Abstract
Over the last three-quarters of a century, scholars have made little progress in understanding the relationships between President Abraham Lincoln and his generals-in-chief They have viewed the Great Emancipator as an individual who possessed an uncanny feel for military events and strategy and have presented his subordinates as inept bunglers, until Ulysses S. Grant assumed the reins. Finally, so the saga goes, Lincoln had someone who could execute the kind of war the president knew would be best and decisive.
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Notes
Colin R. Ballard, The Genius of Abraham Lincoln: An Essay (London: Oxford University Press, 1926).
T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals (New York: Random House, 1952).
See David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995).
For a very good biography of Scott, see Timothy D. Johnson, Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998).
Allan Peskin, Winfield Scott and the Profession of Arms (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2003).
Memorandum of John G. Nicolay, November 10 and December 22, 1860. Michael Burlingame, ed., With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860–1865 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000), pp. 9
See Gideon Welles, “The Beginning of the “War,” in Gideon Welles, ed., Diary of Gideon Welles, I (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911), pp. 3–39.
See Daniel Canfield, “Opportunity Lost: The Development of Union Military Strategy: January 1861 to July 1862” (Master’s thesis, North Carolina State University, 2007), pp. 56–69; Scott to Seward, March 3, 1861. Winfield Scott, Memoirs of Lieut.-General Winfield Scott, LL.D., Written By Himself, II (New York: Sheldon & Company, 1864), pp. 625–628.
See James McPherson, Tried By War: Abraham Lincoln As Commander in Chief (New York: Penguin Press, 2008), pp. 29–33
For a smart book on some of McClellan’s strengths, see Ethan S. Rafuse, McClellan’s War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005).
McClellan toWife, August 8 and 10, 1861. Stephen Sears, ed., The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan: Selected Correspondence, 1860–1865 (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1989), p. 81
Tyler Dennett, ed., Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1939), p. 33.
See H. Wager Halleck, Elements of Military Art and Science (New York: D Appleton & Company, 1846)
Baron Jomini, Life of Napoleon, trans. H. W. Halleck (New York: D. VanNostrand, 1864).
See John F. Marszalek, Commander of All Lincoln’s Armies: A Life of Henry W. Halleck (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004)
Davis to Northrop, January 4, 1864. B.P. Noland to Northrop, November 14, 1863. CSA. Commissary Department, NYPL; Lee to Northrop, January 13, 1864. Confidential Letters Sent, ANV. RG 109, NA; Lee to Letcher, October 31, 1863. Lee to Northrop, November 23, 1863. L&TS, ANV. RG 109, NA; Lee to Kemper, January 29, 1864. Lee to Seddon, April 12, 1864. Clifford Dowdey and Louis H. Manarin, eds., The Wartime Papers of Robert E. Lee (Boston: Little Brown, 1961), pp. 663
For a more detailed discussion of the command structure problem, see Joseph T. Glatthaar, “U.S. Grant and the Union High Command during the 1864 Valley Campaign.” Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), pp. 34–55.
Lincoln to Grant, February 25 and 27, 1865. Grant to Lincoln, February 26, 1865. OR 46 (2), pp. 685, 704, and 717; Sheridan to Grant, April 6, 1865. OR 46 (3), p. 610. Lincoln to Grant, April 7, 1865. Roy P. Basler et al., ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 9 vols (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953–1955), VII, p. 392.
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© 2010 George R. Goethals and Gary L. McDowell
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Glatthaar, J.T. (2010). Genius or Talented Amateur: Lincoln as Military Strategist. In: Goethals, G.R., McDowell, G.L. (eds) Lincoln’s Legacy of Leadership. Jepson Studies in Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230104563_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230104563_10
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