Civil War history re-examined

Norristown native poses provocative questions about Gen. Robert E. Lee in newest book.

Some might say Albert M. Gambone has "overcompensated" for failing his history course at Norristown High School back in 1957.
But back then, he claims, no one ever told him about the important role Norristown played in the Civil War.
The author of four books on the Civil War who maintains a personal library of approximately 3,000 volumes on the subject, Gambone has virtually become a Civil War expert.

However, Gambone counters that he is "convinced there is no such thing as an 'expert' on the war . . . perhaps on a battle or a person or event . . . but not the entire war."

It was this past July 4 that Gambone's book, "Lee at Gettysburg . . . commentary on defeat" was released. The controversial work suggests that the famous Confederate general, Robert E. Lee, was not the great military genius portrayed in the history books and that it was Lee, not his subordinates, who bore the responsibility for the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg.

From his home in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Gambone good-naturedly denies that he has received disdain from friends and neighbors but admits that his next-door neighbor "absolutely refuses to read the Lee work."

On the other hand, on the day his latest book was released, Gambone presented two workshops on his subject at Gettysburg.
At the first, one man stood up, walked out and slammed the door. Following the second, at a book signing, another man approached the table, thanked Gambone and quietly told the author he had had strict instructions from his wife not "to buy a book from that son of a b--."

But Gambone says he has also heard from a South Carolina free lance author who takes exception to some things "but on the whole, he says it causes him to look at Lee with a more objective eye. That, in my opinion, is a great leap forward."

In his foreword, Gambone claims that history's portrayal of Robert E. Lee was a creation of image makers and that, while the general "was a God-fearing individual, devoted father, faithful husband, dedicated soldier and committed educator. In short, a good man... Lee never won more than five or six major battles."

The author further notes "that precious few generals in history are labeled 'great' when they lose a war!"

Furthermore, Gambone states that, Lee was, "by marriage, the legal grandson of the first president" and he speculates, "It is rather doubtful that Washington would have thought anything different of Robert E. Lee than how he viewed traitorous Benedict Arnold."

Gambone says his volumne on Lee is the result of six years of research. Three of his prior four books are biographies of Norristown men who were Civil War generals and who are all buried in Norristown's Montgomery Cemetery: John F. Hartranft (released in 1995), Samuel K. Zook (1996), and Winfield Scott Hancock (1997). The fourth book is a biography of Major General Daarius Nash Couch (2000) who was from New York and who led the Union II Corps prior to Hancock.

Born and raised in Norristown's East End, Gambone attended Lowell Technical Institute (now Lowell University), studying chemistry and mathematics, following his graduation from Norristown High. He later studied religion and philosophy at Mattactuck Community College in Waterbury, Conn. After moving from Norristown in 1965, he spent 35 years in New England, where he wascvice president of a manufacturing firm. He and his wife, Nancy moved to Myrtle Beach about six years ago.
It was only 20 years ago that the Civil War captured his interest when he read a condensed version of Carl Sandburg's "Lincoln."

"It left so many questions," he relates, "that I went back and read all six volumes and I was off and running. I was touched by the human factor of the war. I could really care less about the left flank or the right flank. Those men (in particular), Northern and Southern, were real flesh and blood and, when I was bitten, I wanted to crawl inside their heads to see what made them tick. I am still crawling and that is why everything I write is a bio of sort . . . even though it might be a monograph."

He says he was inspired to write the biographies "because I came across the names Hancock, Hartranft and Zook so often - Hancock the most. I graduated from the schools in Norristown and not once did anyone ever tell me about those men . . . not to mention the other two Civil War generals, Slemmer and McClennan. I was amazed that my hometown was so significant in the war and I decided to write about all five generals."

He adds that, at the time of the Civil War, Norristown's population numbered about 8,000 "and it is likely that no other town, North or South, with the same size population, had as many general-sons."

Conceding that he is now not sure he will get to the other two generals' biographies, Gambone declares, "I belong to the Hancock Society of Montgomery County and have a great interest in Montgomery Cemetery. I have lectured there frequently and am embarrassed that it is in such a state of destruction and the townspeople, in general, know so little (about it). It is a treasure chest of historical information."

Listing what he calls "just a few examples," Gambone notes that when Winfield Scott Hancock was a Democratic presidential contender, Pennsylvania, Norristown and Montgomery County did not vote for him.

"Of all Union generals, he was undoubtedly the most respected and beloved in the South for his bravery and human compassion," he continues. "John Hartranft, a citzen soldier, won the Medal of Honor for his work at the first battle of Manassas. He took the bridge at the Battle of Antietam, defeated Lee's last offensive at the Battle of Fort Stedman, was the jailer during the Lincoln Conspiracy Trial and put Mary Surratt to death by Federal government fiat. After the war, he was twice governor of Pennsylvania. He gave blacks the right to vote in this state and did away with the Molly Maguires."

He notes that the Civil War obelisk on the green just south of the court house in Norristown lists Zook's name as the highest ranking officer to die during the war from Montgomery County.

Reiterating his pride in Norristown's contributions, the writer says, "White men and women were not the only Norristown and Norristown-area contributors because, if you look upon that monument near the court house (in Norristown), you will see the names of those area men who belonged to the famed 54th Massachusetts.

"That regiment was the focal point for the movie 'Glory' and their assault upon Battery Wagner in July of 1863, which cost them almost half of their numbers. The 54th Mass. was not only from the Bay State; they came from many parts of the Union and Norristown gave its own numbers as well. And for many, the actions and bravery of those black men turned the tide of hatred and doubt then associated with the Negro. Consequently, there is plenty of pride to go around for everyone."

He adds, "If I had one wish, it would be that our schools and teachers would pass onto the youth the pride of where they are from - and what those who went before them really did."

I'm writing this as a Yankee and proud of it, but after perusing more than a few books on the war, I concluded that Lee was the greatest military genius in American history. What he did with his ragged and starving troops was nothing short of spectacular offensively and defensively even with great subordinates like Jackson. I'm even accounting for his one great mistake at Gettysburg which he readily apologized for. But it's hard to blame Lee for thinking that he could take the angle against all odds. After all his troops had been doing the impossible for two years.

A frontal attack, over open ground, uphill, in broad daylight, to the center of a superior force. It was nuts. Lee knew it, but his genius was knowing what unexpected actions he could get away with.

Sure it was nuts. It was also a tactic that Lee had tried in the past, at Malvern Hill in 1862, and had seen the Union try at Fredericksburg seven months prior. Lee saw the results, yet sent Pickett out to be massacred anyway. Lee was a good general but one who did not learn from his mistakes. He was not the best general of the war, or even the best southern general of the war. Jackson probably deserves both those titles. I would put Lee a distant third, behind Jackson and Grant and a little ahead of Sherman.

Hannibal is another example of a general who produced victories against overwhelming odds(the romans), but in the end lost the war.

Hannibal was a tragedy and his ultimate defeat a folly. He was hung out to dry by the businessmen of Carthage, who, if they understood the stakes and the urgent necessity he was in, were all the more culpable for their refusal to send him the funds he needed to unravel the Roman alliance and co-optation system in Italy. Hannibal, having won four great unanswered victories, suddenly found himself in a bad jam because of the latent power of the Roman patronage system -- a political problem that required large applications of silver solvent, which the Carthaginians reneged, to their ultimate ruin. Polybius tells the story, if you want to look it up on one of the classical-history sites.

Considering the nature of the ground and the superiority of Union artillery, this was undoubtedly a serious mistake. It was Lee's mistake.

Concur. It was textbook bad ground, he and his troops knew it (a private soldier even brought it up with him), and he should have known, since Malvern Hill the year before, the likely outcome. At Malvern Hill, the Confederates charged six times up a similar slope against an already-beaten army, and six times they failed, ultimately losing about as many dead and captured as they did in the one big charge up Cemetery Ridge.

Southerner Edward H. Bonekemper III agreed with Gambone in How Robert E. Lee Lost the Civil War (1998). Bonekemper also shows how defeated CSA generals, after Lee's death, built up the Perfect Warrior myth in order to cover their own failures. The myth basically proposed that, if even the noble Lee failed, then the Cause was well and truly lost. Granted (so to speak) the generals had a lot to work with in Lee's character, but nevertheless their personality cult worked to sow bad information and misunderstanding.

Not the least misunderstanding that the Lee Myth propagated was that the war aims were somehow "out of sight". Or that, as Shelby Foote said in Ken Burns's documentary, that the North won the war with one hand tied behind its back, and that all the North need have done, if challenged more strongly, was to bring out the other hand from behind its back. Bonekemper thinks Foote was wrong. The South could indeed have won the Civil War, had it been better served by cannier and cooler generals and politicians.

The Lee Myth has served to reconcile Southerners to their defeat, while giving them at least a hero they could look up to. In the modern era of Political Correctness, when Declarationist and self-advertised "anti-Neo-Confederate" activists post up web pages with helpful links for mounting campaigns everywhere to demand that memorials to any and all Southerners be taken down, even that solace is to be denied Southerners, and nothing offered them as a substitute except the stony consolation that they'll be better people, in the Puritanical Yankee moral calculus, as soon as they repudiate their ancestors and learn to hang their heads in shame over the American Civil War.

Longstreet was dinged repeatedly as being "slow in preparation" and slow "getting up". I think that's why the accusation against him over Pickett gained resonance.

Strategically, Longstreet had the answer to solving Jeff Davis's larger problem, and he proved it with only half his corps at Chickamauga. OK, so they caught the Union line redeploying, but the general idea was the right one. Run the Unionists ragged, and hit 'em where they wasn't. Same thing in scale large that Jackson did in the Shenandoah Valley, plus Longstreet's troops got to ride the train instead of being force-marched until they couldn't fight (which Jackson did when he came down to join the Peninsula Campaign -- he himself was so tired from the march that he fell asleep with food in his mouth, and his troops were no good until the next day).

Washington wouldn't have favored disunion, but then Lee and many other prominent Confederate generals didn't, either, and went with their States out of loyalty.

Washington would have been in a real pickle, with 75% of the Virginia electorate in favor of secession. It's an interesting speculation.

Washington the ex-president would have favored remaining in the Union, but I don't know what he would have done if offered a commission in an army tasked with slapping Virginia down, as Lee was. Washington the planter and gentleman would have gone with Virginia, I think.

Whatever else, when all is said and done, Lee was probably to South's "indispensable" person. Jackson was a better tactician and field general, perhaps, but it is hard to imagine anyone filling Lee's role. Jackson is a defensible choice, but I think Lee made Jackson and Jackson complemented Lee. The Confederacy might have collapsed by 1863 without Lee's leadership and example.

Critics of Pickett's charge rarely offer an alternative. Lee's Army was deep in hostile territory, was facing a numerically superior force which was being hourly reinforced by an influx of reserves. Time was not on his side.

He had no legimate chance, so he took the gambler's plunge. Experience had shown that Union troops often panicked when faced with a determined Rebel charge, Union Generals were capable of inexplicable plunders, given the opportunity. He offered them one.

In a protracted battle of attrition, he would lose. A retreat back to Virginia would signal the admission that Lee's Army was no longer a match for the Union Army - that the War was lost.

There is simply no parallel to Lee in the North. General Thomas was proabably the North's best general, on all counts, but his Virginia origin limited his prospects. If Thomas had a fault, he lacked the gift of self-promotion. Grant, at his best, was persistent and used his considerable advantage in men and material to effect and end to the War.

First was Jackson. He proved himself in individual command in the Valley and as a corps commander under Lee. He had the ruthlessness necessary to win and the courage to take advantage of situations as they arose. Lee is credited for being daring by splitting his army at Chancellorsville. I submit that he never would have tried it without Jackson. If Lee was daring, it's because Jackson gave him the ability to be so. It's telling to note that once Jackson died, Lee never won again.

Second would be Grant. He was, simply, better than any general the south sent against him. He was stubborn and determined, took chances when necessary, knew what it would take to win and didn't let anything deter him from that. If he didn't quite demonstrate the daring that Jackson did, it's because he never had to. But crossing the Mississippi south of Vicksburg, cutting himself off from his supply source, came close. No matter where Grant was, he won. Lee would be third. He was an able general but in many ways an unimaginative one. As I said before, Jackson made him at Chancellorsville, a victory which Lee considered incomplete. It was the very fact that he didn't destroy the Union army at Chancellorsville that made him take the steps he took at Gettysburg, with fatal results. Another fact is that Lee lost to lesser generals, Meade and McClellan.

Longstreet was a capable corps commander, but was he better than, say, Hancock or Sedgwick or many of the other Union corps commanders? I think not. In all his independent commands he failed miserably. If Jackson made Lee, then Lee made Longstreet. Johnston, I assume you mean Joseph, spent the war getting kicked around by the Union generals sent against him. Hill, I assume you mean Ambrose, was a barely adequate corps commander, the other Hill, Danial Harvey, wasn't a lot better. Forrest and Stuart were good cavalry commanders, but Forrest never prevented the Union army from doing anything it wanted to, even thouhg he embarassed them time and again. Stuart was an adequate cavalry commander, but he first failed against the Union cavalry during the Gettysburg campaign and never regained the initiative until he died. Cleburn and Gordon were division commanders for the most part. Neither one served in an independent command. They were as good or as bad as their army commanders. The Union had division commanders as good.

Longstreet was probably the best strategic thinker and should have had overall army command in Richmond.

Lee in Virginia was unwilling to reinforce the Army of Tennessee, so it'd have taken a superior in overall command to detach and send corps west to help Bragg.

They also needed someone who could get those Texas troops (25,000 of them sat out the war in Texas) across the Mississippi to bear down on Grant in the West. A corps from Texas and two from Virginia (instead of the Pennsylvania campaign), and they'd have whipped Grant and Sherman and busted the Anaconda by keeping open the road to Mexico.

Lee was at least second-best, and he'd have had to stay in Virginia with Jackson and Stuart, so they'd have been the "A" team in the CSA no matter how you slice it.

Bedford Forrest for overall command in the West, and the force of personality to bring Kirby Smith to heel. He was probably number three or four in the whole pile.

And he could have retired a bunch of those Western Theater generals -- Polk, Bragg, Pemberton, Joe Johnston -- while he was at it. Pat Cleburne could have replaced Polk as corps commander, he was good people, but I don't think he was in a position, having read his c.v. somewhere, to make much of an impression before Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge.

I'd rate Grant right behind Jackson and Lee; he had enormous resources, and he used all of what was available. Consider the Battle of the Wilderness: straight-up fight between Lee and Grant. Lee won. But Grant kept going because he was down to his last eight or nine corps, even after the battle.

You don't mention George Thomas, who I think should be high in the pile, or Billy Sherman, who did put together a good campaign, howbeit against depleted forces, down to Atlanta. Rosecrans, Don Carlos Buell, Halleck -- ptui, ditto Joe Hooker. Meade may have been unfairly overshadowed by having Grant on the scene, but he was still commander of the Army of the Potomac, and he did win the big one at Gettysburg. I don't know about Burnside, I think he had his head handed to him at Fredericksburg under circumstances that might be viewed as extenuating, but still....Who else do we have among the top Union commanders? Whom am I overlooking? FitzJohn Porter? Not Pope. Chamberlain is always a good name, he deserves great credit, but I don't think he ever got an independent command. Phil Kearney? Sheridan seems to have been a talent, maybe in the top five on the Union side.

You are correct about Jackson and dead wrong about Grant. What chances did Grant ever take? He almost always had superior numbers. At Shiloh, iif it had not been for the death of Albert Sidney Johnston and the ascension of Beuaregard, who did not press the Union army on the first day, AND the arrival of Don Carlos Buell's army the next day to give the Union overwhelming superiority, Grant would have found himself treading water in the Tennessee River. Most of the Confederate Generals he faced were not distinguished (eg Beauregard, Pemberton, Bragg). When he face Lee, the Army of NOrthern Virginia was a shadow of its former self. Any number of Union Generals were better than Grant, including Hancock and George Thomas.

You are even more mistaken about Forrest. First, a cavalry commander in the Civil War could not by definition stop a huge body of infantry. The rifled musket would empty their saddles long before they got close. Forrest used his cavalry as mounted infantry. Forrest's victory at Brices Crossroads in 1864 illustrates this and is still studied in all the war colleges. With about 3000 troopers, he routed an entire Union corps of 9000 men under William sturgeis and chased them all the way to Memphis,securing Northeast Mississippi. Had Grant faced Forrest instead of Bragg, and prevailed, he might deserve some of the plaudits you heap upon him. Unfortunately, Forrest was not a West Pointer and was judged unfit for Corps or Army command for this reason. Command of the Army of Tennessee passed from Bragg to Hood to Johnston, all of whom were mediocre or worse. It is against these that Grant made his reputation.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.