The Western Theater, Where the Big War Was Fought

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Lefty, such questions, proposals and thought logic are beyond the pale. Nobody has claimed humanitarianism for Wheeler's men. You are the first to present such a notion; and for no discernible purpose. Nor has anyone but you ventured to claim the war had absolutely nothing to do with slavery. There have been claims, however, that the war had to do with more than just slavery. That seems to be the bridge too far for some.

I do ask that you consider [if at all permitted by your agenda] Sherman's trail of destruction, death and robbery against the helpless female citizenry of Georgia that happened to be on his trail.

If you were a Southerner and part of Wheeler's cavalry, and you had to witness this first hand; and you had no viable means of stopping Sherman's lust for such atrocities, then perhaps even you might be compelled to vengeful violence---perhaps.

You may recall that those of Sherman's bummers who were captured were summarily dealt with.

I can only hope and plea for more reasonable discourse.
In eleven plus years on this forum all the other claims of why the ACW occurred have been debunked. Especially tarriff's and mythical "states rights". Secessionists were very clear about the cause of the war. We have numerous quotes from them. It certainly wasn't about a Trans Pacific Railroad has trade with Asia at the time was miniscule and nothing prevented a Southern TRR.
The amount of burning of homes by Sherman's men was grossly exaterated. Armies forage for food that's been true since the Caveman era.
Slave owners made war on African American woman for a long time.
Leftyhunter
 
In eleven plus years on this forum all the other claims of why the ACW occurred have been debunked. Especially tarriff's and mythical "states rights". Secessionists were very clear about the cause of the war. We have numerous quotes from them. It certainly wasn't about a Trans Pacific Railroad has trade with Asia at the time was miniscule and nothing prevented a Southern TRR.
The amount of burning of homes by Sherman's men was grossly exaterated. Armies forage for food that's been true since the Caveman era.
Slave owners made war on African American woman for a long time.
Leftyhunter

My goodness gracious
 
"By the time of the Civil War, the belief in the constitutional protection of states' rights was ingrained in the South's political creed. Every southern state, in seceding from the Union, invoked the doctrine of states' rights, including that of secession. Even those southern political spokesmen and journalists who opposed secession at the time freely conceded that states possessed the constitutional right to secede in an extremity. Countless individuals, in making a choice to join the Confederacy, explained it in terms of defending constitutional rights. Congressman William Preston of Kentucky, for example, wrote his wife that he would never support secession out of a desire to preserve slavery, but that he believed it his duty to do so in defense of the constitutional rights of the states. Confederate soldiers' letters affirm overwhelmingly that they fought not to preserve slavery, but out of a sense of honor and duty in defense of their states and homes."
-Charles P. Roland, History Teaches Us to Hope: Reflections on the Civil War and Southern History, 104-105.
Instead of secondary sources & moot court legalities, why not go right to heart of matter?

Four States published a Declaration of Causes to explain why they seceded & in doing so, encourage other states to do so. These are not just somebody's ideas, these are the documents that the men who seceded wrote to explain their actions. When Henry L. Bennet addressed the Commonwealth of Virginia, he began with a rhetorical question:

"What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in a single proposition. It was the conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of slavery."

In their declarations, the documents contained a certain amount of contextual items, preambles & the like.

Georgia: 56% slavery, 23% context, 15% Economic issues, 4% states' rights & 2% Lincoln"s election.
Miss: 73% slavery, 20% context, 4% Lincoln's election, & 3% states' rights.
Texas: 54% slavery, 21% Content, 15% States' rights, 6% military protection of the border with Mexico, 4% Lincoln's election
South Carolina: 37% States' rights, 41% context, 20% slavery & 2% Lincoln's election.

Note: If you read the South Carolina statement, the states' rights they went to such care to declare are unlikely to be what you think they were.

Perhaps it was when the solders who wrote those letters found out what they were really fighting for the explains Jefferson Davis' statement that 3/4ths of the Confederate army was AWOL. Whatever the lawyer's quibble may be about the constitutionality of secession, there is absolutely no question as to why the states seceded. It is al right there in black & white in their own words in 1860-61.
Alas, the infamous Charleston Mercury platitude that resolves nothing has been finally posted, and the clincher is the cliché from the Richmond Enquirer.
Boy howdy you got that one right!
 
Alas, the infamous Charleston Mercury platitude that resolves nothing has been finally posted, and the clincher is the cliché from the Richmond Enquirer.
Once again, the same old broken record. Everybody who has studied the Civil War has heard these clunkers & dismisses them for what they are. In any case, this is a thread dedicated to how the War was fought in the Western Theater specifically to avoid having to debunk drivel over & over again in everything that is posted on this site.
 
Who is going to lead this relief force? You act like Virginia didn't produce anything. In 1860 Virginia lead all the southern states just to name a few in Oats, Barley, Buckwheat, Butter, Cheese, Wool, Hops, Tobacco, and potattoes(it didn't lead in sweet potatoes0
If you had read Lee's correspondence before you wrote this you would have understood the Beauregard's units at Culpepper were not a relief force in any way shape or form. It was the missing second wing of Lee's plan to trap the AoP between two pincers & destroy it. In any case, this thread is about the war in the Western Theater. This topic has been covered in great detail in other threads on this site.
 
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If you had read Lee's correspondence before you wrote this you would have understood the Beauregard's units at Culpepper were not a relief force in any way shape or form. It was the missing second wing of Lee's plan to trap the AoP between two pincers & destroy it. In any case, this thread is about the war in the Western Theater. This topic has been covered in great detail in other threads on this site.

I explained to you why that is just not the case---at all!
 
Instead of secondary sources & moot court legalities, why not go right to heart of matter?

Four States published a Declaration of Causes to explain why they seceded & in doing so, encourage other states to do so. These are not just somebody's ideas, these are the documents that the men who seceded wrote to explain their actions. When Henry L. Bennet addressed the Commonwealth of Virginia, he began with a rhetorical question:

"What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in a single proposition. It was the conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of slavery."

In their declarations, the documents contained a certain amount of contextual items, preambles & the like.

Georgia: 56% slavery, 23% context, 15% Economic issues, 4% states' rights & 2% Lincoln"s election.
Miss: 73% slavery, 20% context, 4% Lincoln's election, & 3% states' rights.
Texas: 54% slavery, 21% Content, 15% States' rights, 6% military protection of the border with Mexico, 4% Lincoln's election
South Carolina: 37% States' rights, 41% context, 20% slavery & 2% Lincoln's election.

Note: If you read the South Carolina statement, the states' rights they went to such care to declare are unlikely to be what you think they were.

Perhaps it was when the solders who wrote those letters found out what they were really fighting for the explains Jefferson Davis' statement that 3/4ths of the Confederate army was AWOL. Whatever the lawyer's quibble may be about the constitutionality of secession, there is absolutely no question as to why the states seceded. It is al right there in black & white in their own words in 1860-61.

Boy howdy you got that one right!

Talk about tropes!
 
Talk about tropes!
Actually I don't use tropes at any time. The reason is that I know what the word means.

Apparently, you have never read the documents upon which secession based.
<battlefield.org> Reasons for Secession. American Battlefield Trust has both the complete texts as well as an analysis they commissioned by the Pew Research Center. It is a dispassionate professional analysis.

For Lee's Gettysburg letters, I always recommend <joeryancivilwar.com> General Lee's Communications During the Gettysburg Campaign. I use that site for the first time through Lee's letters because Joe Ryan's commentary is useful for context.

The book that everyone should have is The Apostles of Disunion By Charles B. Dew. Dr. Dew lets the Secession Commissioners sent by the seceding states to explain their actions & encourage other slave-holding states to secede. It is refreshing to read the raw, just between us white folks, rationale for secession laid out in plain language.

Reading what the founding fathers of the Confederacy had to say will be an eye opening experience.
 
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Actually I don't use tropes at any time. The reason is that I know what the word means.

Apparently, you have never read the documents upon which secession based.
<battlefield.org> Reasons for Secession. American Battlefield Trust has both the complete texts as well as an analysis they commissioned by the Pew Research Center. It is a dispassionate professional analysis.

For Lee's Gettysburg letters, I always recommend <joeryancivilwar.com> General Lee's Communications During the Gettysburg Campaign. I use that site for the first time through Lee's letters because Joe Ryan's commentary is useful for context.

The book that everyone should have is The Apostles of Disunion By Charles B. Dew. Dr. Dew lets the Secession Commissioners sent by the seceding states to explain their actions & encourage other slave-holding states to secede. It is refreshing to read the raw, just between us white folks, rationale for secession laid out in plain language.

Reading what the founding fathers of the Confederacy had to say will be an eye opening experience.

"…And why does this [or any other] particular document [Alexander Stephens’ speech] sum up the whole of the case for the Confederacy? Why can’t I, who actually know a fair amount about the context, make another selection. Something much more central and comparable to Lincoln’s speeches on critical occasions. How about Jefferson Davis’s first inaugural, in which he declared to the world: “Our present condition, achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations, illustrates the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established.”

"…Though Lincoln never made **** a “cornerstone”; he, like 98 per cent of his voters (including most of the sincere antislavery people) and most Americans of several succeeding generations, was also a ****. In fact, in one of the two forthrightly truthful statements in his public career, Lincoln remarked that “the Southern people are exactly what we would be in their situation.”
 
Actually I don't use tropes at any time. The reason is that I know what the word means.

Guess I should bow to your superior intellect, but I'm going to pass.

You sir are not immune from your own sarcastic editorial reviews of posts you don't like:

“Lost Cause tropes belong in another thread”

“Once again, the same old broken record”

“…avoid having to debunk drivel over & over again in everything that is posted on this site.”
 
Guess I should bow to your superior intellect, but I'm going to pass.

You sir are not immune from your own sarcastic editorial reviews of posts you don't like:

“Lost Cause tropes belong in another thread”

“Once again, the same old broken record”

“…avoid having to debunk drivel over & over again in everything that is posted on this site.”
The greater problem is that he has apparently been taught by modern academic historians to freely disdain anyone who disagrees with the viewpoints they taught him. When he throws accusations using code words such as "Lost Cause" and "Neo-Confederate" his objective is to silence opponents by portraying them as ignorant bigots. His teachers are the root of the problem.
 
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The greater problem is that he has apparently been taught by modern academic historians to freely disdain anyone who disagrees with the viewpoints they taught him. When he throws accusations using code words such as "Lost Cause" and "Neo-Confederate" his objective is to silence opponents by portraying them as ignorant bigots. His teachers are the root of the problem.

Giving more credence to the old saying that "a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing."
 
Robert E. Lee wrote letters to Jefferson Davis & A.G. Cooper & JEB Stuart laying out exactly what he intended to do in Pennsylvania. If that isn't a reliable source, then nothing is.

You conflated your "historical record" and "reliable source" into an entire army of 100,000 men to gather in Northern Virginia in support of Lee's Pennsylvania campaign. No where have I ever heard or read such an outlandish and foolish notion. You would be hard pressed just to add up another 100,000 men by collecting all the troops from east of the Mississippi River; much less gather them, supply them, find suitable officers, organize them, and get them from Lord knows where to Northern Virginia in a few days. The logistics would be pie in the sky even if there was such a remarkable thing as another 100,000 troops available.

Further, why would you use 100,000 men as a diversion for Lee's army of 75,00 men [+/-]? Why wouldn't that now become the main force and Lee's smaller army used as the diversion? It doesn't matter because no such thing was ever in the realm of possibility; then, later, before, or any other time.

You have wildly mistaken Lee's vain attempt just to recover his own "lost Brigades" that had been detached from his army over the last several months. That would be Corse and Jennings from Pickett's Division; along with Ransom and Cook. Lee wanted to strengthen his own army to the maximum possible for this campaign. Certainly not an army of 100,000 men.

He also had suggested [while on the march for Pennsylvania] the notion of collecting some troops from the coast to present a threat to Washington. Threats to Washington had been readily proven to cause a contraction toward the Capitol by Union troops. But this was to be using some of the lost brigades as mentioned above, not some outlandish immediate concentration of 100,000 ghost troops. Lee also wanted to magnify the force thus collected by adding Beauregard's name as the commander. Thus, the imaginary army in effigy.

If he couldn't have them added to his own army he at least wanted to use these few brigades as a diversion; rather than keep them idling in defense of coastal threats. His theory was they could defend threatened areas of Virginia and North Carolina in northern Virginia better than they could where they were.



June 25, 1863, Opposite Williamsport

Lee to Mr. President

If the plan I suggested the other day, of organizing an army, even in effigy, under Beauregard at Culpeper, can be carried into effect, much relief will be afforded. If even the brigades. . . in North Carolina and Virginia were ordered there at once, and Beauregard sent there, it would do more to protect those states. . . than anything else.

June 29, 1863, A.G. Cooper to General Lee

While with the President last night, I received your letter of the 23rd instant. After reading it, the President [could not] understand that part of it which refers to the plan of assembling an army at Culpeper under Beauregard. T
his is the first intimation that he has had that such a plan was ever in contemplation, and, taking all things into consideration, he cannot see how it can by any possibility be carried into effect.

The battle of Gettysburg began on July 1st. Not nearly enough time to get even 1 or 2 of Lee's lost brigades from south of Richmond to Pennsylvania.
 
There were some really smart people who were willing to think out of the box who put the AoC's intel collection together. Garfield, for one, was one of the unsung masterminds behind the AoC's success. If you are invested in intel, I have an army war college paper that includes Rosecrans' log of intel reports as he was preparing to take Chattanooga.
I for one would love to read that paper. I spent 2 years at the University of Chattanooga and had the opportunity to wonder all around that area.
I have just received copies of the Stones River maps from the American Battlefield Trust and they are excellent. If anyone is interested in visiting battlefields they ought to support this organization as they do very good work perserving our history. To truly understand any fight one must see and walk the terrain if possible.
Regards
David
 
I for one would love to read that paper. I spent 2 years at the University of Chattanooga and had the opportunity to wonder all around that area.
I have just received copies of the Stones River maps from the American Battlefield Trust and they are excellent. If anyone is interested in visiting battlefields they ought to support this organization as they do very good work perserving our history. To truly understand any fight one must see and walk the terrain if possible.
Regards
David
Lee White's self guided tours of Chickamauga & Franklin are very good.

I found this paper online:

Intelligence Operations of the Army of the Cumberland During the Tullahoma and Chickamauga Campaigns by Doyle D. Broome, Jr., Maj. USA A.A. fort Leavenworth, Kansas 1989
 
To get back to the original subject of this thread, the lack of competent leadership in the Army of Mississippi doomed the Confederacy to defeat in the Western Theater.
Albert Sidney Johnston did not live long enough for a fair evaluation as to his ability to lead an army successfully. He allowed Beauregard to draw up the battle plan at Shiloh with little oversight which, I believe, to a poorly designed attack plan with the 4 corps stacked upon each other. His other mistake was leading his army as a brigadier instead of being a general of the army.
Davis simply had a dearth of viable candidates to choose from except for Joseph Johnston. Uncle Joe was a leader of men yet did not have the numbers to defeat Sherman. Johnston was a capable strategist who delayed Sherman's advance but lacked the depth of territory and number of soldiers.
Out of frustration Davis chose John Bell Hood, who's combative drive drove the Army of Tennessee to its death at Franklin.
Regards
David
 
To get back to the original subject of this thread, the lack of competent leadership in the Army of Mississippi doomed the Confederacy to defeat in the Western Theater.
Albert Sidney Johnston did not live long enough for a fair evaluation as to his ability to lead an army successfully. He allowed Beauregard to draw up the battle plan at Shiloh with little oversight which, I believe, to a poorly designed attack plan with the 4 corps stacked upon each other. His other mistake was leading his army as a brigadier instead of being a general of the army.
Davis simply had a dearth of viable candidates to choose from except for Joseph Johnston. Uncle Joe was a leader of men yet did not have the numbers to defeat Sherman. Johnston was a capable strategist who delayed Sherman's advance but lacked the depth of territory and number of soldiers.
Out of frustration Davis chose John Bell Hood, who's combative drive drove the Army of Tennessee to its death at Franklin.
Regards
David
That is an interesting post. I heard a CE Round Table lecture on this subject. Mrs Chestnut wrote about how Lincoln was firing incompetent generals while Davis kept retreading the same geezers. The average age of Union Corps & above commanders was over ten years younger than their opponents. The Union Army command was open for talent on a way the Confederate army was not. Another factor was how Lee’s aggressive tactics wiped out the talent in his pool of field officers & non-coms. At Bentonville there was that same club of oldsters that started the war
 
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