The Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote - V1 Ch3

[Joshism]

Overview of Chapter Contents - Part: Main Topics (Page Numbers)
1: Albert Sidney Johnston, Logan's Crossroads / Mill Springs, and Fort Henry (168-191)
2: Fort Donelson (191-217)
3A: Jefferson Davis - Inauguration & Cabinet (217-225)
3B: Burnside Expedition (225-233)
3C: the retreats of A. S. Johnston and J. E. Johnston (233-238)
4A: Lincoln, Stanton, and McClellan (238-254)
4B: Naval Battle of Hampton Roads (255-263)
4C: Prelude to the Peninsular and Valley Campaigns [including Kernstown] (263-271)

General Thoughts
Foote continues writing back and forth between Davis and Lincoln in a way that, appropriately, reminds me of a novelist. The result is more back and forth in the chronological sequence of events, which I think is a weakness for a history book but it gives the book some unique style. Some definite contrast in Davis vs Lincoln with regard to handling issues with cabinet members - not explicitly pointed out but I think a decent reader should notice.

The decision to split Fort Henry and Fort Donelson is an interesting one, but dedicating an entire part and a quarter of the page count of this chapter just to Donelson says something about what Foote thinks is important.

Foote has a habit of referring to the western general as "Sidney Johnston". Did he usually not go by his first name during his lifetime, or is this some artistic license?

I can't tell what Foote thinks of McClellan. Hopefully subsequent events will make it clear.

Foote's character descriptions remain very colorful. I don't know that I could really appreciate Foote's writing when I first read this in 10th grade (I also couldn't appreciate hearing Pink Floyd's "The Wall" in high school either), but damn this guy delivers some zingers.

The anecdotes about Stanton's lawyer days are a hoot. I get the impression Foote really respects cunning, which is probably why he's a fan of Forrest.

At Belmont, Foote says the Confederates routed by Grant's attack cried "Betrayed!" Then at Logan's Crossroads he says the same about the routed Confederates there, albeit with Crittenden as the specific target of accusation.

Forrest at Fort Donelson: "If only they'd listened to me, the whole Confederate army could have escaped!" Forrest at Chickamauga: "If only they'd listened to me, the whole Union army could have been bagged!" I wonder how many other times Forrest will make an "If they'd only listened to me..." claim? No wonder he wasn't a team player.

One nice thing about reading a broad history of the war like this is it gives me more questions than a narrow battle study would. Bigger scope, bigger ramifications. Some of it is just things mentioned in passing. For example, Foote says ASJ's journey from California to the Confederacy was a little perilous, crossing through long stretches of wilderness and hostile Native Americans. Foote doesn't ask the question, but it seems obvious to ask "What if he hadn't survived the journey?"

Foote thrice says the ironclads at Hampton Roads obsoleted all the navies of the world. It's a common view, but a big overstatement. Not the least because Britain and France already were already developing ironclads, but the experience of the CSS Tennessee 2 1/2 years later would show ironclads could still be battered into submission by enough firepower, especially when not in the restricted confines of Hampton Roads.

This chapter ends Section I (of III). Looking ahead the next chapter is going to have a lot of action. I imagine when I read this book in 10th Grade these early chapters, especially this one, did not exactly fly by. However, much of the content was new to me so I kept reading.

Comments On Specific Items (with page numbers)

170: I'm not sure if Foote meant it this way, but I read his description of Earl Van Dorn as "a man of considerable fire and reputation" as both praise and criticism (and accurate).

171: Mississippi was not part of A. S. Johnston's department in the winter of 1861-1862?! Then whose department were they in - Bragg's?

215-216: The hasty, mismanaged retreat from Nashville and the loss of supplies there seems a parallel to the better known hasty, mismanaged retreat from Manassas and the loss of supplies there.

229: "The tide running swift above the swash..."

This was the first time in this book I've had to stop and ask "Huh?" Apparently a swash is a narrow, swift running channel, usually being the shore and a sandbar/sandbank.

237: "That a general should have selected a line which he himself considered untenable, and should should not have ascertained the typography of the country in his rear, was inexplicable on any other theory than that he had neglected the primary duty of a commander."
-Jefferson Davis hindsight criticism of Joe Johnston at Manassas (not stated, but presumably from Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government)

I'd like to point out Joe Johnston was a Topographic Engineer from 1838 to 1860, less his Mexican War service leading the Voltigeurs. So if Davis' criticism is an accurate assessment of Johnston's actions and inactions in the winter of 1861-1862 then Johnston should have been sacked for negligence and incompetence, and that he wasn't puts the blame squarely on Davis.

250: "...the project had to be abandoned because the boats turned out to be six inches too wide for the lift-locks..." Treasury Secretary Chase "a solemn, indeed a pompous man, got off his one joke of the war. The campaign had died, he said, of lockjaw."

OrsonWellesClapping.gif

257: I didn't know Joseph Mansfield was commanding the Fort Monroe area in 1862. Why was he send to the Army of the Potomac only that fall? Were there concerns about him being too old for an active field command so he was assigned to a less active, defensive position?

265: Foote addresses the supposed inherent advantages of Confederates as better fighters/soldiers by noting that after six months of training "a factory hand is indistinguishable from a farmer".

266: McClellan learned from Lincoln he was being accused by Radical Republicans of treason (for engaging in a plan that would deliberately leave Washington DC open to Confederate attack, in their opinion), had his first four corps commanders selected against his will, and lost his position as General-in-Chief all in a week's time. And only in the first of these three did Lincoln break the news to McClellan in person. That's a rough week.

266-267: A strange tale of Ethan Allen Hitchcock. Foote describes Hitchcock as being recalled from retirement to active duty in the US Army against his will. Then he gets three "violent" nosebleeds that leave him temporarily bedridden by the time he arrives in Washington DC (implied to be a psychosomatic reaction). Then Stanton shows up at his bedside and offers him command of the Army of the Potomac!

Per someone on CWT, Hitchcock only ever retired from the Army due to a dispute with the Secretary of War...Jefferson Davis! From what I can find online it seems that he sought to return to active duty when the war broke out, but was denied until Winfield Scott personally intervened to get him a Major General commission. He seems a strange choice to replace McClellan leading the AOTP (replacing McClellan as General-in-Chief seems more plausible). I thought this might have been discussed at some point on CWT, but if so I can't find the thread. Hitchcock's diary was published in the 20th century which I'm guessing is the source of this claim.

269: Foote calls the AOTP's move to Fort Monroe "the largest amphibious expedition" ever undertaken to that point. I think that's a misnomer as an amphibious operation requires landing on a hostile shore. McClellan was landing the AOTP at a friendly port. To put it another way: Operation Overlord was an amphibious operation; sending the soldiers from the US to UK was not.

272-273: Foote makes a big deal of Louis Blenker's division being detached from McClellan and sent to Fremont's Mountain Department. Lincoln made the transfer reluctantly and against McClellan's explicit wishes, implied to be due to pressure from Radical Republicans. It's not stated why Fremont wanted this specific division. I feel like there's more to this story.

 

[jgoodguy]

Foote continues writing back and forth between Davis and Lincoln in a way that, appropriately, reminds me of a novelist. The result is more back and forth in the chronological sequence of events, which I think is a weakness for a history book but it gives the book some unique style. Some definite contrast in Davis vs Lincoln with regard to handling issues with cabinet members - not explicitly pointed out but I think a decent reader should notice.

It is a narrative according to its author, not a history book.

link

Foote had never been trained in the traditional scholarly standards of academic historical research, which emphasized archives and footnotes. Instead he visited battlefields.[13] He read widely, using standard biographies and campaign studies as well as recent books by Hudson Strode, Bruce Catton, James G. Randall, Clifford Dowdey, T. Harry Williams, Kenneth M. Stampp and Allan Nevins.[25] He did not footnote his secondary sources nor use the archives but instead mined the primary sources in the 128-volume Official Records of the War of the Rebellion.[20] Foote described himself as a "novelist-historian" who accepted "the historian’s standards without his paraphernalia" and "employed the novelist’s methods without his license."[20][26] Foote deliberately avoided the use of footnotes, arguing that "they would detract from the book's narrative quality by intermittently shattering the illusion that the observer is not so much reading a book as sharing an experience".[27] He argued that footnotes would have "totally shattered what I was doing. I didn't want people glancing down at the bottom of the page every other sentence".[28] Foote concluded that most historians are "so concerned with finding out what happened that they make the enormous mistake of equating facts with truth...you can't get the truth from facts. The truth is the way you feel about it".[29]​

 

[Joshism]

It is a narrative according to its author, not a history book.

It's a nonfiction book about history.

It is certainly earning the "narrative" in the subtitle. This is not something I appreciated from previous discussion of the book. It's not just the lack of footnotes or style of writing, but the organization of the book as a whole.

There's a saying about "do it better or do it different" and Foote has certainly provided a different style. Even Bruce Catton was a more traditional history writer in style, just one with the added flair from his journalism career.

It's kind of ironic that I can appreciate the literary techniques now far better than in high school where every year English class was about analyzing literature. Nothing has ever come close to killing my desire to read except being forced to read "classic literature" and discuss why it's great.

 

[jgoodguy]

It's a nonfiction book about history.

It is certainly earning the "narrative" in the subtitle. This is not something I appreciated from previous discussion of the book. It's not just the lack of footnotes or style of writing, but the organization of the book as a whole.

There's a saying about "do it better or do it different" and Foote has certainly provided a different style. Even Bruce Catton was a more traditional history writer in style, just one with the added flair from his journalism career.

It's kind of ironic that I can appreciate the literary techniques now far better than in high school where every year English class was about analyzing literature. Nothing has ever come close to killing my desire to read except being forced to read "classic literature" and discuss why it's great.

I really appreciate your taking this on.

FWIW my introduction to this was debating cash over at CWT, but any defense of Foote seemed to send him into incoherent rage.

Treating it as an unbiased authority is rather like Wikipedia. It is an entry point, not the destination. It is also 63 years since the publication of the first volume. I do not trust 'real' history books of that age, so much has changed.

I went home and read science fiction, which my teachers regarded as not real literature. In Up the Down Staircase, there is the story of a teacher applicant failing the literature test by having the wrong interpretation of a book, he wrote the author who agreed with the student, he still failed, but future books to be interpreted were by safely dead authors. Time has moved on for the 'classics', like the Bible, not only does one read the text, but must be educated in a culture long dead and not relevant to life as it is.

 

[diane]

I've always said Foote was writing a narrative not a pop history - he was using the Southern tradition of 'story-telling' to bring out the feelings the war had left in the South, particularly in his generation.

If you don't watch out, Shelby will make Forrest the Superman of the entire war! As far as I can tell, Forrest didn't say his advice followed would have won Ft Donelson, Chickamauga or any battles but others said it. Others have considered his recommendations at those battles may have made the difference - at Ft Donelson, for instance, he wanted to use his troops to hold open an escape route for the army - that would have made a huge difference, of course, for the entire course of the war. Losing thousands of soldiers right out the gate was something A S Johnston couldn't recover from. (And he tried!)

Forrest had real problems doing something he felt would end in defeat - such as Dover. Because he had no problem telling a superior exactly what he thought, he acquired a reputation that actually wasn't true. He worked very well with others - Cleburne, Van Dorn, Taylor and many more than he had conflicts with - even Bragg. Forrest didn't quarrel with Bragg until that officer began to be erratic and to take brigades away from Forrest after he had recruited, trained and equipped them. At Chickamauga, Forrest climbed a tree and saw the entire field with the Union army in disarray running for Chattanooga. He knew serious damage could be done to them at that moment, but once they dug in it would be very hard. Bragg thought the troops were too exhausted. The proof is in the pudding, and it wasn't Forrest's pudding that was set. (Forrest and Bragg got along much better than legend has it, by the way.)

A S Johnston is a good read for a biography! Winfield Scott wanted him for an aide-de-camp but he turned it down - he always thought Scott held that against him. Might have been Johnston instead of Lee Scott called to Washington had that not been the case! I don't know for certain if "Sidney" was what he was called or if that was only within the family, but suspect the latter. Forrest was called Bedford up until his grandfather Nathan died, then he was Nathan because a younger brother was named Bedford but that changed when little brother died and Nathan went back to Bedford. In the end, his immediate family called him Nathan but everybody else used Bedford. Names were interesting in those days! I suspect something like that was true with Johnston's name.

 

[Joshism]

I really appreciate your taking this on.

Thanks. After years of saying this would be a good idea I just decided to forge ahead and do it myself, whether anyone else did or not. Story of my life.

 

[Union8448]

Foote was correct. The core of the US in 1861 was the Mid-Atlantic and New England states, and their extension populated by their own immigration stream, in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. That was the section that was equivalent to Prussia in central Europe. For Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, adhering to the core was easy.
In two more steps the emerging US added Delaware, Maryland and western areas of Virginia, and then after adding Missouri and Kansas, the core area was clearly the stronger nation.
It was this nation forming around the telegraph and the railroad that was going to progress into the 20th century. The southern regions were then left to be like Russia. They were infused with a mystical attachment to their land, the rural way of life, and their race based equivalent of serfdom. And as the late Mr. Foote so eloquently expressed, the southerners could never quite get out of their system, that there was a mechanical and electrical revolution going on which was going to make that mysticism irrelevant.

 

[jgoodguy]

Foote was correct. The core of the US in 1861 was the Mid-Atlantic and New England states, and their extension populated by their own immigration stream, in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. That was the section that was equivalent to Prussia in central Europe. For Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, adhering to the core was easy.
In two more steps the emerging US added Delaware, Maryland and western areas of Virginia, and then after adding Missouri and Kansas, the core area was clearly the stronger nation.
It was this nation forming around the telegraph and the railroad that was going to progress into the 20th century. The southern regions were then left to be like Russia. They were infused with a mystical attachment to their land, the rural way of life, and their race based equivalent of serfdom. And as the late Mr. Foote so eloquently expressed, the southerners could never quite get out of their system, that there was a mechanical and electrical revolution going on which was going to make that mysticism irrelevant.

Good points IMHO.

 

[Union8448]

Whether you agree with him or not, Shelby Foote knew a good deal about the states of the former Confederacy. We don't always agree with our friends, but that's what beer and whiskey can smooth out.

 

[jgoodguy]

Cash and I argued about Foote. I found that Foote was about a accurate as a historian of the times. Also Foote wrote s narrative not a history. Ironically the modern historian Cash was using to bash Foote was less accurate than Foote.

 

[Union8448]

I don't know if Mr. Foote's writing was accurate. I cannot judge that. I think it was true. A recitation of facts can be misleading if the selected facts are not the entire truth.
"One behind its back" captures the truth, nearly. The US was growing the economy, and the Republicans were creating a permanent political party. By the end of the Civil War the former Confederacy was in a much worse position then it had been prior to the war.

 

[diane]

Shelby Foote wrote his CW narrative to answer Bruce Catton's, which was decidedly more the Union view. Neither was an historian, or claimed to be, and both told the story of the CW very well. Stillness at Appomattox is almost prose poetry.

I think Mr Foote couldn't resist a good story even if it wasn't exactly correct! That's not to say he made things up or any such thing, but that sometimes the legend was best. For example, the shoes at Gettysburg. It's been well established that shoes weren't Heth's objective but that something else was - he was likely expecting to bump into someone, just didn't expect it to be John Buford. (Jeb Stuart wasn't expecting to bump into Hancock, either...)

For a further introduction to Foote's style, I'd recommend Shiloh. It's fiction and he does use real characters but does not put words into their mouths or added actions - he sticks to what they did and said in reality. The effect is quite good.

 

[Joshism]

They were infused with a mystical attachment to their land, the rural way of life, and their race based equivalent of serfdom. And as the late Mr. Foote so eloquently expressed, the southerners could never quite get out of their system, that there was a mechanical and electrical revolution going on which was going to make that mysticism irrelevant.

That's the problem with the common conservative mindset: it's so obsessed with preventing change that it fails to anticipate and react to changes outside its control. No man is an island and, except geographically speaking, no country can be either without having the world leaving you rusting in the dust.

Military thinkers often make this mistake too, mistaking the next war will simply be a slightly advanced version of the last rather than a new form entirely.

The only way to prevent the change you don't want is to steer change to suit your own vision.

160 years later, 250 years later, some are still clinging to the relics and mistakes of the past. Like Slim Pickens they ride to their oblivion.

 

[jgoodguy]

That's the problem with the common conservative mindset: it's so obsessed with preventing change that it fails to anticipate and react to changes outside its control. No man is an island and, except geographically speaking, no country can be either without having the world leaving you rusting in the dust.

Military thinkers often make this mistake too, mistaking the next war will simply be a slightly advanced version of the last rather than a new form entirely.

The only way to prevent the change you don't want is to steer change to suit your own vision.

160 years later, 250 years later, some are still clinging to the relics and mistakes of the past. Like Slim Pickens they ride to their oblivion.

I agree

 

[Union8448]

That's the problem with the common conservative mindset: it's so obsessed with preventing change that it fails to anticipate and react to changes outside its control. No man is an island and, except geographically speaking, no country can be either without having the world leaving you rusting in the dust.

Military thinkers often make this mistake too, mistaking the next war will simply be a slightly advanced version of the last rather than a new form entirely.

The only way to prevent the change you don't want is to steer change to suit your own vision.

160 years later, 250 years later, some are still clinging to the relics and mistakes of the past. Like Slim Pickens they ride to their oblivion.

And that is highly relevant to the Civil War. The men who had access to the new technologies and could utilize them best moved ahead and won the war. War is progressive, per Grant.

 

[diane]

And that is highly relevant to the Civil War. The men who had access to the new technologies and could utilize them best moved ahead and won the war. War is progressive, per Grant.

I believe that one of the most incredible feats in modern history is the creation of the United States Navy out of literally nothing. The significance of the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack changed naval warfare forever - instantly everybody's wooden navy was obsolete. Lincoln's man Gideon Wells (whom he nicknamed King Neptune) modernized the navy as he built it. Steven Mallory and his man Bulloch did the best they could to buy a navy from the British - any old tub they wanted to get rid of, too! - and that led to the crisis over the Laird rams. Had they been delivered, that would have been a steep curve ahead for the Confederate navy and a turning point in their favor. It meant an end to an effective blockade. The blockade of the South was key to Lincoln's land victories - it's always victory at sea first. But...the South could not kick it into high gear like the North did - they relied on ports and shipyards in New England to make their ships and repair them. There were as few ports in the South as there were foundries. Raiders like the CSS Alabama or the CSS Shenandoah were great morale boosters but could not do much besides pirating and blockade-running. (The CSS Shenandoah did accidentally perform an ecological good deed - they finished off the American whaling industry!)

 

[jgoodguy]

There were a lot of progressive thinkers in the South and for a while it appeared the South might industrialize in the mid 18 hundreds, but capital went into slaves and cotton production and status to slave holders so that by the 1860s it was backward compared to the North. Had the Civil War happened in the 1850s or earlier, the South likely would have won. Sans railroads, lots of steam boats and the telegraph, an invasion of the South would have impossible. IMHO the great compromises about slavery delayed things until the North could win, however it took a leader like Lincoln to lead the North to victory. The free labor of the North also had the affect of attracting lots on inventors.

 

[diane]

I agree - some of the military leaders of the South thought that as well. Jackson was very keen on 'black flag' warfare - hit very hard, very fast and win fast. The North did not know what was really happening - very much the 'sleeping giant' of Yamamoto's quote a century later. Sherman also noted this anomaly - despite his farmers vs mechanics comment, he also noted that the North did not understand the South and was not prepared for real war. Real war had not happened in America up to then, to be fair. Shelby Foote said the North fought the war with one hand behind its back but the South began it with one hand behind its back. They really thought a few slaps upside the head would cure the Yankees of any disposition to make a real fight. Judging by First Bull Run, they may have had reason to believe that but they seriously underestimated the president. Everybody underestimated Lincoln!

 

[Union8448]

There were a lot of progressive thinkers in the South and for a while it appeared the South might industrialize in the mid 18 hundreds, but capital went into slaves and cotton production and status to slave holders so that by the 1860s it was backward compared to the North. Had the Civil War happened in the 1850s or earlier, the South likely would have won. Sans railroads, lots of steam boats and the telegraph, an invasion of the South would have impossible. IMHO the great compromises about slavery delayed things until the North could win, however it took a leader like Lincoln to lead the North to victory. The free labor of the North also had the affect of attracting lots on inventors.

The southern US was very advanced in the ante-bellum era, compared to the rest of the world. Only in comparison to the northern US, Britain, France and the Low Countries, had the South fallen behind, and that refers mainly to the deep south.
Only when fighting an emerging world power did the Confederacy look unprepared.

But the paid labor economy was growing and it had a lot of money. It held its own world class experts like Isherwood, drew others like Ericsson from across the ocean. And it even pulled some industrial engineers, managers we could call them, like Dyer from the south.
An area like New York and Brooklyn, with northern New Jersey and Connecticut has the money and the work to draw in the experts.
The Confederacy had men of ability. But there were always going to be more of those guys in the larger paid labor economy and the minds that could demand top pay would be in the big metro areas of the east coast.
Recall that in the proliferation of automatic couplers for RR cars, it was the Virginian, Janney, that broke through and created the mechanism that finally gained acceptance.

 

[Union8448]

There were a lot of progressive thinkers in the South and for a while it appeared the South might industrialize in the mid 18 hundreds, but capital went into slaves and cotton production and status to slave holders so that by the 1860s it was backward compared to the North. Had the Civil War happened in the 1850s or earlier, the South likely would have won. Sans railroads, lots of steam boats and the telegraph, an invasion of the South would have impossible. IMHO the great compromises about slavery delayed things until the North could win, however it took a leader like Lincoln to lead the North to victory. The free labor of the North also had the affect of attracting lots on inventors.

There were many things wrong with the Monitor but big guns in an armored turret that pivoted was a natural progression. That alignment lasted until aircraft carriers made battleships obsolete.