Grant Was Grant a tactician....

alexjack

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.....in his eastern theatre battles or did he rely on overwhelming force in men and materiel. If their roles had been reversed would Lee have done it differently?
 
In Fuller's The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant, he thinks that Grant was not an innovator in tactics;* his skill was more in the operational and strategic sphere. (For tactics, he appears to give the nod to George H. Thomas on the Union side.) There's some discussion of Emery Upton on the tactical side too.


* in fact, he says, in effect, that Grant's tactics were stuck in the Mexican War smoothbore musket era.
 
Was Grant a tactician...

Yes, just not a very good one. :wink:

Lee wasn't a great tactician either, however. It's really hard though to say how Lee would have handled the situation if the roles were reversed, because the AoP was a very different army than the ANV.
 
Grant's job didn't entail tactics in the East. His job was overall strategy, and he left the details of the tactics to Meade and the Army of the Potomac's corps commanders.
I take your point about Grant being, as commander of the army, more into strategy than tactics but surely the tactics used by his subordinates stemmed directly from the way he wanted a battle fought. I get the feeling reading about the Wars' later battles that Grants' approach to them was much like WWI generals who thought, ' If we lose one man and they lose one man we'll win in the end because we've got more men than them'.
 
The problem with the assumption that Grant approached the Overland Campaign with a "one-for-one man trade" mentality is that it ignores his constant attempts to flank and seek advantageous positions from which to fight. That these attempts were countered - sensibly enough, as befitting the numerically weaker side - by Lee's maneuvering skill and use of defensive works is almost beside the point. The real difference between Grant and "the rest" was his willingness to keep up the pressure: using his numbers but not relying on them. (As if the notorious fortunes of war would allow a commander to rely on them...) Grant, unlike McClellan or Hooker, knew that the loss of a battle did not mean the wreck of his campaign.

On the comparison of Lee and Grant, I think Ellensar says it best: "...both of them seem to have had a hard time finding a way to take advantage of the other's mistakes." Two tough-minded generals face each other with two hard-hitting armies. Good thing human endurance itself has limits...
 
I take your point about Grant being, as commander of the army, more into strategy than tactics but surely the tactics used by his subordinates stemmed directly from the way he wanted a battle fought. I get the feeling reading about the Wars' later battles that Grants' approach to them was much like WWI generals who thought, ' If we lose one man and they lose one man we'll win in the end because we've got more men than them'.

Grant wasn't the army commander. He was the general-in-chief of ALL the Union armies. Meade was the army commander. Grant set the overall tone, that he wanted the army to be aggressive and to pitch into the Rebels whenever they had the chance. That's not tactics. It was up to Meade and his corps commanders to set the tactics of how they were going to implement that desire of Grant's. It was up to them to conduct reconnaissance of the rebel positions, which they failed to do in several key places, such as at Cold Harbor. It was up to them to establish cooperation between corps, which they failed to do in several key places, such as at Cold Harbor.
 
The problem with the assumption that Grant approached the Overland Campaign with a "one-for-one man trade" mentality is that it ignores his constant attempts to flank and seek advantageous positions from which to fight. That these attempts were countered - sensibly enough, as befitting the numerically weaker side - by Lee's maneuvering skill and use of defensive works is almost beside the point. The real difference between Grant and "the rest" was his willingness to keep up the pressure: using his numbers but not relying on them. (As if the notorious fortunes of war would allow a commander to rely on them...) Grant, unlike McClellan or Hooker, knew that the loss of a battle did not mean the wreck of his campaign.

On the comparison of Lee and Grant, I think Ellensar says it best: "...both of them seem to have had a hard time finding a way to take advantage of the other's mistakes." Two tough-minded generals face each other with two hard-hitting armies. Good thing human endurance itself has limits...

I like this. I agree completely.
 
One other thing that I think is critical in Grant's success was his boss. Lincoln, once he saw what he had in Grant, stopped - for the most part anyway - micromanaging the war. Davis did not. Lee's brilliant defense against Grant's aggressive maneuvers were governed by the fact that he was required to protect Richmond. I'm not sure where exactly Lee came to the conclusion that was not necessary - probably surprisingly early on - and had Davis recognized what kind of general Lee was and let him do his job as he saw best, the Lee/Grant contest would have been a real test of who was the better general. Lee could be very effective as a semi-guerrilla fighter, and Grant had never encountered something like that. With the smaller numbers he had and flexibility, Lee could have done a lot of damage for a longer time - possibly between him and Johnston the war may have been at least partially won. The North was just not inexhaustible. Grant would have had some interesting opportunities to see where his true talents were!
 
I'm not really sure where Lee exceeded Grant tactically. But I'm not going to argue the reverse was true - both of them seem to have had a hard time finding a way to take advantage of the other's mistakes.

According to Lee himself, he didn't bother much with tactics when he could help it. He said he got the army to where it needed to be to fight, then depended on his corps commanders on the scene to fight the battle.
 
One other thing that I think is critical in Grant's success was his boss. Lincoln, once he saw what he had in Grant, stopped - for the most part anyway - micromanaging the war. Davis did not. Lee's brilliant defense against Grant's aggressive maneuvers were governed by the fact that he was required to protect Richmond. I'm not sure where exactly Lee came to the conclusion that was not necessary - probably surprisingly early on - and had Davis recognized what kind of general Lee was and let him do his job as he saw best, the Lee/Grant contest would have been a real test of who was the better general. Lee could be very effective as a semi-guerrilla fighter, and Grant had never encountered something like that. With the smaller numbers he had and flexibility, Lee could have done a lot of damage for a longer time - possibly between him and Johnston the war may have been at least partially won. The North was just not inexhaustible. Grant would have had some interesting opportunities to see where his true talents were!

I don't think Lee was forced to protect Richmond against his will. According to John Reagan, in 1862 Lee declared, with tears in his eyes, that "Richmond must not be given up. It shall not be given up!"
 
April 1865?


What does that mean?

I'm thinking of his very early idea of taking to the hills if Richmond fell. At the end, of course, he knew this would be more devastating than the war. But, if he had been able to work on his own he could have done a great deal more with the smaller ANV than he did by following Davis' standing order to protect the capital.
 
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