“The fact is, Union generalship left a lot to be desired...
The fact is, so did confederate. “
I guess Union generalship was more so - they lost most of the early battles.
“’And had Lee not decided to surrender at Gettysburg and save both the North and South and their civilian populations the cost of a long an uncertain guerrilla war, fighting may have gone until the 20th century.”
“Hardly. Lee considered the idea and immediately dropped it because he knew that any guerilla war would hit the Southern population the hardest. As he explained to Porter Alexander, who had advocated such a plan, “We must consider its effect on the country as a whole. Already it is demoralized by the four years of war. If I took your advice, the men would be without rations and under no control of officers. They would be compelled to rob and steal in order to live. They would become mere bands of marauders, and the enemy’s cavalry would pursue them and overrun many sections they may never have occasion to visit. We would bring on a state of affairs it would take the country years to recover from.” Any such campaign would have been brief, destructive, and would have left the South even more devestated than it was. And Lee knew that.”
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And his decision didn’t save both the north and the south??
“They would be compelled to rob and steal in order to live. They would become mere bands of marauders..”
Or like Sherman’s troopers.
“You might want to look into that. The confederate treatment of Union civilians during their campaigns in the North wasn’t a whole lot different than what you complain about Northern soldiers doing. In fact, the treatment of Southern civilains by the confederate army wasn’t a whole lot different than what you complain about Northern soldiers doing.”
Well, give me some source books on the actions of Southerners in the north. Aside from the burning of Chambersburg, I can’t think of anything else.
Sheridan deliberately wasted civilian homes and farms in the Shenandoah Valley and so did Sherman. Sherman’s march created a swath of devastation miles in width and signs of the damage lasted generations.
When Lee invaded the north during the Antietam campaign, a number of Confederates refused to follow him as they stated they were fighting to protect their own country, not to invade somebody else’s.
I have never read anything about the Southern army burning the homes and farms of southerners.
Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Iuka, Corinth, Shiloh, New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, all early Union victories.
And his decision didn’t save both the north and the south??
No. The scattered soldiers would have been in Virginia and North Carolina. They would have been forced to live off the local populace, who would have borne the brunt of their depredations.
Or like Sherman’s troopers.
Those were Lee's words, not mine. He knew his men better than you or I did.
Well, give me some source books on the actions of Southerners in the north. Aside from the burning of Chambersburg, I can’t think of anything else.
There are a couple of them, but one of the best is a recent one, "General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse" by Joseph Glatthaar. That's a fairly recent look at the Army of Northern Virginia, especially intersting in that he spends comparatively little time discussing battles but instead concentrates on organization, leaders, weapons, training, discipline, support, and what have you. Among other things, Glatthaar deals with the actions of Lee's soldiers towards civilians, both North and South.
In the East, yes. Not in the West.
And his decision didn’t save both the north and the south??
Nope. The guerrillas would not have been able to project force into the North, so they would be forced to live off the Southern people - and most Lost Causers don't like to discuss it, but the majority of the Southern people were sick and tired of the war and a sizable minority of Southerners were sick of the Confederacy, period.
For the last two years of the war, almost no one from North Carolina was bothering to respond to draft orders, thousands and thousands of Confederate soldiers were deserting, and areas like East Tennessee, southeastern Mississippi, northern Alabama, northern Georgia and western North Carolina more or less ignored the Confederate government and the Confederate war effort.
Read "Bitterly Divided: The South's Inner Civil War" by David Williams. To survive and succeed, a guerrilla army needs to "swim in the sea of the people" and the people of the South did not have a whole lot of resources for guerrillas to live off and not much tolerance for guerrillas after they had already been despoiled by successive waves of deserters moving through their territory.
Or like Sherman’s troopers.
Before Sherman set foot in Georgia, Lee's troopers had been through western Maryland three times as well as southwestern Pennsylvania. While Lee's commanders often claimed they paid for what they took, the reality is that sometimes they offered receipts "reimbursable" by the Confederate government and sometimes they didn't. But they took whatever they wanted and destroyed what they wanted to destroy.
When Lee invaded the north during the Antietam campaign, a number of Confederates refused to follow him as they stated they were fighting to protect their own country, not to invade somebody else’s.
And just before Antietam, some Union units refused to fight because by their reckoning they had reached the end of their enlistment and they claimed that it was not because they didn't want to fight - it was a matter of honor and legal principle.
I would suspect a similar psychology.
I have never read anything about the Southern army burning the homes and farms of southerners.
Then you should read up on the so-called "Free State Of Winston" - a region of northern Alabama that "seceded" from the Confederacy and whose inhabitants had their homes and property seized or destroyed by the Alabama home guard - a home guard that consisted in large part of well-connected Alabamians who were excused from having to fight at the front because they owned a sufficient number of slaves to meet the exemption.
The three Curtis brothers - Joel, George and Thomas - of Winston, AL were one example of Southerners victimized by Southerners.
Joel refused to take up arms against his country, so he was assassinated by a sniper.
George, enraged by this, left home and signed up with the Union Army. Incredibly, he actually returned home on leave. An informer told the authorities, and the home guard broke into his house at dinner and murdered him in front of his wife and children. Thomas logically feared for his life and fled to Texas. An Alabama home guard informed on him in Houston and Texas Confederate soldiers took him outside of town and shot him execution-style without trial.
Their homes were seized and their wives and children evicted to live in the hills of northern Alabama.
The Curtises were far from alone. Winston, AL and its surrounding towns raised the 1st Alabama Cavalry US Volunteer regiment that rode with Sherman through Georgia and fought against the Confederate Army that had claimed their homes and livelihoods.