What Would Napoleon do In The Position of Robert E Lee?

I've seen it stated as much as 60,000 and is probably over-generous, including ALL the Federal forces in Northern Virginia at the time, from McDowell's Corps at Fredericksburg through Fremont's and Banks' forces actually IN the Valley.
Which is ridiculous, of course, as tens of thousands of those troops never entered the Valley in the first place. Jackson certainly kept that many troops occupied (in fact you could argue he kept up to 75,000 troops occupied) but most of those troops wouldn't have been anywhere else in the first place.

The actual decisive effect of Jackson's operations was that it kept the Department of the Rappahanock on the Rappahanock rather than reinforcing McClellan down on the Peninsula. In real terms that's between 10,000 and 30,000 troops who didn't participate in the Seven Days on account of Jackson's efforts, which were probably the decisive factor in the campaign.

It's probably indicative that Jackson actually did very little that was useful in terms of fighting in the Valley (i.e. no actual victories) until Banks was down to a single division, that his main offensive was against Banks' much smaller army which at one point dropped to just two brigades, and that almost as soon as significant Union troops began to reinforce in the Valley Jackson retreated back south.


Jackson wouldn't have looked like a military genius, or indeed have been able to do much, if the forces in the Valley had been kept at the original level of six brigades under Banks. Instead trying to economize and reduce the forces in the Valley to two brigades opened an opportunity, and then the Union (by which I mean principally Lincoln personally) massively over-compensated and paralyzed tens of thousands of troops.
 
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Plus the numbers for Jackson are under counted
And the numbers changed constantly during the campaign for both sides.
So the 17K vs 50K is propaganda
So it's a bit off topic, but I thought I'd try and add up the strengths that faced Stonewall in the Valley at some point.



Shields' division was transferred out and then back in, so only count it once.

The forces with which Fremont entered the Valley got turned into 1st Corps Army of Virginia.

Plus there's Banks' command, which contained Shields' division (the same one which later got sent back in).

So:

Banks' command as of March 30 1862.

Plus the strength of 1st Corps army of Virginia upon the consolidation.

Plus casualties from the battles of McDowell and Cross Keys (which happened to what would become 1st Corps Army of Virginia).


Strength of 1st Corps AoV as of July 31 is 13,000 PFD.
Casualties in Cross Keys 684.
Casualties at McDowell ~250

So about 1,000 casualties.

Plus strength of the Dept. Shenandoah is 22,700 PFD at the end of March 1862.

This looks to me like about 37,000 men.

Did I miss anyone who could be said to have really confonted Jackson in the Valley? We're missing 15,000 men if the 52,000 figure is to be believed, who are they?
 
Plus the numbers for Jackson are under counted
And the numbers changed constantly during the campaign for both sides.
So the 17K vs 50K is propaganda
Getting a strength for Jackson in regulation PFD is a little hard, but what I can do is try pretty much the same thing I did for the Union units (in this case 1st Corps AoV) - take a post-campaign state and add-back, to get some kind of sense of the total strength which passed through Jackson's army during the Valley campaign.

In Confederate Tide Rising Harsh gives the strength of the Army of the Valley in the Seven Days as:
Jackson 9,604
Ewell 6,353
For 15,957
(Plus 605 cavalry in the form of the 2nd Virginia, and Jackson left some of his strength in the Valley - the 6th, 7th, 12th and 17th VA, which can be estimated as meaning that there were about another 1,500 cavalry in the Valley)

This is meant to be PFD, but I have my doubts (it looks like Effectives for the infantry) - it pretty much consists of 18 regiments in Jackson and 17 in Ewell, for a total of 35 implying 456 men per regiment. Of this 1/6 is Lawton's brigade which I don't think ever entered the Valley.
The Dept. of NC which is all new troops at this time was about 670 men per regiment.

Anyway, assuming it's PFD:

Infantry 16,000
- Lawton at 1/6 of 16,000, so remaining infantry 13,330
Cavalry est. 2,100
Casualties 2,750

718 Kernstown
~500 McDowell
36 Front Royal
397 1st Winchester
287 Cross Keys
816 Port Republic

Total ca. 18,000

If that 16,000 number is actually Effectives then derived PFD would be 20% higher and would give a total of about 21,500 with Jackson at some point in the Valley.

The 17,000 number seems to me to be at least a little bit low, but the 52,000 number is way high.
 
Getting a strength for Jackson in regulation PFD is a little hard, but what I can do is try pretty much the same thing I did for the Union units (in this case 1st Corps AoV) - take a post-campaign state and add-back, to get some kind of sense of the total strength which passed through Jackson's army during the Valley campaign.

In Confederate Tide Rising Harsh gives the strength of the Army of the Valley in the Seven Days as:
Jackson 9,604
Ewell 6,353
For 15,957
(Plus 605 cavalry in the form of the 2nd Virginia, and Jackson left some of his strength in the Valley - the 6th, 7th, 12th and 17th VA, which can be estimated as meaning that there were about another 1,500 cavalry in the Valley)

This is meant to be PFD, but I have my doubts (it looks like Effectives for the infantry) - it pretty much consists of 18 regiments in Jackson and 17 in Ewell, for a total of 35 implying 456 men per regiment. Of this 1/6 is Lawton's brigade which I don't think ever entered the Valley.
The Dept. of NC which is all new troops at this time was about 670 men per regiment.

Anyway, assuming it's PFD:

Infantry 16,000
- Lawton at 1/6 of 16,000, so remaining infantry 13,330
Cavalry est. 2,100
Casualties 2,750

718 Kernstown
~500 McDowell
36 Front Royal
397 1st Winchester
287 Cross Keys
816 Port Republic

Total ca. 18,000

If that 16,000 number is actually Effectives then derived PFD would be 20% higher and would give a total of about 21,500 with Jackson at some point in the Valley.

The 17,000 number seems to me to be at least a little bit low, but the 52,000 number is way high.
Alternatively, at the start of April Jackson was referring to his division at around 8k not including cavalry, Ewell referred to his at 8,500 including cavalry and Ed Johnson was around 2,500. So about 20-21K with cavalry before casualties.

This does not count Lawton or Whiting who came to the valley right after the battle of Port Republic so missed all the action.
 
One big advantage Napoleon had was he seized power in France with a coup and thereafter was mostly free to conduct his business as he saw fit. Nobody was the boss of him! Lee kept tripping over Davis and had to wrangle a pack of less than stellar commanders - this he did very adroitly and with surprising efficiency. Unfortunately for Napoleon, and we might include Lee here on a smaller scale, sea power escaped him. France had experienced and excellent naval officers but the Revolution had cleaned out huge swaths of them and France was still recovering from their loss. The ascendancy of British naval power was the critical factor in defeating Napoleon. The South didn't have a Nelson! The British were very vigilant about keeping Napoleon from building a navy - every time he started one up, Cornwallis would sail by in the Channel and blow it to bits. Same thing happened to the CSA - even if they built the thing in a corn field, Union 'special forces' would blow it up. There were several instances where some gunboats or other naval support would have changed a battle's outcome with Lee, or prevented movements by the Union. The loss of Ft Donelson and Ft Henry signalled the loss of the war by the South because of the river system being controlled by the Union.
He would have stayed and taken command of the Union army . IF he had gone South ,he would have gather the entire Confederate forces on the Eastern shore of the Ms. and take a tripe to visit Lincoln,. A command of this size army he would have been a match for any army that would have been sent against him. Question; what general did the Union have at this time who could match Napoleon in military strategy?. Grant and Sherman had not been in the field that long to gather any experience against a Napoleon.
 
I think there's a very important thing to realize about Napoleon, which is that the first thing he'd probably do is take over the country! When people at the time said they "feared a Napoleon" they were not talking about his military prowess - they meant his political ambitions (i.e. overthrow the government and make himself dictator).
 
Alternatively, at the start of April Jackson was referring to his division at around 8k not including cavalry, Ewell referred to his at 8,500 including cavalry and Ed Johnson was around 2,500. So about 20-21K with cavalry before casualties.

This does not count Lawton or Whiting who came to the valley right after the battle of Port Republic so missed all the action.
That could be AP, though. That category's often used for estimates. And in this case the justification would be it being the total strength of the force in "white men" (not including the black men, both slave and free, in the logs train).
 
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