New and Noteworthy: 1863, The Volunteer State, Longstreet and Burnside

The Knoxville Campaign: Burnside and Longstreet in East Tennessee, Earl J. Hess, University of Tennessee Press, 440 pp., notes, bibliography, maps, photographs, $39.95

From the Publisher: In the fall and winter of 1863, Union General Ambrose Burnside and Confederate General James Longstreet vied for control of the city of Knoxville and with it the railroad that linked the Confederacy east and west. The generals and their men competed, too, for the hearts and minds of the people of East Tennessee. Often overshadowed by the fighting at Chickamauga and Chattanooga, this important campaign has never received a full scholarly treatment. In this landmark book, award-winning historian Earl J. Hess fills a gap in Civil War scholarship—a timely contribution that coincides with and commemorates the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.

The East Tennessee campaign was an important part of the war in the West. It brought the conflict to Knoxville in a devastating way, forcing the Union defenders to endure two weeks of siege in worsening winter conditions. The besieging Confederates suffered equally from supply shortages, while the civilian population was caught in the middle and the town itself suffered widespread destruction. The campaign culminated in the famed attack on Fort Sanders early on the morning of November 29, 1863. The bloody repulse of Longstreet’s veterans that morning contributed significantly to the unraveling of Confederate hopes in the Western theater of operations.
Hess’s compelling account is filled with numerous maps and images that enhance the reader’s understanding of this vital campaign that tested the heart of East Tennessee. The author’s narrative and analysis will appeal to a broad audience, including general readers, seasoned scholars, and new students of Tennessee and Civil War history. The Knoxville Campaign will thoroughly reorient our view of the war as it played out in the mountains and valleys of East Tennessee.

“Hess’s account of the understudied Knoxville Campaign sheds new light on the generalship of James Longstreet and Ambrose Burnside, as well as such lesser players as Micah Jenkins and Orlando Poe. Both scholars and general readers should welcome it. The scholarship is sound, the research, superb, the writing, excellent.” —Steven E. Woodworth, author of Decision in the Heartland: The Civil War in the West

"Applying his discerning eye to yet another important but neglected aspect of the Civil War, Hess provides us now with the most though and professional examination of the Knoxville campaign we have, or are ever likely to have." —William J. Marvel, author of Tarnished Victory: Finishing Lincoln’s War
“Anyone who believes that everything significant that could be said about the Civil War has already been written must also be unfamiliar with Earl J. Hess, whose books tend to make historians studying the same subjects consider choosing other ones instead. The Knoxville Campaign, often overlooked or even dismissed as largely insignificant, can now be understood in its proper context at last. Operations in East Tennessee have never been so closely examined, so vividly described, and so convincingly explained as Hess does here in the first comprehensive study of this campaign and its impact on Union and Confederate strategy in the Western Theater.” —J. Tracy Power, author of Lee’s Miserables: Life in the Army of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Appomattox

EARL J. HESS is Stewart W. McClelland Distinguished Professor in Humanities and an associate professor of history at Lincoln Memorial University. He is the author of nearly twenty books, including The Civil War in the West—Victory and Defeat from the Appalachians to the Mississippi and Lincoln Memorial University and the Shaping of Appalachia.

CWL--- James Longstreet Inexpertly Defamed

General James Longstreet in the West: A Monumental Failure, Judith Lee Hallock, McWhiney Foundation Press, 1998, 134 pp., maps, b/w photographs,order of battle index, 134 pp., $11.95.

A diatribe is defined both as a long monotonous piece of writing and a wooden or metal strip serving as a guide for making a true level surface on wet concrete pavement. General James Longstreet in the West: A Monument Failure may be viewed as having the attributes of both types of diatribe. It is a monotonous, simplistic and negative presentation of Longstreet's late 1863 generalship. It is also a scraper of sorts, one that simplifies by trimming away all that is excess and all that does not support the end that is desired by the worker. Yet, this slender work is padded.

Of the 134 pages, 39 are Orders of Battle for four armies. Two of these armies are Federal and two Confederate. So about 25% of the text is extraneous since the book is about a personality and not regiments or brigades. Of the remainding pages, one half to two-thirds of each page is taken up by a mini-biography, a map, or a photograph. Several of biographical enteries do not bear on the topic. Mary Chesnut's biography takes up major portions of two pages. She is not mentioned in the text at all, except in an other extraneous biographical entry, that of James Seddon.

In this book, there are maybe 25 pages of orignal text and even that is padded. Five pages, nearly the entire description of the Battle of Chickamauga is a direct quote from a soldier of the 28th Alabama. In a simplistic fashion and using her own words, the author informs the reader that Longstreet at Gettysburg potters around in sullen activity. The source of the author's conclusion is an unnamed staff officer serving an unnamed general. At Gettysburg the author has Lee accepting full responsibility for the defeat and leaves Longstreet "basking in his innocence." Lee may have been relieved to be "rid of the sulking subordinate" when Longstreet and his command is sent to Bragg immediately before the Battle of Chickamuaga. (pages 23 and 24)

After briefly covering the Chickamauga, Chattanooga and Knoxville Campaigns, the author states that military historians have concluded that a competent commander must possess intelligence, intuition, determination and moral courage. For the author, Longstreet pocesses none of these traits but is lazy, disobedient, obstinate, morally a coward. (p. 84)

Now, I am not a Longstreet worshipper and he does have his faults. Far from perfect, Longstreet fiddled with his own biography, feuded with McLaws during and after the war, was less than cooperative or supportive of Bragg at Chattanooga and failed to achieve a success at Knoxville. The Knoxville campaign, both Grant and Longstreet knew was pointless. Knoxville could fall to Longstreet but would be outflanked and given up because Chattanooga was held by the Federals. On the other hand, if the Union retreated from Chattanooga then Knoxville would easily fall to the Confederates.

The author states that "despite his delusions of competence, Longstreet proved himself incapable of independent command. His incompetence was exceeded only by his arrogance" (p. 84) Her argument is decidedly unproven in this book which never rises above being a diatribe padded with extaneous material.

CWL---Command and Control: Longstreet Better Than Jackson? Yes.

Southern by the Grace of God but Prussian by Common Sense: James Longstreet and the Exercise of Command in the U.S. Civil War, Richard L. DiNardo, Journal of Military History, October 2002, pp. 1011-1032; and
Longstreet and Jackson Compared: Corps Staff and the Exercise of Command in the Army of Northern Virginia, R.L. DiNardo in Longstreet: The Man, The Soldier, the Controversy, R.L. DiNardo and A.A. Nofi, eds, Combined Publishing, 1998, pp 165-190.

In recent years the issue of how generals transmitted orders has been addressed, in a direct way, by scholars. The Right Hand of Command: Use and Disue of Personal Staffs in the Civil War by R. Steven Jones (2000) and Buff Facings and Gilt Buttons: Staff and Headquarters Operations in the Army of Norther Virginia, 1861-1865 by J. Boone Bartholomees (1998) are notable additions in this field. But in many books, it is merely 'Lee ordered . . .' or 'Jackson committed . . .' which begs the questions, 'How did Civil War generals exercise command and did they do it well?' (Southern by the Grace of God but Prussian by Common Sense, pp. 1011-1012)

Generals of the Napoleonic era gathered staffs on a hilltop and with monoculars binoculars saw the whole field of battle. During the American Civil War era, rifled small arms and and rifled artillery forced corps and army commanders away from the immediate battlefront. Control and command of frontline troops were pushed over 1000 yards away from the battlelines. D.S. Freeman's chapter, in the second volume of Lee's Lieutenants, describes the developing staff as interesting individuals but gives scant attention to what they actually did. In the Army of Northern Virginia, Jackson and Longstreet often described the activities of their staffs and Hill made no mention of them. (Longstreet and Jackson Compared, 165-167)

Federal and Confederate staff manuals were either dated back to the Revolutionary and Early National era or non-exsistent in a practical sense. West Point taught no staff theory and the military has a whole had no staff school. The manner of selecting staff personal was unique to each commander. Jackson picked pre-war friends. Longstreet picked only two pre-war friends; early in the war, he chose men of striking intelligence who came to his attention as he rose in command. Jackson chose many of his staff from those whom he had known in Lynchburg, Virginia before the war; Pendleton, Dabney, Junkin and Smith were acquaintances from there. Hunter McGuire was from Winchester and met Jackson while treating him for a finger wound at First Manassas. Dabney, whom Jackson knew as a moral man and a preacher, left the staff after the Peninsula Campaign.

The failure to submit battle reports, something he had stopped to doing after First Kernstown, drew the ire of the Confederate Congress, which pressured him to find a staff person to perform the task. Charles Faulkner, after the Sharpsburg Campaign, join Jackson's staff as amanumissus and chief of staff. Both Jed Hotchkiss, Jackson's and Lee's mapmaker, and Henry Kyd Douglas viewed the appointment as an obviously wrong choice. Faulkner's rank of Lieutenant Colonel seemed extravagent to Douglas, Pendleton, and Hotchiss; they knew Jackson was a miser when handing out laurels and shoulder boards. Pendleton was wrathy because he had served as chief of staff to Jackson since July and did not recieve the permanent recognition of the title and rank. (Longstreet and Jackson Compared, 167-170).

DiNardo repudiates Hagerman's claim in The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare that numerous, efficient, and well-organized officiers and couriers were always present with the corps commander and always giving directions to the division commanders. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Jackson aused his staff officers as nothing more than runners. Jackson's uncommunicativeness towards divisional a brigade commanders is well known. "For staff officers to provide tactical coordingation to Jackson's corps, Jackson would have to give them a reasonably clear idea of what his plans were," and Jackson didn't. Major John Harmon, chief quartermaster of Jackson's troops, called him "crack brained" during the spring 1862 Shenandoah Campaign due to his excessive secretiveness. Douglas wrote to a friend at the end of the campaign that Jackson had not informed his staff of the sudden movement to the east towards the peninsular that spring.
Testimonies abound regarding Jackson lack of communication to his staff. Dabney wrote G.R.F Henderson, a post-war Jackson biographer that Jackson only use his staff to carry messages, that orderlies and couriers were scarce at Jackson's headquarters.Dabney told Henderson that he would grab any handy cavalry detail, regardless of their knowledge of local roads and location of Jackson's divisions and brigades. Under the Second Manassas campaign, Lee personally ordered a particular detachment to serve as couriers for Jackson, a decision which may reflect Lee's confidence in Jackson's ability to stay in touch. Fredericksburg campaign provides the best example of the ignorance of Jackson's staff. Pendleton confessed on December 5 to one of his sisters that he had no knowledge of what Jackson would do that month and did not consider any battle imminent. When Pendleton was wounded during the battle, D.S. Freeman concludes the Jackson's staff 'went out of gear' though he is not specific in which ways the staff work skidded to a halt. DiNardo asks that if Pendleton was so important then why was he ordered to run courier errands. "There is . . . no indication . . . that Jackson ever gave his staff officers any discretionary authority, with the singular exceptions of . . .' the quartermasters. (Longstreet and Jackson Compared, 170-173).

There is a marked difference between how Jackson and Longstreet handled their staffs. Only two were pre-war relatives or acquaintances. Thomas Goree and Longstreet met on a train travelling from Texas to Virginia. Moxely Sorrel wandered into Longstreet's July 1861 Manassas camp and, after an introduction and conversation, volunteered as an aide-de-camp for the battle. Raphael Moses labored in Toomb's Brigade and D. R. Jones Division before Longstreet placed him on his staff. Osmun Latrobe gained staff staff in the same manner. Cordiality marked the staff of Longstreet, unlike the acrimony of Jackson's staff. Though political disagreements rose between his staffers and himself after the war, friendships remained. One reasom may have be that rank was freely given to the staff in relation to the work performed; in a side-by-side (individual/work) comparison, it appears that Longstreet's staff was one rank higher that Jackson's staff. (Longstreet and Jackson Compared, pp. 174-178).

Longstreet kept his staff informed of his plans while Jackson did not. DiNardo cites several of Longstreet's order communicated commanders through his staff; these orders are marked by details regarding movement and destination along with the location of Longstreet's headquarters in order to faciliate communication from the commanders to himself. The degree of latitude in decision making Longstreet bestowed upon his staff is in stark contrast to Jackson exacting but at times vague orders.
From Lee and Longstreets conception to the first steps of the assault on August 30 only 45 minutes lapsed; DiNardo uses John Hennessey Return to Bull Run to assert this. To further advance this notion, DiNardo describes Latrobe's work with artillery at Fredericksburg, Sorrel's work with infantry during Chickamauga and The Wilderness. The author sorts through battle reports and letters to give both credit to Sorrell and the the division and brigade commanders in these actions. (Longstreet and Jackson Compared, pp. 178-180, and Southern by the Grace of God but Prussian by Common Sense, 1028-1031)

DiNardo's conclusions are that the staff's relected Jackson's and Longstreet's personalities and habits of command. He describes Jackson as being an 'erratic genius' who took a nearly Napoleonic approach to generalship and used his staff adminstratively but acted as his own chief-of-staff. Jackson's lethargic efforts during the Seven Days and Fredericksburg battles. Conversely, Longstreet reached a more modern use of his staff. DeNardo compares Lee's use of his staff and Longstreet's use of his staff and finds that both generals conducted their staffs similarly. (Longstreet and Jackson Compared, pp. 180-181)