Question of the Week: 12/4-12/10/23
If you could reassign one general from the Eastern Theater to the Western Theater (or vice versa), who would you reassign? When? Where? And why?
If you could reassign one general from the Eastern Theater to the Western Theater (or vice versa), who would you reassign? When? Where? And why?
I would have loved to see how Sherman would have done versus Robert E. Lee in the East.
That would be interesting since they had opposite strengths in strategy and tactics
One top Union General states the case that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest general during the Civil War. Put him anywhere!!!
Who? Henry Hallek.
When? October 1862 (i.e., after his uselessness had been established to Lincoln’s complete satisfaction).
Where? Iowa.
Why? To oversee coastal defenses.
George Thomas to command the AOP in Spring, 1862. Matched against Johnston, he would have steamrollered him.
Ditto for the George Thomas move to the Eastern Theater from the West but instead of Grant in the Spring of ‘64. I think that move would have been very interesting.
It’d be interesting to see what Cleburne could do in the AoNV, especially by the second half of 1863 when the leadership of that army had thinned out so badly.
Seniority was an issue with some of the stuffier generals, but I’d like to replace Johnson with TJ Jackson in January 1863, putting Johnson where Pemberton was. Jackson could coordinate with Kirby Smith and his former subordinate Richard Taylor in the West to stab the Anaconda in the heart. Can you imagine TJ putting Bragg under arrest? How would 1863 Rosecrans or Grant do then, although it was said of Grant, that his expression was one of a man who had made up his mind to drive his head through a stone wall.
Rosecrans to command the Army of the Potomac after Stones River.
John Reynolds. Anywhere out West, at any time.
Jefferson Davis might should have sent one of Joseph. E. Johnston or G.T. Beauregard to the West earlier, if not both. R.E. Lee could have replaced one of them along the Potomac. By the Fall of ’61, the CSA have 5 full generals, and 4 of the 5 are commanding in Virginia. That seems unbalanced.
If Johnston and Beauregard had been sent West earlier, maybe not even participating in the First Manassas campaign, A.S. Johnston could have commanded in Virginia with Lee or served as Davis’ general-in-chief or Secretary of War once he arrived in Richmond in late September ’61.
Transfer McClellan to western Nebraska and let the Indians solve his problem. His insubordination toward Lincoln was intolerable. However, if given the chance I would have ordered his execution by firing squad for sitting on his ass in the penninsula of Virginia. He reported that he was close enough to Richmond to hear church bells and he chose to do nothing.