raharris1973
Well-known member
What if the Union forces under McClellan won the peninsula campaign in spring 1862, and took Richmond?
I know, I know, it is hard to get past the threshold of suspending disbelief of infamously cautious slowpoke McClellan attacking with the persistence, speed, and alacrity to crush CSA forces and forcing CSA abandonment of a defenseless Richmond to Union occupiers. But it should not be impossible?
For example, Stephen Sears suggests in his book, "Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac" that McClellan could have won a smashing defensive victory at Gaines's Mill that would have left Richmond in his grasp, if he had just refrained from countermanding his own order to send Slocum's division to reinforce Porter's V Corps. That wouldn't even require McClellan to take the offensive. Lee was attacking him when he was on favorable defensive ground. All McClellan had to do was not rethink an order he had already issued.
So, let's imagine McClelllan just *stops* changing his mind that day, at the right point, he fights a defensive battle, and Confederate forces impale themselves on defending Union forces at Gaines Mill in a pretty catastrophic way.
This leads to the capture of Richmond after a brief, perfunctory siege in May, 1862 when modest garrison and Army of Northern Virginia rearguards are destroyed and the remainder of the depleted Army of North Virginia makes its escape. Along with prestige and morale loss of the capital, the loss of Richmond's Tredegar iron works and arsenal is the biggest material loss from the campaign.
The loss of Richmond before May 1862 is out is a harsh blow to the Confederates, but it is not an instant-win button for the Union or an instant surrender button for the Confederates. Unlike in the real-world's 1865 when Richmond was captured, the south has taken less damage and manpower loss in total, the blockade is not quite as airtight yet, far less of the southern interior is occupied, and Union forces have not even occupied the whole length of the Mississippi river yet. The Confederates will try to hold on and hold out for a bit yet.
Going into and through the summer of 1862, the Union will continue to press on all fronts, west and east. The Army of Northern Virginia might have been bloodied and Richmond has fallen, but the rebel army is still standing in North Carolina and has the capability to counterattack. So, the Army of the Potomac is kept fighting on to finish the job. It's only when an army has accomplished its objectives that elements were redeployed. - the Union won't be transferring these forces to the west. The Confederates may indeed transfer some forces from the west to the east, to North Carolina, to stem the tide, quite possibly allowing faster than real-world Union advances in the west in 1862, and likely precluding events like the Confederate invasion of eastern Kentucky that year, and certainly the Confederate invasion of western Maryland that preceded Antietam.
I would think even post Richmond, there would be some clean-up and pacification of south-central, southwestern Virginia to do, fully securing the rail links into Tennessee for example, and fully securing continuity on land with any Federal enclaves on the North Carolina coast. CSA forces in North Carolina would pose the threat of counterattack towards Richmond and Virginia. North Carolina itself is a valuable objective, both individual parts, and the sum of its parts. It's eastern coastal areas and inlets to reinforce the blockade, its far western mountain portion to provide relief and liberation to local populations of reportedly high Unionist sentiment.
As a whole, North Carolina is second only to Virginia as a source of Confederate military manpower, and a huge source of food and draft animals for the CSA forces.
And then, once the conquest of North Carolina is complete [And I am not specifying how long this all would take], while Atlanta beckons as a target *somewhat* to the west, South Carolina is another fairly logical follow-on target for strategic, political, and symbolic reasons. Taking South Carolina's coast strengthens the blockade and taking its inland denies the CSA its rice, cotton, cattle and labor, while politically and symbolically, it crushes the rebellion in the cradle where it started. [And, again, I am not specifying how long this all would take]
So, plenty of objectives for the Army of the Potomac on the eastern seaboard for hundreds of miles, even south of Richmond.
More specifically, I think, from the post-capture of Richmond Union frontline of the James River and Central Railroad, Goldsboro, N.C., likely becomes McClellan's next primary object. By advancing south on the railroad via Petersburg, Stony Creek, Weldon, and stations on the Wilmington road, he can count on reliable communication with U.S. Navy gunboats/supply steamers and on co-operating columns under Dix and Burnside from Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Plymouth, Washington, and New Bern, which would offset any diminishment in the strength of the Army of the Potomac when garrisoning the railroad against Confederate raiders. He can also feint and raid toward Raleigh on the Gaston road, keeping-up the fog of war. There is also an abundance of bacon and forage and the support of Carolinian Unionist "Buffalo" bushwhackers on the line of march, in addition to abandoned plantation residences ripe for pillage, although there would be orders issued against the latter outrage.
That city and its rail junction is the key to occupying eastern North Carolina permanently and denying the Rebellion use of Wilmington's prolific seaport, resulting in the evacuation of Fort Fisher and other harbor defenses. Only Charleston, S.C., would remain open to regular blockade-running traffic from Nassau and Bermuda. Operating westward against Raleigh and Greensboro would sever Danville's remaining Piedmont communications with the lower South. Operating southwestward against Fayetteville and the line of Cape Fear would eliminate the Confederacy's important remaining arsenal, although the machinery would likely be removed to Columbia, and open an avenue into the heart of South Carolina via Florence and Camden across the semi-desert Pee Dee Valley. It is up to Banks and Frémont and other U.S. elements to capture Lynchburg and Southwest Virginia's lead and saltworks, securing the rail-route into East Tennessee, permitting inter-theater Federal co-operation in occupying the upper Tennessee Valley, an object dear to Lincoln's heart. From East Tennessee, U.S. Cavalry and Unionist partisans can raid against Lee's rear.
The only problem being Lee and Army of Northern Virginia lying in repose at Burkeville Junction, prepared to counter and strike in either direction. And McClellan will no doubt either await Confederate capitulation or the passing of the midsummer disease season. Nonetheless, Confederate communications with the Old North State are impaired somewhat by the non-completion of the Piedmont Railroad's Danville-Greensboro connection.
Between the two: Confederate capitulation or the passing of the midsummer disease season, I do not expect Confederate capitulation, so I would anticipate a resumed campaign for all the North Carolina targets to start in September 1862, after disease season.
Notably, the important, morale-boosting Union taking of Richmond will open up new questions in the North and cause some thought to be put toward war termination and reconstruction, even if a little prematurely - although a loyalist government of reoccupied Virginia must be established.
Lincoln will be getting divided counsels. Abolitionists, seeing an end to the war insight, will talk amongst themselves and press their case for slave Emancipation, so as not to lose the opportunity to use the exigencies of war to get around Constitutional impediments to Emancipation. Their public case and case to Lincoln will not so much voice their inner fear that the war might end in a way "too soon" before wartime broad wartime emancipation measures are adopted, and leave the rebellious states rejoining the Union with slavery intact. Instead, the more politically savvy abolitionists will make the calculated argument that continued Confederate resistance, even *after* the fall of Richmond, proves secessionists hopeless obstinacy to stay rebellious, and their confidence they can keep armies on the battlefield because they can rely on slaves to work the farm field. Thus, they say, emancipating and freeing slaves, assisting their escape, taking southerners slaves as 'contraband' is the best way to *speed* the end of the war by depriving the rebels of their labor. On the other end of the spectrum, nearly all northern Democrats and some Republicans, especially those generally of a conservative, cautious, anti-radical inclination, or those particularly anti-Abolitionist, obsessed with racial hierarchy, or representing border states with legal slavery, argue that Emancipation policies would be folly, only stiffening southern resistance, prolonging the war and raising its costs, perhaps even putting victory at risk somehow.
In our timeline, at some point in summer 1862 Lincoln decided he would issue an Emancipation that year, but only when the moment was right. So that was a decision he made likely some 4 to 6 weeks after the point of divergence provided in this scenario. His criteria for "the moment being right" was that in not be seen as desperate, following military failures, but after military success. That condition was not satisfied in our timeline until after the Battle of Antietam on September 17th, 1862.
Here, Lincoln is walking into the summer of 1862 without nearly so much to prove on the military front. He has pocketed a major military victory with the capture of Richmond. As POTUS, he gets some ownership and credit, even if it was won by an anti-Abolitionist, Democrat, white supremacist General, George McClellan.
Therefore, I think any coin-toss is more than 50-50 likely to have Lincoln decide to issue a provisional Emancipation Proclamation in mid-summer 1862, and follow up with a public announcement in the mid-summer, actually about two months ahead of the historic schedule, to both accomplish the deed, and add to diplomatic pressure on the south to capitulate. Like our timeline's EP, it would be set to take full effect months after its announcement, so it is a "or else" and can be sold to the Union public as an ultimate to the Confederate to "surrender by X deadline, OR you forfeit your slaves". In that way, it cynically and pragmatically signalled to the overwhelmingly white soldiers, families and voters of the north that he placed the chance of saving their lives from further war, a bit higher on his hierarchy of priorities than he did freeing the slaves held by the enemy. But, he probably would expect the rebels to go on defying past his deadline, thus allowing him to have his cake and eat it too. And if not, and the southerners surprised him by capitulating early before his deadline, putting him in an awkward moral pickle, despite that awkwardness, he would at least have a quick peace and re-Union under his belt.
In our timeline, Lincoln set his Emancipation Proclamation effective date deadline at Jan. 1, 1863. In this timeline, owing to the much greater degree of military success, having taken Richmond, and announcing the EP two months earlier, he likely sets his deadline earlier, to no later than October 1, 1862.
Do the Confederates surrender by then to avoid the dreaded EP? Or do they remain defiant too long?
Does the decimation/weakening of the Army of Northern Virginia in the east, and call for reinforcements, compel the movement of CSA reinforcements from the west, to the degree that Union forces in the west, complete their occupation of the length of the Mississippi during the summer of 1862, including Vicksburg (a year early), and the full reclamation of the state of Tennessee that summer?
I know, I know, it is hard to get past the threshold of suspending disbelief of infamously cautious slowpoke McClellan attacking with the persistence, speed, and alacrity to crush CSA forces and forcing CSA abandonment of a defenseless Richmond to Union occupiers. But it should not be impossible?
For example, Stephen Sears suggests in his book, "Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac" that McClellan could have won a smashing defensive victory at Gaines's Mill that would have left Richmond in his grasp, if he had just refrained from countermanding his own order to send Slocum's division to reinforce Porter's V Corps. That wouldn't even require McClellan to take the offensive. Lee was attacking him when he was on favorable defensive ground. All McClellan had to do was not rethink an order he had already issued.
So, let's imagine McClelllan just *stops* changing his mind that day, at the right point, he fights a defensive battle, and Confederate forces impale themselves on defending Union forces at Gaines Mill in a pretty catastrophic way.
This leads to the capture of Richmond after a brief, perfunctory siege in May, 1862 when modest garrison and Army of Northern Virginia rearguards are destroyed and the remainder of the depleted Army of North Virginia makes its escape. Along with prestige and morale loss of the capital, the loss of Richmond's Tredegar iron works and arsenal is the biggest material loss from the campaign.
The loss of Richmond before May 1862 is out is a harsh blow to the Confederates, but it is not an instant-win button for the Union or an instant surrender button for the Confederates. Unlike in the real-world's 1865 when Richmond was captured, the south has taken less damage and manpower loss in total, the blockade is not quite as airtight yet, far less of the southern interior is occupied, and Union forces have not even occupied the whole length of the Mississippi river yet. The Confederates will try to hold on and hold out for a bit yet.
Going into and through the summer of 1862, the Union will continue to press on all fronts, west and east. The Army of Northern Virginia might have been bloodied and Richmond has fallen, but the rebel army is still standing in North Carolina and has the capability to counterattack. So, the Army of the Potomac is kept fighting on to finish the job. It's only when an army has accomplished its objectives that elements were redeployed. - the Union won't be transferring these forces to the west. The Confederates may indeed transfer some forces from the west to the east, to North Carolina, to stem the tide, quite possibly allowing faster than real-world Union advances in the west in 1862, and likely precluding events like the Confederate invasion of eastern Kentucky that year, and certainly the Confederate invasion of western Maryland that preceded Antietam.
I would think even post Richmond, there would be some clean-up and pacification of south-central, southwestern Virginia to do, fully securing the rail links into Tennessee for example, and fully securing continuity on land with any Federal enclaves on the North Carolina coast. CSA forces in North Carolina would pose the threat of counterattack towards Richmond and Virginia. North Carolina itself is a valuable objective, both individual parts, and the sum of its parts. It's eastern coastal areas and inlets to reinforce the blockade, its far western mountain portion to provide relief and liberation to local populations of reportedly high Unionist sentiment.
As a whole, North Carolina is second only to Virginia as a source of Confederate military manpower, and a huge source of food and draft animals for the CSA forces.
And then, once the conquest of North Carolina is complete [And I am not specifying how long this all would take], while Atlanta beckons as a target *somewhat* to the west, South Carolina is another fairly logical follow-on target for strategic, political, and symbolic reasons. Taking South Carolina's coast strengthens the blockade and taking its inland denies the CSA its rice, cotton, cattle and labor, while politically and symbolically, it crushes the rebellion in the cradle where it started. [And, again, I am not specifying how long this all would take]
So, plenty of objectives for the Army of the Potomac on the eastern seaboard for hundreds of miles, even south of Richmond.
More specifically, I think, from the post-capture of Richmond Union frontline of the James River and Central Railroad, Goldsboro, N.C., likely becomes McClellan's next primary object. By advancing south on the railroad via Petersburg, Stony Creek, Weldon, and stations on the Wilmington road, he can count on reliable communication with U.S. Navy gunboats/supply steamers and on co-operating columns under Dix and Burnside from Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Plymouth, Washington, and New Bern, which would offset any diminishment in the strength of the Army of the Potomac when garrisoning the railroad against Confederate raiders. He can also feint and raid toward Raleigh on the Gaston road, keeping-up the fog of war. There is also an abundance of bacon and forage and the support of Carolinian Unionist "Buffalo" bushwhackers on the line of march, in addition to abandoned plantation residences ripe for pillage, although there would be orders issued against the latter outrage.
That city and its rail junction is the key to occupying eastern North Carolina permanently and denying the Rebellion use of Wilmington's prolific seaport, resulting in the evacuation of Fort Fisher and other harbor defenses. Only Charleston, S.C., would remain open to regular blockade-running traffic from Nassau and Bermuda. Operating westward against Raleigh and Greensboro would sever Danville's remaining Piedmont communications with the lower South. Operating southwestward against Fayetteville and the line of Cape Fear would eliminate the Confederacy's important remaining arsenal, although the machinery would likely be removed to Columbia, and open an avenue into the heart of South Carolina via Florence and Camden across the semi-desert Pee Dee Valley. It is up to Banks and Frémont and other U.S. elements to capture Lynchburg and Southwest Virginia's lead and saltworks, securing the rail-route into East Tennessee, permitting inter-theater Federal co-operation in occupying the upper Tennessee Valley, an object dear to Lincoln's heart. From East Tennessee, U.S. Cavalry and Unionist partisans can raid against Lee's rear.
The only problem being Lee and Army of Northern Virginia lying in repose at Burkeville Junction, prepared to counter and strike in either direction. And McClellan will no doubt either await Confederate capitulation or the passing of the midsummer disease season. Nonetheless, Confederate communications with the Old North State are impaired somewhat by the non-completion of the Piedmont Railroad's Danville-Greensboro connection.
Between the two: Confederate capitulation or the passing of the midsummer disease season, I do not expect Confederate capitulation, so I would anticipate a resumed campaign for all the North Carolina targets to start in September 1862, after disease season.
Notably, the important, morale-boosting Union taking of Richmond will open up new questions in the North and cause some thought to be put toward war termination and reconstruction, even if a little prematurely - although a loyalist government of reoccupied Virginia must be established.
Lincoln will be getting divided counsels. Abolitionists, seeing an end to the war insight, will talk amongst themselves and press their case for slave Emancipation, so as not to lose the opportunity to use the exigencies of war to get around Constitutional impediments to Emancipation. Their public case and case to Lincoln will not so much voice their inner fear that the war might end in a way "too soon" before wartime broad wartime emancipation measures are adopted, and leave the rebellious states rejoining the Union with slavery intact. Instead, the more politically savvy abolitionists will make the calculated argument that continued Confederate resistance, even *after* the fall of Richmond, proves secessionists hopeless obstinacy to stay rebellious, and their confidence they can keep armies on the battlefield because they can rely on slaves to work the farm field. Thus, they say, emancipating and freeing slaves, assisting their escape, taking southerners slaves as 'contraband' is the best way to *speed* the end of the war by depriving the rebels of their labor. On the other end of the spectrum, nearly all northern Democrats and some Republicans, especially those generally of a conservative, cautious, anti-radical inclination, or those particularly anti-Abolitionist, obsessed with racial hierarchy, or representing border states with legal slavery, argue that Emancipation policies would be folly, only stiffening southern resistance, prolonging the war and raising its costs, perhaps even putting victory at risk somehow.
In our timeline, at some point in summer 1862 Lincoln decided he would issue an Emancipation that year, but only when the moment was right. So that was a decision he made likely some 4 to 6 weeks after the point of divergence provided in this scenario. His criteria for "the moment being right" was that in not be seen as desperate, following military failures, but after military success. That condition was not satisfied in our timeline until after the Battle of Antietam on September 17th, 1862.
Here, Lincoln is walking into the summer of 1862 without nearly so much to prove on the military front. He has pocketed a major military victory with the capture of Richmond. As POTUS, he gets some ownership and credit, even if it was won by an anti-Abolitionist, Democrat, white supremacist General, George McClellan.
Therefore, I think any coin-toss is more than 50-50 likely to have Lincoln decide to issue a provisional Emancipation Proclamation in mid-summer 1862, and follow up with a public announcement in the mid-summer, actually about two months ahead of the historic schedule, to both accomplish the deed, and add to diplomatic pressure on the south to capitulate. Like our timeline's EP, it would be set to take full effect months after its announcement, so it is a "or else" and can be sold to the Union public as an ultimate to the Confederate to "surrender by X deadline, OR you forfeit your slaves". In that way, it cynically and pragmatically signalled to the overwhelmingly white soldiers, families and voters of the north that he placed the chance of saving their lives from further war, a bit higher on his hierarchy of priorities than he did freeing the slaves held by the enemy. But, he probably would expect the rebels to go on defying past his deadline, thus allowing him to have his cake and eat it too. And if not, and the southerners surprised him by capitulating early before his deadline, putting him in an awkward moral pickle, despite that awkwardness, he would at least have a quick peace and re-Union under his belt.
In our timeline, Lincoln set his Emancipation Proclamation effective date deadline at Jan. 1, 1863. In this timeline, owing to the much greater degree of military success, having taken Richmond, and announcing the EP two months earlier, he likely sets his deadline earlier, to no later than October 1, 1862.
Do the Confederates surrender by then to avoid the dreaded EP? Or do they remain defiant too long?
Does the decimation/weakening of the Army of Northern Virginia in the east, and call for reinforcements, compel the movement of CSA reinforcements from the west, to the degree that Union forces in the west, complete their occupation of the length of the Mississippi during the summer of 1862, including Vicksburg (a year early), and the full reclamation of the state of Tennessee that summer?
