anarchyintheuk wrote:Scattershooting:
Minor point but . . . the Union could afford mistakes to a degree. Grant could not. He would have been canned/demoted just like every other once promising officer if he lost once too often or badly, even though by the time he faced Lee he had built up a reserve of good will, as it were, w/ Lincoln by winning. Lee had the same level of goodwill w/ Davis for the same reason.
But, Grant did make 'mistakes', he lost battles, but, he knew that Lincoln wanted a fighter. Had McClellan lost more battles than he won, but showed determination to stay on the field, Lincoln's opinion of him would be much greater as a battlefield commander. As I said, Grant had determination on his side, which was why he was chosen as the army commander.
As far as the 'harmony of command' thing. It reflects poorly on Lee's leadership that he had such difficulty adjusting his command style after the loss of Jackson. In any event I don't see any difference in 'harmony' amongst Grant's AoT, (whatever you want to call the force at Chattanooga) and the AoP and Lee's ANV. The problems w/ the early AoP commanders and their corps commanders had more to do w/ quantity not quality. There were simply too many corps. Even in that case no Union army ever approached the level of 'harmony' that the Confederate AoT attained. If there was someway to add a cohesion bonus for an army commander and corps commander based on the length of time in that same chain of command I'd like to see that; however, doesn't seem that important nor would it be easy to quantify the bonus.
I agree with this, represented probably by a lowered Strategic Rating, with Lee relying on strong subordinates to have a high enough strategic rating to make due. IMO, the North and South were at polar extremes, the North had too many corps, the South had too few.
Point taken about Grant at Shiloh; however, it wasn't like his cavalry reported "40k rebels are coming down the pike, general". The nature of the terrain and the limitations of his cavalry didn't help matters either. He had also made the same mistake of not designating a second in command while he was gone at Ft. Donelson.
The fact of leaving his army in such a poor strategic position, so far into Confederate territory, in my opinion was a mistake. His forces were not mutually supported, nor gained the protection of the gunboats. On the defensive, Grant chose very poor ground in which to 'defend', and did not necessarily prepare for the possibility of Confederate counterattack (unreadiness was high).
J.E. Johnston was at least equally responsible for the organization and effectiveness of the Confederate cavalry as Lee. Poor Union organization and use of cavalry by McClellan didn't help.
That Lee noticed the advantages of artillery concentraion after watching Malvern Hill and sought to do the same in the ANV is commendable; it wasn't a novel idea. Mac and Hunt had already done that in the AoP.
Organization is in the hands of the player, something that we cannot represent according to a specific commander (for example, we cannot restrict cavalry to independent brigades and under the command of infantry corps when McClellan is in command).
I may not be remembering this right, but I thought Pillow was the one who delayed the break-out at Ft. Donelson by a day and then ordered the troops back to the start line the next day after opening up an escape route? Or am I thinking of Floyd?
Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Actually, it was Buckner which was late attacking, Pillow was on time and actually was the one who pressured Buckner to move along with him.