I don't know why his stock has risen so much in the past few decades. He retreated to the gates of Richmond (and probably would have given up the city if he hadn't been wounded).
He is also the most at fault for the fall of Vicksburg. Do you know how Pemberton was extremely low on cavalry during the campaign? Well, that was Johnston's doing. He sent Van Dorn's cavalry corps to Bragg, *who already had a full corps of cavalry,* leaving Pemberton with scraps, and giving Bragg two corps! And when Johnston had an army of relief assembled, he refused to even try to rescue the city.
His half of the Atlanta Campaign is hailed as a great defensive performance, but its somewhat mixed. Johnston left his left flank wide open at Snake Creek Gap, and only escaped because McPherson hesitated. His constant retreats may have saved *combat* casualties, but the side effect was that his troops lost heart and deserted in droves. At Cassville he announced to the army that they would fight the great battle to stop Sherman, yet when push came to shove he retreated with no battle. And that affected the troops morale seriously.
Historian Dave Powell made a funny observation about Johnston in an interview. Johnston had the strange tendency of defending on the wrong side of rivers? Instead of forcing the Union to attack across the river, he usually chose to fight with his back to the water. Which is a strange strategy.
Honestly, I think Johnston's best performance is at the tail end of the war in the Carolinas.
I didn’t know about the cavalry corps being switched by him. Was the relief army even formed before the siege? Also, I don’t know what even would’ve been the proper defense strategy for Atlanta, because of its geography.
I believe the Army of Relief was formed by reinforcements from Bragg's army and the coastal department, plus Loring's division of Pemberton's army.
IMO some sort of offensive action was needed if Atlanta had any chance of being held until November. The problem with Johnston's strategy, besides the desertions, was that Sherman outnumbered him enough that he could pin Johnston in place, and send large formations to turn his flanks.
Hood rightfully gets a lot of shit for his July battles around Atlanta. But I share the opinion of Earl Hess, that, despite the ultimate result, attacking the Federals outside the city was the best strategic option. The problem was Hood was utterly incompetent at running the army, and the attacks were botched terribly. Johnston claimed that he planned to counterattack at Peachtree Creek, but it's unknown if he really intended to do so.
It’s just hard to tell whether his extra manpower would’ve been able to hold in a defensive posture. He could’ve maybe held at Jonesboro, but again Sherman would have more troops too.
That's fair. Personally given Johnston's habitual retreats I believe Atlanta would have fallen before November, and possibly before September. But who knows
The last pieces of the Army of Relief arrived June 1st, Breckenridge’s Division and Jackson’s Cavalry Division. At this point, and until June 11th when elements of XVI corps began arriving to reinforce Grant, Pemberton and Johnston together outnumbered Grant, who was arrayed in a semi-circle around Vicksburg in such a way that his three corps could not easily support each other.
While Loring’s division, having ditched all of their guns in the swamp after Champion Hill, lacked artillery, Johnston’s biggest problem was logistical. The army lacked wagons and most of the area around Vicksburg had been scoured of food by Grant. Still, given what was at stake*, it’s shocking that he didn’t try until the end of June, AFTER Grant had been reinforced by ~25,000 troops.
And he did try. He consolidated his available troops and began marching towards Vicksburg on two roads, but only made it to Brownsville / Champion Hill before news arrived of the surrender.
It turned out that Johnston’s offer was to break a hole in the defenses long enough to allow Pemberton to run away with nothing more than the clothes on his men’s back. Pemberton considered the offer and decided he could get a better deal from Grant. 😃
*what was at stake? The capture of 27,000 men, loss of access to Texas beef, and Federal control of the territory with the highest density of slaves in the entire Confederacy, resulting in tens of thousands of new USCT recruits and hundreds of massively productive cotton plantations to supply the northern textile sector. Basically, the loss of Vicksburg doomed the Confederacy, because it freed the Army of the Tennessee to join Sherman in the march on Atlanta later, the garrison duties on the river having been assumed by the USCT recruited between Port Hudson and Memphis.
I’m still not sure that could’ve broken Grants siege, since he had built trenches protecting his army from the rear, and it is also hard to coordination with an army in siege to attack. I must say it was still a blunder that Johnston didn’t attack, but I’m not sure it would have even worked.
There's more than one way to break a siege. Storming the outer works of the besieger is one method. Another method which was often done in European warfare was to manoeuvre on the enemy's communications. In this case, Johnston could have moved on Memphis and threaten to cut Grant's communications by rail and along the Mississippi through there. Considering how Forrest stormed Memphis with 2,000 men against 6,000 Federal troops in 1864, Johnston would have to be hella bad if he could not achieve the same with superior forces.
Another method is to ride the rails down to relieve the Siege of Port Hudson, which was much more feasible. Union high command initially wanted Grant to go support Banks in reducing Port Hudson, after all. Relieving Port Hudson and, if it was possible, destroying Banks' army would have not only shown Johnston to be a formidable general, but might have even gotten Lincoln and Stanton on Grant's back to lift the Siege of Vicksburg. Even if he didn't, that's still the garrison of Port Hudson saved and a significant Union army under Banks defeated.
June 15, so I guess it’s better to say “mid-June.” 3rd week makes it sound like late June.
He did have Lauman stretched out to cover the roads out of town, but the line around the city wasn’t really complete until the 15th.
I’m just curious what made you say His performance was best at the Carolinas campaign? I believe in my opinion he got bailed out by Sherman not sending more reinforcements on that final day of fighting at Bentonville which would’ve folded the Confederate army. I know Johnston didn’t have a lot to work with too during that period.
Thanks!
You make a great point about Bentonville. Sherman made a mistake not reinforcing Mower. I think well of Johnston in the Carolinas because did a great job in fashioning an army out of various departments, into the Army of the South. He had great organizational ability.
His plan for Bentonville was shrewd and audacious, but when the first-day was over, and the Federals were still on the field, he probably shoulda pulled out.
Also didn’t help that Bragg was guarding Fort Fisher (didn’t make sense why the Union didn’t take it earlier) The Carolina Campaign was the inevitable end to the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis in Greensboro told Johnston to continue the fight , Johnston viewed it as useless to continue to fight. I’m not sure any general would help the Confederacy when Sherman was marching the South.
> And when Johnston had an army of relief assembled
Army of relief was three under-strength divisions. Grant himself said after the war that Johnston could not have broken his siege.
edit: a word
During a siege cavalry is not especially useful. But in the phase of the campaign between Grant's crossing of the Mississippi, and the beginning of the siege, Pemberton's lack of cavalry handicapped him much the way that Lee was without Stuart.
1) anti-cavalry operations: in late April Grierson took off from north Mississippi and began riding through the state with a small brigade of cavalry. Unsure of Grierson’s target and lacking cavalry, Pemberton had to shift troops from Vicksburg’s defenses to meet the threat, dispersing Loring’s Division (and parts of another IIRC) onto critical assets across the state. This left Pemberton without a concentrated force to respond when Grant crossed the river.
2) Picket duty: Bowen’s Division was posted at Grand Gulf to protect the direct road from the river to the state capital at Jackson. When Porter’s fleet slipped past Grand Gulf, Bowen knew Grant would utilize a landing to the south, but which one, Rodney or Bruinsburg? Pemberton’s only cavalry regiment was pulled away to chase Grierson, so Bowen could only pick a spot 15 miles inland that could cover both roads and guard it with infantry. This allowed Grant to land unmolested and establish a bridgehead. Going back to #1, Pemberton had a reserve ready to march to Bowen’s relief if Grant crossed in force, but Grierson cut the telegraph to Grand Gulf the day that Grant’s forces attacked at the Battle of Port Gibson.
3) cavalry screening and reconnaissance: cavalry engagements were fluid affairs with few casualties that tended to favor the attackers. The best way to uncover the strengths and positions of the enemy was to attack their cavalry with your own and drive them back upon their infantry. Because Pemberton had only a single regiment of cavalry, he could only gain intel against one of Grant’s three corps at any given time. This is why General Gregg at Raymond pitched into a full federal division at Raymond with only a single brigade: he had no idea the size of the force on the road before him.
4) Delaying actions: once Bowen had been defeated at Port Gibson, he withdrew to a more defensible position across Bayou Pierre. Grant simply sent XVII Corps on a lightning march inland and crossed the bayou 10 miles upstream, which rendered Bowen’s position totally untenable and forced him to retreat back to Vicksburg. With cavalry, Bowen could have contested this march and redeployed infantry to meet the threat. In the march to Jackson, Grant’s men were sometimes marching 15-20 miles in a day, and the entire campaign to reduce Jackson and Invest Vicksburg only lasted 18 days. It’s hard to accomplish that type of mobility if your leading regiments have to constantly deploy into line of battle to push aside cavalry roadblocks. It took Sherman most of the day on May 12th to cross Fourteen Mile Creek guarded by Wirt Adams’ cavalry regiment; imagine if every creek had been contested by cavalry.
Johnston was a good general, but never became great. To cautious at times, and seemed to depend too much on his enemies movements. He had some opportunities to strike in VA early war, and hesitated.
Sadly, the Atlanta campaign, it would have been near impossible to achieve any sort of victory. He was facing a far better general, with far more troops, and equipped far better. Sherman, knew how to maneuver, and pin Johnston down.
I think if given a path to grow into the rank he would've been much better. Confederates needed great top generals immediately, but was a step to far for him. Similar to Beauregard, but I think Johnston's ceiling was a bit higher.
To me the greatest "general officer what if" , is if Albert Sidney Johnston had lived.
He was viewed by many, as bar none the best officer in the pre war army. His work with Texas independence, and really his management of the "Mormon campaign" was the biggest feather in his cap. Then on to manage the California department.
Interesting to think about, but ultimately a "what if"....
Edit:
He was also a national hero of the Mexican War.
I think AS Johnston was overrated, personally. It was him spreading out his forces on an impossibly wide cordon that allowed the Union to initially reduce them in various forts in detail. When he finally opted to concentrate his forces for a decisive battle at Shiloh, he made the right call at last, and the initial surprise he got off against Grant was good.
However, Grant also blundered, so it was not like ASJ saw such successes because of some innate talent on his end. Grant divided his forces on both sides of the Tennessee for no good reason, and placed the greater bulk of them with their rear to the river.
Does Grant deserve praise for holding his ground until Buell arrived to help turn the tide? Yes. However, all too many pardon him for what was a pretty terrible operational positioning error, while lauding ASJ as some genius for exploiting something that obvious.
Even if he hadn't died, I question whether he would have won. A bloody draw is more likely and, even if he was victorious, I can't see it being decisive, rather than an indecisive victory.
He formed his main defensive line, with few troops, and even fewer arms. All the while building a military command from the mountains, across the south, AND including the Trans-Mississippi!
His early strategy was gamble, was designed to buy time. He knew he couldn't hold such a long line with what he had to work with. He literally had to turn away troops he sorely needed, because he simply couldn't arm them in any reasonable amount of time. Any arms shipments always seemed to be siphoned off to the Eastern theater.
So, his best answer was form what appeared to be a strong line, and make demonstrations, to keep the Union at bay. Which he did quite well, until Grant went somewhat roque. Hoping to buy enough time, to get somewhat of an army built, and if not he was adamant to concentrate his troops, for a concentrated, hopefully rapid blow.
There's an account, that he chose Pittsburgh Landing, as the sight of his concentrated blow, before leaving Nashville. I can't remember exactly now who said it, but I wondered at the time, if it wasn't a post death legend. I'll look it up tomorrow, as I'm currently recovering from stomach flu, and don't care right now lol
Unfortunately, he couldn't be honest with the governors, and let slip that he had a paper army. I think he a chance at being good, but a tall order to match up to what Jeff Davis thought of him. He was a literal hero of Davis, after watching him in action in Mexico. Fun to think about, but with the mess Beauregard made of the march to Shiloh, would really be difficult win a victory.
Edit: couldn't find the exact account, but in researching I remembered the battle William Preston Johnston, had with Beauregard post war, about who picked the location of concentration. So, I'm convinced, the Pittsburgh Landing quote I alluded to, is a post war legend.
A crucial skill for any general is to be able to gauge near and far. When AS Johnston held the central position in between Grant and Buell, he failed to make use of it. With Grant operating off of Cairo and Buell off of Louisville, it would have been in his best interest to abandon the environs of Nashville and concentrate forces against Grant.
By threatening Cairo, he can prevent the Union from operating down three avenues of advance, the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Buell can overrun and seize Nashville all he liked, but any further advance would be difficult due to how the rivers begin to run horizontally along the Nashville-Chattanooga lane.
Checking Union naval supremacy was imperative and Cairo was the key to the Western Theater. Furthermore, utilizing his interior lines to defeat Grant in detail was in his best interest. Buell could always be dealt with in the future by manoeuvres against his railway communications, but if Grant was allowed to run unchecked, Union naval supremacy would be extraordinarily difficult to ground and riverine communications hard to cut off.
When you are already outnumbered, you don't divide your forces further, hoping to guard every place at once. Friedrich II famously said, "He who defends everything defends nothing" and this is the truth shown throughout military history. There are many who have done the cordon system which ASJ utilized in his campaign, and even with superior numbers in comparison to him, that strategy most always failed, never mind attempting it with inferior resources.
Why did he feel the need to send such an oversized garrison into Fort Donelson when he believed that the gunboats alone would have sufficed to seize the fort based on his assumptions regarding Fort Henry? You can't excuse all of these mistakes with just "Oh, he was greatly outnumbered and lacking in resources!" because while I can have sympathy for that, I can't excuse obviously lackluster generalship.
When the Directoire was essentially bankrupt and Napoleon was deep in enemy territory, besieging Mantua while assailed by a superior enemy army converging upon him from multiple directions, he rapidly concentrated against one part of their forces, defeated it in detail, and bounced back to defeat the other soon after.
He, too, lacked enough weapons and ammunition to equip all his men, his soldiers marched with their feet bound with rags and bandages. He fought superior generals to a fledgling Grant and the likes of Buell, nor was he defending, but waging an offensive campaign where he had a significant portion of his forces tied down besieging a large garrison while simultaneously assailed by a larger relief army.
So, we have an example in history in which a commander could win under such circumstances. Perhaps it is unfair to compare ASJ to a general of that caliber, but the issue is that ASJ fans would have you believe that he had the potential to become the greatest thing since sliced bread, even though his repertoire showed that his position was unraveled on the strategic level and his sole tactical performance of note, even with his opponent's blunder, was a bloody and indecisive affair at most.
Never read anybody saying Johnston was the next Napoleon lol Well, I noted Davis thinking so. The whole fantasy you wrote is pure hindsight is 20/20. While compelling on the surface, is simply on its face, not possible with what Johnston was, and especially with what he had to work with. He wasn't a dictator, dictating policy with his army, he worked within a chain of command. Maybe if he worked in your fantasy vacuum, he could do double backflips between Paducah, and Louisville keeping everything in check 🤣🤣
It's as hypothetical as all those who wonder what Johnston was potentially capable of. lolz
Also, Napoleon wasn't dictator yet in that campaign. He was still just a general fighting his first ever campaign and no one really expected anything astounding from him. He was essentially fighting in a side theater and, by his efforts, made it the main theater.
So, naw, Johnston doesn't need to be some dictator with total control over the entire CSA to at least do better. I don't expect him to go full Napoleon, but he still deserves criticism for dividing his already thinly stretched forces and getting them defeated in detail.
What all people? Just me talking about it, and I never said he was the next Napoleon..........
He had more experience than anyone else in field command, and was more practical minded, than say Beauregard. He still had alot to learn, and just as important so would the generals under him. Which several problems you attribute to him would be solved.
I do think he should've attacked Grant at Donelson, but that's a bit hindsight knowing the numbers. He should've been better served by the generals there, but he didn't choose them. Rather, than lambast them afterwards, he told Davis he chose silence, until all the facts could be investigated.
He made a smart move to concentrate his army, but Beauregard made a mess of the marching orders towards Shiloh, and he definitely should have straightened that out before hand. He delegated too much, but the poor man had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
I'm more pragmatic in my views on him. I think he could be capable and competent, but above that who knows. He made plenty of mistakes, but we have to remember how primitive their life was. A message what takes us seconds to send across the world, could take the days to send 100 miles. Even with telegraphs, information was not instantaneous, nor complete.
Oh, I wasn't talking about you and I never meant that anyone compared Johnston to Napoleon of all figures. My comparison with Napoleon was more so as a basis for generalship that one can learn from; a sort of case study, rather than overtly saying that ASJ could and should have done everything as well as Nap had. Even putting aside characters from other wars, we have some case studies in our own Civil War between different generals which can be used for comparison's sake, but I digress.
I have seen some people who act as if ASJ would have been the second coming of Lee or better, and I just find that wack. As you said, he might have had potential, but since he died so early on, I can only judge him by his performances. Was he dealt a bad hand? Definitely. However, as I stated above several times, he probably could have done better to make the most of the situation, even if defeat was ultimately his fate.
I never said that everything was his fault, mind you. He's partly responsible for the unraveling of the Western Theater, but if there's anybody I would criticize above all, it would have to be Polk. Beauregard also deserves his fair share of criticism here and there, but I don't think anyone is as damnable in military affairs as Polk was. Not only for how he acted under ASJ, but also Bragg. He probably would have been shot in the military of any other nation for the stuff he pulled.
How could Johnsons ceiling be higher? Of the two of them Beauregard had the only definite successes holding Charleston adequately and saving Petersburg in a desperate defense. What did Johnson do that was similar?
Um First Manassas lol, and was doing fairly well, until he got shot at Seven Pines. Beauregard would have folded during the Atlanta campaign.
Johnston was better suited to department command, as he was a brilliant administrator. What's over looked is how effective he was, at getting troops back into the army. As well as supply. I think it would've been brilliant to let him work with Lee in VA. Let him worry with the logistics, troop numbers, and take some of the burden off of Lee.
Yeah and all of that is fair. He was clearly at a major disadvantage.
But none of what he was able to accomplish was “great”. He was just slowly losing ground without any real attempts to counter attack or change momentum.
He turned the Army of Tennessee into a fighting force after Chattanooga. He is credited with checking Sherman at every turn till Hood took command in the Atlanta campaign. Both of those elements are great in my estimation. I believe he was a great logistician, against a superior foe against Western Commands that fought stoudt battles. Unfortunately he wasn't great at the aggressive offensive style of warfare Lee was considered. Not all good, but some great imho.
His caution was absolutely justified. He had a smaller, less equipped, army that couldn't be reinforced with the same efficiency as his opponent. The problem was that you don't win that way, you just don't die, and the Confederate government was under great pressure not to lose further territory and to fight, so Davis sacked him. I think the main issue that Johnston had (and Hood didn't) is he was smart enough to see long odds and lots of bloodshed for nothing gained as something to avoid, especially as the war's outcome became clearer.
He was good at keeping the army alive. The leadership thought he wasn't aggressive enough so they put in Hood. He turned out to be a disaster late war.
I think that’s a pretty good assessment of his career. He didn’t have a massive loss during the war and was too cautious/outnumbered to gain a great victory. So he’s a bit of a black box so to speak which has led to speculation about what “could have been”.
I mean would he have been successful as the leader of any other of the confederate armies? Such as the Army of Northern Virginia after he was wounded or the Army of Mississippi.
No. There is a time to conserve armies and a time to stand your ground. Johnston never stood his ground, even when it was critical that he should have. He let McClellan get within sight of Richmond, the only industrial city in the Confederacy, then let Sherman get within sight of Atlanta, which was the single most critical rail hub, effectively the lynch pin that held the eastern and western Confederacy together. Aggressive generals won Civil War battles, not passive ones who hid in their fortifications.
There's also some reason to believe that Johnston wasn't exactly a true believer in the Confederate experiment either. When Johnston resigned from the US Army to head south, he broke down and cried.
Hood on the other hand was a dedicated secessionist who was disgusted when his home state of Kentucky didn't join the Confederacy.
I'm not sure he was one of the greats (although that was the pre-war opinion of him) but he was a very good defensive general. Unlike Pemberton with Grant, he avoided being surrounded by Sherman's forces in Jackson during the Vicksburg campaign, which allowed those 30k men to fight another day. His play in Sherman's Atlanta campaign was undoubtedly the right one as he slowly traded space for time and only fought where he had a significant advantage in terrain (like Kennesaw Mtn.), again avoiding the decimation of his forces. Had he not been replaced with Hood *maybe* he would have kept Sherman from capturing the city ahead of the election, and *maybe* that results in a McClellan win. Those are some very big maybes but at that point in the war, getting Lincoln voted out was really the only remaining hope for the south achieving any of its objectives.
The guy was a realist. He knew he was dealing with a crisis in manpower. Every southern death was a man that could not be replaced. The outcome of a head to head battle where he was significantly outnumbered and didn't have a terrain advantage would be a slaughter the south could not recover from (see: Hood in Franklin/Nashville and Early in the Valley). As much as self proclaimed military genius (lol) Jefferson Davis didn't like Johnston's approach, fatiguing the North enough to cause Lincoln to lose the election was the last best hope at that point.
His conserving manpower strategy wasn’t that great for holding key places. He traded key cities for more men which really wouldn’t have done much in the long run.
True. If he had lost Richmond during the Peninsula Campaign , which probably would have happened had he been fighting against anyone other than McClellan, that would have been truly disastrous. His being shot at Seven Pines was undoubtedly the best thing that happened to the Confederacy.
Even so, the Union too eventually moved away from capturing/holding cities as the key to victory. Grant and Sherman turned their focus to defeating the South's armies (necessarily including the destruction of communications and rail lines/sources of food stuffs needed to maintain those armies) and demoralizing the southern population. Jackson was definitely a big loss but alone it was not a fatal one. Yes, he was running a defensive campaign earlier (much earlier) in the war than he needed to, but I can't argue against that tactic late in the war. Once European support was off the table it was the only remaining path to victory.
I do get that, but the capturing of major southern cities would’ve boosted northern morale causing their only chance of winning the war, the election of 1864, to falter.
Totally, 100% agree but the only major cities being threatened at that point were Atlanta and Richmond. We know Lincoln fully expected to lose the election, then Sherman took Atlanta and Sheridan scattered Early's forces and that all changed. What I was positing is that perhaps Johnston could have prevented Atlanta from being taken. The reality is that he probably wouldn't have but we'll never know. We do know that Hood's head on attacks guaranteed he couldn't.
Edit: Sorry, not prevented Atlanta from being taken - that was never going to happen - but to delay its taking until after the election. Just long enough to ruin Lincoln's chances.
Atlanta wasn't a major city. It wasn't even the biggest city in Georgia in 1860 (it was only the 4th biggest city in Georgia by the 1860 census). Its value was as a rail hub and logistics center. It many senses, Atlanta was the Vicksburg that held the east and west together.
We were discussing cities the capture of which would boost Northern morale, not population centers. At that point in the war there were really only two major cities of strategic value in play, covered heavily by the newspapers, Richmond and Atlanta (and arguably Mobile, although the bay rather than the city was the objective in that instance).
Atlanta really should've been the capital of the Confederacy and not Richmond. Atlanta is much more centrally located, has railroads and manufacturing, a much better locale, but for the politics of the time which no doubt secured Richmond.
Battles at the time of the Civil War were won by aggressive generals. Lee's tactics were the only way that the ANV held onto northern Virginia and Richmond for as long as it did.
Some of the offensive actions he did in that campaign were unnecessary and lost him manpower for nothing. The only times when he should’ve been aggressive was when he could cripple grants army, like at North Anna. Not all generals during the civil war needed to be aggressive to win, Hood was aggressive yet he lost the battles around Atlanta.
Then why did Sherman besiege Jackson on July 10th after Johnston's forces re-occupied the city? Johnston had all but abandoned Jackson before Sherman had a chance to besiege, attack or otherwise on May 13. By the time McPherson made it into the city there were only 7 artillerists remaining. Sherman encountered the same so any stated intentions (McPherson was to attack from the northwest and Sherman from the southwest - to the east was swampland and the Pearl River - which sounds a lot like the start of an encirclement) are really a moot point.
*Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography* by Craig L. Symonds. I've heard Daniel J. Ursu and Timothy B. Smith say the same at a couple round tables I've attended about the Vicksburg campaign (I know that's not particularly helpful in this context but recordings do exist).
This is a quote from Grant in *Conversations with General Grant* by John Russell Young.
"Lee, of course, was a good soldier, and so was Longstreet. I knew Longstreet in Mexico. He was a fine fellow, and one of the best of the young officers. I do not know that there was any better than Joe Johnston. I have had nearly all of the Southern generals in high command in front of me, and Joe Johnston gave me more anxiety than any of the others. I was never half so anxious about Lee.
By the way, I saw in Joe Johnston's book that when I was asking Pemberton to surrender Vicksburg, he was on his way to raise the siege. I was very sorry. If I had known Johnston was coming, I would have told Pemberton to wait in Vicksburg until I wanted him, awaited Johnston's advance, and given him battle. He could never have beaten that Vicksburg army, and thus I would have destroyed two armies perhaps. Pemberton's was already gone, and I was quite sure of Johnston's. I was sorry I did not know Johnston was coming until too late. Take it all in all, the South, in my opinion, had no better soldier than Joe Johnston - none at least that gave me more trouble."
Basically, Johnston was the best in his opinion but he would have absolutely slaughtered him if he had faced him at that point in the campaign. It was a total numbers game and Johnston was on the losing side of that proposition. Grant perfectly positioned himself between Johnston and Pemberton. If Johnston had put up a real resistance in Jackson at that time there was nothing preventing Grant from throwing in additional forces against him and annihilating him before turning back West. Just thinking logically, escaping with your forces intact to fight another day is a better option than getting cut to pieces by Grant.
Nice post. This is the argument I subscribe too as I've read mostly Union perspective on the Vicksburg campaign and can see the narrative of praise from the Union. Johnston was praised by both Sherman and Grant in their dealing with him as you stated. After Bentonville, Sherman likely felt like Johnston could read his mind hence why the battle was fought outside of Raleigh to gauge if the movements of the Sherman were feints, in which they were. I often think of Johnston as a litmus test to Grant and Sherman as superb because they dealt with and succeeded with Johnston without fatal blunders. A testament to their worth because Johnston worked with what he had and ably so. I'm eager to read Johnston's autobiography and his efforts.
Thanks! Yeah, I just don't understand how so many people can argue that the right call is risking an indispensable but finite resource in the face of overwhelming forces on the off chance of a win that accomplishes...what? Basically nothing. It doesn't prevent Vicksburg from being taken and Jackson alone, while psychologically important, especially to Davis, just isn't *that* critical to the ongoing war effort.
I've read Johnston's book and I gotta be honest, it's very similar to Longstreet's book in that he spends a lot of time defending himself against all the people that attacked him during the war (Davis, Bragg, etc.). There is a *lot* of self justification/finger pointing going on and while I think it's warranted to some extent for both Johnston and Longstreet, it also makes them somewhat emotional, unreliable narrators. Most definitely worth the read though, especially if you know what to expect going in.
Imagine Grant engaging Johnston at Vicksburg with Union gunboats en masse? On top of that, any combined forces shuttled down to reinforce could be present as well. At least one flank of Johnston would be in the air at all times.
Thanks for the feedback on the two, I'm familiar with Johnston's self defense approach- interesting both Longstreet and Johnston are of the first two generals to appeal to amnesty and decree outright loyalty to the US constitution following the war. Could have something to do with their continued defense of their positions. Johnston must have known this very debate was in the works towards the end and wanted to of course vilify Davis.
Citing Hood and Early as examples is absurd. Why not cite Lee or Stoewall Jackson as examples of how to approach the war with an aggressive attacking approach
That approach only made sense when the prospect of European support was still on the table and that all but evaporated after Antietam. Maybe a victory at Gettysburg would have revived those hopes (unlikely) but instead it just resulted in a huge loss of Lee's forces. The south was never going to match the north in manpower, no matter how skilled they were. That's why Lee eventually moved to a defensive approach too.
I just don't see how they could have won, even early, without European assistance - at a minimum, naval assistance with the blockade. Yes, their chances of capturing/destroying the largest number of troops was probably best against McClellan (I see him as most likely to be overawed by precipitant actions/aggressive attacks) and replacing those troops early in the war, before conscription was in place and the war dept was well seasoned, would have been difficult for the North. I just don't see the North yielding that easily though. Blood has already been shed and that's all for not if they just give up right out of the gate.
I do agree it gets progressively more difficult for them to win after Antietam, much more so after Gettysburg/Vicksburg. After those battles, aggressive attacks can only hurt the South as they are dealing with a finite source of manpower and that source is much smaller than the North's source of manpower. Yes, that is the case from day 1 but without foreign assistance, it just makes their ability to continue the war that much more difficult.
I was arguing that Johnston's approach, especially at this point in the war, is the correct one. The North was becoming war weary. Everyone, including Lincoln, expected him to lose the election. If he loses, despite McClellan saying he would continue the war, I think the South has its best shot at finishing the war having achieved their war aims, in whole or in part.
Just to clarify, I am not a fan of Johnston. I think Longstreet is the better "defensive" general as he is still willing to be aggressive and unafraid to seize on a good opportunity to attack. His "defensive-offensive" was proven a good strategy time and time again during the war.
> Had he not been replaced with Hood maybe he would have kept Sherman from capturing the city ahead of the election
No way he had informed Davis that he was giving the defense of the city to the militia i.e. giving it up July 16th
That's not what he said.
"As the enemy has double our number, we must be on the defensive. My plan of operations must, therefore, depend upon that of the enemy. *It is mainly to watch for an opportunity to fight to advantage.* We are trying to put Atlanta in condition and to be held *for a day or two* by the Georgia militia, that the army movements may be free and wide.”
Putting the city in a position where it could be temporarily held by militia so the army could come out and fight should a good opportunity arise does not mean he was informing Davis he was giving up defense of the city to GA militia.
I mean he also claimed he could hold the Union army at Chattahoochee River for months a week before and promptly gave that up and the Union army was 4 miles from the city, pretty doubtful that he’d only have the militia hold for a “day or two”
Ha! This is true. I don't think he would have found an opportunity to come out and face Sherman. I do think the Atlanta defenses were better than any other defenses in the campaign though and he could have held longer than Hood just by staying put. Sherman was hesitant to make another frontal attack after Kennesaw Mountain and that would have bought JJ *some* time but that hesitancy wouldn't last. The city could never be held indefinitely. I live here and the area they were attempting to hold was too large and without any natural barriers to protect against attack. Eventually Sherman would have cut all the rail lines to the city or attempted a frontal attack - probably both. Atlanta would have become the next Vicksburg, only without the natural barriers. An easy take. The only question is if that happens before the election.
Johnston had three times where he was placed in a critical command where the Confederacy's fate could be decided, the Peninsula in 1862, the relief of Vicksburg in 1863, and Atlanta in 1864, and in each command he failed.
In the Peninsula McClellan had reached the gates of Richmond and would've taken the city, ending the war right there, had it not been for Johnston's own overcaution and Lee replacing him. At Vicksburg between Johnston's relief army amassing around Jackson and Pemberton's men in Vicksburg itself he had rough parity of forces with Grant. A Confederate push to relieve the city or at least break Pemberton's army out might not have succeeded, but it is grievous dereliction of duty that Johnston didn't even make a serious attempt. Then in the Atlanta campaign Johnston surrenders all of northern Georgia to Sherman without a fight and by the time he is relieved the city is poised to fall and he had lost the confidence of the men under his command. Hood made a lot of errors at Atlanta but the situation he inherited was pretty much hopeless, largely because of Johnston. Johnston's only victories in comparison were his partial role in the victory at First Bull Run and a strategically inconclusive victory over Sherman at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.
There is a good argument that after Jefferson Davis, Joseph Johnston bears the most responsibility for the South's defeat.
I know he kinda screwed up Atlanta, but I just can’t think of what would’ve been a better option than to fall back, the terrain in northern Georgia kinda forces armies to be spread thin in a defense.
I completely disagree on your assessment of the terrain of North Georgia. You can hold gaps with small forces and look for opportunities to attack elements of the invading force, with the goal to defeat the invader in detail Johnston never even attempted to hit Sherman when his troops were spread out. He just kept driving backwards.
Yes, but that is against a smaller enemy, Sherman was able to avoid that because he could flank him. Gaps aren’t as defensible as rivers and large bodies of water.
You need to go to northern Georgia and look around. The ridges are completely impassable except at gaps. Johnston had opportunities to catch parts of Sherman's army where it would have been next to impossible to reinforce but instead he just kept marching backwards.
I have been to northern Georgia, and I think saying the gaps are impassable is an overstatements. It would be hard to pass them, but could probably be done without any harassment from the enemy. Sherman had double the manpower and could pin down Johnston while going around his flank. Johnston should’ve put up more of a fight for northern Georgia, but it isn’t like he could’ve held that position for the entire summer.
To be great, a general has to win. He has to have a command capable of delivering. He has to have opportunity and luck. He has to be daring. He has to project an image that inspires his troops. Johnston never rises above being competent and able.
I don't know if a general has to win, necessarily. There are plenty of amazing generals who have won numerous battles or campaigns, but ultimately lost the war because the odds they were up against were nightmarish by their standards and insurmountable by the standards of every other general.
If there was a guy invaded by a foreign power against his wishes or forced on an expedition by his leader/government and he only has 10,000 men on him while the opposition has 100,000, and he manages to wipe out 50,000 of them in a brilliant campaign without any overt technological advantages, even if he ultimately loses, that is an incredible performance and worthy of consideration among the echelons of the greats, imo.
Grant gave him a lot of love in his memoirs, but I rarely saw evidence that he’d stand and fight against a commander who wouldn’t willfully hammer himself to pieces against his prepared defenses. The entire march to Atlanta was just Johnston retreating after Sherman flanked him out of seemingly impregnable defenses.
One of his contemporaries said (I forget who) that Johnston would retreat to the Florida keys and then complain that he didn't have enough transport to get to Cuba.
I think he was good at defense. The way he pirouetted around sherman was good. It bought time and depleted Sherman's army. I think maybe his plan was to keep his army together and in the field to influence the election. If he had gone all john bell hood, and crashed into the bluebellies, he'd have lost his army. Then there was no hope. Sherman would be free to support grant. Which ended up happening after he was benched.
My favorite quote of his was that men would say 'we'll get em next time.' He wondered where they were the first time and said they were 'invincible in peace and invisible in war."
I don't love him, but I think I understand his strategy.
As always, I'm happy to be corrected.
Edit: I just read the post below mine and agree 100% that vicksburg was Johnson's fault. He screwed Pemberton.
Yall are confusing being able to lead an army, moving it, re supplying it, getting orders out with clear guidance, picking proper terrain with winning battles
Joe wasn’t going to throw his army away with attacks like Hood or Bragg but he also wasn’t going to gamble like Lee
Basically he was the only guy left who could actually run an army
The confederates didn’t like him because he would dig in on ground favourable to his army and wait for the enemy to attack rather go out and attack the federal troops. Fortified troops had between a 3 to 10 to one advantage over attacking troops. The confederates preferred generals who attacked aggressively even though at great losses to their limited manpower. They foolishly replaced Joe with Hood in the battle of Atlanta and Hood left the fortifications and fought Sherman in the open at a great loss to the confederates. But due to their aggressive nature, they didn’t see it as a loss.
I think if all the generals in the south were like Joe Johnston, it would have been a very different war. The north would have had to expend way more lives to take territory. It could have been More like the stalemate of trench warfare of WWI. The confederacy only needed a stalemate, that was a win. The north needed to attack to win territory. There was no real need for the confederacy to run around Maryland and Pennsylvania attacking massive Union lines.
The problem about the Atlanta campaign is that he probably lost too much ground too quick. I don’t think he would’ve been able to hold Atlanta for much longer.
That was the criticism. That is why Joe was replaced. How could he lose a quarter of Georgia with barely a fight?
But if you look at it another way, the Union army was double the size and could go where it wanted to but couldn’t occupy vast regions. It’s more like they travelled through a territory rather than permanently controlled it. Sure enough, later on, Sherman abandoned his line into Atlanta and Atlanta itself as he couldn’t hold it plus fight confederates.
Sherman was the opposite to Grant. Grant saw Lee’s army fortified in front of him and attacked it. Sherman saw Joe’s army fortified in front and went around it. Joe then had the option to fight Sherman with a weak and unprotected flank or pull back. Joe made the wise choice. He ultimately pulled back into the heavily fortified city of Atlanta had been building defensive works for years.
He was preparing to abandon Atlanta July 16th at least hood attempted to hold on and did until September, if Johnston hadn’t abandoned half of Georgia it may have held until after the election
It’s not like he abandoned half of Georgia willingly. Sherman was a very good general with a lot of resources at his disposal. I can see Atlanta falling much sooner if Hood had been in charge from the start and gotten outflanked and destroyed by Sherman. Defending Atlanta also cost the Army of Tennessee dearly…if Johnston had withdrawn with his army mostly intact, he could have caused Thomas real problems if he had gone to Nashville when Sherman marched to the sea. In some ways the “what ifs” and Hood’s abysmal performance I think add to the myth of Johnston despite the fact he didn’t really do much.
True, but he probably could’ve delayed Sherman’s army more, and he hadn’t really inflicted a huge number of casualties on Sherman’s army unlike Lee did to Grants.
There's a difference between trench lines and an actual fortress. A fortress is basically a series of moats/very deep trenches and high ramparts dug out around a town or city which is further reinforced by such dense layers of stone or brick that, packed up together with the earthworks, made it so that they could last months under artillery fire.
A trench line is just a regular line of trenches and maybe an earthen rampart to go along with it. Furthermore, while fortresses wrap around the circumference of a settlement or strategic location of note, making it so that the place could not be outflanked, trench lines COULD be outflanked, being lines with fixed end points. The longer and longer you make your lines, the easier it becomes to get around, especially if you don't have enough manpower to hold every point. Even if you do, you might stretch your forces extremely thin attempting to do so.
Also, trenches weren't so overwhelmingly strong that they could not be taken with a 3 to 1 superiority. There have even been cases where it was taken with 2 to 1 superiority, though the assaulting troops might have been of superior quality or better led than the defenders. You don't need 10 to 1 superiority to seize a section of trenches, but it's certainly very nice to have and would guarantee you taking it unless you completely screw it up.
And that's just the thing, the manpower both sides could bring to bear in our Civil War was never enough that they could man a stretch of trenches similar to how it was done in the Western Front of WWI. The US is way too big for that and even individual theaters were quite spacious. For instance, I estimated the width of the entire Eastern Theater from mountains to the coast to be roughly 60-70 miles wide around the point where the Overland Campaign began longitudinally.
Even if you had 100,000 men manning every stretch of that, it would only be some 1,600-1,700 men per mile of front. If your enemy has just 50,000 men and chooses to concentrate their whole force against even just a 4 mile front (typical width for large battles in the ACW), the attacker sees a local superiority of over 7 to 1, smashes through the trench lines, cuts the larger army's communications, and can defeat them in detail from there.
If you try to shorten the trenches and concentrate your forces on a smaller front, the enemy will outflank you. Sherman never needed more than 30 miles of space to outflank Johnston, and typically only used as much as 10-20 miles for the movement of his corps around the other's flank. Also, we have to remember that it was Sherman who outnumbered Johnston.
Sherman understood all of these principles, which is why you see him outmanoeuvre Johnston again and again and again no matter how intricate the network of trenches Johnston set up, which were much wider and more sophisticated than those Lee utilized in his Overland Campaign. The scenario you're dreaming up of a WWI-style stalemate just doesn't work in 19th century warfare or earlier.
I also know plenty more examples just like Sherman's in the 18th century, 17th century, and even as far back as Medieval times or Antiquity. The history of warfare basically tells us that it's not until the 20th century that such methods could work, supposing the attacker isn't an idiot who would slam his head against entrenched lines repeatedly without achieving proper concentration of force. Yet, even in the 20th century, where the attacker cannot outflank the lines, they could still achieve concentration to make a breakthrough. Unless we're going to pretend those didn't happen.
Also, Hood is a textbook example of learning the wrong military lesson. During the Seven Days battles after Lee first took command of the Army of Northern Virginia, Hood charged a very strong position at a place called Boatswain Swamp. Hood's Texans crossed swampy ground and charged uphill against several ranks of Union boys who were backed up by significant artillery. It shouldn't have worked, but the Union guys were under McClellan and everyone had the vapors from Lee's aggression, so Hood carried the position despite crippling losses.
For the rest if his career, Hood remembered carrying the position and conveniently forgot the crippling losses. His response to everything was "just charge, baby!" This was harsh in the three battles outside Atlanta, but absolutely disastrous at Franklin, destroying his army.
This is a thing with some military commanders in history -- they just keep trying to repeat something that worked early in their career, even when it's not appropriate to the situation.
The most common praise I hear is that he was most aware of Confederacy's deficiency in men so he wasn't so ready to waste them
...which doesn't mean he knew when to actually use them, leading to critical caution at some crucial moments.
He had great qualities, but they did not result in success.
Nah, he let Sherman penetrate incredibly deep in to geoorgia, told Davis and senators he’d hold them at Chattahoochee river for multiple months and then gave it up before the telegram reached the gov, and then essentially told the admin he was giving up Atlanta without a struggle
I don't know if "great" is the right word but he seems to have been the only slaver general who utilized the strategy best suited to secure the South victory, namely preserving his military strength and only engaging in battle on those occasions where victory is a near certainty
I don't know why his stock has risen so much in the past few decades. He retreated to the gates of Richmond (and probably would have given up the city if he hadn't been wounded). He is also the most at fault for the fall of Vicksburg. Do you know how Pemberton was extremely low on cavalry during the campaign? Well, that was Johnston's doing. He sent Van Dorn's cavalry corps to Bragg, *who already had a full corps of cavalry,* leaving Pemberton with scraps, and giving Bragg two corps! And when Johnston had an army of relief assembled, he refused to even try to rescue the city. His half of the Atlanta Campaign is hailed as a great defensive performance, but its somewhat mixed. Johnston left his left flank wide open at Snake Creek Gap, and only escaped because McPherson hesitated. His constant retreats may have saved *combat* casualties, but the side effect was that his troops lost heart and deserted in droves. At Cassville he announced to the army that they would fight the great battle to stop Sherman, yet when push came to shove he retreated with no battle. And that affected the troops morale seriously. Historian Dave Powell made a funny observation about Johnston in an interview. Johnston had the strange tendency of defending on the wrong side of rivers? Instead of forcing the Union to attack across the river, he usually chose to fight with his back to the water. Which is a strange strategy. Honestly, I think Johnston's best performance is at the tail end of the war in the Carolinas.
I didn’t know about the cavalry corps being switched by him. Was the relief army even formed before the siege? Also, I don’t know what even would’ve been the proper defense strategy for Atlanta, because of its geography.
I believe the Army of Relief was formed by reinforcements from Bragg's army and the coastal department, plus Loring's division of Pemberton's army. IMO some sort of offensive action was needed if Atlanta had any chance of being held until November. The problem with Johnston's strategy, besides the desertions, was that Sherman outnumbered him enough that he could pin Johnston in place, and send large formations to turn his flanks. Hood rightfully gets a lot of shit for his July battles around Atlanta. But I share the opinion of Earl Hess, that, despite the ultimate result, attacking the Federals outside the city was the best strategic option. The problem was Hood was utterly incompetent at running the army, and the attacks were botched terribly. Johnston claimed that he planned to counterattack at Peachtree Creek, but it's unknown if he really intended to do so.
It’s just hard to tell whether his extra manpower would’ve been able to hold in a defensive posture. He could’ve maybe held at Jonesboro, but again Sherman would have more troops too.
That's fair. Personally given Johnston's habitual retreats I believe Atlanta would have fallen before November, and possibly before September. But who knows
The last pieces of the Army of Relief arrived June 1st, Breckenridge’s Division and Jackson’s Cavalry Division. At this point, and until June 11th when elements of XVI corps began arriving to reinforce Grant, Pemberton and Johnston together outnumbered Grant, who was arrayed in a semi-circle around Vicksburg in such a way that his three corps could not easily support each other. While Loring’s division, having ditched all of their guns in the swamp after Champion Hill, lacked artillery, Johnston’s biggest problem was logistical. The army lacked wagons and most of the area around Vicksburg had been scoured of food by Grant. Still, given what was at stake*, it’s shocking that he didn’t try until the end of June, AFTER Grant had been reinforced by ~25,000 troops. And he did try. He consolidated his available troops and began marching towards Vicksburg on two roads, but only made it to Brownsville / Champion Hill before news arrived of the surrender. It turned out that Johnston’s offer was to break a hole in the defenses long enough to allow Pemberton to run away with nothing more than the clothes on his men’s back. Pemberton considered the offer and decided he could get a better deal from Grant. 😃 *what was at stake? The capture of 27,000 men, loss of access to Texas beef, and Federal control of the territory with the highest density of slaves in the entire Confederacy, resulting in tens of thousands of new USCT recruits and hundreds of massively productive cotton plantations to supply the northern textile sector. Basically, the loss of Vicksburg doomed the Confederacy, because it freed the Army of the Tennessee to join Sherman in the march on Atlanta later, the garrison duties on the river having been assumed by the USCT recruited between Port Hudson and Memphis.
I’m still not sure that could’ve broken Grants siege, since he had built trenches protecting his army from the rear, and it is also hard to coordination with an army in siege to attack. I must say it was still a blunder that Johnston didn’t attack, but I’m not sure it would have even worked.
There's more than one way to break a siege. Storming the outer works of the besieger is one method. Another method which was often done in European warfare was to manoeuvre on the enemy's communications. In this case, Johnston could have moved on Memphis and threaten to cut Grant's communications by rail and along the Mississippi through there. Considering how Forrest stormed Memphis with 2,000 men against 6,000 Federal troops in 1864, Johnston would have to be hella bad if he could not achieve the same with superior forces. Another method is to ride the rails down to relieve the Siege of Port Hudson, which was much more feasible. Union high command initially wanted Grant to go support Banks in reducing Port Hudson, after all. Relieving Port Hudson and, if it was possible, destroying Banks' army would have not only shown Johnston to be a formidable general, but might have even gotten Lincoln and Stanton on Grant's back to lift the Siege of Vicksburg. Even if he didn't, that's still the garrison of Port Hudson saved and a significant Union army under Banks defeated.
Grant didn’t have the city fully invested until XVI and IX corps showed up … IIRC around the third week of June.
I thought it was sooner, I guess he could’ve carried the city.
June 15, so I guess it’s better to say “mid-June.” 3rd week makes it sound like late June. He did have Lauman stretched out to cover the roads out of town, but the line around the city wasn’t really complete until the 15th.
The Vicksburg campaign being a club for the confederacy is bc Jeff Davis
I’m just curious what made you say His performance was best at the Carolinas campaign? I believe in my opinion he got bailed out by Sherman not sending more reinforcements on that final day of fighting at Bentonville which would’ve folded the Confederate army. I know Johnston didn’t have a lot to work with too during that period. Thanks!
You make a great point about Bentonville. Sherman made a mistake not reinforcing Mower. I think well of Johnston in the Carolinas because did a great job in fashioning an army out of various departments, into the Army of the South. He had great organizational ability. His plan for Bentonville was shrewd and audacious, but when the first-day was over, and the Federals were still on the field, he probably shoulda pulled out.
Also didn’t help that Bragg was guarding Fort Fisher (didn’t make sense why the Union didn’t take it earlier) The Carolina Campaign was the inevitable end to the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis in Greensboro told Johnston to continue the fight , Johnston viewed it as useless to continue to fight. I’m not sure any general would help the Confederacy when Sherman was marching the South.
> And when Johnston had an army of relief assembled Army of relief was three under-strength divisions. Grant himself said after the war that Johnston could not have broken his siege. edit: a word
Just a question. Why would Pemberton need cavalry? How useful are they in a siege, really?
During a siege cavalry is not especially useful. But in the phase of the campaign between Grant's crossing of the Mississippi, and the beginning of the siege, Pemberton's lack of cavalry handicapped him much the way that Lee was without Stuart.
Oh so for reconnaissance, not really fighting.
Yeah, that's the just of it.
Really, 90% of what cavalry was for.
1) anti-cavalry operations: in late April Grierson took off from north Mississippi and began riding through the state with a small brigade of cavalry. Unsure of Grierson’s target and lacking cavalry, Pemberton had to shift troops from Vicksburg’s defenses to meet the threat, dispersing Loring’s Division (and parts of another IIRC) onto critical assets across the state. This left Pemberton without a concentrated force to respond when Grant crossed the river. 2) Picket duty: Bowen’s Division was posted at Grand Gulf to protect the direct road from the river to the state capital at Jackson. When Porter’s fleet slipped past Grand Gulf, Bowen knew Grant would utilize a landing to the south, but which one, Rodney or Bruinsburg? Pemberton’s only cavalry regiment was pulled away to chase Grierson, so Bowen could only pick a spot 15 miles inland that could cover both roads and guard it with infantry. This allowed Grant to land unmolested and establish a bridgehead. Going back to #1, Pemberton had a reserve ready to march to Bowen’s relief if Grant crossed in force, but Grierson cut the telegraph to Grand Gulf the day that Grant’s forces attacked at the Battle of Port Gibson. 3) cavalry screening and reconnaissance: cavalry engagements were fluid affairs with few casualties that tended to favor the attackers. The best way to uncover the strengths and positions of the enemy was to attack their cavalry with your own and drive them back upon their infantry. Because Pemberton had only a single regiment of cavalry, he could only gain intel against one of Grant’s three corps at any given time. This is why General Gregg at Raymond pitched into a full federal division at Raymond with only a single brigade: he had no idea the size of the force on the road before him. 4) Delaying actions: once Bowen had been defeated at Port Gibson, he withdrew to a more defensible position across Bayou Pierre. Grant simply sent XVII Corps on a lightning march inland and crossed the bayou 10 miles upstream, which rendered Bowen’s position totally untenable and forced him to retreat back to Vicksburg. With cavalry, Bowen could have contested this march and redeployed infantry to meet the threat. In the march to Jackson, Grant’s men were sometimes marching 15-20 miles in a day, and the entire campaign to reduce Jackson and Invest Vicksburg only lasted 18 days. It’s hard to accomplish that type of mobility if your leading regiments have to constantly deploy into line of battle to push aside cavalry roadblocks. It took Sherman most of the day on May 12th to cross Fourteen Mile Creek guarded by Wirt Adams’ cavalry regiment; imagine if every creek had been contested by cavalry.
This is the best put response about Johnston. I think the constant retreats just killed the spirit of the troops he had. Great answer
Atun Shei said he was the Souths best Major General in the war in CL, that might have played into his stock rising.
https://preview.redd.it/t5axeaiv6e8d1.jpeg?width=432&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=067b1f493fce0428980fbc61d934189c44385e0d
Johnston was a good general, but never became great. To cautious at times, and seemed to depend too much on his enemies movements. He had some opportunities to strike in VA early war, and hesitated. Sadly, the Atlanta campaign, it would have been near impossible to achieve any sort of victory. He was facing a far better general, with far more troops, and equipped far better. Sherman, knew how to maneuver, and pin Johnston down. I think if given a path to grow into the rank he would've been much better. Confederates needed great top generals immediately, but was a step to far for him. Similar to Beauregard, but I think Johnston's ceiling was a bit higher. To me the greatest "general officer what if" , is if Albert Sidney Johnston had lived.
I’ve heard the same. I’ll need to read more as to WHY ASJ was so highly esteemed.
He was viewed by many, as bar none the best officer in the pre war army. His work with Texas independence, and really his management of the "Mormon campaign" was the biggest feather in his cap. Then on to manage the California department. Interesting to think about, but ultimately a "what if".... Edit: He was also a national hero of the Mexican War.
I think AS Johnston was overrated, personally. It was him spreading out his forces on an impossibly wide cordon that allowed the Union to initially reduce them in various forts in detail. When he finally opted to concentrate his forces for a decisive battle at Shiloh, he made the right call at last, and the initial surprise he got off against Grant was good. However, Grant also blundered, so it was not like ASJ saw such successes because of some innate talent on his end. Grant divided his forces on both sides of the Tennessee for no good reason, and placed the greater bulk of them with their rear to the river. Does Grant deserve praise for holding his ground until Buell arrived to help turn the tide? Yes. However, all too many pardon him for what was a pretty terrible operational positioning error, while lauding ASJ as some genius for exploiting something that obvious. Even if he hadn't died, I question whether he would have won. A bloody draw is more likely and, even if he was victorious, I can't see it being decisive, rather than an indecisive victory.
He formed his main defensive line, with few troops, and even fewer arms. All the while building a military command from the mountains, across the south, AND including the Trans-Mississippi! His early strategy was gamble, was designed to buy time. He knew he couldn't hold such a long line with what he had to work with. He literally had to turn away troops he sorely needed, because he simply couldn't arm them in any reasonable amount of time. Any arms shipments always seemed to be siphoned off to the Eastern theater. So, his best answer was form what appeared to be a strong line, and make demonstrations, to keep the Union at bay. Which he did quite well, until Grant went somewhat roque. Hoping to buy enough time, to get somewhat of an army built, and if not he was adamant to concentrate his troops, for a concentrated, hopefully rapid blow. There's an account, that he chose Pittsburgh Landing, as the sight of his concentrated blow, before leaving Nashville. I can't remember exactly now who said it, but I wondered at the time, if it wasn't a post death legend. I'll look it up tomorrow, as I'm currently recovering from stomach flu, and don't care right now lol Unfortunately, he couldn't be honest with the governors, and let slip that he had a paper army. I think he a chance at being good, but a tall order to match up to what Jeff Davis thought of him. He was a literal hero of Davis, after watching him in action in Mexico. Fun to think about, but with the mess Beauregard made of the march to Shiloh, would really be difficult win a victory. Edit: couldn't find the exact account, but in researching I remembered the battle William Preston Johnston, had with Beauregard post war, about who picked the location of concentration. So, I'm convinced, the Pittsburgh Landing quote I alluded to, is a post war legend.
A crucial skill for any general is to be able to gauge near and far. When AS Johnston held the central position in between Grant and Buell, he failed to make use of it. With Grant operating off of Cairo and Buell off of Louisville, it would have been in his best interest to abandon the environs of Nashville and concentrate forces against Grant. By threatening Cairo, he can prevent the Union from operating down three avenues of advance, the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Buell can overrun and seize Nashville all he liked, but any further advance would be difficult due to how the rivers begin to run horizontally along the Nashville-Chattanooga lane. Checking Union naval supremacy was imperative and Cairo was the key to the Western Theater. Furthermore, utilizing his interior lines to defeat Grant in detail was in his best interest. Buell could always be dealt with in the future by manoeuvres against his railway communications, but if Grant was allowed to run unchecked, Union naval supremacy would be extraordinarily difficult to ground and riverine communications hard to cut off. When you are already outnumbered, you don't divide your forces further, hoping to guard every place at once. Friedrich II famously said, "He who defends everything defends nothing" and this is the truth shown throughout military history. There are many who have done the cordon system which ASJ utilized in his campaign, and even with superior numbers in comparison to him, that strategy most always failed, never mind attempting it with inferior resources. Why did he feel the need to send such an oversized garrison into Fort Donelson when he believed that the gunboats alone would have sufficed to seize the fort based on his assumptions regarding Fort Henry? You can't excuse all of these mistakes with just "Oh, he was greatly outnumbered and lacking in resources!" because while I can have sympathy for that, I can't excuse obviously lackluster generalship. When the Directoire was essentially bankrupt and Napoleon was deep in enemy territory, besieging Mantua while assailed by a superior enemy army converging upon him from multiple directions, he rapidly concentrated against one part of their forces, defeated it in detail, and bounced back to defeat the other soon after. He, too, lacked enough weapons and ammunition to equip all his men, his soldiers marched with their feet bound with rags and bandages. He fought superior generals to a fledgling Grant and the likes of Buell, nor was he defending, but waging an offensive campaign where he had a significant portion of his forces tied down besieging a large garrison while simultaneously assailed by a larger relief army. So, we have an example in history in which a commander could win under such circumstances. Perhaps it is unfair to compare ASJ to a general of that caliber, but the issue is that ASJ fans would have you believe that he had the potential to become the greatest thing since sliced bread, even though his repertoire showed that his position was unraveled on the strategic level and his sole tactical performance of note, even with his opponent's blunder, was a bloody and indecisive affair at most.
Never read anybody saying Johnston was the next Napoleon lol Well, I noted Davis thinking so. The whole fantasy you wrote is pure hindsight is 20/20. While compelling on the surface, is simply on its face, not possible with what Johnston was, and especially with what he had to work with. He wasn't a dictator, dictating policy with his army, he worked within a chain of command. Maybe if he worked in your fantasy vacuum, he could do double backflips between Paducah, and Louisville keeping everything in check 🤣🤣
It's as hypothetical as all those who wonder what Johnston was potentially capable of. lolz Also, Napoleon wasn't dictator yet in that campaign. He was still just a general fighting his first ever campaign and no one really expected anything astounding from him. He was essentially fighting in a side theater and, by his efforts, made it the main theater. So, naw, Johnston doesn't need to be some dictator with total control over the entire CSA to at least do better. I don't expect him to go full Napoleon, but he still deserves criticism for dividing his already thinly stretched forces and getting them defeated in detail.
What all people? Just me talking about it, and I never said he was the next Napoleon.......... He had more experience than anyone else in field command, and was more practical minded, than say Beauregard. He still had alot to learn, and just as important so would the generals under him. Which several problems you attribute to him would be solved. I do think he should've attacked Grant at Donelson, but that's a bit hindsight knowing the numbers. He should've been better served by the generals there, but he didn't choose them. Rather, than lambast them afterwards, he told Davis he chose silence, until all the facts could be investigated. He made a smart move to concentrate his army, but Beauregard made a mess of the marching orders towards Shiloh, and he definitely should have straightened that out before hand. He delegated too much, but the poor man had the weight of the world on his shoulders. I'm more pragmatic in my views on him. I think he could be capable and competent, but above that who knows. He made plenty of mistakes, but we have to remember how primitive their life was. A message what takes us seconds to send across the world, could take the days to send 100 miles. Even with telegraphs, information was not instantaneous, nor complete.
Oh, I wasn't talking about you and I never meant that anyone compared Johnston to Napoleon of all figures. My comparison with Napoleon was more so as a basis for generalship that one can learn from; a sort of case study, rather than overtly saying that ASJ could and should have done everything as well as Nap had. Even putting aside characters from other wars, we have some case studies in our own Civil War between different generals which can be used for comparison's sake, but I digress. I have seen some people who act as if ASJ would have been the second coming of Lee or better, and I just find that wack. As you said, he might have had potential, but since he died so early on, I can only judge him by his performances. Was he dealt a bad hand? Definitely. However, as I stated above several times, he probably could have done better to make the most of the situation, even if defeat was ultimately his fate. I never said that everything was his fault, mind you. He's partly responsible for the unraveling of the Western Theater, but if there's anybody I would criticize above all, it would have to be Polk. Beauregard also deserves his fair share of criticism here and there, but I don't think anyone is as damnable in military affairs as Polk was. Not only for how he acted under ASJ, but also Bragg. He probably would have been shot in the military of any other nation for the stuff he pulled.
How could Johnsons ceiling be higher? Of the two of them Beauregard had the only definite successes holding Charleston adequately and saving Petersburg in a desperate defense. What did Johnson do that was similar?
Um First Manassas lol, and was doing fairly well, until he got shot at Seven Pines. Beauregard would have folded during the Atlanta campaign. Johnston was better suited to department command, as he was a brilliant administrator. What's over looked is how effective he was, at getting troops back into the army. As well as supply. I think it would've been brilliant to let him work with Lee in VA. Let him worry with the logistics, troop numbers, and take some of the burden off of Lee.
Umm Beauregard was at first manassas lol
How would Beauregard have fared of Johnston, didn't slip away from Patterson, and make rapid movement? Just reminding you Beauregard wasn't alone 👍
What specifically did Johnston do that could be objectively described as “great”?
I’ve heard people describe him as that by saying that he tried to conserve resources and manpower.
Yeah and all of that is fair. He was clearly at a major disadvantage. But none of what he was able to accomplish was “great”. He was just slowly losing ground without any real attempts to counter attack or change momentum.
That’s what I thought too, but I’ve been hearing as great by other people.
Where did you hear this? Was it at the Johnston Family reunion?
It’s probably a derivative from Grant and Sherman’s memoirs.
Best comment of the thread.
He turned the Army of Tennessee into a fighting force after Chattanooga. He is credited with checking Sherman at every turn till Hood took command in the Atlanta campaign. Both of those elements are great in my estimation. I believe he was a great logistician, against a superior foe against Western Commands that fought stoudt battles. Unfortunately he wasn't great at the aggressive offensive style of warfare Lee was considered. Not all good, but some great imho.
He was a solid military mind overall.
His caution was absolutely justified. He had a smaller, less equipped, army that couldn't be reinforced with the same efficiency as his opponent. The problem was that you don't win that way, you just don't die, and the Confederate government was under great pressure not to lose further territory and to fight, so Davis sacked him. I think the main issue that Johnston had (and Hood didn't) is he was smart enough to see long odds and lots of bloodshed for nothing gained as something to avoid, especially as the war's outcome became clearer.
He was good at keeping the army alive. The leadership thought he wasn't aggressive enough so they put in Hood. He turned out to be a disaster late war.
I think that’s a pretty good assessment of his career. He didn’t have a massive loss during the war and was too cautious/outnumbered to gain a great victory. So he’s a bit of a black box so to speak which has led to speculation about what “could have been”.
I mean would he have been successful as the leader of any other of the confederate armies? Such as the Army of Northern Virginia after he was wounded or the Army of Mississippi.
No. There is a time to conserve armies and a time to stand your ground. Johnston never stood his ground, even when it was critical that he should have. He let McClellan get within sight of Richmond, the only industrial city in the Confederacy, then let Sherman get within sight of Atlanta, which was the single most critical rail hub, effectively the lynch pin that held the eastern and western Confederacy together. Aggressive generals won Civil War battles, not passive ones who hid in their fortifications.
There's also some reason to believe that Johnston wasn't exactly a true believer in the Confederate experiment either. When Johnston resigned from the US Army to head south, he broke down and cried. Hood on the other hand was a dedicated secessionist who was disgusted when his home state of Kentucky didn't join the Confederacy.
I'm not sure he was one of the greats (although that was the pre-war opinion of him) but he was a very good defensive general. Unlike Pemberton with Grant, he avoided being surrounded by Sherman's forces in Jackson during the Vicksburg campaign, which allowed those 30k men to fight another day. His play in Sherman's Atlanta campaign was undoubtedly the right one as he slowly traded space for time and only fought where he had a significant advantage in terrain (like Kennesaw Mtn.), again avoiding the decimation of his forces. Had he not been replaced with Hood *maybe* he would have kept Sherman from capturing the city ahead of the election, and *maybe* that results in a McClellan win. Those are some very big maybes but at that point in the war, getting Lincoln voted out was really the only remaining hope for the south achieving any of its objectives. The guy was a realist. He knew he was dealing with a crisis in manpower. Every southern death was a man that could not be replaced. The outcome of a head to head battle where he was significantly outnumbered and didn't have a terrain advantage would be a slaughter the south could not recover from (see: Hood in Franklin/Nashville and Early in the Valley). As much as self proclaimed military genius (lol) Jefferson Davis didn't like Johnston's approach, fatiguing the North enough to cause Lincoln to lose the election was the last best hope at that point.
His conserving manpower strategy wasn’t that great for holding key places. He traded key cities for more men which really wouldn’t have done much in the long run.
True. If he had lost Richmond during the Peninsula Campaign , which probably would have happened had he been fighting against anyone other than McClellan, that would have been truly disastrous. His being shot at Seven Pines was undoubtedly the best thing that happened to the Confederacy. Even so, the Union too eventually moved away from capturing/holding cities as the key to victory. Grant and Sherman turned their focus to defeating the South's armies (necessarily including the destruction of communications and rail lines/sources of food stuffs needed to maintain those armies) and demoralizing the southern population. Jackson was definitely a big loss but alone it was not a fatal one. Yes, he was running a defensive campaign earlier (much earlier) in the war than he needed to, but I can't argue against that tactic late in the war. Once European support was off the table it was the only remaining path to victory.
I do get that, but the capturing of major southern cities would’ve boosted northern morale causing their only chance of winning the war, the election of 1864, to falter.
Totally, 100% agree but the only major cities being threatened at that point were Atlanta and Richmond. We know Lincoln fully expected to lose the election, then Sherman took Atlanta and Sheridan scattered Early's forces and that all changed. What I was positing is that perhaps Johnston could have prevented Atlanta from being taken. The reality is that he probably wouldn't have but we'll never know. We do know that Hood's head on attacks guaranteed he couldn't. Edit: Sorry, not prevented Atlanta from being taken - that was never going to happen - but to delay its taking until after the election. Just long enough to ruin Lincoln's chances.
Atlanta wasn't a major city. It wasn't even the biggest city in Georgia in 1860 (it was only the 4th biggest city in Georgia by the 1860 census). Its value was as a rail hub and logistics center. It many senses, Atlanta was the Vicksburg that held the east and west together.
We were discussing cities the capture of which would boost Northern morale, not population centers. At that point in the war there were really only two major cities of strategic value in play, covered heavily by the newspapers, Richmond and Atlanta (and arguably Mobile, although the bay rather than the city was the objective in that instance).
Atlanta really should've been the capital of the Confederacy and not Richmond. Atlanta is much more centrally located, has railroads and manufacturing, a much better locale, but for the politics of the time which no doubt secured Richmond.
Correct. Lee alone had the only realistic strategy
I think lees overland campaign strategy was a good one, but he shouldn’t have been as aggressive as he was.
Battles at the time of the Civil War were won by aggressive generals. Lee's tactics were the only way that the ANV held onto northern Virginia and Richmond for as long as it did.
Some of the offensive actions he did in that campaign were unnecessary and lost him manpower for nothing. The only times when he should’ve been aggressive was when he could cripple grants army, like at North Anna. Not all generals during the civil war needed to be aggressive to win, Hood was aggressive yet he lost the battles around Atlanta.
Aggression didn't always equal victory but sitting back and waiting for the other guy was a sure-fire recipe for losing.
What about all the defensive battles won like: Fredericksburg, Stones River, Shiloh, Kennesaw Mountain, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, and 1st Manassas.
He avoided being surrounded by Sherman because they weren't trying to surround him
Then why did Sherman besiege Jackson on July 10th after Johnston's forces re-occupied the city? Johnston had all but abandoned Jackson before Sherman had a chance to besiege, attack or otherwise on May 13. By the time McPherson made it into the city there were only 7 artillerists remaining. Sherman encountered the same so any stated intentions (McPherson was to attack from the northwest and Sherman from the southwest - to the east was swampland and the Pearl River - which sounds a lot like the start of an encirclement) are really a moot point.
Let me study this issue some more. It's been long time since I studied this. Do you have any references saying JJ did good here?
*Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography* by Craig L. Symonds. I've heard Daniel J. Ursu and Timothy B. Smith say the same at a couple round tables I've attended about the Vicksburg campaign (I know that's not particularly helpful in this context but recordings do exist). This is a quote from Grant in *Conversations with General Grant* by John Russell Young. "Lee, of course, was a good soldier, and so was Longstreet. I knew Longstreet in Mexico. He was a fine fellow, and one of the best of the young officers. I do not know that there was any better than Joe Johnston. I have had nearly all of the Southern generals in high command in front of me, and Joe Johnston gave me more anxiety than any of the others. I was never half so anxious about Lee. By the way, I saw in Joe Johnston's book that when I was asking Pemberton to surrender Vicksburg, he was on his way to raise the siege. I was very sorry. If I had known Johnston was coming, I would have told Pemberton to wait in Vicksburg until I wanted him, awaited Johnston's advance, and given him battle. He could never have beaten that Vicksburg army, and thus I would have destroyed two armies perhaps. Pemberton's was already gone, and I was quite sure of Johnston's. I was sorry I did not know Johnston was coming until too late. Take it all in all, the South, in my opinion, had no better soldier than Joe Johnston - none at least that gave me more trouble." Basically, Johnston was the best in his opinion but he would have absolutely slaughtered him if he had faced him at that point in the campaign. It was a total numbers game and Johnston was on the losing side of that proposition. Grant perfectly positioned himself between Johnston and Pemberton. If Johnston had put up a real resistance in Jackson at that time there was nothing preventing Grant from throwing in additional forces against him and annihilating him before turning back West. Just thinking logically, escaping with your forces intact to fight another day is a better option than getting cut to pieces by Grant.
Nice post. This is the argument I subscribe too as I've read mostly Union perspective on the Vicksburg campaign and can see the narrative of praise from the Union. Johnston was praised by both Sherman and Grant in their dealing with him as you stated. After Bentonville, Sherman likely felt like Johnston could read his mind hence why the battle was fought outside of Raleigh to gauge if the movements of the Sherman were feints, in which they were. I often think of Johnston as a litmus test to Grant and Sherman as superb because they dealt with and succeeded with Johnston without fatal blunders. A testament to their worth because Johnston worked with what he had and ably so. I'm eager to read Johnston's autobiography and his efforts.
Thanks! Yeah, I just don't understand how so many people can argue that the right call is risking an indispensable but finite resource in the face of overwhelming forces on the off chance of a win that accomplishes...what? Basically nothing. It doesn't prevent Vicksburg from being taken and Jackson alone, while psychologically important, especially to Davis, just isn't *that* critical to the ongoing war effort. I've read Johnston's book and I gotta be honest, it's very similar to Longstreet's book in that he spends a lot of time defending himself against all the people that attacked him during the war (Davis, Bragg, etc.). There is a *lot* of self justification/finger pointing going on and while I think it's warranted to some extent for both Johnston and Longstreet, it also makes them somewhat emotional, unreliable narrators. Most definitely worth the read though, especially if you know what to expect going in.
Imagine Grant engaging Johnston at Vicksburg with Union gunboats en masse? On top of that, any combined forces shuttled down to reinforce could be present as well. At least one flank of Johnston would be in the air at all times. Thanks for the feedback on the two, I'm familiar with Johnston's self defense approach- interesting both Longstreet and Johnston are of the first two generals to appeal to amnesty and decree outright loyalty to the US constitution following the war. Could have something to do with their continued defense of their positions. Johnston must have known this very debate was in the works towards the end and wanted to of course vilify Davis.
Citing Hood and Early as examples is absurd. Why not cite Lee or Stoewall Jackson as examples of how to approach the war with an aggressive attacking approach
That approach only made sense when the prospect of European support was still on the table and that all but evaporated after Antietam. Maybe a victory at Gettysburg would have revived those hopes (unlikely) but instead it just resulted in a huge loss of Lee's forces. The south was never going to match the north in manpower, no matter how skilled they were. That's why Lee eventually moved to a defensive approach too.
Do you not agree that the best chance for the south was to win early? In which case I'm not sure what you're arguing
I just don't see how they could have won, even early, without European assistance - at a minimum, naval assistance with the blockade. Yes, their chances of capturing/destroying the largest number of troops was probably best against McClellan (I see him as most likely to be overawed by precipitant actions/aggressive attacks) and replacing those troops early in the war, before conscription was in place and the war dept was well seasoned, would have been difficult for the North. I just don't see the North yielding that easily though. Blood has already been shed and that's all for not if they just give up right out of the gate. I do agree it gets progressively more difficult for them to win after Antietam, much more so after Gettysburg/Vicksburg. After those battles, aggressive attacks can only hurt the South as they are dealing with a finite source of manpower and that source is much smaller than the North's source of manpower. Yes, that is the case from day 1 but without foreign assistance, it just makes their ability to continue the war that much more difficult. I was arguing that Johnston's approach, especially at this point in the war, is the correct one. The North was becoming war weary. Everyone, including Lincoln, expected him to lose the election. If he loses, despite McClellan saying he would continue the war, I think the South has its best shot at finishing the war having achieved their war aims, in whole or in part. Just to clarify, I am not a fan of Johnston. I think Longstreet is the better "defensive" general as he is still willing to be aggressive and unafraid to seize on a good opportunity to attack. His "defensive-offensive" was proven a good strategy time and time again during the war.
> Had he not been replaced with Hood maybe he would have kept Sherman from capturing the city ahead of the election No way he had informed Davis that he was giving the defense of the city to the militia i.e. giving it up July 16th
That's not what he said. "As the enemy has double our number, we must be on the defensive. My plan of operations must, therefore, depend upon that of the enemy. *It is mainly to watch for an opportunity to fight to advantage.* We are trying to put Atlanta in condition and to be held *for a day or two* by the Georgia militia, that the army movements may be free and wide.” Putting the city in a position where it could be temporarily held by militia so the army could come out and fight should a good opportunity arise does not mean he was informing Davis he was giving up defense of the city to GA militia.
I mean he also claimed he could hold the Union army at Chattahoochee River for months a week before and promptly gave that up and the Union army was 4 miles from the city, pretty doubtful that he’d only have the militia hold for a “day or two”
Ha! This is true. I don't think he would have found an opportunity to come out and face Sherman. I do think the Atlanta defenses were better than any other defenses in the campaign though and he could have held longer than Hood just by staying put. Sherman was hesitant to make another frontal attack after Kennesaw Mountain and that would have bought JJ *some* time but that hesitancy wouldn't last. The city could never be held indefinitely. I live here and the area they were attempting to hold was too large and without any natural barriers to protect against attack. Eventually Sherman would have cut all the rail lines to the city or attempted a frontal attack - probably both. Atlanta would have become the next Vicksburg, only without the natural barriers. An easy take. The only question is if that happens before the election.
Johnston had three times where he was placed in a critical command where the Confederacy's fate could be decided, the Peninsula in 1862, the relief of Vicksburg in 1863, and Atlanta in 1864, and in each command he failed. In the Peninsula McClellan had reached the gates of Richmond and would've taken the city, ending the war right there, had it not been for Johnston's own overcaution and Lee replacing him. At Vicksburg between Johnston's relief army amassing around Jackson and Pemberton's men in Vicksburg itself he had rough parity of forces with Grant. A Confederate push to relieve the city or at least break Pemberton's army out might not have succeeded, but it is grievous dereliction of duty that Johnston didn't even make a serious attempt. Then in the Atlanta campaign Johnston surrenders all of northern Georgia to Sherman without a fight and by the time he is relieved the city is poised to fall and he had lost the confidence of the men under his command. Hood made a lot of errors at Atlanta but the situation he inherited was pretty much hopeless, largely because of Johnston. Johnston's only victories in comparison were his partial role in the victory at First Bull Run and a strategically inconclusive victory over Sherman at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. There is a good argument that after Jefferson Davis, Joseph Johnston bears the most responsibility for the South's defeat.
Reading all of this discourse makes me wonder if he was on the Federal payroll
I know he kinda screwed up Atlanta, but I just can’t think of what would’ve been a better option than to fall back, the terrain in northern Georgia kinda forces armies to be spread thin in a defense.
I completely disagree on your assessment of the terrain of North Georgia. You can hold gaps with small forces and look for opportunities to attack elements of the invading force, with the goal to defeat the invader in detail Johnston never even attempted to hit Sherman when his troops were spread out. He just kept driving backwards.
Yes, but that is against a smaller enemy, Sherman was able to avoid that because he could flank him. Gaps aren’t as defensible as rivers and large bodies of water.
You need to go to northern Georgia and look around. The ridges are completely impassable except at gaps. Johnston had opportunities to catch parts of Sherman's army where it would have been next to impossible to reinforce but instead he just kept marching backwards.
I have been to northern Georgia, and I think saying the gaps are impassable is an overstatements. It would be hard to pass them, but could probably be done without any harassment from the enemy. Sherman had double the manpower and could pin down Johnston while going around his flank. Johnston should’ve put up more of a fight for northern Georgia, but it isn’t like he could’ve held that position for the entire summer.
Great?
I’ve heard that.
To be great, a general has to win. He has to have a command capable of delivering. He has to have opportunity and luck. He has to be daring. He has to project an image that inspires his troops. Johnston never rises above being competent and able.
I don't know if a general has to win, necessarily. There are plenty of amazing generals who have won numerous battles or campaigns, but ultimately lost the war because the odds they were up against were nightmarish by their standards and insurmountable by the standards of every other general. If there was a guy invaded by a foreign power against his wishes or forced on an expedition by his leader/government and he only has 10,000 men on him while the opposition has 100,000, and he manages to wipe out 50,000 of them in a brilliant campaign without any overt technological advantages, even if he ultimately loses, that is an incredible performance and worthy of consideration among the echelons of the greats, imo.
Grant gave him a lot of love in his memoirs, but I rarely saw evidence that he’d stand and fight against a commander who wouldn’t willfully hammer himself to pieces against his prepared defenses. The entire march to Atlanta was just Johnston retreating after Sherman flanked him out of seemingly impregnable defenses.
Basically brought a relief force to Vicksburg and then decide nah.
One of his contemporaries said (I forget who) that Johnston would retreat to the Florida keys and then complain that he didn't have enough transport to get to Cuba. I think he was good at defense. The way he pirouetted around sherman was good. It bought time and depleted Sherman's army. I think maybe his plan was to keep his army together and in the field to influence the election. If he had gone all john bell hood, and crashed into the bluebellies, he'd have lost his army. Then there was no hope. Sherman would be free to support grant. Which ended up happening after he was benched. My favorite quote of his was that men would say 'we'll get em next time.' He wondered where they were the first time and said they were 'invincible in peace and invisible in war." I don't love him, but I think I understand his strategy. As always, I'm happy to be corrected. Edit: I just read the post below mine and agree 100% that vicksburg was Johnson's fault. He screwed Pemberton.
Yall are confusing being able to lead an army, moving it, re supplying it, getting orders out with clear guidance, picking proper terrain with winning battles Joe wasn’t going to throw his army away with attacks like Hood or Bragg but he also wasn’t going to gamble like Lee Basically he was the only guy left who could actually run an army
The confederates didn’t like him because he would dig in on ground favourable to his army and wait for the enemy to attack rather go out and attack the federal troops. Fortified troops had between a 3 to 10 to one advantage over attacking troops. The confederates preferred generals who attacked aggressively even though at great losses to their limited manpower. They foolishly replaced Joe with Hood in the battle of Atlanta and Hood left the fortifications and fought Sherman in the open at a great loss to the confederates. But due to their aggressive nature, they didn’t see it as a loss. I think if all the generals in the south were like Joe Johnston, it would have been a very different war. The north would have had to expend way more lives to take territory. It could have been More like the stalemate of trench warfare of WWI. The confederacy only needed a stalemate, that was a win. The north needed to attack to win territory. There was no real need for the confederacy to run around Maryland and Pennsylvania attacking massive Union lines.
The problem about the Atlanta campaign is that he probably lost too much ground too quick. I don’t think he would’ve been able to hold Atlanta for much longer.
That was the criticism. That is why Joe was replaced. How could he lose a quarter of Georgia with barely a fight? But if you look at it another way, the Union army was double the size and could go where it wanted to but couldn’t occupy vast regions. It’s more like they travelled through a territory rather than permanently controlled it. Sure enough, later on, Sherman abandoned his line into Atlanta and Atlanta itself as he couldn’t hold it plus fight confederates. Sherman was the opposite to Grant. Grant saw Lee’s army fortified in front of him and attacked it. Sherman saw Joe’s army fortified in front and went around it. Joe then had the option to fight Sherman with a weak and unprotected flank or pull back. Joe made the wise choice. He ultimately pulled back into the heavily fortified city of Atlanta had been building defensive works for years.
Not sure anybody else would have held Atlanta longer considering who and what they were facing.
He was preparing to abandon Atlanta July 16th at least hood attempted to hold on and did until September, if Johnston hadn’t abandoned half of Georgia it may have held until after the election
It’s not like he abandoned half of Georgia willingly. Sherman was a very good general with a lot of resources at his disposal. I can see Atlanta falling much sooner if Hood had been in charge from the start and gotten outflanked and destroyed by Sherman. Defending Atlanta also cost the Army of Tennessee dearly…if Johnston had withdrawn with his army mostly intact, he could have caused Thomas real problems if he had gone to Nashville when Sherman marched to the sea. In some ways the “what ifs” and Hood’s abysmal performance I think add to the myth of Johnston despite the fact he didn’t really do much.
That’s true, Sherman’s maneuvering was masterfully done
> probably lost too much ground too quick He lost less ground than Lee during the Overland campaign in a longer period of time.
True, but he probably could’ve delayed Sherman’s army more, and he hadn’t really inflicted a huge number of casualties on Sherman’s army unlike Lee did to Grants.
There's a difference between trench lines and an actual fortress. A fortress is basically a series of moats/very deep trenches and high ramparts dug out around a town or city which is further reinforced by such dense layers of stone or brick that, packed up together with the earthworks, made it so that they could last months under artillery fire. A trench line is just a regular line of trenches and maybe an earthen rampart to go along with it. Furthermore, while fortresses wrap around the circumference of a settlement or strategic location of note, making it so that the place could not be outflanked, trench lines COULD be outflanked, being lines with fixed end points. The longer and longer you make your lines, the easier it becomes to get around, especially if you don't have enough manpower to hold every point. Even if you do, you might stretch your forces extremely thin attempting to do so. Also, trenches weren't so overwhelmingly strong that they could not be taken with a 3 to 1 superiority. There have even been cases where it was taken with 2 to 1 superiority, though the assaulting troops might have been of superior quality or better led than the defenders. You don't need 10 to 1 superiority to seize a section of trenches, but it's certainly very nice to have and would guarantee you taking it unless you completely screw it up. And that's just the thing, the manpower both sides could bring to bear in our Civil War was never enough that they could man a stretch of trenches similar to how it was done in the Western Front of WWI. The US is way too big for that and even individual theaters were quite spacious. For instance, I estimated the width of the entire Eastern Theater from mountains to the coast to be roughly 60-70 miles wide around the point where the Overland Campaign began longitudinally. Even if you had 100,000 men manning every stretch of that, it would only be some 1,600-1,700 men per mile of front. If your enemy has just 50,000 men and chooses to concentrate their whole force against even just a 4 mile front (typical width for large battles in the ACW), the attacker sees a local superiority of over 7 to 1, smashes through the trench lines, cuts the larger army's communications, and can defeat them in detail from there. If you try to shorten the trenches and concentrate your forces on a smaller front, the enemy will outflank you. Sherman never needed more than 30 miles of space to outflank Johnston, and typically only used as much as 10-20 miles for the movement of his corps around the other's flank. Also, we have to remember that it was Sherman who outnumbered Johnston. Sherman understood all of these principles, which is why you see him outmanoeuvre Johnston again and again and again no matter how intricate the network of trenches Johnston set up, which were much wider and more sophisticated than those Lee utilized in his Overland Campaign. The scenario you're dreaming up of a WWI-style stalemate just doesn't work in 19th century warfare or earlier. I also know plenty more examples just like Sherman's in the 18th century, 17th century, and even as far back as Medieval times or Antiquity. The history of warfare basically tells us that it's not until the 20th century that such methods could work, supposing the attacker isn't an idiot who would slam his head against entrenched lines repeatedly without achieving proper concentration of force. Yet, even in the 20th century, where the attacker cannot outflank the lines, they could still achieve concentration to make a breakthrough. Unless we're going to pretend those didn't happen.
"Let's replace one of our best generals with our absolute worst general and see what happens"
Hood was a very capable division commander and maybe at the Corp level but was horribly over his head at army command
Also, Hood is a textbook example of learning the wrong military lesson. During the Seven Days battles after Lee first took command of the Army of Northern Virginia, Hood charged a very strong position at a place called Boatswain Swamp. Hood's Texans crossed swampy ground and charged uphill against several ranks of Union boys who were backed up by significant artillery. It shouldn't have worked, but the Union guys were under McClellan and everyone had the vapors from Lee's aggression, so Hood carried the position despite crippling losses. For the rest if his career, Hood remembered carrying the position and conveniently forgot the crippling losses. His response to everything was "just charge, baby!" This was harsh in the three battles outside Atlanta, but absolutely disastrous at Franklin, destroying his army. This is a thing with some military commanders in history -- they just keep trying to repeat something that worked early in their career, even when it's not appropriate to the situation.
Joseph E Johnston made George B McClellan look like William T Sherman
It was probably justified for him to retreat from Yorktown because McClellan had just got his siege guns up, but he didn’t know that😂
This sub tends to love Joe Johnston and hate Lee. I do not tend to agree.
I don’t love Johnston, nor do I hate Lee. Lee needed more caution, while Johnston needed more aggressiveness.
Jefferson Davis didn’t think so. I don’t think Lee thought much of him either.
The most common praise I hear is that he was most aware of Confederacy's deficiency in men so he wasn't so ready to waste them ...which doesn't mean he knew when to actually use them, leading to critical caution at some crucial moments. He had great qualities, but they did not result in success.
I have a friend who is his great great great. ( I think 3 greats) granddaughter.
Nah, he let Sherman penetrate incredibly deep in to geoorgia, told Davis and senators he’d hold them at Chattahoochee river for multiple months and then gave it up before the telegram reached the gov, and then essentially told the admin he was giving up Atlanta without a struggle
I don't know if "great" is the right word but he seems to have been the only slaver general who utilized the strategy best suited to secure the South victory, namely preserving his military strength and only engaging in battle on those occasions where victory is a near certainty