Harold M. Knudsen - James Longstreet and the American Civil War: The Confederate General Who Fought the Next War

Longstreet in Contemplation. Ken Hendricksen

Second Manassas

Battle of Antietam

Fulda Gap Defense and Fairview Park

Battle of Gettysburg

Gazala Line

Battle of Chickamauga

Chattanooga and Grants Maneuver Options

Bridgeport Plan and Inchon Landing

Battle of Gettysburg: Actual Artillery Positioning

Battle of Gettysburg: Proposed Artillery Positioning

Blackburns Ford

Union Army Retreating East From Manassas

Longstreets Troops Behind the Stone Wall at Fredericksburg

Grants Transports

A Confederate Who Knew the Area

Confederate Infantry

Confederate Troops at Chickamauga

Assault on Fort Sanders

Wounding of Longstreet at the Wilderness

My first thoughts on the theme of General Longstreet as a modern military thinker during the War Between the States came to me at the Combat Maneuver Training Center in Hohenfels, Germany, 1988-1995. During these years, I was assigned to an infantry battalion as a forward observer and to two artillery battalions on a wide variety of locations. These units trained on dozens of offensive and defensive battle plans, a few of which approximated the troop dispositions arranged on similar terrain features at Fredericksburg and Chickamauga utilized by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet.

A few years later when I was assigned to the Headquarters Department of the Army Pentagon in Washington, D.C., I picked these thoughts up again. I visited the battlefields and started my research to intersect Civil War tactics with my own professional military education, experiences, and training. What I learned became the genesis for this book.

I used letters, reports, firsthand accounts, and so forth, to better understand Longstreets actions and apply my own experiences to them. Therefore, this is not intended to be a biography of the general. My primary purpose and approach is to use the tools of the professional operational planner and experienced tactician as a prism or overlay to known historical facts, and thus better highlight Longstreets evolving thinking. I believe an examination of his ideas through the lens of military analysis of this type provides strong evidence that he continued to improve his battlefield tactics, and that he also began to consider the planning facets of what is known today as operational art (the level of war above tactics). As a result, many aspects this study will not be found in other works.

The early war chapters discuss how the Confederate Army started as a collection of brigades, and how its various commanders had to learn how to put together larger formations and use them effectively. Readers will quickly discern that most officers had no idea of how important force structure concepts were (and are), and that Longstreet was one of the few who grasped this concept early on. Longstreet helped Gens. Joe Johnston and Robert E. Lee plan not only the battles, but helped form a quasi-modern army out of mid-19th century disorganization. At the same time, Longstreet evaluated what was working tactically through Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, that culminated in a modern kill zone at Fredericksburg. The campaign into Pennsylvania chapters focus on planning oversights by General Lee that resulted in the early July battle at Gettysburg, while also introducing some of the operational concepts. These chapters also examine Lees understanding of the combat arms in which he did not serve, and why Longstreet advised him not to attempt what he did at Gettysburg.

Later chapters examine the crucial afternoon events of September 20, 1863, at Chickamauga and the Chattanooga operations that followed through a continuation of my method of modern comparative analysis. I apply operational art to examine Longstreets overlooked Bridgeport Plan, an idea he envisioned to seize Bridgeport, Alabama, and maintain the Confederate initiative. Although Gen. Braxton Bragg did not act upon Longstreets suggestion and thus did not seize Bridgeport, an examination of the plan through the prism and contexts of modern mission analysis and operational art sheds new light on several aspects of the campaign. This study concludes with the campaign into Eastern Tennessee, where Longstreet encountered many difficulties (several of his own making) including a failed attack on Fort Sanders and logistical problems, his final outright battlefield success at the Wilderness, and the end of the war in April 1865.

It is my hope this look at General Longstreets contributions by way of military analysis of various types sheds new light and demonstrates how his work in many areas became standard methods of war long after his life ended. I hope it helps to cast aside false conclusions about him that still linger, most of which stem from postwar Lost Cause politics. Lastly, it is my hope students of military history will find this work useful and easy to understand.

Acknowledgments

My twenty-five years of continuous active duty military education, experience, training, and use-of-planning methods in wartime and in peacekeeping operations is the foundation of my ability to analyze military history. My years with the 8th Infantry Division and 1st Armored Division were particularly helpful in this regard. I owe my foundation to those with whom I served, superiors, peers, and subordinates alike. These many mentors and practitioners of military decision-making have given me the experiences needed to understand the tactics, techniques, and procedures that make the United States Army the best it can be in war.