The Campaigns for Vicksburg 1862-63

Leadership Lessons

Kevin Dougherty

• Publisher: Casemate
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781612000145
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

This study of the Battle of Vicksburg offers "a thorough campaign history... and 30 instructional leadership vignettes" by a Citadel tactical officer ( Military Review ). Considered by many historians to be the truly decisive battle of the Civil War, Vicksburg is fascinating on many levels. A focal point of both western armies, the campaign of maneuver that finally isolated the Confederates in the city was masterful. The Navy's contribution to the Union victory was significant. The human drama of Vicksburg's beleaguered civilian population is compelling, and the Confederate cavalry dashes that first denied the Union victory are thrilling. But the key to the federal victory at Vicksburg was simply better leadership. It is this aspect of the campaign that The Campaigns for Vicksburg, 1862–1863 seeks to explore. The first section of this book familiarizes the reader with the challenges, characteristics, and styles associated with leadership during the Civil War in general. It also outlines the Vicksburg campaign, from the failed attempts at capture to the brilliant maneuvers and logistics that allowed Grant to ultimately lay siege. The second section of the book contains thirty "leadership vignettes" that span the actions of the most senior leaders down to those of individual soldiers. Each vignette explains the action in terms of leadership lessons learned and concludes with a short list of "take-aways" to crystallize the lessons for the reader. This study covers many of the Civil War's most famous commanders who vied for the Rebel "Gibraltar on the Mississippi" and reveals important lessons on decision-making that still apply to this day.

Part One

Understanding Vicksburg

Leadership During the Civil War

LEADERSHIP IS THE PROCESS OF INFLUENCING OTHERS TO WORK TOwards organizational goals; it provides purpose, direction, and motivation. In war, it is the most dynamic element of combat power. Civil War leaders at Vicksburg and elsewhere were shaped by their frame of reference and background, the military organizational structure, the rudimentary development of staffs and communications, and their own capabilities and limitations. The lessons they learned during the campaign are transferrable to a variety of leadership situations, both in battle and elsewhere.

FRAME OF REFERENCE AND BACKGROUND

Many Civil War generals were products of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Of the Civil War’s sixty major battles, West Pointers commanded both sides in fifty-five of them. Even in the other five battles, a West Pointer commanded on one side or the other. All told, 151 Confederate and 294 Federal generals were West Point graduates. At Vicksburg, West Point was represented among others by Ulysses Grant (Class of 1843), James McPherson (Class of 1853), and William Sherman (Class of 1840) on the Federal side, and John Pemberton (Class of 1837), Joseph Johnston (Class of 1829), John Bowen (Class of 1853), and Carter Stevenson (Class of 1838) on the Confederate side.

Founded in 1802, West Point emerged as a premier institution under the superintendency of Sylvanus Thayer. Beginning in 1817, Thayer broadened and standardized the curriculum, established a system to measure class standing, organized classes around small sections, improved cadet discipline, created the office of commandant of cadets, and improved military training. He also used West Point to stimulate a systematic American study of war, which was largely based on the European theorist Antoine Henri de Jomini.

Jomini was a product of the Enlightenment, and he sought to interpret and explain the genius of Napoleon by finding natural laws that governed the art of war. In 1838, Jomini wrote the Summary of the Art of War, which was translated into English in 1854 by Major O. F. Winship and Lieutenant E. E. McLean. West Point’s strongest advocate of Jominian thought was Dennis Hart Mahan, who joined the faculty in 1832 and became West Point’s principal instructor of warfare. A staunch proponent of Napoleonic methods, Mahan immersed his students—such as Henry Halleck—in the influences of Jomini. In 1846, Halleck published Elements of Military Art and Science, a work which was the product of this exposure. Although it was never adopted as a West Point text, Halleck’s book was probably the most widely read strategic treatise among American military officers. According to David Donald, the end result was that, “Every West Point general in the [Civil War] had been exposed to Jomini’s ideas, either directly, by reading Jomini’s writings or abridgments or expositions of them; or indirectly, by hearing them in the classroom or perusing the works of Jomini’s American disciples.” James Hittle agrees, claiming, “Many a Civil War general went into battle with a sword in one hand and Jomini’s Summary of the Art of War in the other.”

Jomini offered an almost geometrical approach to warfare, and among his most pervasive theories was his notion of “interior lines.” For Jomini, the problem was to bring the maximum possible force to bear against an inferior enemy force at the decisive point. This condition could best be achieved by properly ordering one’s lines of communication relative to the enemy’s, so that the friendly force possessed interior lines. Interior lines allowed the friendly commander to move parts of his army more rapidly than could an enemy operating on exterior lines. In this way, the force operating on interior lines could defeat in detail an enemy operating on exterior lines.

One way to gain interior lines is by central position, placing one’s army between segments of the enemy force and dealing with each force sequentially to prevent the enemy from massing. At Vicksburg, Grant took advantage of interior lines by positioning himself between the Confederate forces at Edwards and Jackson. James Arnold explains, “Grant believed he could deal with Jackson and return to fight Pemberton before that general realized what was afoot. It was an audacious plan of Napoleonic vision.… By virtue of careful logistical preparation followed by rapid marching, Grant had achieved the central position Napoleon cherished. Having interposed his army between the two Confederate wings, Grant intended to use the central position in Napoleonic style by defeating one wing and then countermarching to defeat the other before the two wings could cooperate.” When General Joseph Johnston arrived at Jackson he found “the enemy’s force between this place and General Pemberton, cutting off communication. I am too late.” Grant’s successful use of interior lines allowed him to neutralize Jackson and then turn west to focus on Vicksburg.

In addition to West Point, a variety of military schools throughout the nation provided trained officers for each side. One of the biggest was the Virginia Military Institute, which provided 1,781 of its 1,902 matriculates from 1839 to 1865 for service in the Confederate Army. Included in that number at Vicksburg was John Waddy (VMI Class of 1853), who had also served on Pemberton’s staff in Charleston, South Carolina.

Not all Civil War generals, however, were products of a professional military education and background. The rapid expansion of both the Federal and Confederate Armies forced Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis to appoint large numbers of generals. In 1861, Lincoln commissioned 126 generals and Davis 89. Sixty-five percent of those appointed by Lincoln and fifty percent of those appointed by Davis were professional soldiers. The others, forty-four Federal generals and forty-five Confederate ones, were often appointed for political reasons. While both presidents faced genuine problems involving shortages of suitable professional senior officers, the need to placate valuable constituencies, and the need to build national cohesion, many of the political appointees still proved disappointing on the battlefield. Major General Henry Halleck captured the opinion of many professional officers when he wrote of the nonprofessionals, “It seems but little better than murder to give important commands to such men …” At Vicksburg, Major General John McClernand was a political appointee who owed his position to his ability to secure for President Lincoln the loyalty of southern Illinois, a region with note-worthy Southern sympathies. Yet McClernand was politically ambitious and sought independence from Grant’s authority, ultimately compelling Grant to relieve him. On the other hand, Grant received more reliable service from former politicians Brigadier Generals Francis Blair, Jr. and John Logan.

Many Civil War leaders, both from military professional and political backgrounds, were shaped by previous service in the Mexican War, a conflict which Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones consider “was in a real sense a dress rehearsal for the Civil War leadership.” Some 194 Federal generals and 142 Confederate generals served in the Mexican War. What they carried forward from Mexico to the Civil War varied based on their specific experiences, but in many cases the influence was profound. As a young quartermaster in Mexico, Ulysses Grant had seen General Winfield Scott cut loose from his line of supply as he marched across the Valley of Mexico. At Vicksburg, Grant duplicated the same maneuver when he turned northeast after crossing the Mississippi River. Grant’s Mexican War frame of reference served him very well at Vicksburg. Not all commanders leveraged their experience as adeptly.

MILITARY ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

One thing that experience in Mexico could not prepare Civil War generals for was the unprecedented size of the Federal and Confederate armies. In the Mexican War, Scott had commanded less than 13,000 men, the size of roughly a corps in the Civil War. At Vicksburg, Grant commanded over 44,000 effectives while Pemberton had over 43,000. While the aggregate numbers were about the same, Grant’s army was more efficiently organized into corps, which improved his span of control.

Such corps stemmed from Napoleon’s formal adoption of the corps d’armee system in 1800. These corps consisted of several divisions, elements of all arms, and a small staff. They were highly mobile, flexible, and able to operate independently. Following this same principle, Grant organized his maneuver force of ten divisions into three corps, reducing his requirement to coordinate with multiple subordinates. Corps in the Confederate Army were not authorized until September 18, 1862, and not actually formed until November 6. While General Robert E. Lee quickly organized his Army of Northern Virginia into corps, Pemberton’s army remained organized only at the division level, leaving Pemberton to coordinate with five division commanders who were each responsible for their own relatively large units. At Vicksburg, Grant repeatedly was able to take advantage of the flexibility offered by the corps system, such as when he advanced on three parallel columns toward Raymond in order to facilitate foraging.

One organizational problem that plagued Civil War commanders was the absence of doctrine governing joint army-navy operations. Instead, responsible commanders were left to their own devices to work out arrangements. Obviously, this situation had more of an impact on Grant than Pemberton, because Pemberton had no significant naval assets with which to coordinate. The Mississippi River Squadron of Admiral David Porter was an important part of the Federal force, and Grant and Porter were able to achieve excellent unity of effort during the Vicksburg Campaign.

RUDIMENTARY DEVELOPMENT OF STAFFS AND COMMUNICATIONS

Military commanders are assisted in controlling their units by staffs. General Winfield Scott had benefited greatly from a loose team of staff officers during the Mexican War, and in 1855, he formalized the asset by establishing a “general staff” and a “staff corps.” The general staff consisted of a chief of staff, aides, an assistant adjutant general, and an assistant inspector general. The staff corps included engineering, ordnance, quartermaster, subsistence, medical, pay, signal, provost marshal, and artillery. Similar staff representation existed down to the regimental level, and, for the most part, Federal and Confederate staffs were organized along similar lines. Some improvements would be made by the time of the Civil War, but staff functions remained rudimentary by modern standards.

The staff maintained a very direct connection to the commander. The chief of staff and aides-de-camp were considered personal staff and would often depart when the commander was reassigned; these positions were often filled by relatives or close friends. For example, Grant’s chief of staff was John Rawlins, who lived next door to Grant’s sister Hannah in Galena, Illinois, and became good friends with Grant after he moved there.

This personal nature of the chief of staff position meant that commanders used their chiefs in a variety of ways. Grant used Rawlins as someone with whom he could carry on conversations in which various points of view were presented, without Rawlins advocating one course of the other. Grant could listen to this neutral presentation of conflicting proposals and then make his own decision. Even more important than his contributions to military decision making was the personal accountability and genuine concern that Rawlins provided Grant. Rawlins’s father reportedly died an alcoholic, and Rawlins was well aware of the dangers of drink. He knew and understood Grant’s weakness and, in the words of William McFeely, helped Grant “to keep … in command of himself.” Rawlins’s service to Grant in this capacity was never more apparent than when President Lincoln dispatched Charles Dana to Grant’s headquarters to investigate complaints against Grant.

John Rawlins, Grant’s chief of staff. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Seldom, however, was the chief of staff used as the central coordinating staff authority, as the position is understood in today’s army. Pemberton, who had much personal difficulty processing the fluid and uncertain situation he faced, would have greatly benefited from a chief of staff performing this function. Although a lieutenant general at Vicksburg, Pemberton had never before commanded a force of any size in battle. If any commander ever needed a strong chief of staff, it was Pemberton. Unfortunately, his staff suffered from the same lack of field experience that plagued their commander, and John Waddy—Pemberton’s chief of staff—had little impact on the army’s efficiency or synchronization.

While staffs helped commanders locally, the telegraph kept them in touch with headquarters in Washington, Richmond, and elsewhere. During most of the Civil War, the Federals enjoyed more reliable telegraphic communications than did the Confederates, but Grant’s river lines of communication during the Vicksburg Campaign negated this usual advantage. Instead, Grant was forced to send messages by steamboat courier to Memphis, the nearest telegraph station upriver. This was a two-day trip and even then, Confederate guerrillas often had cut the lines running north from Memphis. Once Grant began operating south of Vicksburg, he essentially broke off communications with Washington. The aggressive Grant benefited from this independence when he made his decision to cut loose from his base of supplies, a decision he knew General-in-Chief Henry Halleck’s “caution would lead him to disapprove.” Grant also knew “the time it would take to communicate with Washington and get a reply would be so great that I could not be interfered with until it was demonstrated whether my plan was practicable.” Free from the need to get permission, Grant used his lack of communications with Washington to act accordingly as he thought the situation required.

Until he withdrew behind his siege lines, Pemberton had access to excellent telegraphic communications but experienced mixed results. The telegraph alerted him of Major General William Sherman’s Chickasaw Bayou expedition, allowing Pemberton to send reinforcements to the threatened area, but the telegraph also brought Pemberton conflicting instructions from President Davis and General Joe Johnston, which served to confuse Pemberton.

The nature of the terrain at Vicksburg generally made tactical communication by the signal flag system difficult, and both sides were forced to rely heavily on couriers, a means that was not completely reliable. Mounted staff officers or detailed soldiers would deliver messages from one headquarter to another, but the couriers were subject to becoming captured, lost, delayed, or killed. In addition, the messages could be misinterpreted, ignored, or made irrelevant by subsequent developments.

Both sides experienced difficulties with couriers. On May 13, 1863, one of the three couriers Johnston sent Pemberton with instructions to join him at Clinton was a spy, who promptly delivered the message to the Federals. On May 16, at the Battle of Champion Hill, Grant sent a message to McClernand to bring the two unengaged Federal columns to the battle. Instead of taking the three-mile cross-country route, the courier took the twelve-mile road route, delaying and weakening McClernand’s contribution to the battle. On all battlefields, weaknesses in the courier system tended to compound other command errors and misjudgments, and Vicksburg proved no exception.

CAPABILITIES AND LIMITATIONS

Among the ways individual capabilities and limitations manifested themselves during the Vicksburg Campaign were the ability to prioritize, the leader’s approach to the war, and interpersonal skills. In all these areas, the Federals held important advantages.

While both the Federals and the Confederates largely treated the Western Theater as a secondary effort, the Federals increased its priority once the war had reached a stalemate at the end of 1862. Federal forces in Kentucky were reinforced from Virginia, and the control of the Mississippi River—a component of Scott’s original Anaconda Plan—was given renewed emphasis by increasing Grant’s strength and initiating an expedition upriver from New Orleans. Additionally, Major General Henry Halleck, who had finally found his calling as President Lincoln’s general-in-chief, had come from the Western Theater and brought to Washington a familiarity with the situation there.

One factor that made this additional emphasis possible for President Lincoln was the fact that his generalship in the West was much more capable than its Confederate counterpart. Grant and Sherman were the best generals the North had to offer, McPherson was a solid corps commander, and Logan and Crocker were effective at the division level. On the other hand, the Western Theater often became somewhat of a dumping ground for Confederate generals who could not meet General Robert E. Lee’s exacting standards for the Army of Northern Virginia, or who had run afoul of President Davis or some other key Confederate official. William Loring had performed poorly in the campaign in western Virginia in 1861, and in October 1862, Lee advised the Secretary of War, “I have no position in t...

Table of contents

• FRONT COVER
• TITLE
• COPYRIGHT
• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• PART ONE: UNDERSTANDING VICKSBURG
• PART TWO: LEADERSHIP VIGNETTES
• CONCLUSIONS ABOUT LEADERSHIP DURING THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN
• APPENDIX VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN ORDER OF BATTLE
• BIBLIOGRAPHY