Something to Ponder and Debate?

[David Lockmiller]

(03-19-2019 04:51 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(03-17-2019 12:06 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  When he heard the news, Mr. Lincoln sat down and wrote a letter of criticism and disappointment which reflects the intensity of his feeling at the escape of Lee:

Lincoln never signed or sent the letter.

There is a paragraph on this letter in the most recent edition of the Lincoln Herald. The article is written by U.S. Army Major Adam L. Taliaferro and entitled "Lincoln & Clausewitz: An Examination of Lincoln's Military Strategy as compared to the Great Military Theorist." The paragraph reads:

"In the famous letter that Lincoln never sent to General George Meade, Lincoln admonishes General Meade for his failure to pursue and defeat General Lee, following Lee's retreat at the Battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln's cause for distress and concern was valid. Lincoln was clear and emphatic in the letter, stating if Meade would have continued to pursue Lee and closed upon him, it would have ended the war. . . . As Clausewitz explained, "if you can vanquish all your enemies by defeating one of them, that defeat must be the main objective in the war."

In his article Major Taliaferro is extremely praiseworthy of Lincoln's strategy and understanding of military tactics.

Major Taliaferro attended the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He served combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Plan of Campaigns by Lieutenant-General Grant – A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln by John Nicolay (1911), pages 393 – 398.

THE army rank of lieutenant-general had, before the Civil War, been conferred only twice on American commanders; on Washington, for service in the War of Independence, and on Scott, for his conquest of Mexico. As a reward for the victories of Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, Congress passed, and the President signed in February, 1864, an act to revive that grade. Calling Grant to Washington, the President met him for the first time at a public reception at the Executive Mansion on March 8, 1864, when the famous general was received with all the manifestations of interest and enthusiasm possible in a social state ceremonial.

On the following day, at one o'clock, the general's formal investiture with his new rank and authority took place in the presence of Mr. Lincoln, the cabinet, and a few other officials:

"General Grant," said the President, "the nation's appreciation of what you have done, and its reliance upon you for what remains to do in the existing great struggle, are now presented, with this commission constituting you Lieutenant-General in the Army of the United States. With this high honor devolves upon you, also, a corresponding responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so, under God, it will sustain you. I 'scarcely need to add that with what I here speak for the nation, goes my own hearty personal concurrence."

General Grant's reply:
"Mr. President, I accept this commission with gratitude for the high honor conferred. With the aid of the noble armies that have fought on so many fields for our common country, it will be my earnest endeavor not to disappoint your expectations. I feel the full weight of the responsibilities now devolving on me; and I know that if they are met, it will be due to those armies, and above all to the favor of that Providence which leads both nations and men."

In the informal conversation which followed, General Grant inquired what special service was expected of him; to which the President replied that the country wanted him to take Richmond; and being asked if he could do so, replied that he could if he had the troops, which he was assured would be furnished him.

On the following day, Grant went to the Army of the Potomac, where Meade received him with frank courtesy, generously suggesting that he was ready to yield the command to any one Grant might prefer. Grant, however, informed Meade that he desired to make no change; and, returning to Washington, started west without a moment's loss of time. [Point of observation: If Lincoln had signed and sent the letter to General Meade, it would have destroyed Meade's usefulness as a military officer. By his practical sagacity, President Lincoln spared a very useful, needed and able operations officer (not a military strategist as were Grant and Lee) for the Union army. Accordingly, Grant "informed Meade that he desired to make no change."]

Grant frankly confesses in his "Memoirs" that when he started east it was with a firm determination to accept no appointment requiring him to leave the West; but "when I got to Washington and saw the situation, it was plain that here was the point for the commanding general to be."

[Grant's] short visit had removed several false impressions, and future experience was to cure him of many more.

When Grant again met Sherman in the West, he outlined to that general, who had become his most intimate and trusted brother officer, the very simple and definite military policy which was to be followed during the year 1864. There were to be but two leading campaigns. Sherman, starting from Chattanooga, full master of his own movements, was to lead the combined western forces against the Confederate army under Johnston, the successor of Bragg. Grant would personally conduct the campaign in the East against Richmond, or rather against the rebel army under Lee. Meade would be left in immediate command of the Army of the Potomac, to execute the personal daily directions of Grant. The two Confederate armies were eight hundred miles apart, and should either give way, it was to be followed without halt or delay to battle or surrender, to prevent its junction with the other.

Returning promptly to Washington, Grant established his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, at Culpepper, and for about a month actively pushed his military preparations.

He seems at first to have been impressed with a dread that the President might wish to influence or control his plans. But the few interviews between them removed the suspicion and all doubt on this point vanished, when, on the last day of April, Mr. Lincoln sent him the following explicit letter:

"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 plan I neither know nor 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 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."

Grant's immediate reply confessed the groundlessness of his apprehensions:

"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 Secretary of War, for throwing any embarrassment in the way of my vigorously prosecuting 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 everything asked for has been yielded, without even an explanation being asked. Should my success be less than I desire and expect, the least I can say is, the fault is not with you."

The Union army under Grant, one hundred and twenty-two thousand strong, on April 30, was encamped north of the Rapidan River. The Confederate army under Lee, numbering sixty-two thousand, lay south of that stream. Nearly three years before, these opposing armies had fought their first battle of Bull Run, only a comparatively short distance north of where they now confronted each other. Campaign and battle between them had surged far to the north and to the south, but neither could as yet claim over the other any considerable gain of ground or of final advantage in the conflict. Broadly speaking, relative advance and retreat, as well as relative loss and gain of battle-fields substantially balanced each other.

Severe as had been their struggles in the past, a more arduous trial of strength was before them. Grant had two to one in numbers; Lee the advantage of a defensive campaign. He could retire toward cumulative reserves, and into prepared fortifications; knew almost by heart every road, hill, and forest of Virginia; had for his friendly scout every white inhabitant. Perhaps his greatest element of strength lay in the conscious pride of the Confederate army that through all fluctuations of success and failure, it had for three years effectually barred the way of the Army of the Potomac to Richmond. But to offset this there now menaced it what was before absent in every encounter, the grim, unflinching will of the new Union commander.

General Grant devised no plan of complicated strategy for the problem before him, but proposed to solve it by plain, hard, persistent fighting. He would endeavor to crush the army of Lee before it could reach Richmond or unite with the army of Johnston; or, failing in that, he would shut it up in that stronghold and reduce it by a siege. With this in view, he instructed Meade at the very outset: "Lee's army will be your objective point. Where Lee goes, there you will go, also."

Everything being ready, on the night of May 4, 1864, Meade threw five bridges across the Rapidan, and before the following night the whole Union army, with its trains, was across the stream moving southward by the left flank, past the right flank of the Confederates.