"Biggest loss: Johnston or Jackson?" Topic

As a front note, as long as the North didn't give up, I don't think the South was ever going to win militarily. I think it was possible to get a political victory and convince the North it wasn't worth the efort anymore.
Anyway, as I was recently playing an ACW boardgame I started to wonder, what was the bigger setback for the Southern Cause, the loss of A. S. Johnston or Jackson?

Jackson, based on Johnsons leadership at shiloh. Of course, he could have improved, as did all leaders during the war.

It would be hard to say Johnston, as he did not complete even one large civil war battle before dying.

Jackson

Jackson, but I'm guessing. We can see Jackson improving. No idea what Johnston might have been like a year later.

Good question – I think Johnson had a good track record in the Mexican-American War and had enormous potential but as noted was unproven (and he probably should have used that torniquet he had in his pocket) – but Jackson was a proven commodity and one wonders what might have transpired in the sunny Pennsylvania hills if he been around for the Gettysburg campaign – so I am going with Jackson

Just wondering how the Army of Tennessee would have done without being handicapped by Bragg.

Just wondering how the Army of Tennessee would have done without being handicapped by Bragg.

Well, it was PGT Beauregards command after Johnson's death (until Davis removed him from command for going on leave without permission), so how would you like to have had him as the commander instead of Bragg.

Johnson's cordon defense strategy while he sat in Bowling Green was a failure as he lost Fort Henry and Ft, Donelson.

He sure could have used those 20.000 men at Shiloh.

Kim

Very true, KRY. I'm not aware that Johnston was very good at either strategy or tactics.

Jeff Davis said that if Sydney Johnston wasn't a general he didn't know who was. He was right. He didn't know.

Davis is the perfect example of both the Peter Principle and Dunning Kruger. He rose far above his military level of competence and always thought he was the smartest person in the room.
Few of the early Confederate generals were all that competent. Johnston? Beauregard? Polk?

Even Lee. Lee did fine against defective Union generals. But once the terrible ones were removed, he wasn't all that great.

(("Bless me Father for I have sinned. I have blasphemed Robert E Lee."))

The main view of Johnston was he was over rated at the start of the war. He really didn't do anything during the war to change that view.

Let's not get Albert Sidney Johnston (killed at Shiloh) mixed up with Joseph E. Johnston.

Jim

Would not A.S. Johnston's day one at Shiloh be considered a "victory" if he had fought anyone but Grant and if he had not been killed, of course? Granted (no pun intended) there were a lot of Union missteps that contributed to the outcome on day one, however, that was the state of the art at that time of the war. One or two breaks (including not getting killed), it is conceivable that Shiloh could have been a great Confederate victory. That is the case with any battle, I suppose.

If Johnston had not been killed, the war in the west would likely have been much different, without the cancer that was Bragg. That said, had Jackson not been killed, Gettysburg would likely have been a Confederate victory or at the very least, the battle would have taken place elsewhere. Jackson would have been quicker and more aggressive and would probably have taken the high ground. Mead would have consolidated somewhere to the east of Gettysburg, where the grand battle would have taken place.

I am inclined to say that Jackson's loss was greater, however, I am not sure if that is not simply the result of eastern bias. The scenario where Johnston survived Shiloh is more intriguing; does a competent, aggressive and respected Johnston save the South from Bragg's several flaws and go on to secure victory on the battle fields where other commanders declined battle or refused to grasp total victory?

"That said, had Jackson not been killed, Gettysburg would likely have been a Confederate victory or at the very least, the battle would have taken place elsewhere. Jackson would have been quicker and more aggressive and would probably have taken the high ground."

Of course an assumption, as all this obviously is…. But Jackson of the Valley.. my guess yes. Jackson of The Seven Days.. the bets are off.

🤔
Now if one believes in divine intervention, no Confederate commander would have taken the high ground on day 1.

😉

"Even Lee. Lee did fine against defective Union generals. But once the terrible ones were removed, he wasn't all that great."

I'm sure the Union dead at The Wilderness and Cold Harbor would disagree with you somewhat on that statement.

Jackson at Gettysburg would have been a game changer.

1: ANV was coming off of Chancellorsville.
2: Meade was only in charge for 5 days before the fight.
3: Lee had had his first major heart issue right before the movement into Pennsylvania. His heart wasn't the best.
4: Jackson's loss affected Lee more than originally known. Based on what we know now, Jackson was probably the closest thing Lee had to a prodigy or favored child in the ANV. Their views on life, and faith were very close.
5: Between his health, the lack of forward information for the ANV due to Stuart failing to screen, (which while very serious, could have been easily fixed with the remaining cavalry forces that Lee had under his command), the oppressive weather, (It was one of the hottest July's in Pennsylvania history at the time), and the fact that Lee needed Longstreet "to be Jackson" and Longstreet simply wasn't Jackson, all added up to the disaster at G'burg, among other things.

I believe that if Jackson had been there and the first days offensive would've probably gone better and further than originally done, Meade would've have no doubt pulled out of the G'burg area to his preferred defensive line along Pipe Creek.

The disaster at G'brg was Lee's. It was the wrong ground. Longstreet knew, and he ended up being the scapegoat

35th took the words out of my mouth re Jackson and the 7Days. I agree with Murphy that there was a good chance that the first day might have gone better with Jackson of the Valley and Chancellorsville arriving instead of Ewell. But I wonder….if Jackson had arrived near the end of the day would he have rested his men within the sound of the guns as at Mechanicsville? That's what Ewell decided after getting Lee's slightly ambiguous order.

The Army of the Potomac had Generals who were handled handily by Lee. They suffered casualties and then, naturally retreated.
Grant had Meade on a leash. Between the two of them, they had casualties. Bad casualties. BUT, Grant then advanced. He didn't retreat. You can't make an omelette…

I didn't get the two Johnston mixed up. I was talking about Albert. He came into the war with a big reputation. He did not live up to it before he died.

Jackson because we know what he would accomplish and how valuable he was.

Johnston on the other hand, we will never know what he would have accomplished.

So the question is impossible to answer.

The death of Jackson is like the death of Lincoln and Kennedy. Each had they lived would have faced a very difficult job which was probably beyond their abilities to perform. By dying when they did each left to posterity the thought that if they had survived things would have turned out better without any concrete proof that would be the case.

Ewell had done a credible job as 2nd Corps commander spearheading Lee's advance up to the evening of July 1. If the Confederates had attacked that evening they might have driven the U.S. troops from Cemetery Hill. Or they might not have. If they had driven the U.S. forces from Cemetery Hill it would not have meant a rout for the Army of the Potomac. Most of the AoP was not even engaged on July 1, there were plenty of good defenses the AoP could have taken up, and given the time and condition of the Confederate forces it is unlikely a vigorous pursuit would have been mounted.

Davis is the perfect example of both the Peter Principle and Dunning Kruger. He rose far above his military level of competence and always thought he was the smartest person in the room.

Someone once said that the worst thing that ever happened to Confederate strategy was the 5 days of action Jeff Davis saw in Mexico.

John, Lee's casualties were also horrendous from Chancellorsville on. More, they were ruinous as his army slowly dwindled via attrition. After Lincoln was re-elected, it was time to end it. Maybe even after Gettysburg, I sometimes wonder? But I suspect emotions ran high and there was no quit in Lee. He and Grant were of that nature.

Lee's army took appalling casualties even before Gettysburg. IIRC Jackson's division had 7 division commanders between May 1862 and May 1863, and Ewell's division had three. Of the four divisions in Jackson's Corps at Chancellorsville only A.P. Hill's was under a man who commanded a division prior to Sharpsburg. Losses on the brigade and regimental level were also bleak.

Throwing in the towel after Gettysburg was premature. History does not focus on it but later in 1863 Lee with two infantry corps chased Meade's five infantry corps back to the Centreville fortifications.

This discussion does show up the Confederacy paucity of leadership. Lose Johnson and you're left with Bragg or Beauregard as your leading generals in the West. Below them you get what? Polk, Joseph Johnson, Pemberton, van Dorn, John Bell Hood (the embodiment of the Peter Principle), Kirby Smith? The East isn't much better. Yes the North had some bad generals, John Pope I'm looking at you, but they had a depth of leadership that the South lacked.

Marrying an American, and a decendant of General Shields, has given me an appreciation American literature. She introduced me to William Faulkner and every time Gettysburg get discussed here I am reminded of the from Intruder in the Dust, (1948)

"It's all now you see. Yesterday won't be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago. For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago; or to anyone who ever sailed a skiff under a quilt sail, the moment in 1492 when somebody thought This is it: the absolute edge of no return, to turn back now and make home or sail irrevocably on and either find land or plunge over the world's roaring rim."