[lit-ideas] Re: Do we still have Grants and Shermans?
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:10:55 -0700
Hanson and Liddell Hart are both military historians. They both say
something similar. What the statement means that you take objection to is
that no one expected the war to last as long as it did. A season or two
of fighting, kiss and make up, few casualties were what most people
anticipated. Sherman was one of the few who thought it would be a long
costly war.
And don't forget, Hanson is an admirer of Sherman over Grant. When the
war broke out, Sherman was teaching at a military academy in the South. He
had no wish to kill Southerners. He liked them. Grant on the other hand
ground things out in traditional fashion. Sherman saved lives with his
march to the sea. Grant killed huge numbers in set piece battles. Someone
observed some place that the Southerners forgave Grant, even though he
slaughtered the humongous numbers you refer to. But they never forgave
Sherman because he destroyed their property. So the Southerners alive after
the war wouldn't have sympathized with your argument. Heck with the deaths.
They gave as good as they got, but that dirty rotten Sherman didn't fight
fair.
And last but not least, of course, what you are engaged in here is a
quibble. It doesn't bear upon Hanson's point. What do you think of his
point?
Lawrence
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of David Ritchie
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2008 1:59 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Do we still have Grants and Shermans?
"With all due respect," is how we must begin if we are to follow with, "what
on earth is Hanson thinking"?
Few in 1861 anticipated the carnage that would ensue in the American Civil
War, in which massive armies collided with lethal new weapons -- and
depended on industrial production, electronic communications and railroads.
Before the war broke out in 1861, the obscure U.S. Grant and William
Tecumseh Sherman had failed at almost everything they had tried. But after
the Union army was nearly wrecked by establishment generals like Ambrose
Burnside, Henry Halleck, Joseph Hooker, George McClellan, John Pope and
William Rosecrans (who were all wedded to the set style of Napoleonic
warfare), President Lincoln turned to his two generals who best understood
modern warfare.
Let's take the statements one at a time:
"Few anticipated the carnage that would ensue...[when] massive armies
collided with lethal new weapons."
So what was carnage and who might have anticipated it?
http://www.libraryspot.com/lists/listwars.htm
reveals that 290,000 men fought in the American Revolution. There were 4000
deaths. Divide the number of deaths into the number of fighters and you
get--counting on all my fingers--72.5.
War of 1812 287,000 divided by 2000=143.5
Indian Wars 106,000 divided by 1000=106
Mexican War 79,000 divided by 13,000 = 6.1
Civil War 2,213,000 divided by 364,000=6.1
Spanish American War 392,000 divided by 11,000=35.6
World War One 4,744,000 divided by 116,000 = 40.9
World War Two 16,535,000 divided by 406,000=40.7
By American standards the Civil War was "carnage" in that the ratio of
deaths to those involved is strikingly different from all other wars
*except* the Mexican War, the one in which Civil War leaders cut their
teeth. So who could have anticipated that level of carnage? Everyone who
fought in Mexico.
My second point is that--new weapons aside-- the absolute level of carnage
was many times greater in the Napoleonic wars:
http://www.taphilo.com/history/war-deaths.shtml#napoleon
So the thing to explain is why American casualty ratios got worse in the
nineteenth century and were better in the preceding and succeeding
centuries. Was this about "massive armies colliding with lethal new
weapons"? The difficulty with that argument is that weapons and army size
are different in the Mexican and the Civil War. Tactics are not.
Now let's try, "wedded to the set style of Napoleonic warfare." Peter the
Great's ability to crush armies twice and three times the size of his own
came from making exactly the move that Patton later adopted--feint at one
point, crash into the flank at another with speed and discipline. Napoleon
and his enemies remembered this and thus Napoleonic battles were not, as
they appear often in movies, marked by lots of men standing still and
awaiting orders. There was much feinting and manouever, marching and
counter-marching, all designed to disguise where the main attack was coming.
Waterloo was different. Napoleon was in a hurry, wanting to defeat
Wellington before the Prussians arrived, so there was little or no
manouever; he sent the cavalry and the Imperial Guard right up the middle.
Why does little change between Napoleon and the Civil War? Because weapons
did not change much and, more importantly, because the means of conveying
instructions from general to subordinate commanders don't change one iota.
Generals could imagine all the clever moves in the world; to communicate
their cleverness all they had at their disposal were scribbled notes and
messengers on horseback. Napoleon always sent messages in triplicate, by
three different horsemen on three different routes. That tells you
something about the fragility of command.
So what's different about the Civil War? Industrial production, certainly.
Size of armies? Not a lot different from Napoleonic times. Railroads?
J.E.B. Stuart is famous for catching and harassing horse-drawn baggage and
supply trains. Railroads were important in supplying, for example, western
beef and mutton to feed the Union.
And what is different about the winning generals of the Civil War? Was it,
as Hanson suggests, an ability to be flexible? In the case of Lee and
Grant, you could agree if flexibility means a willingness to take risks, but
Grant was famously inflexible, undistractable once battle began. His was
the bulldog approach. Keep feeding men into the place where you want to
apply pressure. Keep marching around the flank of Lee's diminishing forces.
The more I understand about war, the more I understand about sport. Tennis
rackets and balls may change, occasionally someone comes up with a new
stroke. But the essence of the thing is very old--hit the ball at your
opponent's weaknesses and try to disguise the fact that this is what you
intend. If only they let you leave a token force on your side of the net,
run onto the neighboring court, and hit into the enemy's flank.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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