Incredible Stories from History

Himeo said:

If you're looking for rabbit holes: everything you know about the military history of the Civil War is bullshit.

Why?

Because the historians who wrote the definitive military histories of the conflict relied primarily on written sources for their research: autobiographies, military orders, battlefield reports, letters, etc.

And there is a lot of written material to dig through. Even experts can't read everything before they start their work. They have to rely on the histories previously written and carve out a slice of the story to research in depth.

In the words of Pulitzer prize winning historian Bruce Catton, who wrote the most popular Civil War history of the twentieth century, said when completing the final draft of the final volume of his best-selling Civil War trilogy: "After researching [Thomas], I came to the terrible conclusion that I'd have to re-write everything."

Another noted historian of naval warefare Thomas Buell, in a review of a 1999 biography of Thomas, said, "The tide may be slowly turning. I had predicted to some Civil War friends that perhaps by the Civil War bicentennial (2061), when renewed interest in the war might tempt a "name biographer" to take up the cause of General Thomas, that the true story of the war may come out. It may be happening 60 years sooner than I thought."

What's all the fuss about? How can you claim that everything we know about the Civil War is bullshit?

Because one man, General George Henry Thomas, won the war. He was responsible for both the Union victory AND the Southern defeat.

And the son of a bitch died a few years after the war, but not before he FUCKING BURNED all his personal documents, as did his family and friends.

Researching Thomas is a pleasure I don't want to spoil for you if you're interested. But here are the broad strokes.

The Union war plan had four major "fronts".

The first was the political battle Lincoln faced leading up to the election of 1864. His opponent, George B. McClellan, was staunchly Anti-War and wanted to offer the South peace and officially recognize the Confederate States of America as an independent state. For the United States to continue the war into 1865, Lincoln had to win re-election despite flat-lining approval ratings.

The second was the naval blockade, or "Anaconda" strategy, that split the South in half by controlling the Mississippi river through occupation of New Orleans and the critically important rail crossing at Vicksburg, and blockading the Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard, intended to win the war through strangling the South's economy and logistics (Rivers and Railroads).

The third was the Eastern Front, protecting the capitals of Washington D.C. for the Union and Richmond, Virginia for the Confederacy. This was also the front with the most news coverage, and thus in the mind of the public and the casual observer the most important front.

The fourth was the Western Front, the spine of the war, from Vicksburg to Washington D.C.

Of the four fronts, the most important was the Western Front, a thousand mile wide gap in the Union defenses crossing two states full of Confederate sympathizers.

And, as any war nerd will tell you, the Western Front, the weakest Union front, was a total Union steamroll victory. It was so lop-sided that no one really talks about it.

The reporters and the glory were in the East, but the war was won by holding the Western Front.

Which begs the question, why didn't the South exploit the Western Front?

I mean, sure, you'd leave your best General, Lee, to defend the capital in Richmond - but then you'd send everything you have to spare at the Western front to flank Washington and retake Vicksburg, breaking the economic stranglehold.

So why didn't the South make the obvious strategic play?

They did.

They sent the best Generals they had with the most experienced and well equiped armies they could muster right into the thousand mile gap.

And that gap became the South's Bermuda triangle. General after General, Army after Army all marched into the Western front - a place ripe with Confederate sympathizers and saboteurs willing to support them - only to return broken, demoralized, and disgraced.

From the historians point of view, there is no one to take credit for the success in the Western Front. The Commanders of the Western front changed frequently, the Army's formed, fought, and moved East to feed the meat grinder.

It's something of a mystery that isn't immediately obvious, even to historians.

Let's try and look at this from Bruce Catton's point of view.

He grows up and becomes obsessed with the tales of the glory and the tragedy of the Civil War. The mythology of Gods and Generals, brother fighting brother, heroic last stands and missed opportunities. He memorizes names and dates and battles. He goes to college and studies for a degree in History. He learns the traditional narrative of the war and finds his angle on it. He's ready to write his version of the glory of the East and the big personalities that fought there. He can finally use everything he memorized about the famous battlefields, down to the tiniest exacting detail.

He begins to write his history because the Eastern Front is so fascinating. He spends a volume on the politics, as he's a serious historian and he must eat his vegetables before he gets his desert. Then he digs in deep to the glory of the Eastern front. But he has so much material that he only get through half of it in the second volume with the briefest summary of required Western Front material like Vicksburg and Shiloh and Bull's run, the places where Grant and Sherman made their bones. Men who's role in the East will dominate his final volume.

Then he compiles the first draft of volume three, trying to wring every last drop from the Eastern front. But he begins to notice there's something wrong with it. Only then, after he'd spent decades working out the details of the Civil War does he finally notice the mystery of the Western Front.

He's got a deadline quickly approaching, so he's in a hurry. How can he summarize what happened out there without losing focus on the East?

He begins analyzing each battle in depth and a new pattern emerges. The much maligned commanders of the South were... more competent than the Northern Commanders? Other than Grant and Sherman... of course...

But, even Grant and Sherman frequently screwed up and were outclassed by the Southern Generals.

The fuck?

Were the Union soldiers who fought in the West better than those who fought in the East? No, these soldiers moved east later and performed much the same as the others.

Were the Confederate soldiers worse in the West? No, they were veterans of the East and moved West because of their performance.

What. The. Fuck?

The deadline for his final draft is looming. In frustration he looks at the battles in the West and at the pivotal moments of those battles, after the Union Commander makes a terrible blunder... George Henry Thomas was there to save the day.

Another battle, another Union Command fuck up that will surely end the war...

Nope. George Henry Thomas.

The Union should have lost here... Nope. George Henry Thomas.

And here, the Union Army is in total rout... Nope. George Henry fucking Thomas.

George Henry Thomas. George Henry Thomas. George Henry Thomas.

Catton begins to hate the motherfucker because he's ruining Catton's narrative. Thomas is everywhere and he never loses. He never even makes a fucking mistake.

In fact, those brilliant Confederate Generals from the East were just as brilliant in the West.

And they got their shit shoved in so fucking hard. So fucking hard.

A sinking feelings begins to settle into Catton's stomach.

Everything he knows about the Civil War is bullshit.

And he's already published two volumes completely missing the real story here, and he's missed his deadline for the final draft on his final volume.

It's too late to fix it. To include Thomas he'd have to revise everything and it's already in print.

-

Historians, the public, and time has forgotten him. But when he died in 1870 from a heart attack, George Henry Thomas had the largest public funeral since Lincoln.

In the first modern war, where lives were thrown into meat grinders, George Henry Thomas maintained the best kill / death ratio of any General of the War, while fighting in four of the five bloodiest battles of the war. His K/D ratio was four times that of the next closest General, while maintaining a death ratio one third of the next closest general.

His soldiers loved him, and collected donations to put up a statue of him in Washington D.C. looking South to his home state of Virginia.

Why was Thomas overlooked?

Because he was a Southerner, and before the war a close personal friend and protege of Robert E. Lee.

He chose to remain with the North. Despite winning every battle he was never trusted by Washington. They couldn't allow a Southerner to lead an army of Kentucky and Tennessee Volunteers - all Confederate sympathizers who would likely have changed sides if Thomas asked them to.

When he was given independent command on two occasions he excelled. He secured the first Union victory of the war. Then, at the Battle of Nashville he won the most lopsided victory of the war, defeating a numerically superior and battle-hardened army - the cream of the south - led by the best remaining Southern General. He defeated this last desperate attack by the South, outnumbered, using raw recruits with only a few weeks training, and did so with less than 2% casualties. He then proceeded to chase this southern army all the way from Nashville to New Orleans completely annihilating them to the last man. In the process of this rout, he captured the "legendary genius cavalry commander" Nathan Bedford Forrest as an afterthought.

One last bit of trivia.

Mark Twain volunteered to join the southern cause to fight an approaching Union army. A week later he and his buddies learned who was leading the Union force. Upon hearing the news Mark Twain and the entire army he was with promptly deserted.

The Union General was George Henry Thomas.

Smart move, Mr. Twain.

Without winning the Western Front the Anaconda strategy would not have worked.

Without Sherman taking Atlanta in 1864, Lincoln would not have been re-elected.

Without George Henry Thomas "slowing me down", Sherman would not have taken Atlanta.

What if Thomas, best friends with fellow Virginian Robert E. Lee, had stayed with the South?

Without Thomas, the Union would have lost the Western Front, retaken Vicksburg, and Lincoln would have lost re-election.

One man decided the fate of the Civil War.

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