If you research deep enough into anything, it appears that real life our timeline is ASB extremely often. Such is the case with John Gordon's legendary attack of Fort Stedman and City Point.
What most people fail to realize (thanks to revisionism) is how close the CSA was to falling apart in the winter of 1865. True, everyone knows that Sherman was in the Carolinas, but as an invader whom the populace was not yet ready to submit to, deferring to Grant for everything and beneath it all worried. And yes, everyone calls the winter of '65 the "winter of hunger", but few knew that Lee's army had lost easily ten thousand men as deserters.
John Gordon's attack, heroic as it was, well-planned and well-executed as it was, was not simply the greatest victory the Army of Northern Virginia every enjoyed. It was the Confederacy's last hope to win the war - for a defeat would have meant the quick surrender of Lee's army (please, no flame on this thread - people who want to make this a PoD should start their own threads).
And in all honestly, the fact that Gordon's attack was so supremely successful comes a hairsbreadth away from ASB. Here are 10 reasons why:
Gordon entirely deserved becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate armed forces under Lee's Presidency, and I am not doubting the skill with which he conceived this attack, nor the audacity with which it was carried out. I merely point out that for it to have worked so well means that, if this was an ATL, and not OTL, surely somebody would be calling it ASB.
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OT: The PoD, of course, is number 6 - Pickett's men never arrived to participate in the attack. 7 is true, and 8 is true inasmuch as Rooney Lee arrived early. His men were not used, as Gordon's were falling back by then.
I have maps of both the Fort Stedman line and the City Point line, and in actuality this scenario does not even come close to ASB. Provost guards really are weaker than front-line forces, as a rule, and Grant certainly would have wanted to see what was happening with firing so close. Whether making Grant a POW, at this late stage in the war, could change the final outcome is up for much debate. Of course, if it did happen, as in this TL, revisionism would make Lee's plight during the winter of 1865 much less bad than it was.
What most people fail to realize (thanks to revisionism) is how close the CSA was to falling apart in the winter of 1865. True, everyone knows that Sherman was in the Carolinas, but as an invader whom the populace was not yet ready to submit to, deferring to Grant for everything and beneath it all worried. And yes, everyone calls the winter of '65 the "winter of hunger", but few knew that Lee's army had lost easily ten thousand men as deserters.
John Gordon's attack, heroic as it was, well-planned and well-executed as it was, was not simply the greatest victory the Army of Northern Virginia every enjoyed. It was the Confederacy's last hope to win the war - for a defeat would have meant the quick surrender of Lee's army (please, no flame on this thread - people who want to make this a PoD should start their own threads).
And in all honestly, the fact that Gordon's attack was so supremely successful comes a hairsbreadth away from ASB. Here are 10 reasons why:
- Lee agreed to the attack. After reading the next 9 reasons, perhaps you'll agree as to how many things had to go right for the attack to succeed, and Lee knew this. He was putting all of his hope, over a third of his army in the hands of a 30-something-year-old who had never been in the army before the Civil War started. Yeah, just a bit of a risk.
- Gordon scouted the IXth corps position correctly. He had no good signalling station. He created maps by eyeballing terrain for miles behind the Union line, and got all of it right, down to every detail, which proved critical.
- The unarmed prepatory men went entirely unnoticed. Gordon had his men dismantling the Confederate earthworks for hours before the attack. He had 50 axemen to destroy the Union earthworks. He sent "deserters" out to, without firing a gun, capture the Union picket line. This was the middle of the night, when sound carries very well - and everything worked perfectly. The field was clear in time for the assault, and no one the Union side suspected anything. The level of perfection required for that...
- The 1st line Union defenses fell apart. Gordon was targeting Fort Stedman itself, and batteries X and XI in the first wave. All of these had plenty of cannons and ammunition and to spare, besides batteries IX and XII, and fort Haskell - and none of them fired upon Gordon. Each one fell to nothing but small-arms fire, and little of that. The Union gunners had to not only be asleep, but stay asleep through the shouts of their comrades just yards away.
- General McLaughlen and the 2nd line were incompetent. A bit of an exaggeration, but not much. McLaughlen woke up, ordered up a regiment to support, and then walked straight into Gordon's troops, who he mistook for Union men in the darkness. The two immediate reserve units were captured in the rush. This allowed Gordon to consolidate his initial gains, and get his own 3 divisions, plus parts of Johnson's and Willcox's into the breach. Even so, by now it was beginning to get light, and there was no panic in the Union line. As soon as it did become light, gunners started firing back at the Confederate pocket, and the real reserve division began arriving.
- Gordon got his 6,000 reserves at the most opportune time. Pickett's division had entrained from near Richmond earlier that morning/night, rushing at the last minute to support Gordon's attack. A close look at Pickett's memoirs shows that, while the train was crossing the Appomattox River, the coupling between the coal tender and the troops broke. The engine went forward, unaware, while the infantry train coasted over the bridge, stopping perhaps fifty yards over the river. They were not at the station, but they were close enough. Pickett got out, animated his men, and at the double-quick they rushed to support Gordon, arriving just in time to finally flank Fort Haskell and deprive the Union of a southern stronghold to anchor their developing line. If that coupling had broken just a few minutes earlier, presumably Gordon's men would have been trapped.
- Meade was sick that day. He had ordered General Parke, commander of the IXth corps, to take temporary command of the Army of the Potomac, and as such when Gordon made his assault, the defenders had no Corps commander. The IXth corps division commanders made temporarily effective defenses, but no one was coordinating anything - and so Gordon broke through the first two, buying Pickett time to flank the third, buying Gordon time to disorganize the fourth as it was being formed. These were the efforts of the Union main line and second line, and 2 division commanders (Hartranft and Willcox) acting from the reserve, and now one could organize a defense on a larger scale. Union artillery continued to fire with effect, but by now the pocket was large enough that it was not disatrous, as it would have been before Pickett's arrival.
- Rooney Lee arrived early and was reckless. The original plan of Gordon's assault was for a cavalry division to push through the breakthrough and cause as much havok as possible. Specifically, Rooney Lee was to wait until Robert E. Lee told him to come up, and then only to spread right and left behind the Union line, rolling the line up and causing Grant to withdraw troops from elsewhere. Rooney knew of the plan....and disregarded it. He arrived so that, when Robert E. Lee summoned him at 7:15 AM, Rooney Lee alread had his cavalry division, 2,000 men, just minutes from Gordon's breakthrough. He bypassed the infantry quickly enough, and then boldly disregarded orders, and sent no one either right or left, but in direct disobediance of orders rode straight back, ENE, towards City Point.
- Grant was uncommonly inquisitive. It took Rooney Lee less than 15 minutes to ride from the breakthrough to the City Point defenses. Provost guards never number 2,000, and aren't usually the best-trained troops an army has. This only partially accounts for the ease of Lee's success. The other part was that, as soon as Grant heard the commotion, he left his even-more-protected HQ complex, and rode south to the inner defensive line to see what was going on. One can imagine that, even after that line was breached, the thousands of sutlers, dock workers, hospital employees, bakers, jail guards, and what-have-you in City Point proper may have managed to disorganize Lee's cavalry and allowed Grant time to escape. As it was, the moment that line fell apart Rooney Lee obtained a most distinguished prisoner.
- Gordon managed to hold the breach open long enough for Rooney Lee to return. One can imagine how quickly Grant was willing to wander back towards Confederate lines. So Rooney Lee captured and comandeered a train on the newly constructed City Point-Military Railroad. Even with that saving time, it still took over an hour to get Grant behind Confederate lines. By now supports were being rushed over from other Union corps - the IInd and Vth, notably - and just minutes after Rooney Lee got back to Colquitt's salient, the starting point, Gordon and Pickett had to pull back.
Gordon entirely deserved becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate armed forces under Lee's Presidency, and I am not doubting the skill with which he conceived this attack, nor the audacity with which it was carried out. I merely point out that for it to have worked so well means that, if this was an ATL, and not OTL, surely somebody would be calling it ASB.
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OT: The PoD, of course, is number 6 - Pickett's men never arrived to participate in the attack. 7 is true, and 8 is true inasmuch as Rooney Lee arrived early. His men were not used, as Gordon's were falling back by then.
I have maps of both the Fort Stedman line and the City Point line, and in actuality this scenario does not even come close to ASB. Provost guards really are weaker than front-line forces, as a rule, and Grant certainly would have wanted to see what was happening with firing so close. Whether making Grant a POW, at this late stage in the war, could change the final outcome is up for much debate. Of course, if it did happen, as in this TL, revisionism would make Lee's plight during the winter of 1865 much less bad than it was.