Lincoln as Commander in Chief

[Mike B.]

(03-16-2013 08:37 PM)JMadonna Wrote:  

(03-16-2013 09:28 AM)Mike B. Wrote:  I think "On to Richmond" was actually a proper strategy. If the Army of Northern Viriginia could have been cooped up in Richmond in a siege it would have had to surrender in mass.

The surrender of Richmond early in the war would not have ended the war, neither would a surrender of Washington.

Besides if you cooped up the Army of Northern Virginia they still would have been supplied via Georgia.

The art of war says you don't hit your opponent where he's strongest you hit him where he's weak and force him out of his strong position. It took the Feds a good year to learn frontal assaults were suicide.

I am not so sure.

Robert E. Lee told Jubal Early in May 1864, "We must stop this army of Grant's before it gets to the James. Once it gets there it will become a siege and then it is a mere matter of time."

Little Mac changed his base and was on the James after the Seven Days Battle in 1862. He wanted to slip into Petersburg which would have put Lee's Army in a very bad position because the Weldon and Southside R.R.'s would have been moot to supply him.

Little Mac had perhaps better strategic sense than Lincoln, it was carrying it out fast enough.

The truth is that Jefferson Davis and the people of the South never realized what Washington realized. The real streagth of the CSA was not its cities and its land. It was its armies. As long as they could maintain armies in the field, they were unbeatable. But trying to hold onto every inch of land was a big mistake and forced disasters like Vicksburg, New Orleans, Fort Donelson.