War Aims and Strategies
As telegraph lines spread the news of Fort Sumter across the sundered nation, the Lincoln and Davis administrations pondered their strategic options. Strategy flows from an amalgam of factors. National policy is of primary importance, but strategists must also consider geography, local political pressure, military theory and training, resources and logistics, foreign opinion, and enemy intentions. The North’s initial policy objective was to reunite the Union by conquest and subjugation if necessary, which required offensive operations and complete military victory. For the South, which only needed to defend itself, a stalemated war that eroded northern determination and brought foreign assistance would suffice. Thus the strategic equation was simply stated: Could the North conquer the Confederacy before the South convinced the northern populace and the British government that it was unconquerable?
As the combatants surveyed the battleline, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Kansas prairies and more than 3,500 miles along the coast, four main theaters were evident. Compressed between Chesapeake Bay and the Appalachians, the eastern theater consisted of two subtheaters: The Shenandoah Valley, and the remainder of Virginia east of the mountains. The Shenandoah was a bountiful southern granary and an excellent invasion route into the North, allowing Confederate forces to threaten Washington and other cities, as well as two vital northern transportation systems, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. By contrast, the Valley was a strategic dead end for northern forces, channeling them deeper into the mountains. In eastern Virginia, four large rivers (the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac) and several lesser streams flowed west to east, dividing the region between Washington and Richmond. These waterways made superb defensive positions against an army coming overland but provided penetration routes deep into the interior if northern invaders came by sea. Thus while each combatant had inviting possibilities for conducting end runs around the enemy’s right flank, a direct approach toward Richmond or Washington would involve desperate fighting. With both capitals located in the eastern theater, events there exerted an especially strong pull on national emotions and strategy.
Lying between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River, the expansive western theater also had two subtheaters: Middle and east Tennessee, and the Mississippi River line. Here geography favored the Union, since no natural barriers—unless Kentucky seceded—barred an advance. The Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers ran north and south, puncturing any defensive line. The third theater was the trans-Mississippi region, equally vast but not as important, and events in the eastern and western theaters determined its fate. The last theater was the sea, controlled by the North. What happened on the oceans and along the Confederate seaboard greatly influenced the war in the two critical land theaters.
Union strategy evolved gradually, ultimately combining a strategy of exhaustion with one of annihilation. In the broadest terms, the North’s high command emphasized an exhaustion strategy in the western theater, where the rivers provided penetration routes into the South’s most important resource areas, and emphasized annihilation in the constricted eastern theater, where Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia blocked any southward advance. The strategies interacted in a cycle that, for the South, was vicious. West of the Appalachians the Union exhausted the South’s warmaking capacity by conquering territory, crippling its railroad system, and capturing cities possessing logistical and political significance. The North thereby deprived Confederate armies of logistical resources and cut them off from their manpower pool, while sapping the southern populace’s will to continue resistance. In the process the North also practically annihilated the enemy’s main field armies both in the west and in Virginia. As the Union battered the weakening gray armies in battle and Confederate morale cracked, the South was less able to defend its remaining resources and communications networks. By late 1864 the South’s capacity for defense had been so reduced that the Union could send massive raids into the enemy’s shrinking domain with virtual impunity.
Commanding General Winfield Scott made the first coherent strategic proposal, the so-called Anaconda Plan, named after the South American snake that slowly crushes its victims. Scott’s plan was essentially a strategy of exhaustion. He wanted to impose a naval blockade to seal the Confederacy off from Europe and thrust down the Mississippi to isolate the trans-Mississippi west. The eastern half of the Confederacy would become a peninsula surrounded on three sides by Yankee naval power and bottled up on the landward side by massive armies. Having grasped the victim in the reptile’s constricting coil, the North would wait for suffocation to begin, allowing southern Unionists to reassert control and bring the seceded states back into the Union. In focusing attention on the blockade and the Mississippi, Scott highlighted two essential elements of northern strategy. However, his plan contained a fundamental weakness: The anaconda dealt death slowly, and the public and prominent politicians wanted a rattlesnake-quick strike at Richmond.
Many generals also wanted more decisive action than what Scott proposed, and they spoke of ending the rebellion by destroying enemy armies in great battles. Lincoln realized that Confederate armies were vital Union objectives, urging his generals to “destroy the rebel army if possible” and expressing disappointment when they failed to do so. However, tactical problems made annihilation of an army in a single battle virtually impossible. As Union armies marched south, their numerical superiority dissipated as commanders had to detach troops for garrison duty and to guard ever-lengthening supply lines. Although generally outnumbering the South, the North rarely had overwhelming numerical superiority on the battlefield. And if Confederates assumed the tactical defensive, they could fight on more than equal terms, since the rifle made one entrenched defender worth several attackers. Ideally northern generals should combine a strategic offensive with the tactical defensive, but this prescription was easier stated than filled.
Even if the Union mauled a Confederate army, pursuit of the beaten foe was difficult. The retreating army moved through friendly country and along its lines of communications, destroying the railroads and bridges, denuding the region of supplies, and leaving rear guards to hinder the pursuer. Aside from having to reorganize after sustaining heavy casualties, the victorious army had to rebuild the communications lines, bring supplies forward, and frequently pause to deploy against the enemy rear guards. Even an army that was grievously hurt in battle usually managed to escape, rebuild, and fight again. An army could eventually be destroyed, but only through the cumulative effects of logistical deprivation and attrition in numerous battles.
To Scott’s concepts regarding the blockade and the Mississippi and to the desire for war-ending climactic battles, Lincoln added an astute perception. He realized the Confederacy would be hard pressed to resist constant, simultaneous advances, which the North’s greater manpower and material made possible. As he wrote to General Don Carlos Buell, the North must menace the enemy “with superior forces at different points, at the same time; so that we can safely attack one, or both, if he makes no change; and if he weakens one to strengthen the other, forbear to attack the strengthened one, but seize and hold the weakened one, gaining so much.” However, the concept of simultaneous advances had two impediments, one conceptual and the other geographic. The president’s strategic insight ran counter to the prevailing military principles of concentration and mass, which demanded only one offensive at a time. For example, in the winter of 1861–1862 the Army of the Potomac’s commander developed a plan that called for a single army of 273,000 men and 600 artillery pieces to operate as a juggernaut that would flatten the South in one campaign. Any other operations would be decidedly secondary, designed solely to support this massive force. The geographic constraint was that although rivers were relatively secure routes of invasion, once the North reached the source of the Cumberland and Tennessee and controlled the Mississippi, it would have to depend on railroads, which were fragile; wherever
they supported Union penetrations, Confederate cavalry units and guerrilla bands raided the vulnerable tracks and bridges, creating nearly insuperable logistical problems.
Late in the war Ulysses S. Grant added one last element to Union strategy: Sending army-sized raids to devastate the rebels’ remaining logistical base. The raiding strategy not only eliminated the necessity to garrison more territory and to protect supply lines, but it also meant Union forces could avoid costly battles against Confederate armies deployed on the tactical defensive. The raiding force departed one point in occupied territory, moved rapidly through a region living primarily off the land, destroyed everything of military value in its path, and emerged at a different locale. Grant’s foremost subordinate, William T. Sherman, perceived that these raids also had a psychological impact, undermining the South’s morale by demonstrating its incapacity for effective defense. By 1865 the Union had virtually ceased trying to capture more Southern territory and instead relied almost exclusively on raids against enemy logistics.
Four key tasks dominated northern strategy after the war’s first year. Control of the Mississippi would deprive the Confederacy of valuable supplies, such as Texas beef and grain. An offensive through middle and east Tennessee and then along the Chattanooga-Atlanta axis would liberate loyal east Tennesseans, deny the rebels access to Tennessee’s resources, cut the South’s best east-west railroad, and make possible a further movement toward Mobile or Savannah, slicing the Confederacy again and further disrupting its communications routes. Incessant military activity in Virginia would destroy Lee’s army and, secondarily, capture the enemy capital. Finally, as land forces opened the Mississippi, cracked the Appalachian barrier, ravaged southern logistics, and hammered Lee’s army, the Union Navy would tighten the blockade and support amphibious coastal assaults.
With limited resources to protect an enormous country, how could the Confederacy forestall a northern victory? In trying to answer this question, Confederate strategists wrestled with two fundamental problems. One was a matter of priorities. With enemy pressure in several places at once, which area was most crucial for survival, the eastern or western theater—and within the broad spaces of the latter, the Mississippi line or Tennessee? Since both theaters had prominent advocates, especially Lee for the eastern and Beauregard for the western, the Davis administration vacillated instead of making hard choices. The other question was whether the South should invade the North or stand behind its borders fending off Union assaults. Lee was the foremost proponent of an offensive defensive, arguing that winning battles on northern soil would hasten enemy demoralization and European intervention, allow hungry southern armies to feast on northern crops, and bolster home-front morale. A passive defensive policy would yield the initiative by giving the Union time to mobilize and the choice of when and where to fight. Others disagreed. Invasion might rally the northern population to the war effort and weaken the South’s appeal to world opinion by making the Confederacy seem the aggressor. Tenacious defense better served Confederate purposes, particularly considering the advantage firepower conferred on the defense. Buffeted by conflicting advice, Davis advocated defending southern boundaries, but on three occasions he sanctioned invasions.
For defense Davis adopted the traditional American system of geographic departmental commands. The system, which the president hoped would reconcile the needs for both local and national defense, meshed with Confederate political and logistical realities. Every Confederate state felt threatened, since each one faced potential invasion from either the land or sea. States’ rights oratory aside, all the southern states wanted the central government to bear the major defense burden. Wide distribution of Confederate forces placated state and local politicians. Since the South’s transportation network made the centralization of logistical resources difficult, Davis’s system required each department to protect the resources of its geographic area, and it gave the department a virtual monopoly on that region’s raw materials, munitions, factory production, and food.
The departmental system also permitted strategic flexibility, since boundaries could be redrawn as the logistical and strategic situation changed. In 1861, for example, when military intelligence regarding the strength and objectives of Union forces was often inaccurate, Davis created a patchwork of small departments. However, as the strategic picture clarified in 1862–1863, Davis consolidated the departments into four major regional commands: the trans-Mississippi; the Department of the West, embracing the Mississippi and Tennessee subtheaters; the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; and Lee’s command in Virginia and North Carolina. No matter what the departmental boundaries were, the Confederate high command could conduct an active defense through interdepartmental troop concentrations, either to exploit strategic opportunities or to parry enemy thrusts. To facilitate these periodic concentrations, the government maintained a railroad pipeline at least partially filled with reserves. The pipeline concept involved sending troops from garrisons nearest the point of concentration and replacing them with units from more distant garrisons.
Although essentially sound, Davis’s departmental system and the strategy of dispersed forces capable of concentration contained flaws. One problem was that Davis granted departmental commanders considerable autonomy on the assumption that they best understood the local situation. Having drawn the boundaries, selected the commanders, and granted discretion, Davis usually refused to order interdepartmental cooperation, relying instead on requests and friendly collaboration. All too often, however, departmental commanders became possessive of their men and resources and, without positive orders, refused to cooperate. Sometimes department boundaries were inappropriate. As one example, the belief that the Mississippi marked a natural division between departments ensnared the Confederacy’s river defense in command squabbles. Finally, the South had to preserve its rail lines to maintain the ability to deploy reserves between departments rapidly.
Even as the belligerent governments grappled with strategic problems, troops were mobilizing. On March 6, 1861, the Confederate Provisional Congress authorized Davis to call out the militia for six months and to accept 100,000 twelve-month volunteers. Between March 9 and April 16 Davis called for 60,200 volunteers. Responding to Fort Sumter, the Confederate congress passed several laws authorizing more volunteers, some for “any length of time” the president prescribed and others for the war’s duration. Under these various measures six-month, one-year, and long-term recruits entered Confederate service. Meanwhile, on April 15 Lincoln called for 75,000 three-month militia, basing his proclamation on the Militia Act of 1792. Throughout the North most states responded with alacrity to the quotas assigned by the War Department and overrecruited. The government accepted 91,816 men, but governors clamored for the War Department to take still more troops. Acting without legal authority, Lincoln increased the regular Army by 22,714 men and the Navy by 18,000 and called for 42,034 three-year volunteers. Again more men responded than the government called for, and governors urged the administration to increase their troop quotas. When Congress convened on July 4, the president asked sanction for his extralegal action and for authority to raise at least another 400,000 three-year volunteers. Congress assented to both requests, even raising the president’s figure to 500,000 men.
Early northern and southern manpower mobilization was similar in four respects. First, both sides relied on newly raised volunteer armies rather than existing military institutions. The northern regular Army, which remained a distinct organization from the volunteers, expanded very little during the war. The Confederacy established a regular army that attained an authorized strength of 15,000, but few men ever enlisted in it. Most northern states refurbished their militias, which served as internal security forces, garrisoned forts and prisoner-of-war camps, guarded communications lines and industries, and patrolled the Canadian and Indian frontiers. During invasion scares states mobilized thousands of militiamen. But the militia’s primary role was, as the Indiana adj
utant general admitted, to serve “as the nursery from which the old regiments and batteries of volunteers were to be recruited and new ones organized.” Southern militias performed similar functions in some states. However, they also played a harmful role that had no northern equivalent: States’ rights governors utilized their state forces to challenge Richmond’s centralized authority, hindering efficient manpower mobilization.
Second, prewar volunteer militia units supplied many recruits, giving each side a core of partially trained and equipped men. Third, the states, not the national governments, controlled mobilization, exhibiting far more vigor than the overburdened, understaffed war departments. State authorities and, in some cases, glory-seeking individuals enlisted the men, formed the regiments, and sent them off to war. Finally, more troops rallied to the colors faster than the governments (state or national) could provide for them. As one Indiana volunteer remembered, all his “regiment lacked of being a good fighting machine was guns, ammunition, cartridge boxes, canteens, haversacks, knapsacks, blankets, etc., with a proper knowledge of how all these equipments could be used with effect.”
Amid massive administrative confusion, with both sides trying to organize and provision hectically raised troops, the war’s first skirmishes occurred. The South’s victory at Fort Sumter was largely symbolic, but within a few days it gained two more substantive successes; and to the worried Lincoln administration Confederate forces appeared close to an even greater achievement, the capture of Washington. Confronted by Virginia militiamen on April 18, the small Union garrison guarding Harpers Ferry abandoned the arsenal. The Yankees left it ablaze, but southerners salvaged much priceless equipment before they withdrew farther up the Shenandoah to Winchester. Three days later Virginia militiamen occupied the Norfolk Navy Yard, gaining intact the nation’s largest naval base, with hundreds of modern artillery pieces, construction and repair facilities, and several ships under repair, including the Merrimack, which burned to the waterline during the Yankee evacuation. Teeming with Confederate sympathizers and situated between slave states, Washington was practically defenseless. Fearing an enemy coup d’état, Lincoln waited with mounting anxiety for militia to arrive. Fortunately, less than forty-eight hours after receiving his call, Massachusetts Governor John Andrew had four regiments commanded by Benjamin F. Butler heading for Washington. No state had a better volunteer militia, and on April 19 the 6th Massachusetts Regiment arrived. Other units quickly followed, and on May 24 troops undertook the North’s first southward advance. Crossing the Potomac, they occupied Alexandria and Arlington Heights.
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