One Confederacy Moment - Gone at Shiloh

[Director]

Nathaniel Lyon was in command at St Louis; he was an energetic and capable commander. Missouri stayed in play for a year or more, but Lyon's prompt actions likely kept St Louis - and its massive arsenal of weapons - in the Union column.

You are thinking of Siegel and some of his cohorts, I think. From the Wiki: "In 1857, he became a professor at the German-American Institute in St Louis, Missouri. He was elected director of the St. Louis public schools in 1860. He was influential in the Missouri immigrant community. He attracted Germans to the Union and antislavery causes when he openly supported them in 1861."

"Throughout the summer, President Lincoln actively sought the support of antislavery, pro-Unionist immigrants. Sigel, always popular with the German immigrants, was a good candidate to advance this plan. He was promoted to brigadier general on August 7, 1861, to rank from May 17, one of a number of early political generals endorsed by Lincoln.

Sigel served under Brig. Gen Nathaniel Lyon in the capture of the Confederate Camp Jackson in St. Louis and at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, where his command was routed after making a march around the Confederate camp and attacking from the rear. Sigel conducted the retreat of the army after the death of General Lyon."

There has been speculation that German votes helped give Missouri to Lincoln; certainly Lincoln rewarded pro-Union support wherever he could find it.

Despite (or because of) his military experience in the Baden Army and the revolution of 1848, Sigel didn't achieve much as a Union general - he got beaten, often, and badly. Many of 'his' Germans served in the 11th Corps of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg fame (or shame).

 

[Sanny]

11th Corps was the one Jackson routed entirely at Chancellorsville yeah? I remember the Union papers or Union officers trying to make it out that it was because they were Germans and not American Union soldiers is why they ran

Chancellorsville just beggers belief considering the odds Lee faced. He shouldn't have won the battle by all military logic.

 

[Yakman]

11th Corps was the one Jackson routed entirely at Chancellorsville yeah? I remember the Union papers or Union officers trying to make it out that it was because they were Germans and not American Union soldiers is why they ran

Chancellorsville just beggers belief considering the odds Lee faced. He shouldn't have won the battle by all military logic.

he ended up with almost as many casualties as he inflicted, and almost got his army destroyed.

he was lucky. but it wasn't the victory it's been portrayed as.

a more astute commander than Hooker would have smashed the Army of Northern Virginia into pieces.

 

[Director]

Just my opinion here, but I'd agree that Chancellorsville was an eminently winnable Union operation. Had Hooker pressed relentlessly forward to a union with Sedgewick, we'd remember the battle very differently. Had he 'pulled a Grant' and moved south after the battle instead of North we might celebrate him as a hero today. Or had the Union right-flank corps simply entrenched as they were told to do...

I'll admit that a game is no substitute for real life, but I've commanded the Union at Chancellorsville in several games and had good success throwing three or four corps against Lee's force while retreating before Jackson's onslaught.

Lee thought he had no option but to use aggressive assaults to wreck Union movements into his theater. He may well have been right, since the only viable alternative would be to stand on the defensive and convince the Union to assault. Fredericksburg is the only case I can think of where the Union did that, and it could easily have been a Union victory (swap Union wing commanders and order the main thrust made on the left and it becomes, if not a probable, then a possible Union win). But having to make repeated assaults wore his army down, and cost the health and lives of his best officers. The tactics, communications and weapons of the day made a decisive open-field victory almost unobtainable - Franklin/Nashville is the only one that comes to mind and the dissolution of that Confederate Army was a direct result of making repeated assaults. Even Bragg's army was able to regroup after Chattanooga, though no longer under Bragg's command.

I have to bring up my favorite newspaper headline of the war: "Perhaps the most famous line about Bragg came from the Richmond Enquirer, which announced 'General Bragg is going to Wilmington. Goodbye Wilmington.'"

 

[Sanny]

I have to bring up my favorite newspaper headline of the war: "Perhaps the most famous line about Bragg came from the Richmond Enquirer, which announced 'General Bragg is going to Wilmington. Goodbye Wilmington.'"

humorous considering that Hurricane hit it last month too and caused widespread devastation.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

I have walked that battlefield 10 times back in scouts. And studied it ever since. There are a few things missing.

One, the deployment of Ruggles Battery to blast the Union out of the sunken road that provided the axis along which the Hornets Nest was formed. Every gun the Confederates had lined up wheel to wheel, pounding the Union position. A very impressive sight and the battery has been reassembled at the park.

Two. When AS Johnson died, there was no true commander of the Confederate army. During the night, when NB Forrest brought back details of Buell crossing the river, no action was taken by the individual commanders. And in the morning, the fresh troops swept the Rebs back into Mississippi.

Three. You have no idea how high those Indian Mounds are screening Pittsburg Landing. Tired rebs could not climb them with Union Troops perched on top. Especially with the mortar boats constantly shelling their positions. It was a ready made fortress that gave the Union a definsible position to which they could retreat and reform.

Four. Union riverine naval presence and the steamboats ferrying Buell, his men, and fresh supplies into Pittsburgh Landing.

Without a unified command pushing relatively green troops forward, the Southern victory quickly slipped away and became a retreat.