WI: Joseph Johnston wasn't replaced in July 1864?

[Anaxagoras]

On the other hand it's near impossible to achieve the *strategic* aim of the battle which was to hit Thomas when he was straddling the river. That factor doesn't change, and it's that which is the biggest problem for the AoT as the AotC was definitely a dangerous enemy in a strong defensive position. The CSA could easily do better tactically but it can't meet the strategic issue, which is where the problem comes in.

The AotC was caught in a difficult position with its back to a major natural barrier. IOTL, the Confederate attack took the Yankees completely by surprise. In a TL where they conducted their attack much more carefully, I think that the AoT had at least a small chance to achieve a tremendous strategic success.

By contrast McLemore's Cove is one of those real strategic AH potential moments that had the chance to really ruin the Army of the Cumberland, and that was all Leonidas Polk's fault. If he'd decided to screw Bragg by showing Bragg what an idiot he was by attacking, the CSA might have actually had a very happy equivalent to the Chickamauga campaign. But he didn't even do that much.

I agree. McLemore's Cove was a better opportunity than was Peachtree Creek.

 

[Snake Featherston]

The AotC was caught in a difficult position with its back to a major natural barrier. IOTL, the Confederate attack took the Yankees completely by surprise. In a TL where they conducted their attack much more carefully, I think that the AoT had at least a small chance to achieve a tremendous strategic success.

IOTL the AoT experienced its usual problems of concentration of troops for an attack. Some of those issues were unavoidable regardless of who commanded, though better co-ordination would certainly have brought greater tactical results. Digging out Thomas where he's entrenched in a strong position, however, is a very hard task.

I agree. McLemore's Cove was a better opportunity than was Peachtree Creek.

Unfortunately it was one that has to be ceased by Polk.

 

[Anaxagoras]

Digging out Thomas where he's entrenched in a strong position, however, is a very hard task.

Of course, but at Peachtree Creek most of the AotC had not had time to entrench by the time the Confederates launched their attack.

 

[John Walton]

This question is interesting to me because it isn't implausible and it results in one major change to the course of the Civil War.

The first point about it is that it would not have saved Atlanta, and therefore could not have won the war. As is often said of him, Joe Johnston would have kept on retreating until he reached the tip of Florida, and that Davis was sabotaging him by not providing sea transport to Cuba.

It is conceivable that Johnston might have held Atlanta longer than Hood, but Sherman would have eventually cut his rail links and starved him out... and almost certainly in time for the 1864 elections. 'Nuff said.

However, if Johnston had been kept until after the fall of Atlanta, that means the Army of Tennessee avoids being fought out in defending Atlanta. It's job then becomes preventing further Federal penetration into Georgia or Alabama.

Sherman's March to the Sea might have been impossible under these conditions. A strong field army capable of blocking his path and forcing a major battle is a far different proposition from a weak field army that conveniently sidesteps out of the way and into Alabama (as Hood did). Sherman might very well have found himself tethered to Atlanta, forced into exactly the same situation he was trying to avoid by making the March to the Sea, namely being tethered to the end of a very long supply line in Atlanta.

So that is the only difference I can see coming out of this - Johnston's retention preserves the Army of Tennessee, if not Atlanta, and therefore blocks the March to the Sea. Sherman would most likely have to operate against Montgomery and Mobile instead.

 

[Elfwine]

I'm not sure it really does preserve the AoT that much better, at least not as a useful factor.

Either a) Johnston and/or his replacement has to use it to fight, which will bleed it or b) it stays the hell out of Sherman's way, which . . . doesn't do Georgia any good.

 

[Nytram01]

This question is interesting to me because it isn't implausible and it results in one major change to the course of the Civil War.

The first point about it is that it would not have saved Atlanta, and therefore could not have won the war. As is often said of him, Joe Johnston would have kept on retreating until he reached the tip of Florida, and that Davis was sabotaging him by not providing sea transport to Cuba

And that is always wrong for the simple fact that Joe Johnston had spent quite a considerable period of his professional career in Florida and he knew it quite well. Florida was not welcoming for any army, it would have been a good place for guerrilla warfare but Johnston, like most of his contemporaries, frowned on that kind of warfare. Johnston would have turned north into the Carolina's, he would never have even entertained any notion of heading into Florida.

Sherman's March to the Sea might have been impossible under these conditions. A strong field army capable of blocking his path and forcing a major battle is a far different proposition from a weak field army that conveniently sidesteps out of the way and into Alabama (as Hood did). Sherman might very well have found himself tethered to Atlanta, forced into exactly the same situation he was trying to avoid by making the March to the Sea, namely being tethered to the end of a very long supply line in Atlanta.

So that is the only difference I can see coming out of this - Johnston's retention preserves the Army of Tennessee, if not Atlanta, and therefore blocks the March to the Sea. Sherman would most likely have to operate against Montgomery and Mobile instead.

Shermans' march to the sea would have been totally impossible if Johnston had retained command. The March to the Sea was only undertaken in the first place because Sherman could pretty much guarentee that no major Confederate force would oppose him. Had he suffered fought one major battle during that movement his whole plan would have fallen apart.

Had Johnston retained command the Army of Tennessee would not have gone into North Georgia then into Tennessee, it would have kept in front of Sherman, slowing his advance.

 

[Nytram01]

I'm not sure it really does preserve the AoT that much better, at least not as a useful factor.

Either a) Johnston and/or his replacement has to use it to fight, which will bleed it or b) it stays the hell out of Sherman's way, which . . . doesn't do Georgia any good.

An interesting change would be what happens when Beauregard falls out with Lee and Davis in Virginia. In OTL he was shifted out to take command of the Department of the West - and subsequently ignored by Hood - but if Johnston had been retained then such a position would be impossible for Beauregard to hold, since the Confederate Army worked on the principal of seniority, but he may have been sent to join Johnston.

 

[Elfwine]

And that is always wrong for the simple fact that Joe Johnston had spent quite a considerable period of his professional career in Florida and he knew it quite well. Florida was not welcoming for any army, it would have been a good place for guerrilla warfare but Johnston, like most of his contemporaries, frowned on that kind of warfare. Johnston would have turned north into the Carolina's, he would never have even entertained any notion of heading into Florida.

As someone who uses the "would have retreated into Florida" as a snark, I wish to thank you from the standpoint of historical accuracy and fairness for pointing out its a very unjust thing to say in serious discussion of what Johnston would do.

I'm not a fan of Joe, but he wasn't a total nitwit. Just . . . cautious, uncooperative, and pessimistic.

An interesting change would be what happens when Beauregard falls out with Lee and Davis in Virginia. In OTL he was shifted out to take command of the Department of the West - and subsequently ignored by Hood - but if Johnston had been retained then such a position would be impossible for Beauregard to hold, since the Confederate Army worked on the principal of seniority, but he may have been sent to join Johnston.

I wonder how well or badly that would have gone.

I cannot see it pleasing Johnston. Not because Johnston was unpleasable, but because I don't think anyone would have welcomed having to work with Beauregard. Whether Beauregard would feel as badly on Joe is a question I wish I knew the answer to.

Though on the subject of facing Sherman: How would Sherman deal with that? I think he'd put more effort into destroying the AoT if it being in his way was a threat to his plans than when he could just outflank it all the way to Atlanta. Is this good for Johnston? Or will this end poorly?

The AoT fought hard, but its bound to be at least a little demoralized at this point.

Uncle Joe or not, they have just lost another campaign.

 

[Anaxagoras]

The AoT fought hard, but its bound to be at least a little demoralized at this point.

Uncle Joe or not, they have just lost another campaign.

This is a good point. IOTL, the men of the AoT recalled Johnston very fondly both during the war (Davis was heckled by soldiers calling for Johnston's return when he visited the army after Atlanta's fall) and after the war, but this was only after the miserable disappointment of Hood's tenure as a commander. One wonders how they would have viewed Johnston had he remained in charge until the city's fall.

Most anecdotal evidence supports the contention that the rank and file of the army still strongly supported Johnston right up to the moment he was replaced, but that some were beginning to question his strategy of avoiding battle.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

I'm not a fan of Joe, but he wasn't a total nitwit. Just . . . cautious, uncooperative, and pessimistic.
.

A southern mcclellan?

 

[Nytram01]

A southern mcclellan?

No. McClellan had a much bigger ego and was far more active in political quarrels. Johnston merely refused to communicate openly with Davis and happened to be friends with Davis's political opposition, he never actively opposed Davis's running of the war outside of official military channels, nor did he ever refuse to transfer units from his department to another out of spite as McClellan did, or refuse to follow orders without sound military reasons behind them. He wasn't Davis's friend, he wasn't Davis's man and he damn sure didn't fight the kind of war Davis wanted to fight.

 

[Elfwine]

A southern mcclellan?

No, although with a few of the same traits.

 

[Snake Featherston]

A southern mcclellan?

Only in the sense that he had an established pattern of not fighting when at least on the surface he reasonably had nothing to lose by doing so, had direct ties to the opposition in a civil war, tended to ensure everything that happened made him look better in the might have been as opposed to actually was war, had a predilection to be a better administrator than a field general, and had a major bone to pick with his President that meant he spent more of the war fighting Jeff Davis than the Union just as McClellan fought Lincoln, not the Confederacy.

In terms of how these similarities unfolded in practice, the two men were very different. I'd rate Old Joe over Little Mac ten times out of ten. Joe Johnston at least had a clear-cut victory in a battle where he commanded from the field.

 

[Snake Featherston]

No. McClellan had a much bigger ego and was far more active in political quarrels. Johnston merely refused to communicate openly with Davis and happened to be friends with Davis's political opposition, he never actively opposed Davis's running of the war outside of official military channels, nor did he ever refuse to transfer units from his department to another out of spite as McClellan did, or refuse to follow orders without sound military reasons behind them. He wasn't Davis's friend, he wasn't Davis's man and he damn sure didn't fight the kind of war Davis wanted to fight.

Just as McClellan was not Lincoln's friend, his man, or interested in fighting the war Lincoln wanted. McClellan was a Civil War MacArthur without the dubious benefit of fighting in a secondary theater where his megalomania was safely contained. Johnston at least has several battlefield victories to his credit in the Atlanta Campaign, McClellan has no unambiguous ictories at a strategic level, as opposed to Kennesaw Mountain, and McClellan's tactical victories were marred by MacArthur-level inability to use his troops in a fashion fitting the rank of general.

 

[Anaxagoras]

Uh oh. McClellan's been mentioned. 67th Tigers shall arrive in 10, 9, 8,...

 

[Nytram01]

In Criag L. Symond's biography of Joseph E. Johnston he writes in the conclusion about the oft made comparison between Johnston and McClellan:

More than one historian has suggested that there is some similarity between the wartime careers of Johnston and his old friend, George B. McClellan. Like Johnston, McClellan was loved by his men, he was reluctant to advance when urged to do so, and he was eventually dismissed by the chief executive. But the similarity is only superficial, for Johnston lacked McClellan's monumental ego and politcal ambition. Johnston sought no higher calling than to do his duty as a soldier; he never wanted anything more than command in the field and a clear definition of his authority and responsibility. While both men protested that they faced vastly superior armies in the field, in Johnston's case such claims were at least accurate.

Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography - Craig L. Symonds Page 385386.
​

 

[Snake Featherston]

In Criag L. Symond's biography of Joseph E. Johnston he writes in the conclusion about the oft made comparison between Johnston and McClellan:

More than one historian has suggested that there is some similarity between the wartime careers of Johnston and his old friend, George B. McClellan. Like Johnston, McClellan was loved by his men, he was reluctant to advance when urged to do so, and he was eventually dismissed by the chief executive. But the similarity is only superficial, for Johnston lacked McClellan's monumental ego and politcal ambition. Johnston sought no higher calling than to do his duty as a soldier; he never wanted anything more than command in the field and a clear definition of his authority and responsibility. While both men protested that they faced vastly superior armies in the field, in Johnston's case such claims were at least accurate.

Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography - Craig L. Symonds Page 385386.
​

Not to mention Joe Johnston at least has real-for-true victories at a strategic level to his credit. First Bull Run, Kennesaw Mountain, Allatoona Pass, and he performed at Bentonville better than any other CS force outside the one at Palmitto Pass. McClellan has a chronic pattern of tactical victories marred by bad tactical performance and inability to follow through with them. Joe Johnston never fought enough to judge his tactical performance one way or the other. As after all the problem with using First Bull Run as a barometer is how narrow a margin the CSA actually won by, a margin so narrow that it's arguable that the better performance went to the attackers in terms of the fighting, and it took a stray shot and retreating amidst civilians to break cohesion, this the CS Army not doing until said artillery shot. On the other hand the US Army *did* lose the battle and insofar as there was generalship, that was Joe Johnston, not Beauregard.

 

[Elfwine]

Johnston's estimates about Sherman's army . . . let's just say that he said different things at different times when trying to make different points.

I'd hate to get into this further, as raving about Johnston making up numbers wouldn't be very useful to this discussion.

Otherwise, agreed.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Johnston's estimates about Sherman's army . . . let's just say that he said different things at different times when trying to make different points.

I'd hate to get into this further, as raving about Johnston making up numbers wouldn't be very useful to this discussion.

Otherwise, agreed.

Yup. Either it was just weak enough that his strategy was working or too strong to attack at any individual point, never mind the huge number of problems with an army being both at once. OTOH, the number of soldiers in Civil War armies is about the fuzziest matter those armies have to start with, so.....yeah..

 

[Anaxagoras]

Here's a question: if Johnston had been kept in command and managed to inflict a serious tactical defeat on Sherman, stopping (at least temporarily) the Union advance on Atlanta, how would Davis have reacted? Their personal relationship was long since beyond repair by then, and assuming that Johnston did not follow up his success with a counter offensive, he would soon have become frustrated and angry with Johnston just as he did in June and July.