History Review
Yes, something I rarely do, review an academic book.
Alexander, Bevin. How the South Could Have Won the Civil War: The Fatal Errors That Led to Confederate Defeat. New York: Crown Publishers, 2007.
This books supposed subject in contained in its title, but it does not really achieve that. The subtitles is slightly more accurate. It is 337-pages including notes, bibliography and index with eighteen maps and very readable type.
The introduction is entitled “No Victory is Inevitable” which is true but analysis of why and how victory could have shifted to the historically defeated is a difficult task. Such analysis moves into the realm of counterfactual (or alternate) history, a field more usually the playground of fiction writers rather than historians.
In Chapter 2 “A New Kind of War” (p 33-43) Alexander lays out the three strategies that the Confederates had to choose from:
• Passive defense, championed by President Jefferson Davis and, as such, the de facto strategy of the CSA.
• Engaging and destroying the enemy, championed by Robert E. Lee and later pursued by him.
• Invasion of the North to destroy its ability to make war, by destroying economic and transportation assets, according to Alexander, this was the strategy that ‘Stonewall’ Jackson wanted to see followed by the CSA.
Alexander believes that the war against the infrastructure of the North would have been a winning strategy. By Jackson was not able to find support for such a course of action, nor does it seem that he tried very hard to do so, and it did not happen. There Alexander leaves the matter, Jackson was right and if the Confederates had just listened they could have won. No discussion is made of how the Confederacy could have effectively pursued this.
Would cavalry raiders, such as Nathan Bedford Forrest commanded, have been sufficient? Or would it have required the actual Confederate armies to have pushed into the North, laying waste to all around them. Could J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry done it alone? Perhaps partisan rangers, such as John Singleton Mosby commanded, could have been employed to assist in these tasks. None of these questions are properly addressed nor is any likely Union response. How would the Federal army have deal with such raids? Would Lincoln’s government have fallen? Would the depredations light the fires of resolve and revenge among the people of the Northern states? None of this is even considered by Alexander, he just agrees with a single letter of Jackson’s, the only place he seem to have presented these views, and moves on.
The rest of the book is looking at the battles of the army of Northern Virginia. Alexander is a strong supporter of ‘Stonewall’ Jackson and his strategic and tactical insights, especially his ability to act on the strategic offensive and the tactical defensive using the weapons of the era to their best advantage. The rundowns of battles are familiar with occasional comments on how they could have gone better for the Confederacy if different actions had been taken but nothing new or even very interesting here.
The book neglects the western theater of operations, relegating it to another loss for the Confederacy. Alexander fully overlooks the potential of Shiloh to have been a turning point in the war, in the Western theater at the very least, and is content to criticize the incompetence and overly defensive mind set of the western Confederate commanders. Alexander recognized that the defense had primary on the battlefields of the Civil War and deals harshly with those commanders, on both sides, that threw their man away on fruitless frontal assaults. However, he complains about General Joe Johnson trying to force Sherman to attack him behind field fortifications (p. 252-3) which ultimately came to naught as Sherman flanked him repeatedly but at least Johnson was not throwing his men away.
Alexander uses Sherman’s success in his March to the Sea as proof that Jackson strategy of attacking the North economically would have caused its collapse. While there are similarities in strategic design, by the time Sherman moves through Georgia, the South was hollowed out by four years of war and blockade. However the North never suffered the same level of hardship and, one suspects, would have been more resilient to such damages and more able to resist such attacks into its heartland.
While an interesting read, the writing is solid if unexceptional, this book adds little new to the debate on the American Civil War.
Alexander, Bevin. How the South Could Have Won the Civil War: The Fatal Errors That Led to Confederate Defeat. New York: Crown Publishers, 2007.
This books supposed subject in contained in its title, but it does not really achieve that. The subtitles is slightly more accurate. It is 337-pages including notes, bibliography and index with eighteen maps and very readable type.
The introduction is entitled “No Victory is Inevitable” which is true but analysis of why and how victory could have shifted to the historically defeated is a difficult task. Such analysis moves into the realm of counterfactual (or alternate) history, a field more usually the playground of fiction writers rather than historians.
In Chapter 2 “A New Kind of War” (p 33-43) Alexander lays out the three strategies that the Confederates had to choose from:
• Passive defense, championed by President Jefferson Davis and, as such, the de facto strategy of the CSA.
• Engaging and destroying the enemy, championed by Robert E. Lee and later pursued by him.
• Invasion of the North to destroy its ability to make war, by destroying economic and transportation assets, according to Alexander, this was the strategy that ‘Stonewall’ Jackson wanted to see followed by the CSA.
Alexander believes that the war against the infrastructure of the North would have been a winning strategy. By Jackson was not able to find support for such a course of action, nor does it seem that he tried very hard to do so, and it did not happen. There Alexander leaves the matter, Jackson was right and if the Confederates had just listened they could have won. No discussion is made of how the Confederacy could have effectively pursued this.
Would cavalry raiders, such as Nathan Bedford Forrest commanded, have been sufficient? Or would it have required the actual Confederate armies to have pushed into the North, laying waste to all around them. Could J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry done it alone? Perhaps partisan rangers, such as John Singleton Mosby commanded, could have been employed to assist in these tasks. None of these questions are properly addressed nor is any likely Union response. How would the Federal army have deal with such raids? Would Lincoln’s government have fallen? Would the depredations light the fires of resolve and revenge among the people of the Northern states? None of this is even considered by Alexander, he just agrees with a single letter of Jackson’s, the only place he seem to have presented these views, and moves on.
The rest of the book is looking at the battles of the army of Northern Virginia. Alexander is a strong supporter of ‘Stonewall’ Jackson and his strategic and tactical insights, especially his ability to act on the strategic offensive and the tactical defensive using the weapons of the era to their best advantage. The rundowns of battles are familiar with occasional comments on how they could have gone better for the Confederacy if different actions had been taken but nothing new or even very interesting here.
The book neglects the western theater of operations, relegating it to another loss for the Confederacy. Alexander fully overlooks the potential of Shiloh to have been a turning point in the war, in the Western theater at the very least, and is content to criticize the incompetence and overly defensive mind set of the western Confederate commanders. Alexander recognized that the defense had primary on the battlefields of the Civil War and deals harshly with those commanders, on both sides, that threw their man away on fruitless frontal assaults. However, he complains about General Joe Johnson trying to force Sherman to attack him behind field fortifications (p. 252-3) which ultimately came to naught as Sherman flanked him repeatedly but at least Johnson was not throwing his men away.
Alexander uses Sherman’s success in his March to the Sea as proof that Jackson strategy of attacking the North economically would have caused its collapse. While there are similarities in strategic design, by the time Sherman moves through Georgia, the South was hollowed out by four years of war and blockade. However the North never suffered the same level of hardship and, one suspects, would have been more resilient to such damages and more able to resist such attacks into its heartland.
While an interesting read, the writing is solid if unexceptional, this book adds little new to the debate on the American Civil War.