Which Campaign of the American Civil War Could Most Easily Have Been a CS Victory?

Which Campaigns of the American Civil War Could Most Easily Have Been CS Victories?

  • Forts Henry and Donelson Campaign

    Votes: 4 5.2%

  • Shiloh Campaign

    Votes: 23 29.9%

  • Maryland Campaign

    Votes: 24 31.2%

  • Kentucky Campaign

    Votes: 5 6.5%

  • Stones River/Murfreesboro Campaign

    Votes: 2 2.6%

  • Gettysburg Campaign

    Votes: 9 11.7%

  • Vicksburg Campaign

    Votes: 1 1.3%

  • Chickamauga-Chattanooga Campaign

    Votes: 7 9.1%

  • Overland Campaign

    Votes: 1 1.3%

  • Atlanta Campaign

    Votes: 1 1.3%

  • Petersburg Campaign

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Franklin-Nashville Campaign

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    77

Anaxagoras

Banned
Which of the following military campaigns, all of which were either indecisive or Confederate defeats, could most easily have been an outright Confederate victory?

1. Fort Henry and Donelson Campaign
2. Shiloh Campaign
3. Maryland Campaign
4. Kentucky Campaign
5. Stones River/Murfreesboro Campaign
6. Gettysburg Campaign
7. Vicksburg Campaign
8. Chickamauga-Chattanooga Campaign
9. Overland Campaign
10. Atlanta Campaign
11. Petersburg Campaign
12. Franklin-Nashville Campaign
 

rob2001

#3 the Maryland campaign, it was only by a stroke of luck that it didn't turn into a total disaster for the Union. When two Unions soldiers found Lee's special order 191.
 

rob2001

The only way that the Chickamauga-Chattanooga campaign could have been a total victory for the confederacy is if the Army of Tennessee had a different commander.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
rob2001 said:
The only way that the Chickamauga-Chattanooga campaign could have been a total victory for the confederacy is if the Army of Tennessee had a different commander.
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It would be an easy POD for Longstreet to be named its commander between Chickamauga and Chattanooga.
 

rob2001

That battle was a close run thing. Only the shooting of Albert Sydney Johnston and the arrival of union reinforcements saved Grant from defeat.
 

Rifleman134

rob2001 said:
That battle was a close run thing. Only the shooting of Albert Sydney Johnston and the arrival of union reinforcements saved Grant from defeat.
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I will have to heavily disagree with you their, the battle of Shiloh was never a close thing in the slightest, the shooting of Johnston didn't have any real impact on the battle since he had danced to act as a corps commander instead of a army commander so army authority was being exercised by Beauregard.

Not to mention that massive line of Artillery assembled backed by a naval detachment that the Federals who were in no way beaten or routed, who's lines had become more compact and defense added by the arrival of the Wallace's Division.

Compared to the confused out of order Confederate lines that had regiments and brigades mixing with one another every which way, making any sort of concentrated attack nearly impossible even if the time of the day had permitted it.

The Confederates never came close to their goal of pushing the Army of the Tennessee into the river before the arrival of the Army of the Ohio the battle of Shiloh was never battle won only by luck.
 

Rifleman134

The only real plausible chance of a Confederate victory out of this list will be the Chickamauga-Chattanooga Campaigns with a simplistic officer realignment to weed out the political generals the most notable being Polk.
 
Hapsburg

Hapsburg

Banned
None of them. A few famous generals and a few famous victories wouldn't undo the fact that the North had vastly superior human, financial, and industrial resources to put into use for the war effort.
 
Workable Goblin

Workable Goblin

Hapsburg said:
None of them. A few famous generals and a few famous victories wouldn't undo the fact that the North had vastly superior human, financial, and industrial resources to put into use for the war effort.
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That doesn't mean that the North can't lose a campaign, e.g. the Peninsula Campaign. Admittedly, this more often had to do with poor leadership on the Union side than good leadership on the Southern, but a campaign is not the war, it is a battle write large; superior war-making ability does not necessarily lead to victory in any given campaign.
 

rob2001

Hapsburg said:
None of them. A few famous generals and a few famous victories wouldn't undo the fact that the North had vastly superior human, financial, and industrial resources to put into use for the war effort.
Click to expand...

I have to disagree. With the Maryland campaign, if Lee had won in the North, than England, and France might've forced the Union to accept peace terms. Especially if Lee controlled a northern city around the time of the 1862 mid term elections, and the democrats won.
 

deathscompanion1

Banned
rob2001 said:
I have to disagree. With the Maryland campaign, if Lee had won in the North, than England, and France might've forced the Union to accept peace terms. Especially if Lee controlled a northern city around the time of the 1862 mid term elections, and the democrats won.
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Of course Lee never came close to doing so either time.

In 1863 for example he lucked out in getting his spanking at Gettysburg instead of Pipe Creek where is over aggressive style would have destroyed the flower of the Confederate army in a single day.
 

rob2001

deathscompanion1 said:
Of course Lee never came close to doing so either time.

In 1863 for example he lucked out in getting his spanking at Gettysburg instead of Pipe Creek where is over aggressive style would have destroyed the flower of the Confederate army in a single day.
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The only reason Lee lost at Antietam was the fact that a copy of his special order 191 was found on the ground by two union soldiers.
 
jpj1421

jpj1421

As I find to be the case in quite a few wars, the Confederacy may not have been able to win the war but the Union certainly could have lost it. Looking at the on paper stats, and looking back with full 20/20 vision makes it easy to say who should win a war, but....humans are fallible and lose things they should have won sometimes.
 

jahenders

Banned
While the CSA might not have been able to completely crush the US force, they could have inflicted far more damage and made it effectively impossible for the US to move forward for an extended period of time.

Johnston's shooting DID have a big impact because it made Beauragard's role real instead of theoretical. Johnston was acting somewhat like a corps commander when he got killed, but he was switching into and out of that role and Army Commander. B. only acted as a detached and ill-informed Army Commander.

Had Johnston not been shot, there would likely have been far less confusion in CSA line of battle.

Rifleman134 said:
I will have to heavily disagree with you their, the battle of Shiloh was never a close thing in the slightest, the shooting of Johnston didn't have any real impact on the battle since he had danced to act as a corps commander instead of a army commander so army authority was being exercised by Beauregard.

Not to mention that massive line of Artillery assembled backed by a naval detachment that the Federals who were in no way beaten or routed, who's lines had become more compact and defense added by the arrival of the Wallace's Division.

Compared to the confused out of order Confederate lines that had regiments and brigades mixing with one another every which way, making any sort of concentrated attack nearly impossible even if the time of the day had permitted it.

The Confederates never came close to their goal of pushing the Army of the Tennessee into the river before the arrival of the Army of the Ohio the battle of Shiloh was never battle won only by luck.
Click to expand...
 

unprincipled peter

Donor
I'm inclined to believe special order 191 was a ruse, and basically served Lee's purpose. the problem is that the union armies didn't quite behave exactly as expected, and Lee didn't slaughter them as he expected.

there's enough doubt about 191 (it's pristine condition after rains and the convenience of it being found as it was, and that none of the confederate officers acted as though it were the supreme order, how it didn't follow typical chain of command, etc) that I'm convinced it was a plant, and it didn't work. Thus, I don't really buy the 'north was saved by someone dropping 191' argument.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
unprincipled peter said:
I'm inclined to believe special order 191 was a ruse, and basically served Lee's purpose.
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I confess I have never heard this theory. But it's historically attested that Lee was greatly surprised by the discovery of his orders and had to frantically scramble to bring the portions of his army back together in time to avoid being defeated in detail. Indeed, this wasn't finished until the afternoon of the Battle of Antietam itself, when A.P. Hill's division arrived in the nick of time to save the Confederate right flank from being overwhelmed. Had the orders not been lost, the Army of Northern Virginia would never have been in such a perilous situation.

How, in your thinking, did the discovery of Order 191 serve Lee's purpose?
 
Kevin in Indy

Kevin in Indy

I picked Shiloh; my reasoning was that had Johnston performed as an army commander they should have either won outright or have cut up a much larger piece of the Union army. I'm not sure that you can speak of Shiloh alone in the campaign, however, since the price for assembling that Confederate army was the city of New Orleans.

Would like to hear more about the SO 191 discussion...
 
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