Comments on: Was Gen. George Thomas Right – A Civil General Controversy

By: Kevin Browne

Kevin Browne — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:48 +0000

A couple of other posters have made this point, but I will put it a different way. Thomas’ attitude was very much like Grant’s and Lee’s, and all 3 differed sharply from all of the commanders who preceded Grant in the East. That is, they all believed that the opponent’s force was the objective, rather than a spot on the map. All 3 believed in battle’s of annihilation and sought that whenever they could – with “whenever they could” being the operative term. Lee sought annihilation at 7 Days, but the terrain and immaturity of his army prevented it. He sought and largely won it at Second Manassas because Pope walked into it. He failed at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg because the force imbalance was too great. Grant sought annihilation at Henry and Donelson, and got it because his enemy obliged. In his most skillfully-executed campaign around Vicksburg, he won annihilation despite the ridiculous complexities of terrain. And Thomas sought it at Nashville, and won because of his own skill and Hood’s near-insanity.

By: Lance H

Lance H — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 23:52:54 +0000

Thomas’ reputation for being slow was mostly due to the jealousy & antagonistism of Grant, with help from Sherman. The former berated Thomas for slowness at Nashville (weeks) while himself leading the blisteringly fast assault ( 3+ months) on Richmond-Petersburg; the latter while “foraging” his way through the indefended south with 2/3 of the army, having left Thomas to scrape together a force with which to fight Hood. Of course Thomas could have attacked sooner at Nashville – if going off half-cocked without parity in infantry, with horseless cavalry, in horrendous weather is the recipe for anything except disaster.
Remember Little Mac (at his highest) always outnumbered his foe, was never satisfied with less than 110% of his wish list of equipment, and at best fought to an inconclusive draw.
Grant destroyed men in frontal assaults to wear down his opponents until statically depending on a crisis of logistics beat them or ran them out of their lines. Sherman also leaned towards stand – up fights that yielded little but heaps of dead soldiers and when Hood wouldn’t stand he left him to Thomas while he went off to defeat farms and towns, cows and mules.
I would like to see a fantasy football – like wargame where all the great commanders’ stats are entered and they can go head to head in the arena of battle. I would bet on Pap against all comers.

By: Dan Lacich

Dan Lacich — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 22:07:34 +0000

Certainly Thomas liked to prepare and was a thinker, tactician, and strategist. But don’t confuse that with an inability to act quickly and powerfully when needed. It was in large part the efforts of Thomas at Chickamauga that ground Longstreets incredible breakthrough to a halt when the rest of the union leadership had fled over the mountain. He saved the Union army from certain destruction and earned the moniker, “The Rock of Chickamauga”.

By: DDT

DDT — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:55:14 +0000

Based on his performance at those battles he commanded relatively ‘unsupervised’, Thomas seemed more than any other major commander (other than, it pains me to say, McClellan) that preparation was the key to victory. Put him in command during the Seven Days– would he have folded as did Little Mac? At Antietam, would he have failed to coordinate his army as badly as did McClellan? Would his command have allowed the tragedies of the Battle of the Wilderness or kept the components acting in synchronicity as Grant/Meade failed to do? At Chancellorsville, would he have collapsed as did Hooker? He planned well, prepared his fight and his army well, and executed better than any of the bombastic generals that too often led the armies of the US. As for responding to the operational agility of the Army of Northern Virginia, don’t forget Thomas earned his fame on the defensive at Chickamauga. Lee was a great general, and the ANV a great fighting force, but the combination succeeded to a great extent by the truism: ‘better an army of sheep led by a lion than an army of lions led by a sheep.’ The Army of the Potomac deserved a general like Thomas, who may not have whipped Bobby Lee (though I think he could have, and would have at Antietam), but would have spared that army the waste of such fights as Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Peninsula and the Overland Campaign.

By: Mike Spangler

Mike Spangler — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:37:58 +0000

I don’t believe Thomas’ vision would have succeeded in the larger Eastern theater.

My assessment is that the large battle defeats had less effect that the steady debilitation of the Confederacy. The loss of supplies from the Trans-Mississippi after Vicksburg, the blockade, and drain of fighting men from the the attrition campaigns pretty well complete that inexorable equation for the war.

Lastly, if Thomas’ perspective had been allowed to prevail, the lasting and unifying effect of the war may not have been so powerful. There is no doubt that the enormous loss of life in the war is a factor in the eventual unification of the country. The war’s horrors reinforce our current convictions of “The” United States as oppose to “These” United States as used antebellum. It may seem ghastly but the death toll from a war of attrition may have helped us become a stronger nation.

After all it was R.E. Lee that said “It is good that war is so horrible, lest we learn to love it too much.”

By: LearningCurve

LearningCurve — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:33:46 +0000

Although Grant’s bitter if ultimately successful campaign leading the Army of the Potomac against Lee was extremely bloody for both sides, he won his decisive victories in the west at Fts Henry and Donelson, at Vicksburg and at Chattanooga (where he commanded Thomas) with comparatively moderate casualties. Only Shiloh was truly bloody on the Eastern scale. At Shiloh Grant was defending against an all-out Confederate surprise attack, and he stood his ground at staunchly as Thomas at Chickamauga, but in his other Western victories Grant himself used surprise and manuever to keep casualities low.

This wouldn’t work against Lee, who anticipated and tenaciously contested each manuever by Grant. If Thomas had faced Lee in the east, he would have been force either onto the strategic defensive (like Meade after Gettysburg) or into a bloody battle of attrition (like Grant after he took command.) Another way to think of it: Grant was too good a general to allow Lee to win another Chancellorsville, and Lee was too good a general to allow Grant another Chattanooga or Donelson. So, instead we had this terrible war of attrition in which neither side could win a brilliant victory and sheer weight of numbers eventually prevailed.

By: Richard Guida

Richard Guida — Wed, 13 May 2009 02:38:53 +0000

Although I think that George Thomas is a great General I don’t think his tactics would have worked in the East for the following reasons.
1) His deliberate thinking and strategy would not have worked against an aggressive General like Robert E. Lee. While he was pondering Lee would be attacking.

2) Thomas being from Virginia would never gain the full trust of the Army of Potomac. When Grant took over the Army it had a great mistrust of Commanding Generals.

3) Thomas while a great strategist was not a visionary and I believe his ability to think beyond the task at hand was limited.

Regards,

Rich Guida
Author of the Civil War novel “The Winds of Change”