confederacy waged its war going forward" and answers 'no'. But I think the answer is Yes. For almost two years -- Columbus KY, to Island No 1o, to Vicksburg -- control of the Mississippi had been a major focus of the Confederacy. After July 1863, that changed.

4. He concludes that "the ultimate success of the Union was due to Lincoln's foresight in naming Grant general in chief", which seems fair yet it is Vicksburg that makes this decision possible -- one of the most important effects of the capture of Vicksburg is the elevation of Grant.

With the U.S. Congress promoting Grant, Lincoln really didn't have a choice: either name Grant General in Chief, or don't use him. Lincoln asked several of Grant's associates about his political ambitions while Congress debated whether or not to revive the grade of Lieutenant General, and to award it to Grant.

I'd add Chattanooga as a big reason towards Congress's infatuation with Grant- he was able to rescue a army, then commanded 3 armies towards defeating Bragg.

 

[Elennsar]

My post in #23 says the governor of Indiana was prepared to secede from the Union if the river wasn't opened. He claimed to speak for two other states as well. There's an entire forum here for "what ifs." What if Grant had failed? Would the Union have lost Indiana, Illinois and Ohio? I don't know. But clearly, control of Mississippi River navigation was a huge issue.

"The importance of that river to the trade and commerce of the North-West is so patent as to impress itself with great force upon the most ignorant minds and requires only to be stated to be at once understood and accepted. And I give it here as my deliberate judgement, that should the misfortune of arms, or other causes, compel us to the abandonment of this War and the concession of independence to the Rebel States, that Ohio, Indiana and Illinois can only be prevented, if at all, from a new act of secession...by a bloody and desolating Civil War.""

Where does Morton mention the need for Union arms to take the river more than to beat the Confederacy in general (in other words, to focus effort on that as a strategy)?

I think it was a huge issue for only one reason - it was treated as a huge issue even after its value to the Confederacy has faded (being able to send stuff across the river is not nothing, but it doesn't compare to what it was before it began falling to the Union).

If Grant had failed but the war had continued the way it was going, I don't see Morton carrying that out - are sixty thousand plus Confederates in Mississippi going to do any good for Tennessee, Georgia, and the eastern (Virginia, the Carolinas) Confederacy? No.

I think it was more than a sideshow, certainly - just that the Confederacy's need for manpower elsewhere is greater than its need for Vicksburg.

 

[Drew]

"The importance of that river to the trade and commerce of the North-West is so patent as to impress itself with great force upon the most ignorant minds and requires only to be stated to be at once understood and accepted. And I give it here as my deliberate judgement, that should the misfortune of arms, or other causes, compel us to the abandonment of this War and the concession of independence to the Rebel States, that Ohio, Indiana and Illinois can only be prevented, if at all, from a new act of secession...by a bloody and desolating Civil War.""

Where does Morton mention the need for Union arms to take the river more than to beat the Confederacy in general (in other words, to focus effort on that as a strategy)?

He doesn't. He's saying that if the Mississippi can't be opened (to New Orleans), his state and perhaps his neighbors, will secede. That's powerful political pressure, don't you think?