Este tema está marcado actualmente como "inactivo"—el último mensaje es de hace más de 90 días. Puedes reactivarlo escribiendo una respuesta.
1jcbrunner
When Joe Johnston was hit by a bullet on May 31st, 1862, he prolonged the American Civil War for three years. Up to this point (minor mishaps excepted, cough Bull Run), everything had been going to plan for the Union. Sam Grant had captured one army and defeated the main Western Confederate army at Shiloh. David Farragut captured New Orleans, the South's largest city at the end of April.
With the capture of Richmond, the American Civil War might have ended like the Swiss Civil War (Sonderbundskrieg): The main Confederate cities captured (Atlanta excepted), resistance, now futile, might have collapsed. In these days before the Emancipation Proclamation, a political reconciliation that preserved slavery in the former Confederate states but prohibited its expansion into new ones might have been likely. This avenue was closed off with Lee taking command.
Lee had been gunning for Johnston's job for some time. Newton's Joseph E. Johnston and the defense of Richmond shows how Lee and Davis maneuvered Johnston out of the strategic decision making process by sending him into the field and cutting him off from official communication. If the bullet had not found its mark, Johnston probably would have been replaced/relieved any way. Only Lee was willing to spill the lives of his men freely. The butchery of the Seven Days would cost him more than twenty percent of his army in casualties. McClellan, thinking similarly like Johnston, was shocked by Lee's willingness to sacrifice his co-citizens. Although the overestimation of the Confederate forces started early in the peninsula, I think that the acceptance of these huge numbers of casualties confirmed Mac's belief that he was outnumbered.
For the sesquicentennial, I expected a number of books about the peninsula campaign to be published. I like the campaign overview presented in Stephen W. Sears' To the gates of Richmond. Brian K. Burton's Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battles offers a more tactical approach but is not without flaws. The strange thing, though, is the lack of individual battle studies (from serious publishers). There are multiple books about Ball's Bluff but no (readily available) studies of Gaines Mill or Malvern Hill I know of. There was one effort about the battle of Glendale but both the publisher's reputation and the look inside preview make me hesitate.
Hopefully, one day, this lack of studies will be corrected. Or are there already books about the Seven Days to be published soon?
With the capture of Richmond, the American Civil War might have ended like the Swiss Civil War (Sonderbundskrieg): The main Confederate cities captured (Atlanta excepted), resistance, now futile, might have collapsed. In these days before the Emancipation Proclamation, a political reconciliation that preserved slavery in the former Confederate states but prohibited its expansion into new ones might have been likely. This avenue was closed off with Lee taking command.
Lee had been gunning for Johnston's job for some time. Newton's Joseph E. Johnston and the defense of Richmond shows how Lee and Davis maneuvered Johnston out of the strategic decision making process by sending him into the field and cutting him off from official communication. If the bullet had not found its mark, Johnston probably would have been replaced/relieved any way. Only Lee was willing to spill the lives of his men freely. The butchery of the Seven Days would cost him more than twenty percent of his army in casualties. McClellan, thinking similarly like Johnston, was shocked by Lee's willingness to sacrifice his co-citizens. Although the overestimation of the Confederate forces started early in the peninsula, I think that the acceptance of these huge numbers of casualties confirmed Mac's belief that he was outnumbered.
For the sesquicentennial, I expected a number of books about the peninsula campaign to be published. I like the campaign overview presented in Stephen W. Sears' To the gates of Richmond. Brian K. Burton's Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battles offers a more tactical approach but is not without flaws. The strange thing, though, is the lack of individual battle studies (from serious publishers). There are multiple books about Ball's Bluff but no (readily available) studies of Gaines Mill or Malvern Hill I know of. There was one effort about the battle of Glendale but both the publisher's reputation and the look inside preview make me hesitate.
Hopefully, one day, this lack of studies will be corrected. Or are there already books about the Seven Days to be published soon?
2jcbrunner
Gary W. Gallagher's Virginia Historical Society lecture More Important Than Gettysburg: The Seven Days Campaign as a Turning Point is now available online (July 11, 2012). His Johnston quips alone are worth the listen, the rest is just bonus.
