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Military Pron - The Legend of General Lee ( 3 of 3) - long

Aug 11, 2021, 8:02 AM

Part 3 of 3

So we’re halfway done with the war and Lee has Lincoln going through his leaders like dirty underwear. But it gets worse. After calamity at 7 Days, then at Manassas2 , then a draw at Antietam, then the debacle at Fredericksburg, the Union was ready to go at it again.

5. Chancellorsville

Surprise! After the head-banging brutality of Burnside at Fredericksburg, the next Spring, in 1863, there was a new leader in charge of the Army if the Potomac. His name was Joe Hooker. Joe had a good fighting reputation but his headquarters was described as a cross between a bar and a brothel. Sounds like a Lunge kind of guy.

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The hard drinkin’, hard gamblin’, hard fightin’ Hooker.

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If you looked closely at the Battle of Antietam map, he was the commander of I Corp, kind of a plum job, and was the lead off attacker in that battle. He had good credentials, and at Chancellorsville he was actually one of the VERY few leaders to catch Lee with his pants down in the whole war.

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You’ll note our old baseball buddy Doubleday was a division commander in Hookers I Corp. Small world, huh?

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Hooker felt so good about his abilities he said “May God have mercy on Lee, for I shall have none.” Big talk. So he was every bit as cocky as John Pope, except he actually had some talent too. He just had the misfortune of catching Lee on his very best day of the entire whole war. Bummer for Joe.

Hooker even thought the US should have a dictator, namely him, during war. It wasn’t so crazy as it sounded. The Romans used to appoint dictators for 10 years during times of crisis. Lincoln was so desperate by now that he said “Only victors get to be dictators. If you can win a battle for me, I’ll risk the dictatorship.”

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Julius. This guy wasn’t appointed a dictatorship by the Senate, he just took one by force. Big difference.

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Joe sent 3/4 of the AOP upriver at Fredericksburg and secretly crossed the Rappahannock, right under Lee’s nose, then came back downriver on Lee’s side. Oh shiiiiit. Lee was outnumbered almost 2.5-1 locally with nowhere to hide. The other ¼ of Hooker’s army attacked right across the Rappahannock to pin Lee in place.

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Hooker’s grand plan. It was legit. Hooker’s main force is the thick blue line on the left. His pinning force is on the right. He even planned to have his cavalry conduct a raid on Richmond at the same time.

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“My plans are perfect, Hooker said. He was actually right. It was a great, great, plan. Contrast with Burnside’s headbanging. And he pulled it off. His only problem was Lee wasn’t willing to go along with the plan. Nice job, Joe. You just kicked a hornet’s nest.

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Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. When you are down you have to take risks, and Lee made the biggest gamble of the war. First, he tossed the military rule book right out of the window.

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Remember when Lee said he would never have done the things he did except he knew McClellan was in charge? It says a lot about how desperate the situation was when it was common knowledge that Hooker was far, far more aggressive than Lil’ Mac. That’s exactly why Lincoln picked him. He wanted an alpha male, and he got one. And Lee went full kabuki on him.

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The cardinal rule when near the enemy is to NEVER split your force. Enemy leaders go through incredible gyrations to create size mismatches, so you damm sure don’t want to give them one for free. He77, Napoleon built an entire empire on dividing OTHER people’s forces and conquering them. It’s just too risky.

So that’s exactly what Lee did.

Say what again, muthafuqa. First, Lee detached just enough men to hold the Union across the river, and turned remainder of his army to face Hooker. Then, having done the absolutely unthinkable, he did the absolutely unthinkable again. WTELF?

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******REPEAT ALERT******

Let’s review that. Not only does Lee split his force in half right in front of a numerically superior army, he THIRDS his army. One third to hold the river, one third to be his anvil, one third to be his hammer. Sound familiar?

***HOLYEVERLOVINGSHITISTHISGUYOUTOFHISFUGGINGMIND?***

Yep. That’s how you go down as one of the greatest generals ever.

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Undisputed brilliance, born of desperation, and balls of steel. Early holds the right, Lee in the middle, Jackson sneaking around the left.

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But keep in mind Lee had the guys to pull this all off. All-in type guys. Lee had scouted that Hooker’s right flank was open, ie, his pants were down around his knees and his butt was stuck up in the air.

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So, Lee and his staff held a famous late night conference in the middle of the woods outside the one house town of Chancellorsville. Think Historic Brattonsville over by Rock Hill.

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The town...er, house, of Chancellorsville

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Using 2 wooden crates as chairs, Lee asked Jackson how many of his men he wanted to risk doing the inconceivably dangerous job of sneaking completely behind an enemy that outnumbered them COMBINED by almost 2.5-1.

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Jackson could have said, “a quarter”, or “a third”. But instead he replied, “All of them.”

That there is the definition of All-MF-In, folks. Literally.
Live or Die. Get Rich or Die Tryin. All the Marbles. Go for Broke.
Double up or quit, double stake or split, the Ace of Spades, the Ace of Spades.

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Jackson fell on the Union like a sledge hammer on plate glass and shattered a whole Union Corp who had no idea he was even behind them.

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Just like McC, and then Pope, now Hooker got the Full Unlubricated Bubba Treatment from Lee. And again the Union had no idea anyone was even behind them at all, much less fully 1/3 of Lee’s army.

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Jackson drops the hammer on the unsuspecting Union

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The gigantic Union army crumbled like a house of cards and collapsed in a shambles to the safety of the river bank. Only nightfall stopped Jackson from driving all the way from Hooker’s starfish right through his intestines and into his stomach.

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Hooker obliges

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Jackson and Lee crush the AOP into the shape of a limp pee-pee

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But sadly, that same night, while scouting for the next morning’s attack to finish the Union off, Jackson got the shot in his arm that would later cost him his life. From his own NC troops no less. Effing Tar Heels. They sugged long before Swofford. Lee lamented that “Jackson has lost his left arm, and I have lost my right.”

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The next day the Union army was like an ant hill that been hit with a shovel. Stephen Crane even wrote a book about the bedlam and confusion called The Red Badge of Courage, which became a John Huston movie with Audie Murphy, one of America’s most decorated soldiers in WW2.

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But the AOP was still a monster. A stunned, stumbling monster with an inflamed rectum, but still far bigger than Lee’s force. And now, it was recovering.

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Oh shid

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It ain’t over yet

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And then the unbelievable happened. Hooker simply chickened out. Just like McClellan had the year before. Why? Who knows?

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Blame it on the rain that was fallin’ fallin’

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Blame it on Rio

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Blame it on the Boogie

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I honestly don’t know the reason. His supply line wasn’t compromised like McC’s was, he still outnumbered Lee more than 2-1, and his army was shaking off the funk of one of the greatest axx-reamings in military history, but for whatever reason Hooker just quit and prepared to pull his army back to safety. His only explanation later was “I just lost confidence in Joe Hooker.” What? That’s all I got. And so the mystique of Lee slayed yet another opponent.

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I don’t know the reason.

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Even though Hooker had somehow managed to trip over his own dique, Lincoln didn’t can him just yet. He simply had no better replacements, and hoped Hooker still had some fight in him.

Just like in 1862, the retreating Union army was like blood in the water to Lee. He was already on the move again, up the Shenandoah Valley before the dust at Chancellorsville settled and long before Hooker’s axx stopped throbbing.

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A beautiful drive

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Lincoln wasn’t a military man, but he knew some basics. When he heard Lee was headed up the Valley he confronted Hooker. “If the head of Lee’s army is in Winchester, and its tail is in Staunton, it must be very thin in the middle.” In other words, ATTACK!

Hooker bumbled around a bit and then chickened out again. That was the last straw, and Lincoln went searching for yet another leader for the AOP.

Lee had completely smashed another Union invasion, achieved near deity status among his troops and his nation, and with his greatest tactical victory of the war in his pocket, he headed north again to invade the Union for the second time. This time at a place called Gettysburg.

*****My Battle Rating: Lee’s #2 Greatest out of 10. His tactical masterpiece, hands down, full stop. Simply rewrote the strategy book. Balls of pure high tensile steel. Any other commander in history would have pulled back to safety when surprised, outnumbered, and nearly surrounded. Lee doubled down, risked it all, and pulled off one of the most stunning turn-around victories of all time. A case study in boldness.

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This is the kind of victory that just makes the other side quit. Just a crushing morale blow to the North. They truly began, at this point, to think that Lee might just be unbeatable on his own turf.

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I only rank 7 Days higher because that battle literally saved Richmond. This battle could be ranked #1b. It’s that impressive. At 7 Days Lee had the jump on McC, but here Hooker actually had the jump of Lee. Just an unbelievably impressive turnaround.

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6. Gettysburg

And it led to this. The second invasion of the North. This invasion used the same plan as the first – get in as far as you can, create as much h377 as you can, recruit whoever you can, and win a battle on Union soil.

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Here we go again...

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With the loss of Jackson, Lee reorganized his army into 3 corps now, under Longstreet, Ewell (Jackson’s second in command), and A.P. Hill. These were three very seasoned commanders, and the old Hammer and Anvil instead became a three-headed Cerberus. It now took 2 men command what Jackson had commanded by himself.

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Not sure why Robert Rodes is in this pick. A good leader, but only second in command in Ewell’s Corp. But I stole the slide so, whatev.

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The Union had its new commander too. Is this getting old? This guy’s name was Meade, and he was pretty good, which under the circumstances was good enough. He wasn’t flashy, or splashy, or anything really, just pretty good.

But Lee knew him from Mexico and said, “Meade won’t make any mistakes.” And he didn’t. Meade had no idea he was even going to lead the army. He thought Lincoln’s messengers came arrest him on trumped up political charges from army infighting, not to give him command of the AOP.

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The Old Snapping Turtle, George Meade. He may have been cantankerous, but he was no puxxy.

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Meade realized that he didn’t have to beat Lee, he just had to keep Lee from beating him. And that’s how he approached the battle. Just stand between Lee and Washington and run out the clock for a tie.

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Gettysburg was a bit of a different type of battle called a Meeting Engagement. Usually, the 2 sides lined up, made their preparations, and went at it. But not here. This battle started as a small, chance encounter when some Confederates looking for shoes bumped into some Union cavalry. There were a lot of troops in the area looking for a fight, and the battle could have started anywhere.

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The small skirmish was fed by a constant flow of troops from both sides, over three days, and became a medium and then a monster battle. But this time it was the reverse of Antietam. All Meade had to do was sit back while Lee, playing the part of Clubber Lang, threw the punches all day.

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The Confederates got lucky on the first day. They had more men in the area, pure luck of the draw, and pushed the Union through the town to a hill called Cemetery Ridge. It was aptly named, because there would be more casualties on that ridge of the next three days than in any battle in the Western Hemisphere.

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Day one, high hopes

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On the second day, Lee attacked to his left in the morning, and then to his right in the afternoon, trying to find any weakness in the Union line, and failed both times. More troops poured in.

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Day two, all out attack

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On third day the only place he had not yet attacked was the middle. And the only men who had not yet attacked were generals Trimble, Pettigrew, and Pickett.

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Day three, desperation. Trimble, Pettigrew, and Pickett go down in history.

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Longstreet wouldn’t give the order to attack. He thought it was hopeless. He even recommended that Lee just march home, believing the moment was lost. The entire reason to invade the North was to get a victory, and if that hadn’t been done by July 2nd it sure as he77 wasn’t going to happen on July 3rd. Every day the Union army got stronger. But, as Longstreet said, “Lee had his blood up.”

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Lee saw things differently. In his mind they were there, the enemy was in front them, and why come all this way to throw away their only opportunity away? So he went for it, and the rest is history.

Kind of like Nebraska going for 2 points against Miami and failing. Husker nation might not have liked taking the loss, but the alternative would have been an eternity of “what if.”

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This was Lee’s first attack of the war where he had not surprised the Union...like he did at 7 Days, and at Manassas 2, and even when he was on the defensive at Chancellorsville. Meade was waiting for him, took the blow, and held the line. And the day after the battle the ANV was marching south in defeat.

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*****My Battle Rating: Lee’s #4 Greatest out of 10. It’s not number 4 in my book because Lee won or lost, but rather because the rather odd mix of his tactical skill but strategic blindness. Which is the exact reverse of my assessment of 7 Days, if you’ll remember. If your goal is to win a battle on Union soil, don’t scatter your troops all over central Pennsylvania before the battle.

For the second time, Lee got caught assembling his army before the big battle. Unlike Antietam, however, he was the attacker this time. And it would be his last.

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Legend has it Lee greeted the soldiers returning from Pickett’s Charge with “It’s all my fault”

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On the other hand, he did try everything he could to crack the Union line once the battle was engaged. Left, right, center...there was just nowhere else to attack. Sometimes a battle just can’t be won, short of a kami kaze blowing in to whoosh the enemy off the field of battle in a divine wind storm.

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Pickett’s charge is a debate that could go on forever. Was Lee right or was Longstreet? I can see both sides, and on any given day I might answer either way. As for Pickett, his opinion was clear. “That old man destroyed my division. They are dead on the field.”

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George Pickett. No relation to Wilson.

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7. The Wilderness

So Lee retreated south again to a spot west of the old Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville battlefields, close enough to both threaten Washington but also to protect Richmond. Everyone went back to their usual routine, Fall harvest, then Winter camp.

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In 1864 there was a change though. Yet ANOTHER leader was in charge of the AOP. The sixth one so far to face off against Lee. He was from the West, like Pope, and his name was U.S. Grant.

Grant made a few changes of his own. He revamped the unwieldy 6-7 corps system most other Union leaders used into 4 huge battering ram Corps. Kinda like the 4 horsemen. Or a hammer and anvil, and another hammer, and another anvil. And as soon as the roads dried in May, he drove straight for Richmond.

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Union Leadership, 1864

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He was so fast he caught Lee off guard, just like Hooker and even Burnside had. The ANV raced east and hit Grant right in the side, in a densely wooded area west of Fredericksburg. The battlefield was almost right on top of the old Chancellorsville battleground from the year before, and it was called The Wilderness. The Union and Confederate troop columns smashed into each other like a locomotive into a semi.

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Grant, the truck, tries to drive south. Lee, the locomotive, tries to stop him

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In fact, the Confederates hit the Union in almost the exact place that Jackson had ambushed them a year earlier at Chancellorsville. To make matters worse, the woods caught on fire during the battle. The two armies struggled in the smokey thicket until the Confederates finally blocked and stopped the Union advance, but just barely.

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Ewell and AP Hill’s Corps spear Grant’s column with the crown of the helmet. A flagrant penalty.

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Smoke, fire, impassable thicket...plus, people shooting at you. All very unpleasant

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But as I mentioned earlier, this was where Grant was different than any other leader Lee had faced. He didn’t go back to Washington after his temporary defeat. He went forward. And his men cheered him wildly for it.

When the backstabbers came and started a political whisper campaign about his drinking, Lincoln asked them what kind of alcohol Grant drank, so he could get all his other generals a bottle of it. Lincoln had finally found his fighter.

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*****My Battle Rating: Lee’s #7 Greatest out of 10. For anyone else probably a pretty competent battle, but not really one of Lee’s better performances, and I’m only comparing him to himself. He did stop Grant, but only after he recovered from being blitzed on, and only by literally crashing his army into Grant’s.

Had Lee been more alert this might have been The Second Battle of Fredericksburg. As it was, Grant was now across the Rappahannock, and that would be bad for the South, because Grant never went backwards.

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8. Spotsylvania

Like the old Roller Derbies, the ANV and AOP raced mile for mile down from Fredericksburg toward Richmond, right beside each other, throwing punches the whole way till Lee was just able to cut Grant off again at a place called Spotsylvania.

I imagine Lee probably cursed himself everyday for letting Grant get over the Rappahannock so easily, but that was then and the race to Richmond was on now. And Lee was only one half step ahead.

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Lee’s men threw up miles and miles of trenches and earthworks in the woods almost overnight and pinned Grant down while Richmond prepared for the worst. Grant threw a few heavy punches at Lee’s fortifications, then decided he was there to move, not fight, and turned south again.

It was a far better performance from Lee than the muddled fight in the Wilderness. But he still couldn’t stop Grant, who was he77 bent to keep driving south.

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Lee’s trenches. The King of Spades at it again.

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*****My Battle Rating: Lee’s #6 Greatest out of 10. Grant was determined that no one would stop his march south. Lee was determined that he would. Lee won temporarily, but the roadblock at Spotsylvania only lasted a couple weeks before Grant sidestepped it and rushed south yet again.

Lee gets credit for getting his troops into action more quickly, AND for throwing up prepared positions in record time. But it still wasn’t enough to halt Grant’s relentless advance. He was proving to be a runaway freight train. How do you stop such a thing?

9. North Anna River

The next stop in the race south was at the North Anna River, where Lee reached into his bag of tricks one last time. Like a smart offensive lineman who uses a DE’s rush against him, Lee set a trap to use Grant’s aggressiveness against him. He built an unusually shaped set of earthworks in a “V” shape (the King of Spades, again) up against the river, where Grant would cross.

When Grant rushed over the river his army would be cut in half. Lee intended to defeat half of Grant’s army, rush back across his own fortifications, then defeat the other half. Divide and conquer. Grant actually fell into the trap, but then fate, as it so often does, intervened. Lee fell ill with diarrhea, that old Lounge favorite.

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Lee’s trap. Grant’s army is split, but there’s no one to do anything about it.

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All his best senior officers were themselves recovering from bullet wounds and/or various illnesses too. So in another of life’s great ironies, as good as the South’s leadership was, there was no one physically well enough at this point to execute the plan.

It's sometimes called "The Battle of the Shids" or "The Battle of the Squirts". No, not really, I just made that up. I'm sorry I lied to you.

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Grant finally saw the danger for what it was, wriggled free, and headed south again. It’s another of the great “What ifs” of the war.

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Grant’s Overland Campaign, the war winner

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In just a few more days, Grant ended up at Cold Harbor, a suburb of Richmond. It was beside the very same battlefield McClellan had been at two years before, marching up the Yorktown Peninsula instead of down from Washington.

*****My Battle Rating: Lee’s #8 Greatest out of 10. Though it failed, Lee’s trap could very well have worked if had been triggered. Similar to 7 Days, Lee had a plan but his generals couldn’t execute it. Not because of confusing orders or incompetence this time (looking at you again, Huger), but simply because of physical illness. The equivalent of having your entire first string out with the flu or the runs. Sometimes you just have bad luck.

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9. Richmond - Petersburg

But Grant didn’t even stop there. He made one bloody attack at Cold Harbor, essentially a Bum Rush on Richmond, and just kept going south when it failed. He called it his only regret of the war. Losing 7,000 men in 10 minutes will make anyone question if it was a wise attack. It certainly didn’t help him shed the Butcher label either.

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Cold Harbor – A full frontal assault

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Another full frontal assault

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And still Grant marched south, building entrenchments as he went, and stretching Lee’s lines thinner, and thinner, and thinner. This was no longer a battle. It was now a siege. A siege that wrapped all the way from Richmond to Petersburg 20 miles to the south, and eventually even south and west of Petersburg.

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Grant’s 30 mile fishhook around Richmond and Petersburg

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It was actually the beginning of trench warfare, which would be perfected 50 years later in WWI. Eventually, Lee’s army reached the breaking point and just snapped. Those that could retreated to Appomattox Court House to the west of Richmond, close to Lynchburg, and surrendered. Game Over.

*****My Battle Rating: Lee’s #10 Greatest out of 10. Not even a battle, really. Lee simply had no tools to work with by this point, and to give Grant credit, even if Lee had the tools, he could never have abandoned Richmond to use them. Grant had him pinned to the city till he broke. What McClellan failed at 2 years earlier, Grant achieved.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Lee’s battle portfolio. Ten fights that made a legend, and why. He was most dangerous when his army was concentrated and on the move. He simply had a knack for showing up exactly where you didn’t think he would be, namely behind you, over and over again.
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But both times he invaded the North he dispersed and gave up his advantage. Maybe it was a supply consideration, being away from his own rail lines, or maybe it was overreach. But in his only two chances to win on Union soil he was caught assembling his army when the battle started, and couldn’t turn either fight into a victory.

So what made Lee so formidable?

The obvious #1 – First, he found superb leadership to call on. Guys who got orders done. And guys, like Jackson, who were willing to go All-In with him. He got a few turds dropped in his lap early, but he dumped them like hot potatoes and replaced them with top notch generals. That’s a skill too. Great athletes make the coach look good. And the coach can do things with great athletes he can’t do with mere mortals. It’s symbiotic. The North developed great leaders too, but they had to rise through the ranks once the political guys had been shuffled off to rallies and smokey rooms.

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The obvious #2 - He was bold AF. He was in the disadvantaged position, so he had to be bold. His only chance at victory was by taking risks. And man did he ever take them. The Union had nearly every other advantage. Like Bob Neyland of Tenn said, “Watch for the breaks, and when you get one, maximize it!” Whatever else is said about Lee, no one can say he didn’t go for broke, just like J Johnston predicted. “That man actually thinks we can win.”

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The not so obvious #1 -He was fast. A battle would be hardly over and he was already making his moves for the next one. Speed kills, and Lee had SEC speed. Snort. Grant pushed him as hard as he could, but Lee stayed just one half step ahead, using his knowledge and a little intuition, until he finally ran out of space and got pushed against the wall at Richmond and Petersburg. Then it was just a matter of time. He couldn’t move without endangering Richmond, and movement was what made him deadly.

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In the end, Grant simply took Lee’s ability to maneuver away, and by doing so deprived him of his greatest skill. That was the real secret of Grant too. Not that he stung like a bee, But hat he floated like a butterfly. He was Lee’s first opponent who was a nimble as he was.

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Despite his moniker as a butcher, if you look closely at Grant’s campaigns he never really beat his head against the wall. Certainly not like Burnside. Grant fought hard, in very bloody battles, but short of Cold Harbor his mission was always movement, not futile frontal assaults.

His goal in the East from day one was to make Lee defend Richmond so he couldn’t run all over Virginia, or worse, the North, raising he77. And he did it.

He’s known for his doggedness, but Grant’s speed was a secret to his success as much as Lee. He didn’t rest, he didn’t reset, he just advanced, and advanced, and advanced, relentlessly. And that final Overland campaign became two lightning quick opponents going at each other as hard as they could.

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And ultimately, Grant led the Union to victory and won the Presidency. But Lee didn’t do too bad for himself either. He actually made it into the Bible, at least in some parts of the South, according to some of my great-grand relatives.

Eastern Theater Battle Summary, in Chronological Order, with my Rankings

#1 7 Days – The Capital Saver
#3 Second Manassas – The Tidal Wave
#5 Antietam – The Snoozer

#9 Fredricksburg – The Stone Wall
#2 Chancellorsville – The Masterpiece
#4 Gettysburg – The Lost Opportunity

#7 Wilderness – The Train Wreck
#6 Spotsylvania – The Roadblock
#8 North Anna – The Mousetrap

#10 Richmond/Petersburg – The End