When to surrender a fort?

[SpanishFort]

Soldiers today have the military code of conduct as a guide line to when it is time to surrender a fort. In the Civil War, what was the general expectation? Hold out to the last extremity? Hold out as long as you have the ability to resist?

Any input on the subject is appreciated.

 

[Rhea Cole]

The swath of dotted lines hundreds yards deep indicate an abati of felled trees.

A fortress did not have to be assaulted or besieged to be surrendered. In June of 1863 Braxton Bragg had secured his base at Tullahoma TN.

Sited in the center of the Army of Tennessee's 50 mile wide front in Middle Tennessee, Tullahoma was the keystone. Bragg's plan was to hunker down in Tullahoma & thwart the Army of the Cumberland's advance on Chattanooga.

General Rosecrans chose not to besiege Bragg at Tullahoma. Instead he swept Bragg's right flank away & moved on the ultimate bottleneck.

On the lower righthand corner of the map is Monteagle Mountain. Even today there are only two ways to pass. One is a 2,200 RR yard tunnel the other the often challenging I-24 up & down.

His right flank gone, Wilder's Lightening Brigade in his rear, a race for the Tennessee River was Bragg's only option.

Tullahoma, the impressive earthworks & vast abati were evacuated. Left behind were tones of rations, uniforms, & camps of bright white tents slashed to tatters.

General Polk's artillery loaded the canon barrels & ammunition boxes onto train cars to spare the horses. The route up & over the mountain was extremely challenging.

Like A.S. Johnston, Bragg surrendered the Tullahoma Fortress without firing a shot. Weeks later he would do the same at Chattanooga.

In June - July 1863 Bragg was maneuvered into surrendering two strategic fortifications. The loss of Chattanooga was existential. The only upside was that despite his army melting away from mass desertion, it was still a significant force that would have been captured had he stayed put.

 

[JeffBrooks]

No. Lee stopped the unnecessary effusion of blood.

What is a sufficient means of resistance? If you are outnumbered 3:1 to 4:1, as Lee was, should you still resist? If you have no means of escape, should you still resist? If you haven't had much, if anything, to eat in a very long time with minimal to no prospects of getting anything to eat in the near future, are you still physically capable of mounting meaningful resistance even if you have a gun and ammo? I would ask the same question concerning lack of sleep for many days. These are conditions the Army of Northern Virginia was in.

I would simply ask, what is the exact meaning of the words "while they still have the means to resist"? Lee's men were obviously doomed and, as pointed out, starving and exhausted. But they were still armed and had ammunition enough for another fight. Doesn't that mean that they still had "the means to resist"? Certainly the Americans at Bataan fought on in the face of more serious odds and only surrendered when the Japanese were overrunning their lines. Ditto the French at Dien Bien Phu.

I'm not at all questioning the wisdom of Lee's surrender (if you ask me, the Confederates should have surrendered months earlier). I'm simply wondering, as a thought experiment, whether the surrender would have been in accordance with the modern military code of conduct.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Does the portion of the code quoted apply to all surrenders or only to forts? I ask because Lee was not in a fort.

What is a sufficient means of resistance? If you are outnumbered 3:1 to 4:1, as Lee was, should you still resist? If you have no means of escape, should you still resist? If you haven't had much, if anything, to eat in a very long time with minimal to no prospects of getting anything to eat in the near future, are you still physically capable of mounting meaningful resistance even if you have a gun and ammo? I would ask the same question concerning lack of sleep for many days. These are conditions the Army of Northern Virginia was in.

Who else was going to succeed in a meaningful fashion and what would that meaningful fashion have looked like?

Does the current code endorse a command breaking up into what Lee would call bushwhackers and what we might call terrorist cells? I'm not talking about small groups of soldiers breaking out and trying to get to another command to continue the war in the usual way; I'm talking about purposefully breaking a command into small units that would continue to resist by irregular means. This was an option available to Lee which he refused.

Under the current code, how would a war end if our opponents, holding the upper hand, refused to treat with civilian authorities because that would imply that we were legitimate when the opponents didn't believe that we were? The only way to end the Civil War was for the Confederate armies to surrender. Lincoln's government would not treat with Davis' government because it was seen as illegitimate.

Does the current code care not at all for unnecessary deaths and destruction? This was a big deal to both Lee and Grant.

How often does the military revise the code of conduct (or what Lee and Grant probably called the Articles of War)? I ask because it seems that attitudes toward many things, including surrender, may have changed in the 160 years since the end of the Civil War. Attitudes toward surrender certainly changed appreciably during the Civil War itself.

Belfourd is probably the CWT member you want to reach out to for answers to your questions. ( It sure as heck isn't me. ) He is a lawyer & I have great respect for his educated opinions on subjects of this sort.

I only know about forts that were surrendered without a shot being fired…

 

[Peace Society]

Does the whole idea of surrender mostly depend on the commander?

Relying on poor memory here:
And then there's the fort commanders who replied to requests for surrender with things like:
If you want it, come and get it.
or
I believe I can hold. Try if you like.
or
If you want to avoid the effusion of blood, stay out of range of my guns.
Some of them may have had to fight but sometimes the aggressor just went around rather than call the bluff.

 

[Library Lady]

I would simply ask, what is the exact meaning of the words "while they still have the means to resist"? Lee's men were obviously doomed and, as pointed out, starving and exhausted. But they were still armed and had ammunition enough for another fight. Doesn't that mean that they still had "the means to resist"? Certainly the Americans at Bataan fought on in the face of more serious odds and only surrendered when the Japanese were overrunning their lines. Ditto the French at Dien Bien Phu.

I'm not at all questioning the wisdom of Lee's surrender (if you ask me, the Confederates should have surrendered months earlier). I'm simply wondering, as a thought experiment, whether the surrender would have been in accordance with the modern military code of conduct.

I think we're going for the same thing regarding the definition of the means to resist, @JeffBrooks, but you phrased it better than I did. I agree that Lee probably should have surrendered earlier, but at that point he was still following today's code of conduct. He actively saw resistance as possible and perhaps to some effect as in being able to unite with Joseph Johnston's command. He also wasn't ready to defy the civilian authority's (Jefferson Davis') fight to the last man edict. Davis was never going to surrender and, in reality, never did. He always spoke of being captured - something that was done to him - as opposed to having surrendered by his own choice.

You mention Bataan and that reminds me that in addition to Simon Bolivar Buckner, I have always felt sorry for Jonathan Wainwright. There's another gent who got left holding the bag while his superior, who was too special to be captured, lit out, with said superior also originally blocking the award of the Medal of Honor to Wainwright on account of his surrender.

 

[gary]

I would simply ask, what is the exact meaning of the words "while they still have the means to resist"? Lee's men were obviously doomed and, as pointed out, starving and exhausted. But they were still armed and had ammunition enough for another fight. Doesn't that mean that they still had "the means to resist"?

There was no point in one last fight. Federal Cavalry under Sheridan cut off the retreat. There was no food to sustain the army. It would have been humiliating to be crushed in open battle. Lee spared his soldiers that fate by surrendering instead of martyring his army. It would not have been a glorious stand like the Lacademonians at Thermopylae but more akin to Carrhae or Adrianople. Lee knew his men were needed to rebuild the south.

 

[Rhea Cole]

"Armed" at Appomattox means something different from what we might think. Lee's ration strength after the surrender was 28,231. Lee stated that at the time of the surrender he had 7,892 men armed & able to march. That was down from 60,000 a week earlier. If anybody has any further doubts about Lee's decision to surrender, think on that number.

We have discussed the what ifs of Lee's surrender. Here is tangible evidence of how that mighty work was done.

Parole pass printed & filled out at Appomattox by General Gibbon's HQ.

Link

Loading…

www.lva.virginia.gov

I recommend this article as a really useful account of how & why the Appomattox surrender occurred & how the spontaneous decision to issue parole passes was created. It was a ah-ha moment for me. Read more here.

Link

Examining the Appomattox Parole

We “hung upon Lee’s rear like a BloodHound after his Victim,” wrote a New York infantryman about those fateful days in the spring of 1865. It was no

historynet.com

 

[JeffBrooks]

"Armed" at Appomattox means something different from what we might think. Lee's ration strength after the surrender was 28,231. Lee stated that at the time of the surrender he had 7,892 men armed & able to march. That was down from 60,000 a week earlier. If anybody has any further doubts about Lee's decision to surrender, think on that number.

Again, I want to emphasize that I am not doubting Lee's wisdom in surrendering. I am simply asking whether, in a technical and legal sense, his surrender would have been justified by the modern military code of conduct, which prohibits surrendering as long as "the means to resist" still exist.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Again, I want to emphasize that I am not doubting Lee's wisdom in surrendering. I am simply asking whether, in a technical and legal sense, his surrender would have been justified by the modern military code of conduct, which prohibits surrendering as long as "the means to resist" still exist.

If you call less than 8,000 armed men a means to resist several Army of the Potomac corps & more pounded that way as hard as they could go, ok.

 

[SpanishFort]

Vicksburg surrendered when it ran out of supplies.

Most forts it seemed to be a matter of when resitence became hopeless, which varied a lot.

Fort Pulaski was being penetrated repeatedly by heavy artillery from a range at which it could not respond.

Fort Morgan surrendered when the Union besiegers had completed approaches with batteries, ready to breach the fort with heavy artillery at short range. The defenders could have attempted a forlorn hope in the night to disable the guns. However, with no relief coming from Mobile, Fort Gaines captured, CSS Tennessee captured, and Farragut in the bay what was the point?

Sounds like you are knowledgeable about Mobile Bay. You mention Fort Morgan, but what is your take on the capitulation of Fort Gaines?

 

[SpanishFort]

No. Lee stopped the unnecessary effusion of blood.

At a certain point, it seems to be a judgment call by the commanding officer.

 

[SpanishFort]

There is a lot of food for thought here, great feedback. The reason I brought this subject up is that I am currently working on a book on Fort Gaines and its controversial surrender. The commander of the fort was vilified in the Southern press. The subject is still somewhat controversial in the Mobile Bay area today. As this thread suggests, surrendering a fort or army can be a complicated matter.

 

[J. Stanley]

Here's an interesting question: under these guidelines, was Lee wrong to surrender at Appomattox?

I think under these guidelines, it was still permissible to surrender. Of course, we don't have a large scale surrender of U.S. Army forces since the surrender of the bulk of the 106th Infantry Division in the Ardennes in 1945, but Bataan, Corregidor and the unfortunate 106th Division make for good examples.

In Bataan, the Orion Bagac Line had been cracked, the troops unable to mount vigorous counterattacks after months of rationing and General Edward P. King explicitly stated, "I feel that further resistance would only uselessly waste life."

At Corregidor, U.S. troops were unable to destroy the Japanese beachhead and the landing of Japanese tanks, which they were unable to engage effectively, prompted the surrender.

At the Ardennes, 2 of 3 regiments of the 106th Infantry Division were encircled. They initially held out a perimeter defense, but low on food and ammunition, they attempted to breakout to St. Vith. Failing to do so, they had to surrender.

In the case of Appomattox, Lee has lost a lot of men at Sailor's Creek, his subordinates have urged surrender and his men had little to eat. At Appomattox Court House, the Confederate position was hopeless.
Humphreys's Il Corps and Wright's VI Corps were positioned to attack the Confederate rear at New Hope Church. The way south was blocked by Ord's Army of the James, Griffin's V Corps and Sheridan's cavalry. A breakout attempt was made by Gordon's Corps, briefly pushing Federal cavalry back, but backed down when faced by Ord's infantry. The only avenue of escape left open to Lee was to the northwest, which was devoid of major highways and blocked by a bridgeless James River.

With no avenue of real escape, a failed breakout attempt and an enemy ready to go in for the kill, Lee had done his best for the Confederacy, and he owed it to his men not to be senselessly killed in a futile battle.

 

[gary]

I've done a lot of research into the 106 (Golden Lions) at the Bulge, but this is not the right forum.

Looking forward to the book on the Spanish Fort.