http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/ Discussion about the War Between the States. en Tue, 21 May 2013 22:38:13 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/images/misc/rss.png http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/ http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/64011-going-great-weekend.html Fri, 17 May 2013 14:37:35 GMT Picking up my buddy from the airport in 2 hours and we are setting up for a Civil Wargasm.

This afternoon we head to Deep Bottom & Fort Harrison

Tomorrow up to Culpepper & Fauquier counties to do the Bristoe Station & Mine Run Campaigns.

Sunday back into the same area to cover the battles of Kelly's Ford, Brandy Station and Cedar Mountain.

Not the best known or most visited of the battlefields in Virginia but have been spending the sesqucentennial trying to cover those areas which don't receive the most notice and interest.

And yes, to quote Homer Simpson, there will be beer!

I'll be WAB-less until Tuesday. ]]> American Civil War Albany Rifles http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/64011-going-great-weekend.html http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/64009-today-american-civil-war.html Thu, 16 May 2013 20:41:41 GMT Rather than psoting a bunch of separate threads I figured I would just use this as a catch all.

Today 16 May 1863 was the Battle of Campion's Hill, the largest and bloodiest of the battles of the Vicksburg Campaign.

Battle of Champion Hill - Northern Portion ]]> American Civil War Albany Rifles http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/64009-today-american-civil-war.html http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/64004-15-may-1864-a.html Wed, 15 May 2013 13:36:20 GMT Breckenridge defeats Segal at the Battle of New Market.

Here in the Commonwealth of Virginia New Market day has a special meaning as it saw the Corps of Cadets from the Virginia Military Institue going into battle as part of Breckenridge's army.

“...and May God Forgive Me for the Order”

While I am not an Alum it has some meaning for me. A lot of my friends are alumni.

And the first one of my Scouts who achieved Eagle when I was a Scoutmaster is being commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Field Artillery this morning at the Joint ROTC Commissioning Ceremony at VMI. ]]> American Civil War Albany Rifles http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/64004-15-may-1864-a.html http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/63991-151-150-149-years-ago-today-10-may.html Fri, 10 May 2013 19:01:07 GMT 150 years ago, right about now, Stonewall Jackson Crossed over the river and began his rest benath the trees. At about the same time 149 years ago, Emory Upton organized the 12 regiment-strong assault column which was launched at 1800 and smashed a hole in the Confederate lines at the center of... 150 years ago, right about now, Stonewall Jackson Crossed over the river and began his rest benath the trees.

At about the same time 149 years ago, Emory Upton organized the 12 regiment-strong assault column which was launched at 1800 and smashed a hole in the Confederate lines at the center of Dole's Salient. One of those 12 regiments was the 43rd New York Volunteer Infantry, the Albany Rifles.

151 years ago Jefferson Davis was captured near Irwinville, GA. ]]> American Civil War Albany Rifles http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/63991-151-150-149-years-ago-today-10-may.html http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/63977-may-149-150-years-ago.html Mon, 06 May 2013 17:26:25 GMT As we are now in the midst of the swarm of ACW 150th Anniversary remembrances I am drawn to the time frame of the month of May 1863 & 1864. In each year May was to prove the decisive time on the calendar for all that was to follow.

In May 1863 at Chancellorsville, Lee�s ANV defeated Hooker�s much larger AOP in central Virginia. The Confederate victory was to have far ranging implications for the coming year. That Lee defeated a force almost twice his size with aggressive tactics, imagination and tenacity goes without saying. However, at what price? He lost over 13,000 men almost 22% of his force including his most able subordinate, Jackson. The Confederacy could scarcely afford such pyrrhic victories and hope to survive. But Lee�s success emboldened him to move northward later that spring once he had reconstituted his army.

On the same day (30 April 1863) as Hooker crossed the Rappahannock to head into the Wilderness 950 miles southwest Grant crossed the Mississippi with the lead elements of the Army of the Tennessee. Defeating a Confederate force at Port Gibson, MS on 1 May�..on terrain that made the Wilderness look like a parking lot�.Grant pushed north towards Vicksburg. As he got close to the city he realized the Confederate defenses were too strong. After 5 months of trying to get Vicksburg he realized the secret was to cut it off from supplies. To do this he engaged in a campaign more audacious than Lee at Chancellorsville�.move inland and fall on the Jackson-Vicksburg RR and cut off the city from the east. In a 14 day time span Grant and his army cut themselves free from the their supply line (except for a few wagon trains with ammo and evacuated the wounded) and fought and won 4 battles while moving 200 miles through the Mississippi backcountry. And unlike Hooker�s poor use of Stoneman�s cavalry raid, Grant�s use of Grierson was wildly successful. Vicksburg would fall 6 weeks later 4 July 1863, one day after Gettysburg. Grant�s success would catapult him to overall command in the Western Theater. May would also see the beginning of the Port Hudson siege, which together with success at Vicksburg, would open the Mississippi.

Go forward a year to 1864. May saw the beginning of the campaigns which were to decide the war. In the East 2 campaigns kicked off within days of each other. The Overland Campaign headed across the Rappahannock on 4 May never to turn back. 5 � 7 May saw the fighting in the Wilderness in which both armies took casualties which were to foretell what would occur for the rest of the war. It also again cost Lee his most capable commander�2 miles almost to the day when he lost Jackson he lost Longstreet, again to a case of fratricide. And he would lose his most able cavalry commander at Yellow Tavern on 11 May. Additional it marked the ascendency of Union cavalry under one of the greatest hard cases in US military history�.Phil Sheridan.

In the Shenandoah Valley a series of fits and stops was to occur starting in May which at first was to come to folly for the Union but was eventually going to result in ultimate Union victory that fall at Cedar Creek.

In the west Sherman began his campaign which was eventually going to wrest the second most important city from the Confederacy by the end of August. Sherman�s effective maneuver campaign through the mountains of NW Georgia was a masterful application of force in restricted terrain to force an opponent out of entrenched positions.

Does anyone else have any thoughts or comments to share? ]]> American Civil War Albany Rifles http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/63977-may-149-150-years-ago.html http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/63974-union-artillery-chancellorsville.html Mon, 06 May 2013 15:16:14 GMT ...or more great stuff stolen off of the web.

This post is from the EXCELLENT blog, Craig Swain's To the Sound of the Guns

��such a palpable crippling of a great arm��: Hunt�s assessment of Chancellorsville

Posted on 5 May 2013 | 1 Comment


I don�t think it a stretch to advance the notion May 3, 1863 was the greatest day for Confederate field artillery in the Civil War (although we may also mention August 30, 1862�). The �Long Arm of Lee� dominated the battlefield around Chancellors Crossroads that day. One of the few occasions where the Confederate gunners held the upper hand on their Army of the Potomac counterparts. Favorable terrain � namely Hazel Grove plateau, conceded by the Federals � accounted for the performance. Skillful employment of the guns by able officers such as Colonel E.P. Alexander and Major W.T. Pegram. On paper, the Confederate batteries were at a disadvantage in caliber and quality. Their shells proved faulty. Yet the Confederate gunners dominated the battlefield for the critical phases of fighting that Sunday.

The Federal guns were not badly mismanaged at the tactical level in order to setup this scenario. Indeed the guns assembled by Captain Clermont Best at Fareview might have held firm given a few changes of circumstance. But in the assessment of Brigadier-General Henry J. Hunt, the Army of the Potomac�s Chief of Artillery, the blame lay at the feet of his commander � Major-General Joseph Hooker � and how the artillery arm was managed in the months before the campaign. Although, when first assuming command that winter, Hooker made organizational changes which favored employment and massing of artillery, he also diminished the Chief of Artillery�s role considerably. Early in the Chancellorsville campaign, Hooker dispatched Hunt to direct the artillery protecting the fords over the Rappahannock.



That in context, consider the closing paragraphs of Hunt�s report of the campaign:


In justice to the artillery, and to myself, I think it necessary to state certain circumstances affecting its condition and losses in these operations. The command of the artillery, which I held under Generals McClellan and Burnside, and exercised at the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg, was withdrawn from me when you assumed command of the army, and my duties made purely administrative, under circumstances very unfavorable to their efficient performance. I heard after the movement commenced that, when the corps were put in motion to cross the river, they left part of their artillery in their camps. No notice of this was given to me, and it was only by accident that I learned that the batteries so left behind were afterward ordered to rejoin their corps. As soon as the battle commenced on Friday morning, I began to receive demands from corps commanders for more artillery, which I was unable to comply with, except partially, and at the risk of deranging the plans of other corps commanders. That same morning I was ordered to Banks� Ford, to take command there, and was absent at that place until the night of the 3d from general headquarters.

The promotion of many of the old artillery officers, and the invariable transfer which accompanied it to other duties, weakened the regular batteries exceedingly, and at the same time deprived the divisional artillery of experienced commanders. The limitation of officers of four-gun batteries crippled the volunteer service, and the want of field officers added to the great difficulties under which the arm labored. It will, perhaps, hardly be believed that for the command and management in their operations of the artillery of the army, consisting of 412 guns, 980 artillery carriages, 9,543 men and officers, and 8,544 horses, besides their large ammunition trains, there were but five field officers of artillery in the army, and from the scarcity of officers of inferior grades these officers had miserably insufficient staffs. Add to this that there was no commander of all the artillery until a late period of the operations, and I doubt if the history of modern armies can exhibit a parallel instance of such palpable crippling of a great arm of the service in the very presence of a powerful enemy, to overcome whom would require every energy of all arms under the most favorable circumstances. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that confusion and mismanagement ensued, and it is creditable to the batteries themselves, and to the officers who commanded them, that they did so well. Fourteen guns were lost, but the most of these losses (eight) occurred in the rout of the Eleventh Corps, and all of them before Colonel Wainwright or myself was placed in command of the whole artillery.

Now that is how you tell off your boss!

For the record, however, Hunt posted this report a little late� well maybe conspicuously late� August 1, 1863. By then Hooker was relieved and Hunt was fully vindicated by the performance of the artillery at Gettysburg. Firm footing for criticism. I would add, in Hooker�s defense, that in the weeks following Chancellorsville the army commander made changes to address the ills cited by Hunt. The lessons of Chancellorsville were not completely lost on Joe Hooker. Can we at least say a few positive things about Fighting Joe?

I believe that if Hunt had been in command, rather than in a staff position, at Chancellorsville then the Union position on Hazel Grave would have been better tended. An artillery commander could have argued more forcefully with Hooker to reinforce III Corps and hold that decisive terrain for Union artillery to use. As is pointed out, Henry Hunt returning to command the AOP artillery was indeed a turning point in the war.

And shortly would come the rise of the Union cavalry. ]]> American Civil War Albany Rifles http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/63974-union-artillery-chancellorsville.html http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/63955-2-letters-sent-149-years-ago.html Wed, 01 May 2013 19:55:19 GMT Stolen from the excellent Crossroads blog of DR Brooks Simpson *Executive Mansion Washington, April 30, 1864 Lieutenant General Grant. Not expecting to see you again before the Spring Campaign opens, I wish to express, in this way, my entire satisfaction with what you have done up... Stolen from the excellent Crossroads blog of DR Brooks Simpson


Executive Mansion

Washington, April 30, 1864

Lieutenant General Grant.

Not expecting to see you again before the Spring Campaign opens, I wish to express, in this way, my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plans I neither know, or seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster, or the capture of our men in great numbers, shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would be mine. If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it.

And now with a brave Army, and a just cause, may God sustain you.

Yours very truly

A. Lincoln
������������

Headquarters Armies of the United States

Culpepper C. H. Va. May 1st 1864

The President,

Your very kind letter of yesterday is just received. The confidence you express for the future, and satisfaction with the past, in my Military administration is acknowledged with pride. It will be my earnest endeavor that you, and the country, shall not be disappointed.

From my first entrance into the volunteer service of the country, to the present day, I have never had cause of complaint, have never expressed or implied a complaint, against the Administration, or the Sec. of War, for throwing any embarassment in the way of my vigerously prossecuting what appeared to me my duty. Indeed since the promotion which placed me in command of all the Armies, and in view of the great responsibility, and importance of success, I have been astonished at the readiness with which every thin asked for has been yielded without even an explaination being asked. Should my success be less than I desire, and expect, the least I can say is, the fault is not with you.

Very truly

your obt. svt.

U. S. Grant

Lt. Gen.

Several things jump out at me as I read these notes....and my thoughts were mirrored by commentators on the site.

The genuine regard these 2 sons of Illinois held for each other.

The self taught writer's better grasp of grammar and spelling over the formally educated writer.

Lincoln's comment that he was not going to tell Grant how to suck the egg, just get the egg sucked. And Grant's acknowledgment that he had gotten all the support and he would offer no excuses for any failures.

And the horrible longview of history knowing how many dead and maimed would result over the next 11 months to come. ]]> American Civil War Albany Rifles http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/american-civil-war/63955-2-letters-sent-149-years-ago.html