Replies

“Lee was not feeling well physically.

He was feeling worse at Chancellorsville and that didn’t stop him.”

Military events are often impacted by uncontrollable factors. There is no way to defintely judge the relative impact of Lee’s health on the Chancellorsville or Gettysburg campaign. In my opinion it was a factor and may have had a greater impact at Gettysburg given the circumstances. Lee was under a lot of pressure, was away from his source of supplies, and operating on hostile ground. Also, unlike his opposing commander, he had been in overall charge of his army for a longer time with far worse supply and manpower problems. The stress must have been immense.

“Lee was his commander and Stuart’s foibles were well-known to him.”

Every commander has his own style of leadership and Lee’s had proven itself in other campaigns. He had to work with the personalities of his staff.

“An unsubstantiated Lost Cause slander designed to make Lee appear the perfect and blameless hero and Longstreet the Judas goat.”

That’s your opinion. Reams of material have been written on both side of the issue and my opinion is Longstreet was a mediocre leader with a greater sense of his own abilties than they deserved and I think he was envious of Lee. It is also my opinion and that of others that Longstreet did not direct the effort on the third day to the best of his abilities as he wanted that to fail as he disagreed with Lee over tactics. Lee never criticized anyone for what happened at Gettysburg or anywhere else to my knowledge but Longstreet made it quite clear who he blamed for not following his (Longstreet’s) plans.

“Custer was on the extreme Union right to the east of Culp’s Hill and not behind Union lines southwest of Culp’s Hill.”

Stuart was supposed to sweep around behind the Union lines and hit them from the rear at the same time and place as Pickett. He was delayed by an attack by Custer. Due to Custer’s attack the planned assault by Stuart on the rear of the Union lines never occurred. Had it succeeded the result of the battle and possibly the entire might have been very different. It is of course, not possible to know exactly what was planned as Lee never discussed it and no documents remain if any ever existed on this subject. Read “Lee’s Real Plan at Gettyburg” by Harmon.

“It was not the luck of the draw. ....”

But it was. Lee assumed Meade would be as inept as his several precedessors, and had the timing of Custer’s and Stuart’s movements not coincided as they did the results may have been very different. Campaigning in retrospect is always easier than in the pressure of the moment.

“But Lee was human and made mistakes - and his mistakes at Gettysburg cost him the battle. If he can take credit for Longstreet’s masterly performance at Antietam and Stuart’s brilliant performance at Chancellorsville, then he take blame for their failings at Gettysburg.”

Lee was human and humans make mistakes. But the result of Lee’s actions at Gettybsurg was not due to an entirely flawed plan. He had a logical reason for doing what he did and had circumstances turned out differently he very well may have succeeded. Luck in war is as important as skill.

“Lee did not surrender at Gettysburg. “

I know. I was thinking Gettysburg, not Appomatox when I wrote that.

“There was a guerrilla war both before and after Lee surrendered. The guerrilla war was crushed handily.”

It was a very ineffective one and was not directed by any responsible leaders. Had Lee been involved, or any of his lieutenants, it would have been a far more serious matter.
Read “April, 1864: The Year That Saved Americ”

“Popular myths, but Sherman and Sheridan did in GA and VA exactly what Early and Stuart did in MD and PA.”

I don’t think so. Numerous books have described Sheridan’s destruction and warfare against civilians in the Shenandoah valley as well as Sherman’s incredible swath of destruction in the deep south.

“More myths.

Attacks on civilians were never a matter of policy in the Boer War, WWI or WWII.”

The British government used a deliberate polic of interning the wives and children of Boers in what would later be called “concentration camps” during the Boer War. The causalty rate from starvation and disease in these camps was extremely high. It was done deliberately to break the will of the Boer troops. It worked.

The Germans didn’t deliberately target civilians in Serbia and in Belgium in WW1? Hitler targeted civilians in WW2 and so did Stalin. The Japanese rape of Nanking was just one in a series of sordid attacks on Asian civlians.
We did also. At Hieroshima and Dresden.

“Neither was Clement Vallandigham.”

So, maybe I WOULD have been a Copperhead. Maybe not. So what? Anderson at Ft. Sumter was a southerner. Did that make him a traitor, or a man who followed his conscience, just like Lee?

There is no way to defintely judge the relative impact of Lee’s health on the Chancellorsville or Gettysburg campaign. In my opinion it was a factor and may have had a greater impact at Gettysburg given the circumstances. Lee was under a lot of pressure, was away from his source of supplies, and operating on hostile ground.

It's a debate. I would argue that Lee's sprains at Gettysburg were a lesser concern that the nearly-fatal bout of pericarditis he suffered just before Chancellorsville, and I would argue that the pressure was greater at Chancellorsville - at Chancellorsville he was very poorly provisioned and risked being encircled and destroyed by a vastly superior Union force with Longstreet's division posted more than a hundred miles away. At Gettysburg he was as well-provisioned as he had ever been and did not have to risk battle if he didn't want to.

I think the stress at Chancellorsville was greater: had Hooker been successful in his plans, the Army of Northern Virginia would have been destroyed in detail.

It is also my opinion and that of others that Longstreet did not direct the effort on the third day to the best of his abilities as he wanted that to fail as he disagreed with Lee over tactics.

Longstreet did not want Pickett's Charge to fail - he believed it was doomed to failure from the beginning, and he was concerned that the aftermath of the charge would have been the destruction of the ANV.

I don't think he was engaging in a petty squabble - he was trying to stave off total disaster. If Longstreet's men hadn't survived sufficiently intact to cover the retreat, the ANV could well have been smashed to pieces. One could with equal justice argue that Longstreet's foresight saved Lee's blunder from becoming a total strategic defeat.

That's a good read. A thumbnail summary is this: on Day 1 there was no real plan. On Day 2 the plan was to roll up the Union's left and right flanks, but that plan failed at Culp's Hill and Little Round Top. On Day 3 the plan was to make a frontal assault combined with a cavalry flank movement on the Union right. In the event, Pickett's Charge came far closer to success than Stuart's flank movement.

But it was. Lee assumed Meade would be as inept as his several precedessors

Thus it was not the luck of the draw. Lee blundered. It was not as if Lee correctly anticipated a strong cavalry defense on the Union right, and despite his preparations it failed anyway. That would be bad luck. In assuming that Meade would make the exact same mistake that McClellan made at Antietam, Lee allowed his contempt for Union captains - and not any actual reconnaissance - to dictate his battle plan. That was bad generalship.

It was a very ineffective one and was not directed by any responsible leaders. Had Lee been involved, or any of his lieutenants, it would have been a far more serious matter.

Jubal Early, John Bell Hood and Nathan Bedford Forrest all attempted to get a guerrilla war going. Two of them were Lee's lieutenants. All three were leaders of national reknown in the Confederacy. Their attempts failed because the South was used up - thanks to Farragut, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan.

Numerous books have described Sheridan’s destruction and warfare against civilians in the Shenandoah valley as well as Sherman’s incredible swath of destruction in the deep south.

Again, there are any number of books that will retail the most scurrilous stories about Sherman and Sheridan, but they did not send their troops to attack civilians. Sherman's goals and actions are very frankly described by him: to seize all forage and materiel in his army's path and to destroy all rail links that could be used to reinforce the Confederacy along its internal lines. When he moved from Georgia to South Carolina, he amended these goals to include the destruction of the property of the leaders of the secession, just as the ANV had fired the property of abolitionists and Unionists in MD and PA.

The British government used a deliberate polic of interning the wives and children of Boers in what would later be called “concentration camps” during the Boer War.

Is that an attack? I guess it depends on hiow you define "attack." In any case, Sherman did not intern the wives and children of the Confederates. So obviously he was not responsible for setting any precedent in that regard.

Nothing Sherman did in Georgia is even remotely related to those atrocities. Stalin and Hitler were intent on eliminating populations. Sherman's goal was the seizure of property.

He had no interest in slaughtering Confederate civilians, and he never enacted such an alien policy.

We did also. At Hieroshima and Dresden.

Leftist propaganda. Both Hiroshima and Dresden were legitimate military targets and their destruction was undertaken not to kill civilians but to cripple enemy logistics.

So, maybe I WOULD have been a Copperhead. Maybe not. So what?

The choice between evil and good is an important choice. Vallandigham chose slavery and treason.