Historical Discussion: What were the most crucial battles in the Civil War?

[Pootis]

Just as the title implies. If my input means anything, my opinion is that Gettysburg was the most important battle in the east, and Shiloh in the west. Gettysburg, if won and better controlled by some more staff work on Lee's part (which I'd argue Chancellorsville contributed to weakening with the death of Jackson) would have been a paralyzing victory in the east and would give the Confederacy the initiative to begin taking more loyalty from the border areas, convincing them of the ability to better protect them.

The main difficulty with this was Shiloh, however, because Shiloh represented, in my opinion, the beginning of the end of the Confederacy's ability to defend its supply routes across the Mississippi. Had the Confederacy won this battle, they may have been able to have Kentucky's resources and manpower, and they may have been able to sieze the food supplies of the under-defended breadbasket area of the Great Lakes region. With no food, they could have starved out the North- their greatest advantage would be turn into their greatest disadvantage. Jefferson Davis would have been at a greater advantage to bargin ("We have the food supplies, your manpower means nothing if you can't feed your people.")

Your opinions? I haven't read much deep scholarship on the subject- my main focuses are on earlier European conflict, so some input with some scholarly backing would be great.

[thomas aagaard]

I don't think Just winning Gettysburg would have mattered that much.
Lee was running low on ammo for his artillery so he would have been forced to retreat anyway. And his artillery was in a critical situation because of the loose of horses.
(More marching on the brick roads in Pennsylvania might very well have cost Lee his entire artillery park because of lack of shoes for the horses.)

Only a complete rout might have given him sufficient large quantities of captures supplies, including wagons filled with ammo, from the federal artillery train. And have resulted in large numbers of federal soldiers going home. But that was simply unlikely to happen by this stage in the war.
(Chancellorsville was not a route to that big an extent. The federal army was still ready to fight. It was Hooker who lost his cool... )

And Vicksburg would still have surrendered the next day.

Agree with Shiloh being central.
The war is a long list of battles the south had to win... and in many cases they did. But Shiloh was an exception that put the south on the loosing path.


Obviously the first battle they lost was political... when they started the war by firing on Sumter. They clearly underestimated the resulting anger in the north.

[A. P. Hill]

Gettysburg is over rated.

[Sox]

It's impossible to say really because single battles are a part of a chain of events, for example would there have been a Gettysburg if Chancellorsville had been lost, or if Jackson had not died? I've never been one to believe in the 'High Water Mark' of Gettysburg, for me the Army of Northern Virginia was never really the same after Jackson died because it broke up that brilliant trio of Lee, Longstreet & Jackson. I think they complimented each other perfectly.

[Kyle422]

Gettysburg is over rated.

I second this but its also where the 69th PA got their fame from. However I do enjoy the early war battles where for the most part each regiment had their own uniforms and even some companies in various regiments wore their own uniforms.

- Kyle

[Poorlaggedman]

They were all crucial because they were all interconnected in their respective theaters. In my opinion the only chance of Confederate victory was politically defeating Lincoln. They could simply not hold out forever. Therefore anything that stopped that possibility was extremely crucial.

Gettysburg definitely isn't overrated. It would have been a major blunder to lose a battle in the North like that. It would have been a spectacular political disaster for Lincoln if Lee had driven the northern army off the field enough that northern papers conceded it as a rebel victory. That being said it wasn't as close of a battle as often believed after July 1st. If the Confederates had been better able to coordinate the army they could have capitalized off their July 1st gains faster they stood a chance. July 1st was in of itself one of the top ten bloodiest battles of the war so far, far from the 'skirmish' it's often referred as.

Even at Gettysburg you can still look to smaller battles that set the stage. If not for Brandy Station would Stuart have been so reckless to leave Lee blind?

Antietam was the biggest missed opportunity. McClellan's failure to rout Lee with his back to the Potomac sealed the fate of hundreds of thousands of lives to be lost later. If he had crushed Lee's army, as he should have, it would have been a major morale boost for the north and Richmond would have fallen early in '63. Confederate morale would have been smashed. Lee's actions in the East were able to sustain the entire Confederacy into continuing the fight. Getting smashed at Antietam in spectacular fashion would have eliminated all of that. And he almost did get crushed several times but for timely shifting of troops and the Light Division miraculously showing up at the right place and the right time. He had one route to retreat across the Potomac and his losses would have been severe. There's no way Confederate papers could have skewed that as a victory.

The most crucial battle by far was the first. You can honestly say Ft Sumter. It could have been a political crisis rather than a military one but everyone wanted a military one because it seemed like fun. The Confederates did not have to fire on Ft Sumter or the supply ships going to it. Because they did, they ensured their doom. They gave Lincoln a Casus Belli. Generations get hungry for such things and when irresponsible leaders are in place they feed hungry people what they're asking for and nobody ended up better off except freed slaves who were actually able to make the most of it after.

[thomas aagaard]

If not for Brandy Station would Stuart have been so reckless to leave Lee blind?

Lee had two brigades of cavalry with him... he just didn't use them for any scouting.



Antietam was the biggest missed opportunity. McClellan's failure to rout Lee with his back to the Potomac sealed the fate of hundreds of thousands of lives to be lost later. If he had crushed Lee's army, as he should have,

The two armies where much more closely match than the usual mythology tell you.

Lee claimed in his report that he had 40.000men at the start of the battle. That is not wrong, he is just only counting men in the infantry with a musket.
Officers are not included in this number. And anyone driving a wagon or doing any other none combat job is similar not included.

This is what is called Effectives. This was the way the ANV counted under Johnston and Lee didn't change it.

The number we get for the federals are the number of men Present for duty.
That is All officers and men capable of doing duty, but excluding those on extra duty (special and daily duty men were included).

About 1/6 of all men was used doing other jobs. So we need to remove them and we also all officers from the counting to get two numbers we can compare.

The next issue is that we all know that Lee's men straggled heavily and that is part of the reason why Lee only had 40.000 Effectives.
What is often forgotten is that the federal army had the exact same issue. The Official records actually give us numbers for the 1th, 5th and 6th federal corps.
They ratio of actual fighting strength compared to their PFD was 61%, 63% and 65%.

If we take the numbers we get from Livermore's "numbers and losses in the Civil war in America" and do the math we end up with the federal army having 55.000 effective at Antietam.

55/40 is a much closer fight than the usual 2/1 or even 3/1 that is sometimes claimed.

Later Hooker and then Meade change the counting system. So when the AoP in 1863 is a good deal smaller than in 62, part of the reason is that the numbers usually quoted are simply not based on the same way of counting.


Another factor is experience and unit cohesion.
PRetty much all of Lee's force had seen combat a number of times and it was one army.
The federal force was made up of corps from 3 different armies. And about one in every 4 men where completely green. With a few regiments going into combat without even knowing how to load their muskets.
(this lecture cover the experience issue in detail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPM4SeXaIuY&t=3s at around 25 minutes)

[Poorlaggedman]

Apparently there was a fundamental misunderstanding or miscalculation on the part of Stuart, still. He utterly failed in his strategic objectives that Lee expected of him probably because he was surprised by the speed that the federals moved north.

Interesting.Yes I'm not arguing that there was no good reason for McClellan's lack of follow up (like fighting the bloodiest single day fight in American history) but I think that knowing the bloodshed ahead it was a great missed opportunity that a man like Grant would surely have tried harder to seize. McClellan also allowed Lee to concentrate rather than striking him hard and fast on September 16th. Violence of action would have changed the entire war. Not too many commanders get the luxury of intelligence that McClellan got. I'd have fired him too.

The terrain at Antietam really surprised me when I visited for the first time in March. It's incredibly hilly with an almost demon-like frequency to the rises and falls. Seeing it in person, it's no wonder entire divisions can get off course marching into the fray. The depth perception in the game doesn't quite give you a sense of how bad it is. Any sports fan can chuck a beer bottle at the kind of ranges the two sides fought at.