Dixie Victorious: An Alternate history of the Civil War Read online

  Dixie Victorious

  DIXIE

  VICTORIOUS

  An Alternate History

  of the

  Civil War

  Edited by Peter G. Tsouras

  A Greenhill Book

  Greenhill

  Books

  First published in Great Britain in 2004 by

  Greenhill Books, Lionel Leventhal Limited

  www.greenhillbooks.com

  and

  Stackpole Books, 5067 Ritter Road,

  Mechanicsburg, PA 17055, USA

  Reprinted in this format in 2011 by

  Frontline Books

  an imprint of

  Pen & Sword Books Ltd

  47 Church Street, Barnsley

  South Yorkshire S70 2AS

  Copyright © 2004 by Greenhill Books

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  ISBN 978-184832-633-0

  ISBN 978-1-61608-460-8

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner

  without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief

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  PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

  47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England

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  Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

  CONTENTS

  The Contributors

  Introduction

  1

  “Hell on Earth”

  Anglo-French Intervention in the Civil War

  Andrew Uffindell

  2

  Ships of Iron and Wills of Steel

  The Confederate Navy Triumphant

  Wade G. Dudley

  3

  “What Will the Country Say?”

  Maryland Destiny

  David M. Keithly

  4

  When the Bottom Fell Out

  The Crisis of 1862

  Michael R. Hathaway

  5

  “We Will Water our Horses in the Mississippi”

  A.S. Johnston vs. U.S. Grant

  James R. Arnold

  6

  “Absolutely Essential to Victory”

  Stuart’s Cavalry in the Gettysburg — Pipe Creek Campaigns

  Edward G. Longacre

  7

  Moves to Great Advantage

  Longstreet vs. Grant in the West

  John D. Burtt

  8

  Confederate Black and Gray

  A Revolution in the Minds of Men

  Peter G. Tsouras

  9

  Decision in the West

  Turning Point in the Trans-Mississippi Confederacy

  Cyril M. Lagvanec

  10

  Terrible as an Army with Banners

  Jubal Early in the Shenandoah Valley

  Kevin F. Kiley

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  1.

  Fort York, Toronto.

  2.

  The Town Hall, Geneva, Switzerland

  3.

  Virginia and Monitor

  4.

  Stephen Mallory

  5.

  General Robert E. Lee

  6.

  General George McClellan

  7.

  Cartoon: Britain and attitudes to Slavery

  8.

  Cartoon: Political dissension in the North

  9.

  General Albert S. Johnston

  10.

  Battle of Shiloh

  11.

  Brigadier General Wade Hampton

  12.

  Major General J.E.B. Stuart

  13.

  Union Blockhouse at Bridgeport

  14.

  Captured Union wagons at Bridgeport

  15.

  Second Battle of Kenesaw Mountain

  16.

  Major General Patrick Cleburne

  17.

  Battle of Ringgold’s Gap

  18.

  General Edmund Kirby Smith

  19.

  Major General Banks and staff

  20.

  Union Cavalryman

  21.

  Confederate Cavalryman

  MAPS

  1.

  The St Lawrence Theater of War/North America in 1862

  2.

  Hampton Roads & the Peninsula Campaign: March 8–May 15, 1862

  3.

  The Maryland Campaign: 1862

  4.

  Battle of Frederick: September 13, 1862

  5.

  Grant’s Defeat at Vicksburg: May 1863

  6.

  Standoff on the Susquehanna: July 5–30, 1863

  7.

  Longstreet Captures Chattanooga: October 1863

  8.

  Longstreet’s Attack: May 1864

  9.

  Grant’s Attack: June 1864

  10.

  Second Battle of Kenesaw Mountain: August 5, 1864

  11.

  Trans-Mississippi Theater: 1864

  12.

  Battle of Cedar Creek: October 19, 1864

  THE CONTRIBUTORS

  JAMES R. ARNOLD is a professional writer who specializes in military history. He has published over 20 books roughly divided into three major topic areas: the Napoleonic era, the Civil War, and the modern period. His two most recent books are a Napoleonic campaign study, Marengo and Hohenlinden: Napoleon’s Rise to Power and Jeff Davis’s Own: Cavalry, Comanches, and the Battle for the Texas Frontier. He has also contributed numerous essays to military journals, including the British Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research and the American journals Army History, Army Magazine, and Navy History. His chapter in this book reflects his interest in the influence of intelligence and espionage upon military events. Most recently he contributed to Rising Sun Victorious: How the Japanese Won the Pacific War and Cold War Hot: Alternate Decisions of the Cold War.

  JOHN D. BURTT is the editor of Paper Wars magazine, an independent review journal devoted to wargames. In his day job he is an advisory nuclear engineer consulting for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. However, his real love is military history. A former Marine sergeant and a veteran of Vietnam, he holds a master’s degree in military history and is pursuing a PhD in the same field. He has written for Command magazine, Strategy & Tactics, and The Wargamer, and was the original editor of Counter-Attack magazine. He was also a contributor to Rising Sun Victorious: How the Japanese Won the Pacific War, Third Reich Victorious: How the Germans Won the War and Cold War Hot: Alternate Decisions of the Cold War.

  WADE G. DUDLEY holds a master’s degree in maritime history and
nautical archaeology from East Carolina University (1997) and a doctorate in history from the University of Alabama (1999). He contributed chapters to Rising Sun Victorious: How the Japanese Won the Pacific War, Third Reich Victorious: How the Germans Won the War and Cold War Hot: Alternate Decisions of the Cold War, and is the author of Drake: For God, Queen, and Plunder! and Splintering the Wooden Wall: The British Blockade of the United States, 1812–1815. He is a visiting assistant professor at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.

  MICHAEL R. HATHAWAY retired from the U.S. federal civil service in 1999 and is currently a consultant living in Reston, Virginia. He earned a BA in Political Science, University of California at Berkeley, 1972; an MBA from Jacksonville State University, 1977; and a Juris Doctorate from Golden Gate University, 1981. He was commissioned second lieutenant in the U.S. Army in 1972 and had three years active duty service in Military Intelligence. Civilian employment with the Social Security Administration and the Office of Naval Research followed. In 1981 he became the National Security Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato. In 1985 he was appointed Staff Director, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe and in 1987 Staff Counsel to the Minority, U.S. Senate International Narcotics Control Caucus; in 1989 Professional Staff Member, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; in 1995 Deputy Chief of Staff, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; and in 1997 Chief of Staff. Mr Hathaway has contributed to Just Cause: The U.S. Intervention in Panama and Cold War Hot: Alternate Decisions of the Cold War.

  DR DAVID M. KEITHLY combines professional writing with a wide range of business interests. His books include The Collapse of East German Communism: The Year the Wall Came Down, 1989; Breakthrough in Ostpolitik: 1971 Quadripartite Agreement; Comparative Politics Today: A World View, Nuclear Strategy, Arms Control and the Future (ed.); and the forthcoming America and the World. He is the North American editor of Civil Wars. He teaches at the Joint Military Intelligence College and American Military University. He has twice been a Fulbright Fellow in Europe, was a Fellow of the Institute for Global Cooperation and Conflict at the University of California, a scholar-in-residence at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Bonn, Germany, and a legislative fellow in the state parliament of the German state of Thüringen. He has a PhD in International Relations from Claremont Graduate School and an MA in Political Economy from the German University of Freiburg. He received the annual faculty research award at the Joint Military Intelligence College in 2001 where he is currently serving as a commander, U.S. Navy Reserve.

  MAJOR KEVIN F. KILEY is a former Marine Corps artilleryman and a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, having served in combat in Kuwait. A West Point graduate, he commanded two artillery batteries, and he now teaches middle school mathematics in Jacksonville, North Carolina. An avid collector of toy and model soldiers, as well as military prints, he is now working on his first book, on artillery of the Napoleonic period. He was a contributor to Cold War Hot: Alternate Decisions of the Cold War. He is married, and he and his wife, Daisy, have a young son, Michael, who is named after Kevin’s brother, Captain Michael J. Kiley, who was killed in action in the Republic of Vietnam on November 19, 1967 in the Battle of Dak To while commander of A Company, 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry (Airborne). This is for all three of them—Virtute et Valore.

  CYRIL M. LAGVANEC holds a master’s degree in British and European History from Tulane University (1988) and a doctorate in American Military History from Texas A&M University (1999). He contributed numerous entries to Greenwood Press’ dictionaries of historical biography and is currently working on a biography of Edmund Kirby Smith, C.S.A. He is a visiting assistant professor of history at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.

  EDWARD G. LONGACRE is a U.S. Air Force historian, currently assigned to Headquarters Air Combat Command, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. He is the author of 18 books and 100 journal and magazine articles on the Civil War and has contributed more than 400 entries to reference works on the conflict. He is the winner of the Fletcher Pratt Prize for his The Cavalry at Gettysburg: A Tactical Study of Mounted Operations during the Civil War’s Pivotal Campaign, 9 June – 14 July 1863. He was recently appointed an honorary director of the U.S. Cavalry Association. His other published books are: From Union Stars to Top Hat: A Biography of the Extraordinary General James Harrison Wilson; Mounted Raids of the Civil War; The Man Behind the Guns: A Biography of General Henry J. Hunt, Chief of Artillery, Army of the Potomac; (editor) From Antietam to Fort Fisher: The Civil War Letters of Edward King Wightman, 1862–1863; To Gettysburg and Beyond: The Twelfth New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, II Corps, Army of the Potomac, 1862–1865; Jersey Cavaliers: A History of the First New Jersey Volunteer Cavalry, 1861–1865; Pickett, Leader of the Charge: A Biography of General George E. Pickett, C.S.A.; General John Buford: A Military Biography; Army of Amateurs: General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863–1865; Custer and His Wolverines: The Michigan Cavalry Brigade, 1861–1865; Joshua Chamberlain, the Soldier and the Man; Lincoln’s Cavalrymen: A History of the Mounted Forces of the Army of the Potomac, 1861–1865; General William Dorsey Pender: A Military Biography; Lee’s Cavalrymen: A History of the Mounted Forces of the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861–1865; A Regiment of Slaves: The Fourth United States Colored Infantry, 1863–1866; Gentleman and Soldier: A Biography of Wade Hampton III; and The Cavalry at Appomattox: A Tactical Study of Mounted Operations during the Civil War’s Climactic Campaign, March 29 – April 9, 1865.

  LT COLONEL PETER G. TSOURAS, U.S.A.R. (ret) is a senior analyst with the Battelle Memorial Institute in Washington. Formerly he was a senior analyst at the U.S. Army National Ground Intelligence Center. He served in the Army as an armor officer in the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, in Germany and subsequently in Intelligence and Adjutant Generals Corps assignments. He retired from the Army Reserve in 1994 after serving in Civil Affairs. His assignments have taken him to Somalia, Russia, the Ukraine, and Japan. He is the author or editor of 23 books on international military themes, military history, and alternate history. His books include Disaster at D-Day: The Germans Defeat the Allies; Gettysburg: An Alternate History; The Great Patriotic War; The Anvil of War; Fighting in Hell; The Greenhill Dictionary of Military Quotations; Panzers on the Eastern Front: General Erhard Raus and His Panzer Divisions in Russia; Rising Sun Victorious: The Alternate History of How the Japanese Won the Pacific War; Third Reich Victorious: How the Germans Won the War; Cold War Hot: Alternate Decisions of the Cold War and most recently Alexander the Great: Invincible King of Macedonia.

  ANDREW UFFINDELL is a British author. His first book was The Eagle’s Last Triumph, a study of Napoleon’s victory at Ligny. This was followed by an examination of the battle and battlefield of Waterloo, On the Fields of Glory, written with the American military historian Michael Corum. He has also written the Waterloo guidebook in the Battleground Europe series, again with Michael Corum. He contributed to a compilation of Napoleonic alternative history scenarios, The Napoleon Options, edited by Jonathan North. In addition, he has written a chapter for Napoleon: the Final Verdict and edited a volume of essays by the late Jac Weller, On Wellington. Two further books were published in 2003: Great Generals of the Napoleonic Wars and their Battles, 1805–1815 and The National Army Museum Book of Wellington’s Armies. Among his published articles have been an analysis of friendly fire at Waterloo and studies of the Franco-Austrian War of 1859. He has also served as editor of the Newsletter of the Society of Friends of the National Army Museum.

  INTRODUCTION

  It has been said that the moment the Confederacy died it became immortal. The myth of the Lost Cause has hung over the subsequent history of the United States as a mixture of romance and regret. The broken South clung to the myth because the reality of its humiliation was too bitter to bear straight on. Its pain demanded the solace of even lost glories. But there is another reason. The South did come close, incredibly close, on a number of occasions to vic
tory.

  Those who scoff will point to the inexorable great tides of history as ensuring the inevitability of the South’s defeat. The North’s triple advantage in manpower, its overwhelming industrial and financial superiority, and its possession of a fleet and army were simply too much for the new Confederacy to overcome. It was, as Sun Tzu once said, as forlorn an effort as throwing eggs against a millstone. But the South possessed advantages that are less quantifiable but equally heavy in the scales of war. Southern leadership and Southern valor equalized a brutal number of battles where the Union forces possessed all those quantifiable advantages in numbers and equipment that so enthrall little minds.

  The North’s war effort also did not rely on sheer numbers. It possessed a critical element of morale as well. Northern morale required vastly more effort to hold together. Waging an offensive war requires far more political support than a purely defensive war, especially when a significant part of the political opposition is openly subversive. For President Lincoln, sustaining Northern morale through successive disasters until Northern leadership was able to employ Northern numbers efficiently was the supreme act of political genius. More than any other factor, Lincoln’s ability to weather a host of crises led to the victory of the Union.

  On a number of occasions the margin of error was almost nonexistent. Here luck played the dominant hand. The South either did not press its advantage or failed to seize the moment. Victory held her laurels tantalizingly just beyond the reach of the Confederacy. The balance was so fine that it was tipped by the absence of a tourniquet or the depth of a sandbar on the Red River. The misallocation of naval resources, a lost order, or a failure to keep the cavalry close in the invasion of Pennsylvania were inordinately decisive.

  Periods of Northern vulnerability appeared repeatedly during the war. Surely the greatest was in 1862 when blood shed on American soil poured out for the first time in torrents. Lincoln came within a hairsbreadth of war with Great Britain over the Trent Affair, and only his willingness to back down and his determination to only “fight one war at a time” saved the Union from a catastrophic second front against the might of the British Empire and France as well.