Most Decisive US Civil War Battle

[Bluesman]

That's the same question I asked.

No, it isn't. YOU said:

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?

And I said, when is there a BETTER time to risk battle? if you have a potential to score an enormously positive outcome with a win, but if you lose there will be no great calamity...go for it. It's like betting a lead slug to win a hundred dollar bill. And that's what Johnston saw, too: 'If the we destroy - not wound, not merely temporarily check, but utterly annihilate - a major enemy army, we will secure the majority of our country indefinitely. If we fail to do this, we'll be back in Corinth in about two weeks.' And so it proved, except he didn't personally survive the trip.

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.

Well, it can hardly be decisive if it achieves any ole major strategic objective. THE major strategic objective, the one that brings matters to a conclusion, and then we're talkin'. I keep writing it but nobody's paying attention: 'DECISIVE' means it DECIDED the matter. Not 'contributed', not 'advanced the cause'; DECIDED. Shiloh didn't decide much of anything at all, much less being 'as decisive as they get'. Is a chess game over when you lose your queen? No, although it makes winning very much harder. The DECISIVE move is the one - THE ONE, ALONE - beyond which there is no possible chance to win.

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.

I disagree. None of that necessarily led to Franklin. There were an infinite number of possible branches in the timeline of historical happenings, and the ONLY one of these that made Franklin inevitable was Hood's own decision to fight a completely optional battle. Shiloh did NOT lead inevitably to Franklin, nor did anything else. Only Hood's completely unilateral decision, reached against the expert and wise advice of his clear-headed subordinates, led to the decisive event of the war.

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.

No, unless you subscribe to the belief that everything was pre-ordained, and then you'd have to say that the firing on Fort Sumter was the decisive event.

There were MANY subsequent events that may have turned out completely differently. It was not a victory at Shiloh that 'caused' Vicksburg's fall, and I posit to YOU that it had the equally even odds that it would've seen Vicksburg safe, EVEN WITH THE SAME BATTLEFIELD OUTCOME.

There was a very serious inquiry held into the fact that General Grant had been surprised, was very nearly destroyed, and wasn't even present with his army when the attack opened, arriving from many miles away, possibly under the influence of alcohol. It was reccommended that he be relieved, and I seriously doubt that in the MORE than likely event that he had been, Vicksburg, taken only becuase of Grant's bulldog determination and iron will, may not have fallen AT ALL.

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.:)

Once more, because nobody in this thread is reading for comprehension, it seems: Shiloh's outcome did not make Union victory inevitable. It did not make Confederate defeat inevitable. It did NOT decide ANYthing of any great importance. If other things had come from that battle, it MAY have, such as the postulated relief of General Grant, for instance. (And who knows, the death of what many considered to be the South's greatest soldier, Johnston, MAY have been decisive, because as anybody can perceive, neither Beauregard nor the hapless Bragg was his equal.)

BUT...what we DO know is that the actual, historical results that came from the Battle of Shiloh makes the claim that after that day in April '62, the South's defeat was inevitable is simply false.

NOT DECISIVE.

[Albany Rifles]

Vicksburg

That was the SEIGE of Vicksburg. Not, properly speaking a battle.

Bluesman

I assure you, that while, yes, there was seige at Vicksburg, there were, in fact several battles in the overall campaign. The events at teh city cannot be taken in isolation. Grant's success at Port Gibson/Grand Gulf, Raymond, Jackson, Champion's Hill and Big Black River allowed the Union to isolate Vicksburg. Without those victories Grant would not have been able to cut off Vicksburg.

[Bluesman]

Bluesman

I assure you, that while, yes, there was seige at Vicksburg, there were, in fact several battles in the overall campaign. The events at teh city cannot be taken in isolation. Grant's success at Port Gibson/Grand Gulf, Raymond, Jackson, Champion's Hill and Big Black River allowed the Union to isolate Vicksburg. Without those victories Grant would not have been able to cut off Vicksburg.

Oh, of course. I've been to Vicksburg twice, and there are PLENTY of sites that are proper battlefields not just on the approach to Vicksburg, but in the vicinity of it, too, in addition to the old seige works.

But none of 'em got the job done. The city fell after the seige took hold, not by storm. So, my point was that the SEIGE of Vicksburg was immensely important, the battles not so much. (Your point that, without those battles, there would've been either no seige or it would've taken on a different aspect is well-taken. But I think you get MY point, right?)

[Albany Rifles]

Bluesman

I got your point; however, I gather from your comments that you believed that a seige was a forgone conclusion. I don't think it was. Grant had been trying for 6 months to get at Vicksburg but couldn't. It was only through his maneuver campaign that allowed him to isolate it from the land...but, of course, you know that.

When were you last there? I was just there a month ago. If it has been recent I would like your opinion how how they have started restoring the battlefield to how it looked at the time; i.e., clearing the trees out, etc. I had not been there in about 6 years so it was really good to see it.

[The Black Ghost]

I would say Antietam, because it was the first time the Confederates truly lost the initiative. It also stopped European involvement in the war, which was VERY close to recognizing the independence of the South.

Gettysburg was the real turning point though, because the outcome decided the war. Had the Confederates used a little sense, and somehow won the battle, the South hypothetically could have won the war.

[Bluesman]

I got your point; however, I gather from your comments that you believed that a seige was a forgone conclusion. I don't think it was. Grant had been trying for 6 months to get at Vicksburg but couldn't. It was only through his maneuver campaign that allowed him to isolate it from the land...but, of course, you know that.

When were you last there? I was just there a month ago. If it has been recent I would like your opinion how how they have started restoring the battlefield to how it looked at the time; i.e., clearing the trees out, etc. I had not been there in about 6 years so it was really good to see it.

Comin' up on 30 years ago now.

When I was a kid growing up in Tennessee, my dad and I would spend about a month reading and studying different battles, then we'd leave early Saturday morning for the weekend and go to the battlefield, get a room close-by, and spend the remainder of Saturday with a guidebook or our favorite history of the battle. We'd stomp all around the battlefield (or whatever remained of it), then at sundown go back to the room, read the books some more, then take the park rangers' walking tour on Sunday.

It was AWESOME, and my dad is the one that instilled in me the love of history, particularly the Civil War.

It's been MANY years now since I've walked Vicksburg and Shiloh and Murfreesboro and Brice's Crossroads and on and on and on...

On our first visit to Shiloh, we found the unit marker for the 154th Tennessee Volunteer Infantry Regiment...in whose ranks my ancestor, George Washington Bluesman:P fought his one and only engagement. Read about him here. I literally changed in that moment, on that spot, and my family's past became real to me. I have never seen my father so moved before, or at any other time until his death. I can still remember the whole thing.

There's a riderless bronze horse where Johnston was hit by the fateful stray bullet, and we were going all around Prentiss' position at the Hornet's Nest and Bloody Pond just about sundown...at about the same time of day the general was mortally wounded. Again, an unforgettable moment, and when we went back to the hotel, we were both a bit skeevy. It was an intense experience. It was only our second time to visit a battlefield, and I think it was our best trip EVER.

ANYhoo, I've been to Shiloh about six times or so, Murfreesboro/Stones River four times, Chatanooga and Chickamauga four times each, Vicksburg twice, and a whole bunch of other places a time or two each: Brice's Crossroads, Cumberland Gap, Peachtree Creek, Kennesaw Mountain, etc.

Oh, and lastly: no, I don't think the ONSET of the seige was a foregone conclusion AT ALL, in fact, I've been arguing that proposition all along: the events could've gone any which way after Shiloh, not necessarily leading to the fall of Vicksburg after a seige.

But once Pemberton made the worst decision on either side during the campaign, and fell back into Vicksburg and shut the door...Vicksburg was almost certainly doomed. Pemberton had just locked up the only relief force that could've saved the city. Even though a relief effort was attempted later, it was always a no-go: the city would fall, because Grant willed it so, and had the instrument to compel it, even if it were done by slow seige instead of sudden storm. THAT is the part I think was inevitable: once Pemberton could no longer manuever against Grant, game over.

[Bluesman]

Oh, and continuing my chess analogy: Vicksburg's capture and the attendant opening of Big Muddy to Union navigation and the closing of same to the Confederates was the equivalent of capturing the Confederate queen. It doesn't end the war, nor even make the outcome certain. But it sure made it a LOT more probable, and the Confederacy was a prohibitive long-odds gamble from then on.

[Bluesman]

I would say Antietam, because it was the first time the Confederates truly lost the initiative. It also stopped European involvement in the war, which was VERY close to recognizing the independence of the South.

Gettysburg was the real turning point though, because the outcome decided the war. Had the Confederates used a little sense, and somehow won the battle, the South hypothetically could have won the war.

Re: Gettysburg, the last half of your sentence is true, but not necessarily the first half. Suppose Atlanta does NOT fall, and the '64 election goes against Lincoln, as even HE thought it would. The Confederacy's last best hope - elecoral victory from the Peace Party (the Democrats, as always ) saves the day and allows the dissolution of the Union. the South wins their independence. The outcome of the battle wasn't the decisive result the South sought, NOR was it the destruction of Lee's army too far away from safe territory to reach succor in time that Lincoln was so livid about that he dam' near sacked the only general the Army of the Potomac had ever had that had led it to a uncontested victory. NOT DECISIVE.

Antietam for similar reasons. The South MAY have still won the war, even after barely hanging on at Sharpsburg. The battle decided two things: the first invasion of the North was over (but there would be others, so there was no real and permanent effect of THAT), and the Emancipation Proclamation COULD be issued, just barely, and with the stink of being unable to enforce it anywhere but where Federal forces actually existed all over it. The Euros decided that, yeah, it was good enough, BARELY, to make 'em take a seat on the sidelines to see what happened next, but even so...the South dam' near did it, anyway. NOT DECISIVE.

[JAD_333]

No, it isn't.

And I said, when is there a BETTER time to risk battle? if you have a potential to score an enormously positive outcome with a win, but if you lose there will be no great calamity...go for it. It's like betting a lead slug to win a hundred dollar bill. And that's what Johnston saw, too: 'If the we destroy - not wound, not merely temporarily check, but utterly annihilate - a major enemy army, we will secure the majority of our country indefinitely. If we fail to do this, we'll be back in Corinth in about two weeks.' And so it proved, except he didn't personally survive the trip.

Yes, they are. The questions are worded differently, but they're in the same vein.

I said:

What is the logic in...regarding the outcome as decisive only if you win and of no consequence if you lose?

Your reply in your previous post was: "Sounds like that's the PERFECT circumstances when to decide to offer battle." Then you immediately followed up with a question:

What is the logic of going into a battle with NOTHING to gain, EVERYTHING to lose?

Same question to me.

And I said, when is there a BETTER time to risk battle?

Actually, you didn't put that as a question to start with. hmm...I'll leave that as a molehill...

If you have a potential to score an enormously positive outcome with a win, but if you lose there will be no great calamity...go for it.

That may be so, but being so does not make it the reason Johnston attacked Grant at Shiloh. Lee saw a threat and recommended action to Jefferson Davis, who approved sending Johnston to confront Grant in hopes of stopping the Union advance southward along the Mississippi.

It's like betting a lead slug to win a hundred dollar bill. And that's what Johnston saw, too: 'If the we destroy - not wound, not merely temporarily check, but utterly annihilate - a major enemy army, we will secure the majority of our country indefinitely. If we fail to do this, we'll be back in Corinth in about two weeks.' And so it proved, except he didn't personally survive the trip.

Johnston might have reasoned that win or lose, he wins or at least doesn't lose, but he was wrong. Anyway, what he said carries no weight in the argument. Only the outcome of the battle does.

Well, it can hardly be decisive if it achieves any ole major strategic objective. THE major strategic objective, the one that brings matters to a conclusion, and then we're talkin'.

Why not? The history of warfare is full of statements, such as 'X battle was one of the "decisive" battles of Y war'. But it doesn't matter to me that you want it to be just ONE battle in the war. If that is how you see it, I'm ok with it, but I'm sticking to my parochial view: a war can have a number of decisive battles, and generally they are the ones that decide the outcome of some major strategic objective.

I keep writing it but nobody's paying attention: 'DECISIVE' means it DECIDED the matter. Not 'contributed', not 'advanced the cause'; DECIDED.

I pay attention to everything you write.:) I understand exactly what you are saying. I just don't agree with you this time. All battles decide something. Now if you want to modify the word and say "most decisive" etc. etc., then ok.

Shiloh didn't decide much of anything at all, much less being 'as decisive as they get'. Is a chess game over when you lose your queen? No, although it makes winning very much harder. The DECISIVE move is the one - THE ONE, ALONE - beyond which there is no possible chance to win.

I think Shiloh did decide something; it decided the South could not stop the Union's strategy to split the Confederacy. I stated several times how serious it was to the south's war effort to lose control of the Mississippi. Do you agree or disagree? BTW, a faulty pawn move in the early part of the game can be most decisive in losing a chess match.

... None of that necessarily led to Franklin. There were an infinite number of possible branches in the timeline of historical happenings, and the ONLY one of these that made Franklin inevitable was Hood's own decision to fight a completely optional battle.

I didn't say it led to the battle itself. I said that Hood's army was ill equipped when he invaded Tennessee. It wasn't because he forgot to stop at the depot to pick up new equipment; it was because there was no more equipment to be had. And why wasn't there any? Because more than a year before, the Union had closed off the western supply routes critical to the south, and that came about because the Union strategy of splitting the Confederacy in half at the Mississippi River succeeded.

Shiloh did NOT lead inevitably to Franklin, nor did anything else. Only Hood's completely unilateral decision, reached against the expert and wise advice of his clear-headed subordinates, led to the decisive event of the war.

Again, I didn't say it did. According to your definition of "decisive" battle, i.e., the one that "ends" the war, maybe it was, although I think the decisive battle that best fits your "one battle" concept was Gettysburg. It ended all hope of getting foreign assistance and put the South on the defensive from then on.

No, unless you subscribe to the belief that everything was pre-ordained, and then you'd have to say that the firing on Fort Sumter was the decisive event.

Right. And don't forget to give some caveman credit for stepping on a butterfly 20,000 years ago. Nothing is pre-ordained in war. But all events have repercussions, somwtimes minor, sometime major. Shiloh was a key stepping stone in the successful campaign to constrict the South's access to needed war materials. So, if Hood was short of equipment, one can presume there was a direct chain of events going back that led to the shortage. Otherwise, your statement that Hood acted on his own intitiative is right.

There were MANY subsequent events that may have turned out completely differently. It was not a victory at Shiloh that 'caused' Vicksburg's fall, and I posit to YOU that it had the equally even odds that it would've seen Vicksburg safe, EVEN WITH THE SAME BATTLEFIELD OUTCOME.

Yes, but WE are talking about events that WE know turned out as they did. What could have been, has not been. Vickburg's safety became an issue because the South could not stop the Union advance. Their attempt to do so failed at Shiloh.

There was a very serious inquiry held into the fact that General Grant had been surprised, was very nearly destroyed, and wasn't even present with his army when the attack opened, arriving from many miles away, possibly under the influence of alcohol. It was reccommended that he be relieved, and I seriously doubt that in the MORE than likely event that he had been, Vicksburg, taken only becuase of Grant's bulldog determination and iron will, may not have fallen AT ALL.

He was there, but not expecting an attack despite numerous reports of major skirmishing nearby. He was sick with a case of dysentery as were many of the troops. He always drank like a fish and chomped on cigars...but those close to him say it never affected his ability to command. There was an inquiry in his actions, as there always was after a battle. He was criticized for lack of preparedness, but also commended for his battlefield actions, expecially his innovative use of massed artillery and for showing up all over the battlefield to rally his commanders and troops.

Once more, because nobody in this thread is reading for comprehension, it seems: Shiloh's outcome did not make Union victory inevitable. It did not make Confederate defeat inevitable.

I comprehend what you're saying. For one thing, you're incorrectly interpreting what I am saying. Once more for the record: I am saying only that Shiloh was ONE of the decisive battles of the war, and I have given my reasons, which btw you have chosen to ignor altogether.

It did NOT decide ANYthing of any great importance. If other things had come from that battle, it MAY have, such as the postulated relief of General Grant, for instance. (And who knows, the death of what many considered to be the South's greatest soldier, Johnston, MAY have been decisive, because as anybody can perceive, neither Beauregard nor the hapless Bragg was his equal.)

BUT...what we DO know is that the actual, historical results that came from the Battle of Shiloh makes the claim that after that day in April '62, the South's defeat was inevitable is simply false.

Of course, it's false, but it's also false that I made such a claim? Honestly, I don't know whether it led directly to the end of the war. But I know it hurt real bad...

NOT DECISIVE.

NOT NOT DECISIVE.:))

[Bluesman]

You're being obtuse. THIS proposition: 'I'm attacking because if we win, it'll be a HUGE win, and if we lose, it'll be a LITTLE loss.' is not the same as: 'I'm attacking because if we win, it'll be a LITTLE win, but if we lose, it'll be a HUGE loss.'

Look at what you wrote again:

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?

You want to know the logic of that? I told you three times already. And it's PERFECT logic, as demonstrated by the dichotomy outlined above. How are the two the same in your mind? How do you calculate risk/benefit?

You would be eager to bet your slug for a chance to win a hundred dollar bill; not so much if you're the guy with the Franklin. Heh...FRANKLIN.:))

And while Lee and Davis thought it would be a Very Good Thang if Johnston stopped Grant from tearing the innards out of the entire West, Johnston saw that it could be MUCH bigger: he had Grant with his back to a river, and an impenetrable swamp, and if he was lucky, could catch him by surprise...which he DID. So the Confederate field commander at Shiloh had a MUCH bigger result in mind when he loosed his army than Davis or Lee could contemplate from their far-removed vantage points.

And what we're discussing in this segment of our back-and-forth is the AIM, NOT the result, so YEAH, it DOES matter, because if General Johnston was after the absolute annihilation of Grant, that speaks to my whole point of the set-up for Johnston wasn't going to get any better than it was as he positioned his army for attack, but it was absolutely certain to deteriorate in the near term, even moreso in the long term, so it's got to be NOW.

I'm tired of doing this in this thread (it would be MUCH more fun over barbecue and beer, but this 'over-and-out' comms method is just too tedious to be fun with the point-counterpoint beyond an initial exchange of well-made points), but I want to close by saying that the word 'decisive' is a superlative. Either a decision is reached or it is not. And what the OP asked was which battle was the most decisive of the Civil War, the WHOLE WAR, not a given major startegic objective. No other battle qualifies, not even Gettysburg - because the South dam' near won well after they lost that battle so spectacularly.

Anyway, that was AWESOME, and good on ya for a dam' good argument. (I didn't ignore ANYthing you wrote, either; you're wrong about that, too.;) )

[ExNavyAmerican]

The Black Ghost;

Gettysburg was the real turning point though

Maybe, but as long as the Union persisted in the struggle, Europe would stay out of it. Britain's neutrality was assured by the Emancipation Proclamation, Napoleon III would only recognize the South if Britain did, and Russia was decidedly on our side -they proved that by sending a fleet on tour to San Francisco to demonstrate against Britain.

Even if Lee did win Gettysburg, his army was too shattered to continue a campaign, and most probably would have been forced to withdraw from the North. He would NOT have been able to take Washington (as the movie keeps suggesting) because it was guarded by around 50 forts.

[JAD_333]

I'm tired of doing this in this thread (it would be MUCH more fun over barbecue and beer, but this 'over-and-out' comms method is just too tedious to be fun with the point-counterpoint beyond an initial exchange of well-made points), but I want to close by saying that the word 'decisive' is a superlative. Either a decision is reached or it is not. And what the OP asked was which battle was the most decisive of the Civil War, the WHOLE WAR, not a given major startegic objective. No other battle qualifies, not even Gettysburg - because the South dam' near won well after they lost that battle so spectacularly.

Anyway, that was AWESOME, and good on ya for a dam' good argument. (I didn't ignore ANYthing you wrote, either; you're wrong about that, too.;) )

I was thinking the same yesterday--this would be more fun over beer and pretzels, that is to say, after the 4th beer for me and make it Bass Ale.:) My compliments for your passionate, if not PERFECT arguments--someday the world will come to realize that an opinion is not an argument. Nevertheless, within the confines of the definitions you erected, you were magnificent, confident, and assertive. I shall claim no contest, since the perimeters of mine were far wider. Yeah, let's move on... :)

[JAD_333]

Suppose Atlanta does NOT fall, and the '64 election goes against Lincoln, as even HE thought it would.

Lincoln was seeing ghosts; in reality there was little chance he would lose; Atlanta no doubt helped dispell his fears and increase his margin of victory.

What he may have missed at the time was how wide-spread was the belief among the ranks from generals down that the Union ought to continue the fight and seek victory. When McClelland was casting about for support he discovered this, and it may--I don't know this to be a fact--have dawned on him that he miscalculated in running for the office.

Some historians IMO get carried away with Lincoln's forebodings on the eve of the 1864 election. We can SPECULATE, but not conclude that if Atlanta had not fallen, Lincoln would have lost the election. I think we can agree on that.:)

[JAD_333]

Even if Lee did win Gettysburg, his army was too shattered to continue a campaign, and most probably would have been forced to withdraw from the North. He would NOT have been able to take Washington (as the movie keeps suggesting) because it was guarded by around 50 forts.

I think you make a good point. One has to consider that Lee's army after the battle, win or lose, was a good bit less potent than before, and then there is still the Union army to consider, as it would not have been totally wiped out.

[Albany Rifles]

Lincoln was seeing ghosts; in reality there was little chance he would lose; Atlanta no doubt helped dispell his fears and increase his margin of victory.

Some historians IMO get carried away with Lincoln's forebodings on the eve of the 1864 election. We can SPECULATE, but not conclude that if Atlanta had not fallen, Lincoln would have lost the election. I think we can agree on that.:)

Do you realize that Lincoln won the election because of the soldiers' vote?
It was not that much of a foregone conlusion.