Why was the confederacy so bad on the western front? They made blunder after blunder and won almost no battles
Grant's memoirs make it clear that the U.S. Army had total control over the Ohio and most of the Mississippi and could come and go as they pleased, whereas the rebels were surrounded on that many fronts with that many miles of remaining river to hold and had no possible advance positions. There was no real way to produce a battle the rebels could win since most were sieges and the ambushes did not work due to the superiority of movement.
>>18730865>18730865sybaw
>>18730865the ANV had most of the Confederacy's resources. other armies got scraps.
>>18730865How would you handle General Polk's invasion of Kentucky if you were in Jefferson Davis's position or the position of Confederate commanders during that battle?>Battle of Pea Ridge>Battle of Baton Rouge>Battle of Big Black River Bridge>Battle of Piedmont>Battle of Westport>Three river fort before Shiloh
>>18730865Most of their limited manpower and industrial capacity was out east and feeding the frontline in Virginia. I'd wager their already underdeveloped rail system was even more pathetic in the west as well.
Union generals were better in the West and had a freer hand without politics interfering with them, or the constant paranoia about leaving Washington D.C. exposed.
>>18731837The biggest blunder was stripping CS capacity early in the war, as most industrial areas were located in Nashville and New Orleans.
>>18730865Here another blunder: >>18730776
>>18730893Sure but did the confederates not consider the red river campaign a success? Shreveport was saved, and the union army repulsed. Was it not a successful implementation of the Fabian strategy?
>Henry Slocum welcomed his transfer to the Western theater in late 1863, saying "I feel joyed to pass from the theater of confrontation to the theater of hearty cooperation.[2]tl;dr every Union general dreaded serving in the Army of the Potomac. Phil Sheridan was unhappy when Grant brought him east. Sherman considered the Virginia theater a sideshow and believed the war would be won in the West.
>>18731880It definitely worked in theory on the Tennessee frontier and in the Wild West, but it was not strategically ideal for eastern operations; see the comparison between the Richmond-Petersburg campaign and early modern trench warfare in the Russo-Japanese War.
>>18731880Shreveport and the Red River held little military value compared to Vicksburg and the rest of the Mississippi, and Kirby Smith was too strained to push the campaign beyond a general costly mismanaged failure for the U.S. Occupying wars can certainly be defined as victories when those add up, but the calculus in the west never tipped in favor of the rebels.If anything, more success in the early phases would have begat more violence and wanton looting, if Tennessee or Louisiana are any indicator of what might have happened to a non-neutral Missouri or Kentucky.
The ANV got all the best Confederate officers and the Western ones were mostly the dregs.
Play War of Rights (October event)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNvneLk3gMI
>>18732039oldfag here.i met General Kirby Smith's granddaughter in person when i was a boy.
>>18731838>>18732039Earl Van Dorn destroyed logistics, forcing Grant to retreat from Vicksburg; if the Confederacy had harassed them with guerrilla tactics alongside Joe Johnston's Fabian strategy, it might have influenced the 1864 election in the North.https://www.army.mil/article/169550/cutting_loose_with_expeditionary_logistics_in_the_vicksburg_campaign
>>18732713Legend of Van Dorn was fine movie
>>18732713after that happened, Grant decided the army was going to live off the land and steal whatever consumables they needed from local farmers. if that was McClellan, he would just shit his pants and retreat.
>>18731838the individual soldiers were tougher as well, most of them were pioneer boys from the frontier West used to living in rugged conditions and were capable of marching enormous distances. the Army of the Potomac was a lot of soft Northeastern city guys.
>>18732918Then, Confederates under Patrick Cleburne, Price, and Nathan Bedford Forrest launched a counterattack on isolated Union forces, buying time for Pemberton and Johnston to link up in the vast West meaning no battle at Big Black River Bridge.
>>18730865Why do Americans fellate over this war so much? Is it because it was fought over niggers?
>>18732918The destruction of the Holly Springs supply base normally meant a retreat back to Memphis, but Grant felt he could not do that because it would be conceding defeat.
>>18732918Curiously, given what happened later on in the war, Sherman distrusted that plan and felt the army should use regular supply lies. It should be stated that he was still a very by-the-book general at that point and not yet the Sherman of the March to the Sea.
>Partially because of his upbringing on the frontier, Lincoln understood the volunteer soldier and his beliefs and motivations in a way some others could not. He well recalled his experience as a militia captain in Illinois when he was 22--the first time Lincoln tried to issue an order to his men, they yelled "Go to hell!", after which his superiors punished him for failing to control the soldiers by making him sit on a fence rail holding a wooden sword for a few hours.[3]
>>18732944During Sherman's March to the Sea, he made a bold, crazy move where he led 60,000 men away from their main supply hub, and there was fear he could be encircled. I wonder if Earl Van Dorn's cavalry could have tied his army down before Stonewall Jackson (swap Patrick Cleburne to Virginia) or Joe Johnston struck his rear?
>>18730865Dixie themselves do not have capable admirals like Álvaro de Bazán, Yi Sun-sin, and Michiel de Ruyter, or perfect defenders like Blas de Lezo, Andrew Jackson, and Louis-Joseph de MontcalmHave to do with limited resource.
