Here are a few questions for folks to mull over as we come to the end of another year.
Which theater (East or West) was more important to the outcome of the Civil War?
Did the Union win in the West or was it more a case of the Confederates losing it?
Did the Union win in the East or was it more a case of the Confederates losing it?
What factor best explains the outcome of events in the West and the East?
Note that I’m setting aside the case of the trans-Mississippi West.
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Of course the East was more important. When did the war end? When Richmond fell and Lee Surrendered. Vicksburg (a so-called turning point) fell in July 1863 and the war went on. And it went on when Atlanta fell too. Even after Hood’s army was more or less wiped out (hyperbole alert!) – the war went on.
And what was Sherman’s role in the Spring of 1864? It was to support Grant by making sure “Uncle Joe” didn’t sent anyone of his men to Lee. And why were a lot of Duds and trouble-making Generals from the East sent West by both the Confederacy and the Union? Because the East was considered the most important theater. Do well in the West and you might get send East. Cross Robert E. Lee or Stanton and you got sent West.
Fighting continued for weeks after Lee surrendered. Perhaps the war was “all but over” at Appomattox, but it was not done, as Johnston, Kirby Smith, James Wilson, Jefferson Davis, and Dick Taylor others could attest. As to the larger question, I like Richard McMurry’s “Fourth Battle of Winchester.” Had Lee crushed Grant and any successors in Virginia, Sherman was still on his way through the Carolinas with a large, powerful field army more than up for facing a battered Army of Northern Virginia.
As for “Did the Union win in the East or was it more a case of the Confederates losing it?” Yes, the Union won but It was stalemate until April 1865 and Lee was just as concerned with Sherman coming up from NC to attack him as he was with the AoP. So, it wasn’t much of Win by the AoP.
And a big factor in Lee’s defeat was in his lack of Calvary and where was a lot of his Calvary? It’d been sent South with Hampton to deal with Sherman. Plus, his supplies had been hurt because of Sherman’s army in NC and his armies morale lowered because of Sherman’s unopposed march and the knowledge that Sherman was marching up to attack Lee.
So, while the AoP finally received Lee’s surrender, a large part of his defeat is due to Sherman and his Western army.
Did the Union win in the West or was it more a case of the Confederates losing it?
I haven’t come to a definitive answer other than the Union naval capabilities allowed for the Union to take and maintain the initiative sooner and more readily in the West than in Virginia, and the Confederates lacked the ability to do the same. Jared Diamond might would say it was the geography of the West that won it for the Union (and maybe the wheat and beef diet versus the corn and pork diet). That said the Confederate command and control did just about everything wrong early on in the West and it caused irreparable damage to their cause. They probably had the ability to overcome their disadvantage in geography longer than what actually happened. For how long they could have parried offenses across the West, particularly down or up the rivers, I’m not sure.
What factor best explains the outcome of events in the West and the East?
Geography.
Yep. And that raises the question I alluded to – whether the CSA could have come up with any strategy to preserve the 11-state Confederacy short of just doing enough to get the North to quit. When you look at the map in 1861,the population/demographics, and the state of southern railroads, the CSA looks like a tough thing to hold together for long.. Stalemate/status quo in Virginia ultimately would mean squat if everything else was steadily snatched away.
I am about to start reading Donald Stoker’s Strategy and the U.S. Civil War so I have no idea what he has to say and there are plenty other books I haven’t read or finished reading. That said some combination of greater concentration, better engineering, more competence in command, and a little more industry could have probably slowed the success rate of the Union in the West. The Confederates were slow in figuring out a grand strategy in the West, and then what they did try and do was poorly executed. They were just a mess in the West.
I agree, although when you look at a map it was a daunting assignment.
Yes, and daunting for the Union to take and control even with the rivers. What if Grant loses at Ft. Donelson (or the Confederates build Ft. Henry in a different place and make it a tougher nut to crack?) or the Confederates have a fully operational ironclad at New Orleans in April 1862?
Probably these would only be temporary setbacks, but it would have given the Confederates more time to organize, train, build, and think. The Union armies would have had less confidence. Grant probably would have been pushed aside by Halleck and Lincoln for McClernand. Then how long does it take the Union to take Corinth and then Vicksburg?
True. My response is that even if the CSA had bought more time out there, given the resources available to the Union, I find it hard to believe that they could have retained control of those key locations. I think that where you end up is where we agree – in order for the CSA to win it had to count on a fatal failure of Union will. I don’t see any other avenue to “victory” and I still see stalemate in Virginia (while the rest of the CSA disappears)n as not achieving that.
Where ever Lee’s army that needed to be destroyed was at is where the war needed to be won.
I respectfully think that dodges the issue. Once the rest of the CSA was gone, the ANV was on life support for the reasons others have articulated so well here.
All Civil Wars are political wars. Civil Wars in democratic states are even more so. The “deciders” are voters (and others) who have decidedly limited information and almost no military knowledge. Hence, what was “decisive” in winning the war for the United States was that which convinced voters to continue the war to its bloody end by reelecting Lincoln in 1864 and that which convinced young men (many of whom were barred from voting because they were too young or were non-white) to continue enlisting in the army during the last two years of the war.
Control of the river systems in the west played a dominant factor in breaking the back of the
Confederacy. Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia defeats demoralized the citizens of the South and brought the reality and destitution of “total war” to the common man and woman. Jefferson Davis did not have the resources to fight a multi-front conflict. The confrontations in the east were just as nasty and covered by the press in the major population centers, but the south couldn’t spare the men or supplies to continue the conflict indefinitely.
Bummer does not believe that the Confederacy had the mental stamina nor leadership teamwork in comparison to the team that Grant and Sherman recruited. Both Generals had each other to rely upon and individually were willing to take whatever measures necessary to accomplish their goals.
The south did not have the unlimited options that the leadership of the Union enjoyed.
As far as inept officers, North and South each had their share. Grant could always relegate an obscure and remote posting for circumspect officers and Lee and Davis could always asssign their dregs to Texas, New Mexico or Arkansas.
Bummer
The military response of the Federal Government to secession was most successful in the Western theater. It is fairly clear that the Western theater was more important to the outcome of the Civil. The Eastern theater received more attention because of the “celebrity generals” (e.g., Lee, McClelland, Hooker, Jackson) that were in command throughout most of the war.
But in the Eastern Theater, the Confederate and Union forces fought more or less to a draw, for most of the Civil War. No side, Union nor Confederate was able to win the decisive victory in the East. In the Western Theater it was different. Essentially, the Union forces were able to secure the Ohio River system. One of the keys was clearing Kentucky of Confederate troops. The Union forces marched South to into Tennessee and took control of the Tennessee River system — as prerequisite to taking control of the Mississippi River. Then the Union armies and navies fought for and won control of the Mississippi River, thereby splitting the Confederacy in two. Once the Union consolidated its gains in the West, it then marched East in what was famously called “Sherman’s march to the Sea.”
The Western Theater may have been more bloody. But, the Union forces in the West made steady, if unspectacular and uneven progress. This was not happening with Union troops in the Eastern Theater. Union army leadership in the West understood and conducted total war. It is no coincidence that the Unions best General came out of the West — Ulysses Grant, William T. Sherman, Phillip Sheridan, George H. Thomas. By the end of the Civil War, these Generals who had made their mark by successfully conducting war the West, had taken over strategic command of the Federal Government’s entire war effort. The Civil War was won in the West.
It seems to me that the Western Theater was at least as significant as the Eastern but was not perceived as such, primarily for political reasons. The war may not have ended until Richmond fell but what was the Confederacy at that point? The significant Mississppi River avenue was gone, New Orleans was gone, Tennessee was gone, Atlanta was gone. Would there have even been a CSA if it consisted of Virginia and maybe North Carolina? Once the West fell the outcome was foreordained, IMHO. The “chicken-egg” problem is that because of the perception in D.C. and Richmond, the Western may have been treated as less important, especially by Davis, et al., leading to its loss.
By Spring 1865, the eastern armies were roughly where they had been the entire war. Meanwhile, the western army had reduced the contiguous Confederacy to essentially North Carolina and Virginia.
What was the factor that allowed the north to win: Grant. He scored major victories that carved huge sections of land from the Confederacy despite constant stumbling blocks being thrown in his way by the federal command structure: shelved after Donelson, ordered to sit at Shiloh while the Confederates concentrated, reigned back after his overland campaign for Vicksburg had made it halfway to the city, subjected to spying and potential removal when Lincoln’s plan resulted in the debacle at Chickasaw Bayou. Even after vaulting to top command, Grant’s strategic plans were shelved in favor of direct thrusts at Lee’s army. But his superhuman humility and flexibility allowed him to succeed despite a bumbling Commander-in-Chief. He simply beat the Confederates whereever he found them, with whatever he had on hand, under whichever wacky directives he had been given.
Did the Union win the war or the Confederates lose it? I don’t see much of a distinction. The Union enjoyed an overwhelming naval advantage that was mitigated by Vicksburg / Port Hudson. Grant having cracked Vicksburg, the Confederates enjoyed the advantage of interior lines but failed to take advantage of it with the sole exception of Chickamauga. The reason being, of course, that Grant (you know, that western guy) had taken command and Jeff Davis would never again have the luxury of sending large numbers of men west.
In retrospect, it seems the Confederates should have kept a large army on the rails to stage counter-attacks at unsuspecting federal armies as they moved overland. But the federals had plenty of gaffes as well: allowing the Confederates to concentrate at Corinth, failing to secure the Mississippi River when it was easy pickin’s, failing to take Chattanooga before Bragg struck north, and too many misfires in the eastern theater to count on two hands.
Someone once asked me in a technical interview “if you had to choose, would you rather be the door or the doorknob.” Thinking they were jerking my chain, I replied in kind: “I would rather be the door because I don’t like people touching me.” The eastern theater was the doorknob: sometimes ornate, shiny, attention grabbing. But the door constitutes the bulk of what a door really has to do: section off resources from a central space. That’s what the western armies did to the Confederacy.
I have to agree with Mark and John: the Western theater was the decisive one militarily, and, I would argue, politically. After Vicksburg the Confederacy’s hope of using that theater as a way to prolong the war was essentially doomed. Further, Stephanie McCurry’s book indicates that much of the underlying political pressure from rural women (and to a lesser extent, slaves) to demand assistance from the Confederate government came from the west. That pressure, in my mind, terribly undercut the Confederacy’s morale and its raison d’etre, and as a result made winning that much more difficult. Similar pressure came from the East, where the “common folk” also felt the heavy hand of the Confederacy’s policies, but the presence of more successful Confederate operations in the Eastern theater made such policies more tolerable, as people there could see a more direct relationship between them and military necessity.
Larry Hartzell
Good points. I should have added that, of course, it wasn’t simply Richmond falling but also the surrender of the ANV which technically established Confederate defeat. But with the evaporation of the Confederacy west and southwest of Virginia what on earth would that army have continued to fight for, at least beyond early May, 1865? Even an “escape” to North Carolina would have simply prolonged the inevitable. And this is all entirely apart from the theoretical question whether the western Confederacy could have been successfully defended for any lengthy period of time. The steady Union erosion of that theater may have been inevitable for geographic and other reasons, accelerated by poor decisions made in Richmond. One of the arguments made by folks who insist on the primacy of the Eastern Theater focuses on the inability to fix one “point” in the West at which Confederate defeat was ensured – the failure at Shiloh? the surrender of Vicksburg? the retreat from Tennessee into Georgia? the fall of Atlanta? To me that simply ignores the fact that the cumulative effect of steady conquersts in that theater dictated the ultimate outcome, while the struggle see-sawed in Virginia.
The US won the offensive war in the West and the defensive war in the East..
My less than informed opinion:
Once the navel blockades were in place:
1. The west if you count the culmination of the campaign with Sherman’s march,
2 & 3 The winner was the result of the Union’s ability to withstand a war of attrition and the economic strangulation of the south (in spite of the growing peacenik movement in North),
4. Hmmm
With that last sentence maybe I should add the words of Rosanna Danna “Nevermind”
How about this: Ulysses S. Grant won the war. When he was in the West, that was the most crucial area to win; and when he came east, that was the most crucial area to win. Just a thought.
As others note, Grant’s successes on the Mississippi were indispensable, not only militarily, but also politically. Personally, I don’t know as much as I would like to about the naval components (both Union and Confederate) during the Civil War.
From the little I know, it seems like Grant’s ability to mesh nicely with Union naval leaders was of great importance. In the West, he worked very will with Admiral Andrew Hull Foote at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson (wasn’t it basically Foote who conquered Fort Henry?), and with David Dixon Porter at Vicksburg.
When Grant moved East, he was again working with Porter, although mostly at a higher level. Appropriately, we see David Dixon Porter as one of the four leaders in “The Peace Makers” along with Sherman, Grant and Lincoln — in that important meeting on March 28, 1865, aboard the River Queen.
So, my question is: Wasn’t Grant’s ability to work very will with various Naval officers of critical importance to his success?
And secondly, was there any other high-level army officer — either Union or Confederate who did such important and effective work, working in coordination with the naval component?
Of course, for purposes of argument one could ask the question “what would have happened had Meade retained actual command in Virginia” and Grant either remained in the West or stayed away from micromanaging the AoftheP while acting as overall C-in-C?” I am not convinced that the outcome would have been meaningfully different and actually think it’s possible that if Grant had stayed in the West he may actually have expedited what happened in Georgia and then the Carolinas. As de facto commander of the AoftheP Grant really did not collaborate as closely with the USN as he did in the West, mostly (I think) due to the geography of the western war from 1861-July, 1863 as opposed to what Grant had to do in Virginia. .
“What would have happened had Meade retained actual command in Virginia?” Isn’t Cold Harbor a hint at what would have happened? “I had immediate and entire command of the field all day.” (George Meade letter to his wife – June 4, 1864)
As far as Grant’s collaboration with the USN in the East, I’d like to hear more about it. I wonder what would be a good source to look at? Obviously, the Navy was not there for the Overland Campaign, but I think Grant did arrange for the Navy to meet up with Sherman, and to work with Butler at the Bermuda Hundred. Also, the Navy helped guard the pontoon bridge across the James.
Did they also have a role to play in guarding City Point? Didn’t Grant also work with the Navy to help with the attack on Fort Fisher?