Dear Readers,
For the last week or so I have been working my way through Gordon C. Rhea's series about the Overland Campaign. I finished the first volume which is about the Battle of the Wilderness and have now turned to the second volume concerning Spotsylvania. I'm not sure what drew my attention in that direction, other than the fact that I haven't read his series before. When I teach about the Civil War, the last lecture day covers 1864-5 which includes those campaigns plus the March to the Sea, etc. Maybe that is why.
You know, Grant's casualty rates in that campaign were staggering. I can't help but thing that we would never allow a general today to lose soldiers at the rate that Grant did. My how times have changed. I guess it stirs up the old debate. Was Grant a good general? Yes, he lost large numbers of soldiers but he still bled Lee's Army dry. Of course, the flip side to that is tactically, he seemed to follow a relatively simple plan, "Hey Diddle, Diddle, Straight Up the Middle!"
I have ancestors who fought on both sides during that campaign. Let me rephrase, I have ancestors on the Confederate side and ancestors on the Union side. They stayed loyal to their respective causes until the end. Unlike some of the ancestors of my little redhead who seemed to favor whichever side was winning at that particular moment. My Union ancestors were not "Yankees" in the traditional sense of the word as they all hailed from the Emerald Isle, as did my other ancestors who wore the gray. Still, they collided in some of the worse bloodletting this country has ever seen.
I often wonder what kept my Irish Confederate ancestors in the ranks at a time in which they had to have known that the cause was lost. Before you tell me that slavery was why they stayed in the ranks so long, I would suggest that you look into the types of jobs available to the Irish in New Orleans at the time. They left Ireland to escape English oppression only to end up fighting here in a hopeless war in the land of the "free". Did they ever have second thoughts about why they came here? I can only imagine that they stayed the course because of a combination of pride, comradeship, and the desire to not let their families down. But who knows, really. They arrived here with nothing and the war also left them with nothing. (Other than a few of them that were nice enough to donate a limb or two to the Cause.)
My Irish-Union ancestors had their enlistments expire in the midst of the Overland Campaign. They could have gone home! But they chose to reenlist and see the war through to the end. Plenty of other men did too. Was that an endorsement of Grant's generalship or was that simply a desire to finish what they had started? I wish I could say one way or the other with certainty, but I feel it was more the latter than the former.
Sorry to break slightly off topic, but here is my question for you, Dear Readers. Was Grant a good general or simply a butcher who cared nothing for the lives of his soldiers?
My name is Lee Hutch and I am a Civil War Addict who should be grading papers instead of writing blog posts.
Lee,
ReplyDeleteYou're asking a time-worn question, and one that will probably never be answered to everyone's satisfaction. (But this is true re: most any topic concerning the war and its causes). From my humble perspective, I consider Grant a really lucky guy, to have had at his disposal (for the most part) just about anything and everything he needed to win a war against an enemy, who suffered from a lack of just about anything and everything it needed to defend itself. Yes, Grant was able to win many of the battles he was engaged in, but if he had had to fight with the lack of troops and war materiel, as Confederate leaders had to, would Grant have been so successful? For all intents and purposes, I really don't believe Grant would have been as successful, because his "style" was the use of brute force thrown against his enemy until his enemy had nothing left. If Grant had had a lack of manpower, then his methods would have failed. Thus, IMHO, Grant was a "butcher," because he had the where-with-all to be one. Did he care about his men? Yes, I believe he did, but he didn't hestitate to sacrifice them for what he considered the "greater good"...defeating the Confederacy. After all is said and done, Grant was simply demonstrating that the words of Robert E. Lee (spoken to James Longstreet) were true: "To be a good soldier, you must love the army. To be a good commander, you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love." JMHO.
Rebelrose
Thank you for your response. I often what Lee would have accomplished if he had superior numbers and supplies. Would he have been as good a general? Or was his genius in the fact that he could do so much with so little. I guess the same question could be asked about Grant. What would he have been able to do had he been in Lee's shoes? We'll never know, of course. But it is fun to think about.
ReplyDeleteYou know who were the real butchers? The generals that carried out a lack lust effort early on the war to defeat the confederacy. Those generals that retreated during victory and squabbled away tremendous opportunities. Those generals that held back, and as a result, prolonged the war. Those guys are the butchers. Grant only made that war what it should have been the whole time! Continual, Brutal and Relentless. He was fighting against the most superb army in the world. The fighting mettle of the ANV was only nearly matched by the AOP. I believe he defeated them the only way he could. Otherwise I believe they may have never given up. They were too proud and too brave.
ReplyDeleteDid Grant make some bad decisions? Yes! Cold Harbor and Some of the Assaults at Petersburg were huge and costly blunders. But refresh my memory..
Did they AOP ever conduct a major retreat during The Overland and P-Burg Campaigns?
It's like football....He ran up the middle on a weakening defense!
t's 4th quarter baby... who wants it more and whose in better shape? Drive it down there throat until they are ready to quit!
And besides Who wants to run a trick play on ole Bobby Lee? Especially since he might intercept it and run it back for a TD..lol!
I think the Union had the best man in place for the job. Grant was a fighter, and he had brave men under him willing to go to their death for their beliefs. And let's not forget they served up alot of death to the ANV in those battles as well.
Grant was no butcher, he was a general in a terrible awful war. And he did all he could to make the war end in 1 year! How long would it have taken Meade? Or McClellan? *shutters*. We'd still be fighting! Just my thoughts. Cheers
Im trying to think of all the times Bobby Lee fought similar to Grant and Launched Successful direct assaults ( with high casualties).
ReplyDeleteGaines Mill, Malvern Hill,Longstreet's attack at 2nd Bull Run, Jeb Stuarts 3rd Day Assaults at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg. All of those times Lee went up the middle he took HEAVY casualties... but they nearly broke the numerically larger AOP when he did it. Lee was a "butcher" when his numbers and needs permitted.
You make a very good point Jack. (I am laughing over the image of General Lee running for a touchdown with Grant chasing him!) Good Lord, if McClellan were left in command I think we'd STILL be fighting. It was a cruel war and Grant tried to end it the only way he could.
ReplyDeleteI am thinking that you might be a boxing fan, based on your image. I am one as well. I think of the Overland Campaign as two punch drunk fighters late in a bout slugging the daylights out of each other, each fighter trying to land the knockout punch.
(And as a non-Civil War aside, I live just up the bay from Galveston, birthplace of Jack Johnson.)
Lee:
ReplyDeleteGrant was faced with attacking a defensive-minded Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. In these types of situations the attacker needs at least a 3 to 1 advantage which Grant never had. On top of that the terrain in this area favors the defender with forests, low hills and waterways.
Grant made a conscious decision that he needed to destroy Lee's army rather than capture Richmond. If he destroyed Lee's army Richmond would fall like ripe fruit. The Overland Campaign accomplished its goal. THe campaign bled the Confederate Army of men that they couldn't afford to lose and pushed Lee back into Richmond and Petersburg. General Lee predicted that if Grant's armies forced him into a siege then the final result was inevitable. The key decision that Grant made was to turn South on the Brock Road after the bloody battle of the Wilderness. As his army marched past him 50,000 men cheered their commander. Even though they didn't want to become casualties, they wanted to end the war and return home. They finally had a general who figthts!