Joseph L. Harsh - Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861-1862

Robert E. Lee and the Making of
Southern Strategy,
1861-1862

JOSEPH L. HARSH

THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Kent, Ohio, & London

1998 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 97-2635

ISBN 0-87338-580-2

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

05 04 03 02 01 00 5 4 3 2

Harsh, Joseph L.

Confederate tide rising: Robert E. Lee and the making of Southern strategy, 18611862 / Joseph L. Harsh.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-87338-580-2 (alk. paper)

1. Confederate States of AmericaMilitary policy. 2. Lee, Robert E. (Robert Edward), 18071870Military leadership. 3. StrategyHistory19th century. 4. Davis, Jefferson, 18081889. 5. Confederate States of AmericaHistory, Military. 6. United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865Campaigns. I. Title.

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication data are available.

For Trudy,
with love

We see, therefore, in the first place, that under all circumstances War is to be regarded not as an independent thing, but as a political instrument; and it is only by taking this point of view that we can avoid finding ourselves in opposition to all military history. This is the only means of unlocking the great book and making it intelligible. Secondly, this view shows us how Wars must differ in character according to the nature of the motives and circumstances from which they proceed.

Now, the first, the grandest, and most decisive act of judgment which the Statesman and General exercises is rightly to understand in this respect the War in which he engages, not to take it for something, which by the nature of its relations it is impossible for it to be. This is, therefore, the first, the most comprehensive, of all strategical questions.

Karl von Clausewitz, On War 1:25

Overture. The most propitious time:
Fate in Lees Hands, September 3, 1862

1. He who makes the assault: Confederate Strategy from
Sumter to Seven Pines, April 1861-May 1862

The Second Phase of the War,
November 1861-April/May 1862

2. It would change the character of the war:
The Ascent of Lee, to June 1, 1862

Every Victory Should Bring Us Nearer

3. How do we get at those people? Lees Strategy in the
Seven Days Campaign, June 1July 2, 1862

4. The enemy is congregating about us: Lee in
Strategic Stalemate, July 2-August 9, 1862

5. Richmond was never so safe: Lee Evolves a Border
Strategy, August 926, 1862

The Rappahannock Waltz, August 2124

6. If we expect to reap advantage: Lee Pursues Total
Victory, August 2731, 1862

Intermezzo. The war was thus transferred from interior
to frontier: The Chantilly Fumble, September 1,

T HIS IS A BOOK I did not set out to write. It wrote itself as I tried to understand why Robert E. Lee crossed the Potomac with his Army of Northern Virginia in early September 1862; and, even more, as I struggled to comprehend why Lee stubbornly clung to his campaign in Maryland long after common sense dictated that he return to Virginia. Persuasive answers to these questions could not be found within the bounds of the Maryland campaign itself.

Ideas never, no more than men, appear from nowhere. Actions are consequences of previous actions, and events evolve from what transpires before them. There is a pattern in history that can only be perceived when the chain of events is untangled and laid end to end, thus allowing the progression from link to link to be revealed. There was a logic in the decisions that Lee made in September of 1862, but it does not emerge until seen in the context of Confederate war aims and grand strategy and until it is viewed as the final step in the arduous journey that carried him to the banks of the Potomac.

Hence, what started as no more than an introductory background chapter in my study of the Maryland campaign ballooned into a reexamination of the Confederate conduct of the first year and a half of the war. The detour was worth the effort. The conclusions resulting from the digression have lead me to view the early Civil War and the Confederate side of the Maryland campaign in a substantially different light. I have come to see Lees crossing the Potomac as a logical extension of his three-month operations and the battle at Sharpsburg as the finale to his summers overland campaign to win the war. It was not, of course, that he plotted an expedition into Maryland while still mired in the swamps of the Chickahominy. Rather, it was that opportunities led him forward, from success to success, as he cleared one frontier after another until only the Potomac, the final frontier, remained.

Nor is it true that Lee became so enmeshed in the tactics of defeating his foe that he lost sight of the realities of the war as he perceived them. Critics have sometimes depicted him as a general without an overall strategy, a brilliant practitioner who lacked farsightedness. This has not been my conclusion. It is possible that Lees perception of the war was wrong and that his prescription for victory was mistaken. But it has not seemed possible to me that Lee acted without serious and constant regard to pursuing the course he believed best suited to bring success to the Confederacy. His words and his actions are too consistent on this point to be denied.

Lees operations fit comfortably within the war aims of the Confederacy as articulated by its president and Congress and as apparently supported by a large numberif not a majorityof its citizens. In spite of rhetoric proclaiming the struggle to be defensive, the Confederates pursued aggressive goals. Both the desire to incorporate the border states and the need to preserve the vital resources of the upper South yielded offensive aims. Lee understood this, and so too did Jefferson Davis. And it was in partnership that the two evolved a grand strategy for victory.

Critics have pilloried the president for adopting a perimeter policy that attempted to defend every square mile of Southern territory and thus squandered meager Confederate resources. Many have also criticized him for meddling in the operations of his field commanders. Yet the evidence suggests otherwise. Except for a brief four-month lapse, Davis labored to concentrate Southern forces into field armies, which he then urged his generals to employ in offensive operations. He recognized that ignorance and the inability to communicate in a timely manner foreclosed the possibility of close control from Richmond. And, although his record on these points is not perfect, it is overwhelmingly positive.

While the view of Davis given here is more favorable than is customary, it is still possible that too much credit is accorded to Lee and too little to the president. Regrettably, much that passed between the two men cannot now be known, and ideas attributed to Lee may have originated with Davis. What can be known is that a relationship grew between the twoone rarely equaled between a chief and subordinatethat allowed the Confederacy to survive longer than it had any right to expect.

Hypotheses about the things that did not happen in history can never attain the status of truth but must always remain at best a matter of educated opinion. Nonetheless, my study has persuaded me of two likelihoods. First, given the unbending determination of the North, the South probably could not have won the war. Second, if the North could have been made to waver in its determination, Daviss policy and Lees strategy were well suited to achieve Confederate independence.