Thomas Marshall wrote:
Fascinating topic, gentlemen - I've enjoyed reading the dialogue so far.
My view is that few, if any, Union generals besides Grant could have taken Vicksburg. Like all of us, I love the John Tiller games, but one thing the game engine (understandably) struggles to replicate is the logistical challenges faced by Civil War commanders, which were almost insuperable at Vicksburg. I also think there were plenty of occasions in the Vicksburg campaign up to and including Champion Hill, when another 10,000 men on the Confederate side would have made all the difference. You could argue that if say, Pickett's Division had been reinforced by Corse and Jenkins to its original five brigade strength, then Pickett's Charge would have been different, but I don't agree. Leaving aside the VI Corps which represented the AOP ace in the hole at Gettysburg, and would surely have been thrown in to check a stronger or more successful Pickett, the ANV would still have had a defeated AOP with a very powerful cavalry arm sitting in a prime position to cut Confederate supply lines through the Shenandoah Valley.
I think the search for a 'Confederate Cannae' shows the extent to which warfare is framed and limited by cultural expectations. It's easy to say now that the Confederacy's best chance was to dig in, literally and metaphorically, and attempt to wear down the North's resolve. Under this model, Kentucky's neutrality is not violated and once the Peninsula campaign was defeated, Lee sits on the Rappahannock & does not fight, so far as possible, without the benefit of entrenchments.
However, Lee and his contemporaries simply did not think like this. They clearly believed that the Confederacy needed to not only destroy a Northern army, but to be seen at home and abroad, to do so. Of course, they ignored the fact that the Confederacy chose to fight on after Fort Donelson & Vicksburg... and the fact that so too did the Romans, after Cannae, with the complete destruction of the Carthaginian empire the end result.
Very well written.
Also, let's not forget what the South was fighting for - slavery. For Davis and the Confederacy, winning the war meant preserving slavery and maintaining life as it was in 1860. The one and only way this was possible was to end the war as soon as possible to prevent the total breakdown of the "peculiar institution" and southern civilization. In 1861 and 1862 this was, arguably, still possible. But after the Emancipation Proclamation and into 1863 this was no longer feasible. Lee's one last gambit to end the war in a day was really the "High Water Mark" as it represented the final opportunity to perhaps (through some miracle) turn back the clock to 1860.
Lee's move in 1863 was the right one - the only one.
Wasn't it James McPherson who argues in Crossroads of Freedom that the actual "high water mark" was Antietam? I believe so.
In his view, it was already too late by 1863.
Seriously, who am I to argue with James Freaking McPherson? 
ACWGC 
ACWGC Memorial
CSA HQ
VMI
Join CSA
Union HQ
Join Union 
Login
FAQ
Search
Members
