Bluesman

Okay, I follow all that.

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"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

JAD_333

I think Shiloh in April 1862 was as decisive as they get. It was the beginning of the end of CSA's control of the Mississippi. Antietam that September might have been the icing on the cake as far as getting European recognition, but Shiloh was certainly a habinger of what was to come; that is, if Britain and France were paying attention. Paired with Grant's brilliant Vicksburg campaign the following year, Shiloh, also identified a Union leader who had what it took to utilize the Union's superiority in manpower and materiale to win the war.

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To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education. (Plato)

astralis

JAD,

a remarkably good choice, if i may say so myself

Eastern vs. Western Theater in the American Civil War?

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Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

JAD_333

Why, thank you, Astralis. It is a rare moment, indeed, when we agree.

Thanks for the links.

Bluesman

I don't see it. If it was the beginning of the end of the CSA's control of the Mississsippi, what ended that control, and wouldn't THAT be the decisive event? Also, was the loss of control of Big Muddy THE ONE THING that made Union victory inevitable? Certainly, it made it more probable, but were there not subsequent events that made a Confederate victory possible? Undoubtedly, there were, therefore loss of control of the Mississippi River did not decide the outcome of the war.

Shiloh was, indeed, a harbinger of what was to come, but that's never been a good definition of 'decisive'. Indeed, the battle decided not very much at all.

Try to make me understand your point. In what sense was Shiloh decisive, 'as decisive as they get'?

JAD_333

That's a tall order, Sarge... "As decisive" as some other key battles.... There are no absolutes here. I think when we view the Civil War from afar we see a handful of major strategic struggles, each of which hinged on a decisive battle.

Shiloh is such a battle. Winning it allowed the Union to proceed with its strategy of splitting the Confederacy in two. Controlling the Mississippi was key to that strategy because it meant control of Louisiana through which vital war materials came from Texas and Mexico, and neutraization of New Orlean, which was a vital manufacturing, shipbuilding and also a trans-shipment point for the South.

Shiloh, regardless of how it came about, was decisive in that context. Had the South won the battle, they would have retained control of the Mississippi for who knows how long. But having lost it, they could no longer prevent the Union from eventually gaining control of the river.

There were other decisive battles. For example, in the Shenandoah Valley, there was the 3rd Battle of Winchester in Sept 1864 in which Sheridan defeated Early. This was a devastating loss because, thereafter, the South no longer had access to what had been its most abundant source of food.

ExNavyAmerican

IMO, if the South had won Shiloh it would have been decisive as it would effectively destroyed an entire union army -but since they lost, it's, imo, no more decisive then Pea Ridge.

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"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever."
- Thomas Jefferson

JAD_333

But the South didn't, and that is the whole point. What is the logic in diverting a whole army to attack a specific foe in a specific place and in regarding the outcome as decisive only if you win and of no consequence if you lose? The loss had definite consequences; it failed to stop the North's campaign to gain control of the Mississipii.

I am not a military person, so correct me if I am wrong. But don't terms like decisive or indecisive define the battle regardless of who wins?

ExNavyAmerican

The reason I deny its decisiveness is because it didn't stop, or start, anything. The south failed to stop the union advance -meaning the advance had already started. If it hadn't had been fought, it wouldn't have changed anything. It's like Antietam or Franklin -it didn't effect anything on the greater tactical scale.

Bluesman

CORRECT; you, sir, have a complete understanding of the word 'decisive'.

Bluesman

[quote]Sounds like that's the PERFECT circumstances when to decide to offer battle. What is the logic of going into a battle with NOTHING to gain, EVERYTHING to lose? (Like Franklin, if anybody would care to give my point some additional consideration.)

Now, who here is arguing that it didn't have consequences? Of course it did, but not of the 'war-ending' magnitude that the word 'decisive' implies.

No, definitely NOT. Battles may be fought to a definite conclusive result, BUT without changing the outcome of the war one little bit. I give you the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. The treaty had already been signed before the British were absolutely CRUSHED, and that battle didn't change a single word of the treaty's terms.

And all those phyrric victories that, while one side levelled the other, the winners wished they'd never fought at all, much less won. 'Decisive' means that matters were decided conclusively by that event. Like I keep saying, FRANKLIN definitely did decide the matter in the West, and therefore the war. After it was fought, there was simply nothing else that could've happened that would guarantee Confederate independence. No other field battle meets that criteria, although if we include the Siege of Petersburg, in which Lee was compelled to participate, and which he could not conceivably win...it was OVER, baby.

JAD_333

[quote=Bluesman;423146]That's the same question I asked.


Ah. There's the problem. We're using the word decisive differently. To you its the one battle that tips the balance in the whole war, while to me its the battle that tips the balance in a achieving a major strategic objective. I said that in a previous post.


I agree that Franklin was decisive; or perhaps demonstrative; it pretty much showed that Confederate forces were all washed up and had no hope of winning the war. But Franklin was fought in the fall of 1864 a full 2 1/2 years after Shiloh and more than a year after Vicksburg.

Those earlier Union victories contributed to Hood's defeat at Franklin. By the time Hood launched his foray into Tennessee hoping to score a surpirse victory Union forces, his army was sadly ill equipped and suffering shortages of every kind. Those shortages came about because the Union had succeeded in carrying out its strategy to take control of the Mississippi, and in so doing had split the Confederacy in two, thereby cutting its supply routes from the western half.

Shiloh had been an effort by the Confederacy to twart the Union's plans; it failed. It was a decisive battle for both sides. It decided for the Union that it could continue with its plans; and it decided for the Confederacy that it could not stop the Union's plans. After Vicksburg, the Confederacy was forced to fall back on a much smaller manufacturing base mainly centered in Selma and Atlanta. By the time of Frankin, Atlanta has fallen, and with it the last major manufacturing center the South had. It all goes back to Shiloh.

This isn't the first time, nor will it be the last, that we've wrangled over the meaning of a word. The way I see it is that the word decisive derives from the verb to decide. Shiloh was fought to decide something and something was decided. Maybe other words would have been better in dealing with the basic question, such as pivotal, in which case Gettysburg was probably the pivotal battle of the war, because after it the South was forced to go on the defensive.

JAD_333

The reason I affirm its decisiveness is because it decided something.

That doesn't add up. Of course the advance had already started; that's why the South tried to stop it; they initiated a battle against the Union forces and lost. You can't be serious if you think that the battle decided nothing. Didn't the South try to win?

You don't think denying the South its supply lines from Texas and Mexico, and taking away New Orleans affected anything?

ExNavyAmerican

What exactly?

It didn't decide anything because nothing had changed after the battle. The North was still advancing, the south was still retreating. If it had been won by the south it would have been decisive because it would have killed any hope of capturing Vicksburg for another year. But since it wasn't, all things, tactically, were the same after the battle as they were before.

What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Shiloh had no influence over any of this. New Orelans was taken independently.

ExNavyAmerican

JAD 333;

I see your rationalle now.

But if the battle hadn't have been fought, the results would have been the same.