Posted on 06/03/2019 5:19:21 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
Union General George Meade launches 3 corps of his Army of the Potomac against the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia’s works near Cold Harbor. Meade’s assault is a failure. Over 7000 Union casualties and not one foot of ground gained. Lieutenant General Grant, in ordering Meade to make the attack, called it the worst mistake he ever made.
Grant was not a genius. All he ever did was throw more men at the south than they could handle.
IMO: Grant was very adept at maneuver warfare he showed that in the Vicksburg campaign. When he came east he realized the Army of the Potomac was not the Army of the Tennessee. Where before he had a rapier, now he had a big heavy club. And that’s how he used it.
“When you have a four to one manpower advantage, and a huge industrial base to back you up, it’s inevitable that you will win in the long run.”
McClellan, Burnside, Pope and Hooker all had those advantages, did they win? Being able to use those advantages to gain victory is Generalship.
And if not ruthless, at least tenacious. It was his dogged persistence, not any tactical brilliance, that won for the Union.
Antietam?
Or Appomattox?
Yes, well we all can't order the attacks at Malvern Hill and Pickett's Charge.
Where's the dividing line between the two?
In other words Grant realized what it would take to beat Lee and bring the war to an end, something that escaped all his predecessors. And that's not genius?
It took less than an hour and they were still recovering and burying bodies long after the war.
Amature generals think tactics.
Professional generals think logistics.
Grant and Lee were both logistical wizards. Grant was blessed with superabundance while Lee was cursed with chronic shortages much like Washington was.
That's true of almost any battlefield from any war.
Had nothing to do with usage. Meade (at Gettysburg) and then Grant were the first in the East who were willing to pay the Butcher’s Bill.
When Meade and then Grant got hit hard, they didn’t fall back, they kept moving.
Lincoln gave Meade a hard time about letting Lee get away after Gettysburg, but, the weather had more to do with that than Lee or Meade. Meade followed as fast as he could get the army to move. He still had 2 fresh Corps in his Army, while Lee had nothing left.
Meade gets the short stick on a lot of things that happened because Grant was the overall Commander of the US forces. He should be remembered better.
Meade was a very capable General. You are correct, Grant’s decision to co locate his headquarters near the Army of the Potomac overshadowed Meade’s accomplishments as Commander of the Army of the Potomac
On this date in some unidentified year, Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
Once it was started, there was a very high probability the North would win it if the will to win it was retained, and Lincoln very much had the will to win it. As I've said, he was far more willing to tolerate the loss of life than was George III.
There’s nothing genius about throwing thousands and thousands of lives away.
Every other commander of the Army of the Potomac, upon being defeated on a single day, would retreat back to their base. Grant, beaten at the Wilderness, didn't retreat, and instead began working his way around Lee, boxing him in. In a few weeks, Lee was reduced to end-game stalling.
Think you are correct. McClellan was a soft war man. Use just enough war to get the Confederates to the conference table. McClellan supported that view as the Democrat Presidential candidate in 1864. He was also one of the few officers that had seen what the killing power modern infantry weapons could do. he had been an observer in the Crimean war.
“he was far more willing to tolerate the loss of life than was George III.”
He was also smarter than King George III in that he believed one war at a time was enough.
Unless you win. Lee threw thousands and thousands of lives away as well. In fact while Grant commanded armies for about 4 or 5 months longer than Lee did, Lee had a greater total number of casualties among the troops under his command than Grant did. And Lee lost.
Balderdash. Lee and Grant fought to win, and would do whatever it took to achieve their objective because winning as what was important to them. McClellan fought not to lose, because his reputation mattered more to him than victory did.
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