"What if General E. Lee had sent Troops to Vicksburg?" Topic

"That question was certainly on the mind of Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon that season. By default, then, it was also on Lee's.

Anchored on bluffs lining the Mississippi River, Vicksburg was the key to success in the West for either side as the war entered its third year. The "fortress" city's topographical dominance gave Confederates the ability to control traffic up and down the river and also served as a vital connection to Southern interests in the Trans-Mississippi Theater.

The Union high command in Washington and the region's army commander, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, were well aware of Vicksburg's strategic importance. Grant had made stabs at the city for months, to no avail, but his tenaciousness worried the once-confident Mississippians, who demanded a strong response and reliable leadership…"

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Armand

Armand your thoughts? 🤔

Would Pemberton still have been in charge and command of joint forces? Would Bragg still have command of joint forces? In other words, would the same commanders who currently commanded, have still been in command? If so, I believe eventual results would have been the same. I believe Chickamauga and the Knoxville campaign proved that later.

The one open question: If the troops had been sent, would it have stopped the disastrous Gettysburg campaign? The dominoes falling of that, NOT occurring, are much more intriguing and of much more consequence.

As 35thOVI points out, the big question is really what effect of sending troops west would have had on operations in the east? Just sending Pickett's division west probably would have had little effect on events around Vicksburg. And Lee might still have gone ahead with with his move north into Pennsylvania. But if both Pickett and Hood AND Longstreet had gone west, that is a whole other situation. It MIGHT have been enough to drive Grant away from Vicksburg. Or it might have ended in a bloody failure. Very hard to predict. But with both of his experienced corps commanders (Jackson being dead) and two strong divisions gone, I don't know if Lee would have risked making an offensive move with a badly reduced army and two inexperienced corps commanders, Hill and Ewell. Interesting to think about.

IIRC when they did send large troop units west it took months. The railroad 'system' was really a bunch of separate railroads and transshipping was needed. The units would have to pass through Atlanta to get there. Plus the general state of the railroads had suffered greatly due to the war.
So you'd have a division or two frozen in limbo, unable to help either front for an extended period of time.

Talking about transferring units Confederate unit from Virginia to Vicksburg how would have Grierson's Raid beginning in April 1863 have impacted that transfer?

Terry

I think the Confederacy's problems in the West had much more do with command than with the number of troops available – from Shiloh onwards – - -

I agree with 35th OVI and Frederick, no matter how many troops you sent to Joe Johnston they would never be enough.

To answer T Callahan: It means the railroad stopped at Newton Station.

If Longstreet and two divisions had gone to Bragg, instead of to Vicksburg, they might have helped him hang onto Chattanooga and even Tullahoma, and CONCEIVABLY have chased Rosecrans back to Nashville, but I don't think Grant or Lincoln would have been willing to let go of Vicksburg. Lincoln & Stanton would just have sent troops from Virginia to help Rosecrans.

If you still had the Confederate generals that were in the West in command they would have just captured more men at Vicksburg. Grant was a great general.

Grattan54 +1 The Lost Cause would have lost anyway!

No matter who showed up, Grant was going to keep fighting. He was not going to let go of it. It's who he was and what he did. Earlier, when he was still learning the politics of dealing with people like Halleck and McClernand, and the crazy organizational orders from DC, he kept finding ways to keep the pressure on his opponents,and his bond with Sherman, which really began with Shiloh, I believe, became a key to winning the campaign and then the war. I have heard that there is not even a sign mentioning Sherman at the Vicksburg battlefield today. These guys were going fight hard and be the favorites no matter who arrived from the East.

Actually, Joe Johnston, who WAS in command of the theater, did have a plan to defeat Grant. He wanted Pemberton to evacuate Vicksburg and link up with the smaller forces scattered in the area and he also had the authority to call in troops from Bragg's army.

While Jeff Davis overruled abandoning Vicksburg, had Johnston been allowed to institute his plan, he had more troops than Grants army, which was operating beyond their line of communications.

Johnston would certainly have attacked Grant, as he did McClellan at Seven Pines. Perhaps he could have accomplished what Albert Sidney failed to do. If he could defeat Grant in open battle, Vicksburg would be saved (at least for a while) and the western theater still in play.

The loss of the western theater to the union rest squarely on Jeff Davis.

Kim

Thanks.

Armand

Johnston was a good commander and he would have had the best chance. Another interesting what if…

It took Longstreet's command nine days to move from Virginia to Georgia. Add, maybe, another week to reach Jackson, MS.

Going from memory, the problem was there was no one to join. Johnston had to scrape together an 'army' to oppose Grant once Pemberton was under siege. I doubt two more divisions would have added enough striking power to drive Grant off. Even if it did give enough troops, there are serious questions as to whether Johnston would have attacked. He was always reluctant to attack unless he had no other options, (Seven Pines, Bentonville).

I just read one what-if proposal that asked what would have happened if the coastal commands had been stripped and sent to join Lee in 1863, (I believe they were eventually added to Johnston's command after Vicksburg). Would a fourth corps in the ANV have changed the Gettysburg Campaign significantly? Possibly.

Also, I have always maintained that while the South lost the war by losing in the west, they could only win by winning in the east. They could have captured Galena, Springfield, or maybe even Chicago, and no one in Europe would have cared, They needed to take Washington for the Europeans to throw their economic and military weight behind them.

DN Jackson and others, I think there was possibly another and that was to delay the collapse in Northern Virginia by 6 or so months. Not going to Gettysburg May have well done that. Many officers and men still alive for the next campaign against "Hooker?", or Meade, if a command change made, in Virginia. Also and most importantly, no Grant coming East right away. Those extra months, the continued losses there with no gain and the media of the times microscope on the Northern Virginia theater of operations and the 64 election may well have been different. Little Mac as President and a negotiated peace?

Just my opinion.

Certainly possible. And seemed so to many at the time.

Hooker was probably gone in any case, but he was actually not a terrible commander. Meade became overshadowed by Grant, but he was quite competent and would have likely carried the war to Lee, causing debilitating attrition even without a big win. The resources of the north are the problem. The size the Army of the Potomac continued to grow, well over 100,000 well supplied troops for the rest of the war, while Lee could not grow his army any further. By fall of 64, unless some Union disaster had occurred, or if Sherman did not take Atlanta, Lincoln would be the winner.

Just came across a memo written by G. W. Smith of a meeting between Davis, Joe Johnston, Beauregard and Smith on 1 Oct 61, in the OR (Series 1, Vol. 5, p. 884). It is far too long to quote here or even adequately summarize, but it shows that even that far back the Confederate high command was thinking in terms of crossing the Potomac and cutting off Washington from the North as the way to win the war.

"… in short, that success here was success everywhere, defeat here defeat everywhere; and that this was the point upon which all the available forces of the Confederate States should be concentrated." You can find the OR online, I'm sure.

Thanks, had not heard of this..

Thanks also…

Armand