As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
In a Ken Burns liberal fiction of PBS Civil War, there was never found the reality that the Union Army was under constant threat from the Lincoln Administration "to not lose a battle" so as to lose a Presidential election or give the peace sympathizers the leverage to demand a Confederate arbitration when the South was whipped.
General Sheridan in the Shenandoah had to deal with this in vehement instructions from the Sec. of War to not suffer any defeats in that campaign to cost Lincoln the election.
Upon victory in the Shenandoah, Sheridan marched south to Petersburg to join General Grant entrenched there against General Lee.
Upon meeting General Grant, Sheridan unleashed a protest in orders which were re applied in his having to join General Sherman in the Carolinas. Sheridan wanted to be in on the kill of the Army of Northern Virginia and as an independent theater General of his own department, he desired to be a part of the final outcome.
It is interesting in General Grant quietly listened to all of this, and his Chief of Staff in General Rawlins felt exactly as Sheridan did in not sending him to join with Sherman, and in this Grant replied in the following explanation:
"All this was said in a somewhat emphatic manner, and when I had finished he quietly told me that the portion of my instructions from which I so strongly dissented was intended as a "blind" to cover any check the army in its general move, to the left might meet with, and prevent that element in the North which held that the war could be ended only through negotiation, from charging defeat."
Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan, General, United States Army
Consider this for a moment to the depths of intrigue the South had in loyalists in Washington DC, in General Sherman had just made his epic march to Atlanta, and was moving north toward Richmond. General Grant had crushed the Confederacy in the west before moving east.
Gettysburg was a massive Confederate defeat.
General Sheridan in 1864 had smashed General Jeb Stuart's Cavalry of the Confederacy and then followed up in independent command, the shattering of General Jubal Early in the Shenandoah.
1865 was the year of the end of the Confederacy, and yet General Grant had to engage in military plans not to just defeat General Lee, but to take into account any semblance that anything he did would be seen as a defeat, so in military battle plans his contingencies had to take into account those events which could be seized upon for negotiations to snatch Confederate defeat to Confederate emancipation.
The United States military was quite loyal to the Union, under States Rights and Grant had to fight Lincoln's politics, a military loyal and in love with General Lee, foreign intrigue, domestic intrigue and the Confederacy before him.
It is a reality that Generals Grant, Sherman and Sheridan were fighting not just the Confederacy by the Union too, in every war plan they engaged in.
It is impossible enough in most wars to just win a battle, but consider these men had to win a battle being aware of political consequences. This was an extreme measure in trying to reduce an adversary who had the best officers in Lee, Johnson, Stuart, Forest, Johnston, Hood, Gordon and Early with highly motivated Soldiery.
People should always be aware of this in what a military commander has to deal with. It is not just victory, but how that victory is achieved is what completely matters.
nuff said
agtG
