Confederate sniper obeys orders to wound (but not kill) general Joseph Johnston

[Stauffenberg]

No greater advantage by any northern soldier was handed to the South, than that of the rifleman who wounded Joe Johnston on May 31st 1862, removing this incubus from the CSA and putting Lee directly into the saddle when he was most needed.

I have had the idea of doing a sort of "who done it" short story murder-mystery, the basic premise being that Joe Johnston was actually wounded intentionally by friendly fire--one of the South's expert snipers working clandestinely for the Confederate Secret Service--that is, for an inner cabal in the Service in Richmond intent upon getting R. E. Lee in command of the armies in Virginia asap. Johnston was deliberately hit in the shoulder. Ironically, he was shortly after hit by grapeshot in any case. An interesting exploration of the cui bono point of view--for what was clearly a pivotal "accident" in the course of the war--that benefited the South more than anything else conceivable at the time...

(for those of you wondering about Lee appearing by default in the summer of '62, perhaps)

[Boomer]

The idea certainly would have made President Davis smile. Those two HATED each other.

Still, after reading a few tomes on General Johnston, including a really well done biography, I think the guy got a bad wrap. Sure, he wasn't the next Lee or Napoleon, but his concentration of force theory, his ideas of how to best use the South's resources, as well as his Georgia campaign in '64 shows that the man wasn't the incompetent fool that his detractors tried to make of him after the war ended.

If he was wounded by some kind of inside job, well... just take it its logical conclusion. The wounding of Johnston led to Lee's rise, which ultimately led to Gettysburg and finally to Appomattox. What-if scenarios play out in all kinds of ways, and usually any of them ending with the name Appomattox can't bode well for the Southern cause.

But finger pointing over everyone's fan favorites is silly. Lee was a great commander and strategist, Johnston was a great strategist, but the whole commander part left a lot to be desired. He bickered too much with his peers, reeled from receiving bad orders, and his ego wouldn't let him defer to others where someone like Lee didn't have that problem.