Small Things, Big Consequences
This is Steven Petrick posting.
Could the South have won the Civil War?
Based on the outcomes of many battles in Virginia, one might think so. But the actual critical theater of the war was in the West, down the Mississippi river. While much is made of the fumbling of Union Commander's facing Lee, the Confederate Army commanders in the western theater could not seem to win, even when by maneuver they had gained great advantage. (See Bragg's invasion of Kentucky in 1862, he actually managed to have a numerically superior army in position to crush the Union Army of Don Carlos Buell, and just suddenly retreated.)
Another example is Shiloh (Pittsburgh Landing).
Albert Sidney Johnston laid plans to bring to bear against Grant a numerically superior host. As part of that, he ordered General Van Dorn to bring his 20,000 man force to Corinth. Van Dorn did not reach Corinth until three or four days AFTER the battle had been lost. If Van Dorn had been present, his men would have given Johnston numerical superiority, plus Van Dorn's troops were already combat veterans. The weight of their numbers and experience could have been decisive and history would have remembered Grant as the man who was forced to surrender at Shiloh, and Sherman as nothing more than one of a list of Generals who were subordinate to him at the time of the disaster.
Why did not Van Dorn arrive in time?
For one of the most unbelievably mundane of reasons.
The Governor of the State of Louisiana was having a private feud with Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and in a fit of pique, refused to allow Mississippi riverboats laying idle in New Orleans to be used to transport Van Dorn's Troops. It took more than two weeks for Van Dorn to scrape up enough river transport to move his troops to Corinth, and by that time, as noted, he was more than four days too late.
The outcome of the entire Civil War may have turned on one Governor's childish decision not to release to the Confederate Army a handful of riverboats because he was mad at Jefferson Davis.
Could the South have won the Civil War?
Based on the outcomes of many battles in Virginia, one might think so. But the actual critical theater of the war was in the West, down the Mississippi river. While much is made of the fumbling of Union Commander's facing Lee, the Confederate Army commanders in the western theater could not seem to win, even when by maneuver they had gained great advantage. (See Bragg's invasion of Kentucky in 1862, he actually managed to have a numerically superior army in position to crush the Union Army of Don Carlos Buell, and just suddenly retreated.)
Another example is Shiloh (Pittsburgh Landing).
Albert Sidney Johnston laid plans to bring to bear against Grant a numerically superior host. As part of that, he ordered General Van Dorn to bring his 20,000 man force to Corinth. Van Dorn did not reach Corinth until three or four days AFTER the battle had been lost. If Van Dorn had been present, his men would have given Johnston numerical superiority, plus Van Dorn's troops were already combat veterans. The weight of their numbers and experience could have been decisive and history would have remembered Grant as the man who was forced to surrender at Shiloh, and Sherman as nothing more than one of a list of Generals who were subordinate to him at the time of the disaster.
Why did not Van Dorn arrive in time?
For one of the most unbelievably mundane of reasons.
The Governor of the State of Louisiana was having a private feud with Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and in a fit of pique, refused to allow Mississippi riverboats laying idle in New Orleans to be used to transport Van Dorn's Troops. It took more than two weeks for Van Dorn to scrape up enough river transport to move his troops to Corinth, and by that time, as noted, he was more than four days too late.
The outcome of the entire Civil War may have turned on one Governor's childish decision not to release to the Confederate Army a handful of riverboats because he was mad at Jefferson Davis.
posted by Federation Commander at 5:53 PM
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