Part 2
Many writers may wish to suggest that based on Grant’s war record he was clearly a superior commander to Pope and therefore would certainly have managed, some how, to avoid Pope’s situation.31 We can reject this because the bulk of Grant’s successful war record did not occur until 1863. Its simply not valid to compare Grant’s record in the last half of the war with Pope’s record in 1862. Having managed to survive into 1863 he was given the chance to benefit from his previous mistakes. This is why we have taken for comparison only Grant’s performance for 1862. This is the only just way to gage what Grant’s performance capability was around August 1862. By extending the period of comparison to December, we allow Grant to show some assimilation of his experience and show that by August he had sufficiently learned the lesson of Shiloh and would be able to avoid Pope’s situation. During the fall of 1862 Grant is twice more surprised and enveloped. It appears that by August Grant was still susceptible to being enveloped. If he had been put in Pope’s place in Virginia, there appears to be little or no evidence to suggest that he could have avoided Jackson’s flank march.
To simply say that Grant was better than Pope cannot be accepted because by August 1862 Grant had not shown any superior record than Pope. This is proven by the fact that Halleck, when Lincoln ordered Pope to Virginia objected to the loss of an efficient commander to the western armies. Had Halleck been asked to supply a well-qualified commander for the new command in Virginia, it would probably have been Pope not Grant. Halleck had been impressed with General John Pope’s campaign against Island Number Ten in April 1862. Following Shiloh Halleck had relegated Grant to the meaningless position as his assistant. It was his considered opinion in 1862 that Pope was the better commander. Based on observation of Grant’s performance at Henry-Donelson and Shiloh, Halleck stated that Grant’s army was poorly disciplined and not well organized in 1862.32 That historians and readers today find this so difficult to accept is due to flawed analysis in being unable to exclude the 20-20 hindsight gained from the history of the last half of the war. This must be excluded because in 1862 Grant had not had the experience to support the claim for superior performance. Many may cite the Henry-Donelson action as proof that Grant had the ability by 1862 to avoid Pope’s situation. However, his most recent actions at Shiloh, Corinth, and Holly Springs show clearly that he had not in fact developed enough experience to avoid being enveloped or surprised three times from April to December 1862. Grant, Pope, nor any commander on either side had not, in April 1861, any experience making them qualified as commanders of large armies. These abilities to lead troops in the field developed only after many months of experience. By 1862 no commander had been in command more than one year. It would be until well into 1863 before most generals had gained sufficient seasoning to claim real competence in the task of leading an army in the field. We see then why Pope with less than a year in command lacked the expertise to avoid Lee’s envelopment in August 1862. Pope simply lacked experience. Grant’s experience was no greater than Pope’s. It’s clear that no two people are really much alike. To argue that Grant’s innate personality would protect him from Pope’s result conflicts with the fact that it did not protect him from events at Shiloh, Corinth, and Holly Springs. Personality is well recognized as a vital component in leadership potential. The critical factor was personality acting through experience. Yes, it appears from the whole history of the war that Grant had the superior personality. It does not appear that by 1862 Grant’s expertise was sufficient to supplement his innate personality to permit him to avoid Pope’s situation in the Second Bull Run Campaign.
General William T. Sherman made the comment that Grant was not affected by events out of his sight.33 This is meant to show that Grant would not be distracted from his primary goal by events at a distance. During the period of maneuver in Pope’s front Lee attempted to flank Pope’s left but he detected it and withdrew behind the Rappahanock. Later when Pope observed the move of Jackson to the northwest Pope regarded it as a move to the Valley and as no threat to his force. Sherman’s testimony suggests that Grant would also have taken little notice of Jackson’s move had he detected it. In June 1864 Lee detached the Second corps of his army under Early to the Shenandoah Valley. After marching and fighting for over a month in northern Virginia and Maryland, Grant finally concluded Early’s force required some definite action to end this threat. Again, Grant’s response to the detachment of Early in 1864 appears similar to Pope. Like Pope, Grant saw no specific or direct threat to his main force and did not act to keep track of Early’s force. Only after Early’s force had actually made contact and defeated or disrupted Union positions did Grant act to oppose the threat.34 This clearly shows that as late as 1864 Grant exhibited the characteristic described by Sherman and demonstrated in 1862 to lose contact with portions of enemy forces and show little notice until after the enemy force had struck in some unsuspected location. As Sherman describes, Grant was determined and focused on his main goal. This also made Grant susceptible to losing contact with forces that would strike and surprise him on several occasions. There is little justification to suppose that Grant’s personality and experience in 1862 would have given him much opportunity to avoid an outcome like Pope’s defeat and retreat at the Second Bull Run.
One response to this thesis is that because Grant defeated General Joe Johnston, Braxton Bragg, and Lee, he was simply a better commander than Pope and would then have defeated Lee, at 2nd Bull Run, if not avoided Pope’s defeat some how. There are some problems with this assessment. First, its very questionable just how effective Joe Johnston really was as a commander? His record shows a series of passive defensive campaigns in which he ultimately failed to hold his position. The Peninsula, Jackson, Mississippi, Atlanta and Carolinas are clear examples.35 Except for the First Bull Run, Johnston’s record does not show any significant success.
Against Bragg at Chattanooga, Grant won what can only be seen as a surprisingly easy victory. Bragg’s position on Missionary Ridge was arguably the strongest natural position held by any army during the war.36 The confederates had been in position there for over a month, with ample time to prepare a strong defense. Yet, once Grant’s Army had come into line in front of Missionary Ridge it took only one attack to defeat Bragg’s force. Bragg had over one month’s time to occupy and prepare his position. However, he failed and allowed a flawed defensive plan to undermine what might have been an opportunity for a serious defeat of the Union force. In contrast with Missionary Ridge, Marye’s Heights was a molehill and still figured importantly in the appalling Union losses at Fredricksburg. Longstreet had much less time to prepare his position than Bragg but still showed the effect of even a small hill when skillfully prepared and defended.37 What’s more, Grant’s attack plan did not succeed as he expected. He planned a double envelopment by Generals Sherman on the left and Joe Hooker on the right, with George Thomas holding in the center. Grant ordered Thomas to make a frontal assault against Bragg’s center to take the first line of Confederate trenches, when Sherman was initially repulsed, and Hooker delayed. This attack was a surprising success that Grant had disavowed before he knew its result.38 When some one had later commened to Grant that the position had appeared to be “impregnable,” Grant delighted in responding that “it was impregnable”. In fact, the result had more to do with the dysfunctional command situation in Bragg’s Army of Tennessee and the flawed defense plan. 39
Ultimately, against Lee, Grant was blocked from taking Richmond and Petersburg for nearly a year, until Sherman’s forces in North Carolina were poised to move against Lee’s rear.40 It is not clear, how much of this success was due to Grant’s ability and how much to favorable circumstances. We may also remember that Grant enjoyed nearly a two to one numerical superiority in Virginia and Mississippi. At Chattanooga, while actually facing a 14% disadvantage in numbers, and attacking a prepared hill position, Grant’s force suffered only 10% losses. This shows that compared with the Confederate defense in Virginia, Bragg failed to mount an effective defensive effort.41
The argument that Grant was simply better and thus would have some how avoided the defeat suffered by Pope is not born out by events. Of course, we cannot say that the Lee-Jackson team would have necessarily defeated Grant in 1862 in any case. The best evidence does seem to show that Grant may well have suffered a similar outcome as Pope.
Many may reject the whole concept of a meaningful counter-factual analysis. They may say, “it does not prove anything.” Here they miss the whole point of counter-factual analysis. The value is to test our understanding of the actual history by reasonably assessing possible alternate outcomes. They may say, “we do not know all the facts or their variables.” We can not know what Lee, Grant, Sherman really knew or thought. To the extent that we can not assess alternate outcomes, then neither can we understand what happened. History is not fate. If we can not reasonably assess alternate outcomes, can we truly say we know what happened or why it happened?
The point here is not that Lee would have beat Grant at Bull Run. More important is that the margin between good and bad commanders may be quite small. While its common to hear Pope called incompetent, in fact Grant may be regarded very differently today had he been in Pope’s place at Bull Run.
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NOTES
WORKS CITED
Allan Nevins Counter-factual analysis
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