Replacing Rosecrans with Thomas: October 1863

[DanSBHawk]

They were called in by Rosecrans to take part in the defense of Chattanooga..
Chattanooga was the prize not the battlefield.

I think defeating that confederate army would have been considered the true prize.

 

[DanSBHawk]

It's too bad that all of papers and letters of Thomas were destroyed. His private letters could have given very valuable insight into those events.

 

[DanSBHawk]

Granger did in 1864. Referring to the fact that it was Granger's troops that swept the rebels off missionary Ridge he wrote:
this made poor Sherman and the miserable satellites which surround him and Grant including that loathsome pimp Dana fearful, jealous and nothing would satisfy them except my destruction which they have accomplished as you are aware. Baldy Smith was also in the clique and did his best to ruin me-- he is a bad man, a hypocrite beware of him.

Nothing in this about Rosecrans being disgraced etc. A lot about collusion and jealousy among officers.

And yet the specific question was about Grangers opinion of of the removal of Rosecrans. But yet again you feel the need to change the subject to an attack on Grant, Sherman, and Dana.

One interesting thing about Dana's dispatches after Chickamauga is that they did not start out very critical of Rosecrans right after the battle. It was only as Dana began talking with the officers of the command did Dana begin reporting increasingly critical opinions of Rosecrans.

So, really, a case could be made that it was the officers under Rosecrans that ultimately provided the reason to can him.

 

[David Moore]

I think defeating that confederate army would have been considered the true prize.

By that do you mean destroying it?
When did that happen in the war?

 

[David Moore]

So Rosecrans and at least some of the AOC "leaders", who I assume to be corps/division commanders, disagreed that the "enemy" would have retired from Chickamauga had the Union army remained on the field.

Don't know. You have any thoughts and citations?

 

[DanSBHawk]

By that do you mean destroying it?
When did that happen in the war?

I meant what I said... "Defeating."

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

I think defeating that Confederate army would have been considered the true prize.

I think Lincoln would agree.

 

[sflickinger]

I have tried to look at Rosecrans objectively over the years, and I always come to the same conclusion. I don't fault him for the defeat at Chickamauga, the opening that occurred (at the worst possible place and moment) could have potentially happened to any commander. Where he dropped the ball in my opinion is how he reacted. Taking off and leaving the field, for any reason that can be argued in favor or against, just looks BAD. It was the aftermath, being holed up in Chattanooga, with supplies running low, food scarce, and he seemed frozen. ("Like a duck hit on the head") Lincoln summed it up best. If he IS stunned, frozen in place, do you want to retain him in said command?

My gg-grandfather was at Chickamauga which has led me to read a lot about the battle and the subsequent battle of Chattanooga/Missionary. He was a member of the Pioneer Brigade, A of C. I recently read a study of the related campaigns beginning with Stones River. I think Rosecrans is a general worthy of praise for many decisions, but I think he fell victim to his propensity to overwork/worry which led him to undue fatigue. Consequently his judgement was clouded. He simply was a victim of input overload and probably mental exhaustion characterized by the Lincoln comment. Sherman suffered the same malady in Kentucky earlier in the war. Imagine the mental stress of command. I believe Thomas was the right choice.

 

[Jamieva]

I meant what I said... "Defeating."

They weren't defeated they met with disaster!!!


TIC

 

[David Moore]

I meant what I said... "Defeating."

How would defeating- but not destroying - the Confederate army have created a different scenario then what existed on
Sept 21, 1863?
If the Confederates had withdrawn from the battlefield would Rosecrans have pursued them with his grievously wounded army?
How could he be sure even more reinforcements weren't on their way to Bragg?
How would Rosecrans know when and if reinforcements to his own army would arrive?
Isn't it most likely that he would have concentrated his army into Chattanooga?
He would have held the battleground but how important was that to the defense of Chattanooga?

 

[5fish]

We can run over and over but Rosecrans failed at the battle... his order to move Wood regiment would have been ignore but in the past Rosecrams had chew Wood butt for not following orders. Even thou he and officers know the order was missed guided Wood followed it bringing ruin to the Army and Rosecrans. I have not found the other times Rosecrans chewed Wood butt but they came back to huant them both.

 

[5fish]

The other is at Rossville, Rosecrans could have come back or least given the order to attack on the 22nd but he did not. It would have been like Shiloh and Rosecrans could be like Grant moment..

The last is he fled the field of Battle like the Persian emperor Darius2 fled before Alexander. That along with his telegrams to Lincoln, he deserves to be removed...

He brought it all upon himself.... there is no conspiracy to get him for he handed himself up on a silver platter to his political enemies if he had any...

 

[David Moore]

We can run over and over but Rosecrans failed at the battle... his order to move Wood regiment would have been ignore but in the past Rosecrams had chew Wood butt for not following orders. Even thou he and officers know the order was missed guided Wood followed it bringing ruin to the Army and Rosecrans. I have not found the other times Rosecrans chewed Wood butt but they came back to huant them both.

I think your opinions are based on conclusions that were written before recent research has been published. The chewing out story involving Wood has been been questioned by recent scholars like David Powell and Glenn Robertson. Take a look at more recent research. Cozzens' documentation is weak on that incident.

 

[NedBaldwin]

... Opdycke seems to have been greatly influenced by Charles Dana. ...

Based on his letters, it seems to me it was the other way around -- Opdycke influenced Dana

Does a letter from Dana saying Rosecrans was about to retreat from Chattanooga exist?

October 16th: "Nothing can prevent the retreat of the army from this place within a fortnight, and with a vast loss of public property and possibly of life, except the opening of the river. "

October 18th: "If the effort which Rosecrans intends to make to open the river should be futile, the immediate retreat of this army will follow"

Both of the above can be found in the Official Records.

In his Recollections of the Civil War, Dana wrote that on the 19th (the day after writing about the potential for "immediate retreat") he wrote that he sent another message warning that Rosecrans was about to retreat.

The evidence is that this message existed.

 

[sflickinger]

My gg-grandfather was at Chickamauga which has led me to read a lot about the battle and the subsequent battle of Chattanooga/Missionary. He was a member of the Pioneer Brigade, A of C. I recently read a study of the related campaigns beginning with Stones River. I think Rosecrans is a general worthy of praise for many decisions, but I think he fell victim to his propensity to overwork/worry which led him to undue fatigue. Consequently his judgement was clouded. He simply was a victim of input overload and probably mental exhaustion characterized by the Lincoln comment. Sherman suffered the same malady in Kentucky earlier in the war. Imagine the mental stress of command. I believe Thomas was the right choice.

I read something today that verifies what I said here. Lee suffered the same fate during the attack on Chapultepec. He was exhausted after about 48 hours of sleep deprivation and basically checked out of the battle. He fought bravely in the Mexican War, but he suffered input overload. I think he had the same trouble at Gettysburg and Antietam.

 

[David Moore]

Based on his letters, it seems to me it was the other way around -- Opdycke influenced Dana



October 16th: "Nothing can prevent the retreat of the army from this place within a fortnight, and with a vast loss of public property and possibly of life, except the opening of the river. "

October 18th: "If the effort which Rosecrans intends to make to open the river should be futile, the immediate retreat of this army will follow"

Both of the above can be found in the Official Records.

In his Recollections of the Civil War, Dana wrote that on the 19th (the day after writing about the potential for "immediate retreat") he wrote that he sent another message warning that Rosecrans was about to retreat.

The evidence is that this message existed.

Dana dictated his "Recollections" to Ida Tarbell in 1896 a year before he died at the age of 79.

The message doesn't exist but you choose to believe it exists. I think we have reached another impasse.

This is also in the Oct 18th telegram: . If, on the other hand, we regain control of the river and keep it, subsistence and forage can be got here, and we may escape with no worse misfortune than the loss of 12,000 animals.

However Dana's 1863 messages are by his own admission in some cases "misinformed." He also said in 1882 that he couldn't remember everything that was in the telegrams. Did his memory improve 15 years later?

 

[JeffBrooks]

I have always been very much in the pro-Thomas camp. Honestly, if a poll had asked whether Lincoln should have relieved Grant after Cold Harbor and replaced him with Thomas, I'd probably vote yes.

 

[NedBaldwin]

The message doesn't exist but you choose to believe it exists.

The author of the message said he wrote and sent it; someone at the other end says he read it.
Yet you claim it never existed just because it upsets you.

 

[David Moore]

The author of the message said he wrote and sent it; someone at the other end says he read it.
Yet you claim it never existed just because it upsets you.

I claim it never existed because no one has ever seen it.

 

[Horace Porter]

I claim it never existed because no one has ever seen it.

Clearly the person who read it claimed to have seen it. That's how reading works.