The B12 (XII) Forum, home of the 'Front Porch, y'all' at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Heh, I had JUST ordered both books from Abe.com before reading this note.  I read an one line sample of the Culp's Hill book and ordered both.

My neighbor told me about Abe.com last night, so I put it to use.

I've been to Gettysburg twice and was being used by others as a tour guide, so I never made it to Culp's Hill.  They had seen the movie and that was their interest.  I always wonder how the trees have changed over the years, I know they tried to restore them to a degree.

I've been to Chickamauga and it's just woods everywhere, and monuments, lots of monuments.

I've visited every major battle field but Shiloh.

My last assignment in the Army was at the Combat Studies Institute at Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth.  Within our department, we had a staff ride team under the direction of Dr. William G. Robertson, one of the pre-eminent academics who began reviving the staff ride concept in the 1980s.  (Dr. Jay Luvaas at the Army War College was another.)  We did staff rides of Chickamauga (our "marquee" event, although far from my favorite), Shiloh, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and both battles of Bull Run/Manassas.  Those were just the Civil War battles.  We also did "Sioux Wars," which included the Fetterman Massacre, the Wagon Box Fight, the Battle of the Rosebud, and the Battle of Little Bighorn.  We also did the Battle of Attu (Aleutians, 1943), which was the 2nd-bloodiest battle of the Pacific War in terms of casualty rates.

They were all hard work and most of them were also very enjoyable.  Gettysburg was unique in that our staff-riders were foreign students attending C&GSC.  The foreign officers had to take a course on the American Civil War (which American students could not take), and it culminated with the Gettysburg staff ride.

It was on McPherson's Ridge, where we were just breaking for lunch after discussing Lee's instructions to Longstreet on the morning of Day 2, that I had one of the more memorable experiences of my 20 years in the Army.  A Ukrainian colonel with a Ph.D. told me as we were walking to the picnic area, that he was very glad that the Union had won our Civil War.  I of course agreed, but I asked him what in particular prompted him to say that.  He said words to this effect: if the Confederacy had won, the United States would not have been able to lead the fight for freedom in the 20th century.  That was pretty impressive coming from a guy who had been on the opposite side during the Cold War.

Vicksburg ("the Gibraltar of the Confederacy") I think was the most interesting.  We did that one for the students in the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) program that was an extra year for the top C&GSC graduates.

Grant tried several different approaches to get to the high ground on the Vicksburg (east) side of the Mississippi River.  A failed attack north of Vicksburg at Chickasaw Bayou in Dec 1862.  Two or three expeditions going up the Yazoo River north of Vicksburg.  An attempt to dig a canal to bypass Vicksburg.  An attempt to use Lake Providence as the start point for a canal.  Finally, he ran past Vicksburg's artillery batteries at night and got most of his army, most of his gunboats, and most of his transport boats through.  Then, a gunboat duel with shore batteries at Grand Gulf.  Finally, a landing at Bruinsburg on the east bank on the night of 30 April and the inland advance beginning on 1 May.  On that day, Grant seized Port Gibson, the "town too beautiful to burn."  Then came an operational pause while Grant collected his forces and considered his options.  Then, cutting himself off from his base of supplies, in quick succession, Grant defeated the Confederates at Raymond on the 12th, at the state capital of Jackson on the 14th, at Champion Hill on the 16th, at the Big Black River on the 17th, and began the siege of Vicksburg on the 18th.  One of the best campaigns in American military history.

What was funny was that Dr. Robertson was a Virginian through and through, and he just wouldn't/couldn't give Grant his due.  Despite the obvious results of the campaign, he had to find his ways to denigrate Grant at every opportunity, even to the point of claiming that Mark Twain wrote Grant's memoirs.  Which, to be fair, is a theory.  A widely debunked theory, but a theory.

Since we're just speaking hypthetically, we could suppose that Jackson would have had a tighter rein on his division commanders in the fight north of Gettysburg, and would have had his forces in somewhat better order coming out of Gettysburg on the south.  And he would have understood that Lee's "if practicable" meant "if at all possible."

I read Pfanz's book on Cemetery/Culp's Hill.  I am very surprised the casualties were as low as they are reported to have been.  I'd think in some cases nearly everyone in an attacking regiment would have been KIA/WIA.  The Federals had the high ground and most were behind some sort of barricade, and they had rifles, granted muzzle loaders.  I suppose the reason is that few of the shots fired hit anyone.  But the volume of shots fired must have been deafening.  

And of course once a regiment starts an attack and breaks cover if the attack fails they have to retrace their steps under fire, cannon and rifles.

Maybe the CW soldiers were not very good shots, or maybe many were firing blind, or just volley firing in the general direction.

And the casualties were of course horrific.  It's also interesting how many of the WIA recovered from gun shot wounds, maybe less a limb or two.

I know folks like Sam Bell Hood took several serious wounds and got back in the fight, so to speak, hereabouts in fact.  We have historical markers all over about this or that unit moving this or that way.  The terrain is so urbanized it is hard to get any feel for it though.  Peachtree Creek is a decently largish creek and has a rather deep valley, for a creek.  The city is building some walking paths along parts of it now, which could get interesting.  It's not a major obstacle I'd guess, but it is significant.  I guess back in the day there would be fords along where the valley didn't cut so deep.  And the river here is substantial, we had lunch the other day at a nice place right on the river.  I was musing about getting across it with wagons and artillery.  I suppose in August the flow is pretty low compared to now and there would be fords.  

It's pretty astonishing to me what 1860s armies were able to traverse, Sherman getting up through SC is really a something.

Interesting thing about those muzzle-loading rifle-muskets.  You not only had to load them, you had to put a percussion cap on the nipple at the breech end.   Some soldiers failed to do that, and in the general din didn't realize that their weapons hadn't fired.  After the battle, abandoned weapons were recovered with up to a dozen unfired loads in the barrel.

I don't know about Sherman's army in particular, but Union armies in general had capable engineers who could build field-expedient bridges pretty quickly.

Is your Grant book by Ron Chernow?

A nice compact account of the Vicksburg campaign is Grant Wins the War: Decision at Vicksburg, by. James R. Arnold.

Is Jean Edward Smith a Canadian?  I ask because he's professor emeritus at a Canadian college and because "Jean" is not commonly a man's name in the USA, but methinks it might be in Canada, especially amongst the Francophones.

Well, there you are.