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August 13, 2012 09:20 AM UTC
11 Comments
Every bit as good the second time. I think Sherman understood modern war better than most of the generals in WWI.
notably a frontal assault that cost him too many men. But he learned from his mistakes, unlike too many of his contemporaries. After that, he always preferred to outflank an entrenched foe.
I also loved his comment when an advocate of letting black soldiers fight for the Union told him “a black man can stop a bullet just as well as a white man.”
“Yes,” Sherman replied. “And a sandbag and stop it better than either of them.”
On the Southern side, only James Longstreet matched his understanding of the defensive-offensive, the notion that building strong fortified positions for defense also freed up troops for offensive maneuvers.
But I think if left to independent command it would have been about 90% defense. Sherman took chances?
I think the most brilliant on the southern side was easily Forrest. Although his brilliance was more tactical than strategic. But he was perfect for how he was used.
Meade and Thomas were both quite good too, but overshadowed by Grant and Sherman.
It didn’t need to win, it only needed to not lose.
The Union, on the other hand, had to attack and conquer if it was to preserve the union.
Both Sherman and Longstreet did what they had to do. but the strategic realities facing the two men were very different.
I certainly agree about the tactical brilliance of Forrest. But I’m not willing to let that overshadow the fact that he was a miserable human being. A slave trader who went on to found the Ku Klux Klan.
Military skills in the end cannot be separated from the political goals for which those skills are married. That’s the problem with Foote’s books, it’s all about the gallant boys in buttern ut, never about the horrific system they were fighting to preserve.
A far better book is Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson. As opposed to the prattle about battle in Foote’s trilogy, Battle Cry of Freedom actually explains what caused the war and the changes the war brought to America.
It’s a great book. If anyone wants a good single-volume history of the Civil War, that’s the one I recommend.
I’ve got the Foote trilogy but I couldn’t get into it.
Voyageur, you touch on something here. People who are often into military history are all about the battles and not the causes, outcomes, or even the home front, all of which are just as important. Yeah, the battles are fascinating but they wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for slavery and we wouldn’t have gotten the 14th Amendment without the war. Similarly, where would our technology and our racial relations be today without WW2?
One thing Foote does a good job of discussing is how, as the cost of the war in human suffering for the North grew to horrendous levels, it changed the war from one of preserving the union to one of destroying slavery.
If the first battle of Bull Run had been won by the North. And the war won over the next 12 months, slavery would have been left in the South (probably). It was because of Northern ineptitude the first couple of years, and the hundreds of thousands killed, that it then became a war to end slavery.
We got the 14th amendment because of how the war played out.
but there was also Southern military. You can say what you will about the South, but they sent more of their upper class sons to military academies and West Point than did their Northern counterparts, so they had the greater portion of the military brain trust. Heck, the war might have gone as you described simply if Lee had remained loyal to the Union.
Not that that would have been a bad outcome per se. An early Northern victory should have resulted in the containment of slavery to the existing slave states. It has been long believed that growth was necessary for the institution to continue, therefore containment would have meant its eventual demise. This would be coupled with the triumph of industrialism and capitalism over agrarianism (the oft-overlooked dispute at the center of the war). Slavery was doomed.
Better, of course that slavery ended sooner rather than later. And who knows when or whether the former slaves would gain citizenship, or if anything like the 14th Amendment would have entered the Constitution.
The South also quickly discovered their best generals (like Jackson & Longstreet) while it took the North years to find which ones of theirs were good.
Absolutely different goals. Sherman was the only one who understood that they had to take the war to the Southern civilian economy in order to defeat the South.
And yes, the South only had to not lose. But I think Lee had it right that doing so did require wreaking havoc on the North. If the North was left alone it could afford to attack the South indefinitely. The fundamental problem Lee faced was there really was no route to victory for the South.
Totally agree about Forrest. And agree that the books about the why are generally more interesting. But I also find Foote’s books fascinating because so much was determined by the decisions of the people at the top – many of whom were deeply flawed individuals.
Ordeal of the Union. It is eight volumes, four set before Fort Sumter. It is a bit dated in terms of what we would not call political correctness.
But if you don’t mind going through 4,000 pages or so, you will learn all you need to learn about how the war happened and how it shaped the nation that followed.
And I just downloaded vol I to my kindle. Thank you!