Best regards, Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: March 29, 2021 at 10:45:14 AM EDT > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-CivWar]: Robertson on Powell, 'The Impulse of > Victory: Ulysses S. Grant at Chattanooga' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > David A. Powell. The Impulse of Victory: Ulysses S. Grant at > Chattanooga. The World of Ulysses S. Grant Series. Carbondale > Southern Illinois University Press, 2020. Illustrations, maps. 264 > pp. $34.50 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8093-3801-6. > > Reviewed by William Glenn Robertson (Combat Studies Institute) > Published on H-CivWar (March, 2021) > Commissioned by G. David Schieffler > > Following his disastrous defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga in > September 1863, William Rosecrans gathered the remaining elements of > the Army of the Cumberland in Chattanooga, Tennessee. There he was > besieged by Braxton Bragg and the Army of Tennessee. With his normal > supply line interdicted by Confederate troops occupying the left bank > of the Tennessee River and Lookout Mountain, Rosecrans's command, > both men and animals, soon found themselves slowly starving. > Something had to be done to save the Army of the Cumberland, and the > Lincoln administration finally acted decisively. First it sent two > army corps from the eastern theater under the command of Joseph > Hooker to bolster Rosecrans's supply hubs at Stevenson and > Bridgeport, Alabama. More important, it directed Ulysses S. Grant to > bring large elements of the Army of the Tennessee to Chattanooga to > relieve the Army of the Cumberland. > > Upon his arrival, Grant was given command of the combined force. > Unwilling to retain Rosecrans, with whom he had long been at odds, > Grant replaced him with George Thomas as commander of the Army of the > Cumberland. Over the next two months, Grant would devise a plan to > amalgamate Thomas's command, Hooker's troops, and the units from > Mississippi led by William Sherman into a fighting force strong > enough to break the Confederate siege. Grant's task was complicated > by the situation facing Ambrose Burnside's command in Knoxville, > Tennessee, where Confederate forces under James Longstreet were > besieging the town. The Lincoln administration had long been fixated > on freeing the loyal citizens of east Tennessee from Confederate rule > and therefore kept Burnside's plight always before Grant in its > messages to him. Thus, Grant's task was to build and supply a > powerful force that would relieve both Chattanooga and Knoxville, > thereby liberating most of east Tennessee from the Confederacy. With > a few missteps and delays along the way, and materially aided by > unforced Confederate mistakes, Grant ultimately succeeded in doing > just that, winning the fights at Wauhatchie, Orchard Knob, Lookout > Mountain, and Missionary Ridge. > > David A. Powell's _The Impulse of Victory: Ulysses S. Grant at > Chattanooga_ is a volume in The World of Ulysses S. Grant series, > edited by John Marszalek and Timothy Smith. It purports not to be a > definitive account of this most complex campaign but instead to > provide a focus on Grant in the context of a readable summary of the > campaign informed by current scholarship. With a few exceptions where > Grant recedes into the background, the book succeeds remarkably well > in that goal. Powell's writing style is clear and concise, describing > the various personalities and complex movements in forceful prose, > reinforced by Hal Jesperson's excellent maps. There is probably no > better work currently extant from the federal perspective if the > reader desires a full account not overly burdened by detail. The > controversial episodes in the federal campaign, most notably, the > question of who ordered the unexpectedly successful assault on > Missionary Ridge, are described in a generally evenhanded fashion. > Logistical matters, often overlooked by historians as critical > drivers of events, are well covered. > > Firmly in line with the current historical homage to all things > Grant, Powell concludes that the Chattanooga Campaign represented > just another step forward in Grant's march to greatness as a > commander. He rightly lauds Grant's ability to placate the Lincoln > administration as delays mounted, a skill utterly absent in > Rosecrans. He also highlights Grant's flexibility of mind, accepting > changes in plans necessitated by adverse circumstances. On the other > hand, he clearly but somewhat reluctantly delineates some of Grant's > less admirable traits. Foremost of these was Grant's strong dislike > of the federal officers who had not come with him from Mississippi. > He banished Rosecrans, was impatient with Thomas, dismissed Hooker's > achievements, and fired Gordon Granger, Thomas's primary subordinate. > The long-suffering Army of the Cumberland never seemed to please him > and was frequently denigrated, even though its staff and technical > capabilities would form the foundation for the subsequent successful > campaign to Atlanta. In contrast, Grant completely overlooked the > multiple failings of Sherman during the campaign, erasing them from > his own account of operations. Sherman was slow to arrive at > Chattanooga, made a gross terrain error by attacking an unoccupied > Billy Goat Hill, failed to carry his end of Missionary Ridge (the > linchpin of Grant's battle plan), and made an inadequate pursuit, all > facts that Grant swept under the historical rug. Grant himself was > responsible for much of the inadequate pursuit, shifting his focus to > the relief of Burnside before completing the destruction of Bragg's > army, which would live to fight again. Had Grant been opposed by an > army of equal size, one not wracked by fatal divisions among its > senior leaders, a federal victory might indeed have merited the high > praise Powell gives Grant in his conclusion. Yes, Grant won a > resounding if incomplete victory, but he was mightily assisted by > Confederate errors and the stellar performances of Hooker, Thomas, > and the much-maligned Army of the Cumberland. A great commander would > have given credit where it was due and honestly apportioned blame, > but Grant seemingly could not do this. That less than admirable > personality trait would be seen again in Virginia in the Overland > Campaign of 1864 and unnecessarily cost precious lives. > > In keeping with the aims of his series editors, Powell praises > Grant's genius fulsomely, but he also exposes a side of Grant that > tarnishes that assessment. Even so, given its relatively narrow > parameters, Powell's work is a welcome contribution to studies of the > western theater in the American Civil War. > > Citation: William Glenn Robertson. Review of Powell, David A., _The > Impulse of Victory: Ulysses S. Grant at Chattanooga_. H-CivWar, H-Net > Reviews. March, 2021. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=56325 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#7601): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/7601 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/81698365/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
