Asterix75 wrote:
I would recommend this book by Bevin Alexander.
Alexander argue persuasively that the watime policies of President Jefferson Davis, the military strategy of General Robert Lee and Thomas Jackson led to failure of the Confederacy.
Davis's concept of a passive strategy implied defending every inch of the South that Federal violated (polical reasons no military). Protecting everything ends up protecting nothing.
Lee would a traditional approach of assaulting the enemy army head on but the cost in lives was too great. The minie ball rifle had made frontal and glorious attacks a suicide (es, battle o seven days, gettysburg).
Jackson would take the war to the North, and combact a defensive battle (like Second Bull run, Fredericksburg) then to hit with flank attack (like Chancellorsville). One victory in the Northern territory could reduce the will of the North to continue the war)
Longstreet had understood this strategy but he didn't try to change Lee's approach of attack frontal the Third Day of Gettysburg.
According Alexander the strategy of T. Jackson was the only way for the South to defat the north huge advantage in manpower and waepony.
Hmmm, I'm not convinced.
I fail to understand how Alexander can say
"General Robert Lee and Thomas Jackson led to failure of the Confederacy" yet also claim
"the strategy of T. Jackson was the only way for the South to defeat the north huge advantage in manpower and weaponry".
It seems difficult to comprehend how Jackson can be partly blamed for the fall of the Confederacy yet credit him for having the right strategy.
President Davis generally let Lee make the military decisions. However, he did need to consider political ramifications. His overall approach is detailed in 'The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government' (
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19831/19831-h/19831-h.htm). Davis eventually provided political support to Lee's desires by passing a Bill to permit negroes to be employed as soldiers and freed from servitude (
https://freedmen.umd.edu/csenlist.htm).
The Battle of the Seven Days is generally regarded as a Confederate victory. The outnumbered Confederate forces drove the Union away from Richmond and bought an end to McClellan's Peninsula Campaign. To Lee goes the credit.
Yes, "
One victory in the Northern territory could reduce the will of the North to continue the war". That is how Gettysburg came to be and what the Maryland Campaign was about.
Sadly, as Davis says near the end of his book:
"If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone, 'Died of a theory.'"[The theory being
"that the Southern States had rightfully the power to withdraw from a Union into which they had, as sovereign communities, voluntarily entered".]