More Helpful Repositories

I have been finding the following repositories particularly responsive and helpful:

Alabama Department of Archives and History.

University of Alabama

Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania National Battlefield Park

Duke University

Library of Virginia

Rome-Floyd County Public Library

Augusta-Richmond County Public Library

Connecticut Historical Society

United States Army Heritage Educational Center

On the other hand, queries to the following were like stones thrown down bottomless wells:

Auburn University

University of Virginia

Queries to a couple more places were initially responded to well, but I am waiting to see the final results before allocating praise or blame.

Citations

As I gather material, I come across many documents garnered from National Battlefield Parks.  Many are cited to the respective National Battlefield Park.  This is not an appropriate citation.  Most, if not all, these documents, come from other repositories.  They should be cited to the repository as well as to the National Battlefield Park.  Why?  Things get lost at National Battlefield Parks.  (The names are omitted to protect the guilty.)  Recently, I tried to get from a National Battlefield Park a document cited to it and to nowhere else (i.e., where the National Battlefield Park actually got the document from).  The curator could not find the document.  That is going to put the author who cited the document in a very awkward position.  When others try to find the document at the National Battlefield Park in question, and it is unavailable, what are they going to think?  Does the author have a copy of the document?  How is he going to prove that he did not make it all up?  So when you obtain a document from a National Battlefield Park, make sure you know where it originally came from.  It is more important to cite the original repository than the National Battlefield Park.

Petersburg and Atlanta, Castel and McMurry, Part 2

Another difference of opinion I have with Castel and McMurry about the Atlanta Campaign is on the dissatisfaction they feel about General Sherman's performance.  Sherman maneuvered too much for them and assaulted too little.  He ought to have annihilated Johnston's Army of Tennessee as early as the beginning of the campaign, at Dalton.  Both Castel and McMurry are sure that if General Thomas had been in charge instead of Sherman, "almost surely the Union victory would have been easier, quicker, and more complete."  [Castel, Decision in the West, 565]

Maneuver is as legitimate at tactic as assault and if properly done, it is far less costly.  Castel and McMurry would do well to read Hans Delbruck's history of the art of warfare.  The Civil War was not fought in a silo.  Neither the Petersburg Campaign of 1864 nor the Atlanta Campaign were fought in silos.  European soldiers did not infest the staffs of the major American armies for nothing. They wanted to learn from the conflict.

Frederick the Great, toward the end of his life, admitted that he had fought too much and maneuvered too little.  Compare the casualties in 1864 that Grant's army group suffered with the losses Sherman's army group had.  Sherman operated far more economically.  True, Grant faced a tougher opponent.  But Sherman operated much farther from the nearest port than Grant, with a far more vulnerable supply line.

Sherman won the decisive campaign of the war.  He may not have eliminated the Army of Tennessee.  He should at least have eliminated Hardee's Corps at Jonesborough.  But every commander makes mistakes.  Grant made them.  Caesar made them.  Hannibal made them.  Alexander made them.  Sherman did what had to be done--capture Atlanta before the November election.

Castel and McMurry fail to articulate sufficiently why they think Thomas would have done a better job.  Hood's wrecked Army of Tennessee at Nashville was not Johnson's rejuvenated Army of Tennessee at Dalton.

No victorious general need apologize for having had numerical superiority over his foe.  How many generals have failed to win despite numerical superiority?  One need only look at the Civil War for examples.  Little Mac, John Pope, Ambrose Burnside, Fighting Joe Hooker, Benjamin F. Butler,  "Napoleon" P. Banks, and, yes, Ulysses S. Grant, probably a greater general than Sherman, failed where Sherman succeeded.

Take a look at the statue of Sherman in New York City's Grand Army square.  That's how Sherman's countrymen saw him.  Probably his soldiers, too, and such of Grant's as survived the Overland Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg.

They had good reason to see Sherman that way.

Petersburg and Atlanta, Castel and McMurry, Part 1

My quest for regimental statistics comparable to those of the 12th Virginia, Mahone's Brigade, Anderson's Division, Army of Northern Virginia, has led me west.  My studies of western regiments and their statistics has reminded me that the eastern and western campaigns of 1864 require comparison.  This set me to rereading Castel's Decision in the West and McMurry's Atlanta 1864:  Last Chance for the Confederacy.

I like both books very much.  I keep my copy of Castel at home and would keep my copy of McMurry there except I've lent it to a friend.  Though I like them very much, I disagree with them strongly in some respects.

First, Castel and McMurry explain President Jefferson Davis' decision to put General Joseph E. Johnston in command of the Army of Tennessee at the beginning of the campaign, without really commenting on it pro or con.  I strongly disagree with Davis' decision, with an asterisk.

The record shows that General Pierre Gustave "Gus" Toutant Beauregard was the better choice for command of the Army of Tennessee.  In 1863, while Johnston was failing to mount a defense of Vicksburg, Beauregard was successfully defending Charleston, South Carolina.  In 1864, while Johnston rarely mounted a counterattack of any kind against his opponent, Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, Beauregard successfully attacked his opponent, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Franklin Butler, and bottled him up in Bermuda Hundred, then successfully defended Petersburg against the overwhelmingly strong forces of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.  In August 1864, Beauregard fought more effectively than General Robert E. Lee, inflicting disproportionate losses on August 18 and 19 while Lee, insisting on a set piece attack, was bloodily repulsed on August 21.

Davis detested Beauregard and Johnston equally.  The president could not know the futeure, but he ought  to have looked at the 1863 outcomes and decided on the facts.  Furthermore, Beauregard had commanded the Army of Tennessee in 1862 and thus was more familiar with its officers than Johnston, who had merely exercised regional command over the Army of Tennessee and the Army of Mississippi.

The asterisk?  If Davis had put Beauregard in charge of the Army of Tennessee, he would almost certainly have had to put Johnston in command of the Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia--the defense of Petersburg.  With Johnston defending the Cockade City, little chance existed of him bottling up Butler though he might have withstood Grant.  Johnston was always hoping that Sherman would attack him in some impregnable position, and Grant would have obliged.

When in Doubt, Google.

When trying to track down a citation, Google it.  Often one is dealing with a mis-citation.  This is particularly true when dealing with material cited to the files of one of the national battlefield parks.  These are often snippets of information from one repository or another.

This evening, I was trying to find the whereabouts of a memoir cited to the private collection of a park historian.  Google informed me that the document was a book published in 1950.  I can and shall get it interlibrary loan.

I was searching for another memoir mis-cited in the bibliography of a monograph.  Google informed me that it is a manuscript in a library in Rome, Georgia.  My experience with libraries has been good.  The Augusta, Georgia library a few weeks ago free of charge provided me with a copy of another memoir I sought.  I fired off an email to the Rome, Georgia library tonight. 

Bibliographies--Expedite Your Research!

One need not reinvent the wheel when researching.  Bibliographies are a handy way to find relevant books.  As I research the action of June 22, 1864, where three brigades under Mahone routed three divisions of the Federal Second Corps, I'm looking at a number of published annotated bibliographies to speed my research.

Of course there's Dornbusch's Military Bibliography of the Civil War.

There are also two annotated bibliographies covering the period from 1955 to 1996 by Garold Cole.

Then there is an Alabama bibliography online at https://sites.google.com/site/kenj680/home/albiblio

There are digital state archives guides at http://www.digitalstatearchives.com/

There's the index to manuscripts at the Library of Congress.  http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/gdc/scd0001/2004/20040324001cw/20040324001cw.pdf

There's a guide to manuscripts of Georgia.  https://books.google.com/books?id=ryu00_YxdRcC&pg=PA256&lpg=PA256&dq=elbert+willett+diary&source=bl&ots=YJTczX_xBU&sig=z1P15nkmzo0QNoRCFpibqXS7WKI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjD3NC6pZLMAhUsuIMKHQ3wCLwQ6AEIJDAB#v=onepage&q=elbert%20willett%20diary&f=false

There are many other bibliographies available, I'm sure.  Google them!

Gordon Rhea to Follow Campaign of 1864 across James River to Petersburg

In a new volume, impressively researched and written, Gordon Rhea will soon be following the campaign of 1864 across James River to Petersburg.  We can all look forward to this addition to Rhea's history of the struggle between Grant and Lee in eastern Virginia.  Welcome to the Cockade City, Mr. Rhea!