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How the South Could Have Won the Civil War: The Fatal Errors That Led to Confederate Defeat

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Alexander, Bevin. How the South Could Have Won the Civil War: The Fatal Errors That Led to Confederate Defeat. New York: Crown Publishers, 2007.

This books supposed subject in contained in its title, but it does not really achieve that. The subtitles is slightly more accurate. It is 337-pages including notes, bibliography and index with eighteen maps and very readable type.

The introduction is entitled "No Victory is Inevitable" which is true but analysis of why and how victory could have shifted to the historically defeated is a difficult task. Such analysis moves into the realm of counterfactual (or alternate) history, a field more usually the playground of fiction writers rather than historians.

In Chapter 2 "A New Kind of War" (p 33-43) Alexander lays out the three strategies that the Confederates had to choose from:

* Passive defense, championed by President Jefferson Davis and, as such, the de facto strategy of the CSA.

* Engaging and destroying the enemy, championed by Robert E. Lee and later pursued by him.

* Invasion of the North to destroy its ability to make war, by destroying economic and transportation assets, according to Alexander, this was the strategy that `Stonewall' Jackson wanted to see followed by the CSA.

Alexander believes that the war against the infrastructure of the North would have been a winning strategy. By Jackson was not able to find support for such a course of action, nor does it seem that he tried very hard to do so, and it did not happen. There Alexander leaves the matter, Jackson was right and if the Confederates had just listened they could have won. No discussion is made of how the Confederacy could have effectively pursued this.

Would cavalry raiders, such as Nathan Bedford Forrest commanded, have been sufficient? Or would it have required the actual Confederate armies to have pushed into the North, laying waste to all around them. Could J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry done it alone? Perhaps partisan rangers, such as John Singleton Mosby commanded, could have been employed to assist in these tasks. None of these questions are properly addressed nor is any likely Union response. How would the Federal army have deal with such raids? Would Lincoln's government have fallen? Would the depredations light the fires of resolve and revenge among the people of the Northern states? None of this is even considered by Alexander, he just agrees with a single letter of Jackson's, the only place he seem to have presented these views, and moves on.

The rest of the book is looking at the battles of the army of Northern Virginia. Alexander is a strong supporter of `Stonewall' Jackson and his strategic and tactical insights, especially his ability to act on the strategic offensive and the tactical defensive using the weapons of the era to their best advantage. The rundowns of battles are familiar with occasional comments on how they could have gone better for the Confederacy if different actions had been taken but nothing new or even very interesting here.

The book neglects the western theater of operations, relegating it to another loss for the Confederacy. Alexander fully overlooks the potential of Shiloh to have been a turning point in the war, in the Western theater at the very least, and is content to criticize the incompetence and overly defensive mind set of the western Confederate commanders. Alexander recognized that the defense had primary on the battlefields of the Civil War and deals harshly with those commanders, on both sides, that threw their man away on fruitless frontal assaults. However, he complains about General Joe Johnson trying to force Sherman to attack him behind field fortifications (p. 252-3) which ultimately came to naught as Sherman flanked him repeatedly but at least Johnson was not throwing his men away.

Alexander uses Sherman's success in his March to the Sea as proof that Jackson strategy of attacking the North economically would have caused its collapse. While there are similarities in strategic design, by the time Sherman moves through Georgia, the South was hollowed out by four years of war and blockade. However the North never suffered the same level of hardship and, one suspects, would have been more resilient to such damages and more able to resist such attacks into its heartland.

While an interesting read, the writing is solid if unexceptional, this book adds little new to the debate on the American Civil War.

In about 1978 I began reading seriously about the Civil War. The library in St Paul MN had a vast literature on the subject, including numbered/signed 1st editions and obscure local works. The MN Historical Society had a lot of material including letters home from the front. I have gamed the ACW many many times, tactically at the battle-scale and strategically the war as a whole. At Ft Snelling I was inducted into the 1st MINN Vols, a re-enactment group, although as a non-uniformed member. On the wall of my gaming room hang framed reproductions of the paintings of the seven Minnesota regiments found in the capitol building and governor's office.

In all my studies I have found exactly one large unit that surrendered -- Pemberton at Vicksburg. This occurred after a campaign lasting about a year. I mention this because Mr Alexander has units surrendering left and right, had the Confederacy only done the right thing. Page 28 -- 1st Manassas -- "...a brisk move with only a few troops up to Centerville would have...forced them to surrender." Page 41 -- Stonewall Jackson -- "Jackson's aim...was to...force the opposing army against some terrain feature such as a mountain or river, where it would be compelled to surrender." Page 79 -- Seven Days -- "Lee felt he had a good chance of defeating McClellan and forcing his army to retreat in panic or surrender." Page 81 -- Seven Days -- "If this had been done, McClellan would have been forced to surrender his entire army."

We're only in 1862 and AoP has already surrendered three or four times! This sounds good if you know little or nothing of the war.

Alexander's thesis is a good one. He advocates Fuller's indirect approach. That is, make war not on the enemy's main force but on its ability to supply itself and against the state of mind of the High Command. This was Jackson's method. He criticizes Lee on this point, as have others. "The enemy is there and I intend to attack him there." That is Lee in a nutshell, alright. (No one else could have maintained the ANV in the field as long as he did, so you have to say Lee was a positive overall.) Yet, note Hood's references to the "Lee-Jackson School" in his memoirs, "Advance and Retreat." Hood sought to apply in the western theater the lessons he absorbed while serving under Lee in the east, and we know the result. There was nothing indirect in his methods.

The idea of assuming the tactical defensive in a civil war battle, is a good one. Longstreet had it and applied it whenever he could. It was not Jackson's alone. Yet it was never enough to win the war.

To find out if the south could have won the war, play SPI's "War Between the States." This vast game uses weekly turns and offers the players the complete range of options. Combat is attritional, but that is unimportant if your idea is to test the indirect approach which of course seeks to avoid combat. You will find there was no way for the south to win. Large-scale maneuvers against the enemy's sensitive rear areas are mostly impossible because of the supply problem, and small-scale maneuvers are easily dealt with. The last time I played it, I tried out the specific idea of preventing the capture of New Orleans and maintaining control of the river and Gulf coast ports. I couldn't do it.

So my beef with the book is that is assumes so much! We have to remember, this is the 19th century. Applying 20th-century methods, learned the hard way and shown to be effective, is not possible with 19th-century armies. Mechanization was answer to the problem of mobility. We have to wait for the IC-engine before we can break out in deep penetrations into the enemy's rear and attack them where they aren't. ("Hit 'em where they ain't." Wee Willie Keeler)

Nonetheless I enjoyed Alexander's narrative. It was a good summary of the eastern theater. It was always true that the north could lose the war in the east but could only win it in the west, so concentrating on the east was a good idea for the author.

On the frontispiece are photos of Lee, Jackson and Davis. Davis makes only a few short appearances in the book. For my money, Davis is the one man most responsible for the defeat of the south. Alexander ought to write a book about Davis' screwups. It would be a big seller!

This is a quite good operational and grand tactical history of the Eastern Theatre of the American Civil War from 1st Bull Run to Gettysburg, complete with a plethora of very useful maps, told from viewpoint of the Confederate high command.

For the author, Jackson is a transcendent military genius, Lee is myopic at best, and Davis becomes pretty quickly becomes immaterial. Ordinary soldiers enter the narrative mainly as numbers engaged, and casualties.

The author posits that the Army of Northern Virginia could have wandered around eastern Pennsylvania for months in the summer living off the land. On the other hand, he suggests that any Union army would have surrendered almost immediately if cut off from supply. Similarly, he suggests the Union itself would have surrendered upon the capture or cutting off of either Washington, Baltimore, or Philadelphia. The possiblilty that any of these events would have merely riled up the Union against an invader is not even mentioned, much less discussed.

So, while I found the book an enjoyable read, I also find it possible to doubt many of the author's opinions and spectulative theses. For me, these things balance out to a four star rating.

I have a couple of other books by Bevin Alexander around here somewhere. I never read either of them, but I'm aware, at least generally, of their premise. It's this: Stonewall Jackson was a military genius, Robert E. Lee has been overrated, and Jefferson Davis meddled in the war to the detriment of Confederate fortunes. This book is a restating of that point of view, with a somewhat different framework.

The current book is basically a general, brief history of the first two years of the Civil War, from Bull Run to Gettysburg, with almost all of the narrative recounting the events in the Eastern Theater. Since the theme of the book (though this isn't stated in the blurbs on the back) is to promote Stonewall Jackson's brilliance, the author almost ignores the Western Theater. That theater, of course, is the one most modern historians consider the decisive one.

The difficulties with this premise are legion, probably too many to go into here in detail. In general, though, the author tends to take a situation, then insist that Stonewall had it analyzed brilliantly, tell you that no one else understood, and then recount the possible outcome that he thinks would have occurred if Stonewall had been in charge. In each case, of course, the Yankees wouldn't have had a response to any of Stonewall's brilliant maneuvers, and would have been powerless in the presence of the master. It's this sort of silliness that makes alternate history worth less that it might be, and here the wishful thinking runs rampant.

While Stonewall Jackson was a good general and soldier, he wasn't without flaws. Alexander can't see them, however, and has a very very rosy view of his abilities and his plans. The result is a rather biased view of Jackson, Lee, and the other soldiers around them. I have to say I only enjoyed the book in a few places.

The book was well written and easy to read. Excellent maps accompany the chapters allowing the reader to follow the action. The book focuses on the Civil War's Eastern Theater in 1862-63. The author believes that the Eastern Theater was critical to the South and allowed the only opportunity for Victory. The author compares the war fighting styles of Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jackson. His thesis was that Lee's attacking style used up the manpower resources of the South. If the South had followed Jackson's way of war, it would have invaded the northeast, threatening northern cities, used maneuver to dislodge Union Forces, forcing them to attack the Southern Army in a favorable defensive position. Union forces would be broken by losses suffered in attacking a strong defensive position and then shattered by counterattacks. With the North beaten on Northern soil, the North would sue for peace, granting southern independence. (Maybe)
The author does some choosing of facts to paint the picture he wants to show. He believes the landed aristocracy of the South was wedded to an aristocratic view of war and established commanders were not replaced by more qualified subordinates of a lower class. True enough, Davis appointed friends for his old military days and did not replace them when they proved inadequate. The author believes that Stonewall Jackson was the best Southern Commander and probably could have won the war by carrying the campaign to the North and pursuing a policy of destruction against the Northern People similar to Sherman's March to the Sea in 1864. Jackson shared this thoughts with no one so the author needs to construct his strategy from collected comments. The author gives credit to Sherman for his campaign of maneuver in the Atlanta campaign and afterwards, but cannot figure out when Sherman decided to pursue this strategy. See Sherman's Mississippi Campaign He does not credit Grant as the Union general who first saw that his forces could live off the southern countryside early in the Vicksburg campaigns and determined to use this strategy.
I enjoyed the book. The South probably wouldn't have won the war pursuing a strategy of strategic raids but it certainly would have been a different war. How well would Jackson have fared if he lived and had to face better and better Union generals. Lincoln lost most of his aversion to removing generals who failed him by 1863 and favored those who fought and won. I would recommend this book to those who are interested in how the Confederacy could have won the Civil War

Bevin Alexander's new book, HOW THE SOUTH COULD HAVE WON THE CIVIL WAR, is an analysis of the errors and missed opportunities that led to Union victory. There were plenty of mistakes in the Civil War on both sides, as you might expect from a war in which the majority of the generals were appointed for political reasons. The entire catalogue of the early history of the Army of the Potomac is chock-full of serious and costly errors that led, time and again, to battlefield disaster. But Alexander's focus is on the Confederate mistakes --- how Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson erred, and how those missteps cost the South its independence.

Alexander makes the distinction between strategic and tactical mistakes, and how the shortcomings of Southern strategy led to the tactical errors. Faced with a Union strategy that turned out to be very effective --- cutting off Southern supply lines while trying to capture Richmond and evict the Confederate government --- the Confederacy had limited strategic options. Davis's initial strategy (much derided by Alexander) was to try to protect all Southern territory from invasion and play on the defensive. Lee's strategy was to try to destroy the Army of the Potomac with relentless head-on assaults, taking advantage of his men's fighting spirit and drive.

But there was a third option, advocated by Jackson and supported by Alexander. Jackson's plan was to invade the Northern heartland, evading the main body of the Union army, and strike against the fat civilian targets of Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia. Jackson reasoned that attacking the North's cities and industrial base would cause Abraham Lincoln to sue for peace --- all the more so if the South was able to isolate Lincoln in Washington by cutting off the rail lines that supplied the city. (This is exactly the strategy, as Alexander points out, that William Sherman used in capturing Atlanta and Savannah, and thereby bringing the war home to the Southern heartland.)

Alexander takes pains to describe the tactical consequences of these strategic errors. For example, the author analyzes the impact of Jackson's hugely effective campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, not only in terms of his tactical genius, but in how his campaign kept Union forces out of the hands of General McClellan when he was driving up the Peninsula towards Richmond. Alexander argues that if Jackson had been given free rein to threaten Washington, he would have caused Lincoln to order McClellan back to the defense of the capital, thereby ending the Peninsular Campaign and giving the Confederacy the initiative. However, Lee instead ordered Jackson back to aid in the defense of Richmond, targeting McClellan's army instead of the potentially richer prize of the Union capital.

Alexander's talent as a historian is lifting the "fog of war" and explaining the tactical issues of the Civil War in a way that is comprehensible for the armchair general and the military amateur alike. However, as his focus is limited to only certain battles and engagements, the reader may feel that he gives some topics short shrift --- Shiloh, for example, rates only a paragraph, and General Grant not much more than that. Furthermore, it is at least debatable as to whether or not all the mistakes that Alexander identifies were avoidable. The author asserts that a Southern invasion of Maryland, following up on the disaster of First Bull Run, could have brought the war to a quick end. While such a strike was at least technically feasible, it is not at all clear if the still-raw Southern troops could have pulled off such a thing, especially given the quality of Southern generalship at that point in time.

Nevertheless, HOW THE SOUTH COULD HAVE WON THE CIVIL WAR is a formidable piece of scholarship, showing a mastery of small-scale tactical details and an eye for the missed opportunities that led to Confederate defeat.

--- Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds, who writes the "Northbound" blog at http://www.txreviews.com/blog.

A Southern military victory was never impossible even if it was highly unlikely. In the years since the Civil War, a number of points in the war were selected as places where a different result could have produce a Southern victory. All these points ended with Gettysburg and ignore the Western Theater. This concentration on Robert E. Lee and his army is in keeping with the historical importance they hold in the Southern view of the war. Bevin Alexander supplies a very readable book on why a different course was possible. This is not a balanced book that gives the "could have won" position couple with the reasons and/or statements supporting the historical action. This book embraces each of the "could have won" position with no dissenting voice.
Stonewall Jackson is the key element in the author's arguments. Jackson is pushing Lee, Lee's orders trump Jackson's strategy, Jackson's actions produce total victory while the actions Lee & Davis only delay defeat. The author produces some interesting gymnastics in maintaining the position that Jackson was the CSA's best hope of victory. James Longstreet is villain or hero, depending on the battle. At Second Manassas, Longstreet delays attacking until Pope is in a position to escape destruction. At Gettysburg, Longstreet is the champion of Jackson's ideas fighting and overly aggressive Lee trying to save the South.
People who read Civil War history will be troubled by many of the author's conclusions and should find a number of misstatements. This is not to say that the author plays fast and lose with the truth but that he tends to over state his position and be carried away by his arguments.
What is right with the book? First, it is an excellent compilation of the position of where the South could have won the war. Most of the major battles from First Manassas to Gettysburg are examined and reasons to expand or secure victory given. Second, this is a very readable and enjoyable book. While disagreeing with the author on almost every point, I enjoyed reading his arguments. Next, this book, unlike most of this kind, acknowledges the western theater. At a couple of places, the author notes how the western campaigns are creating problems in Richmond and the politics of east vs. west in Lee's army. Lastly, it is not a bad summary of the war in the East through Gettysburg. Readers can use this as an introduction to the subject or as a review of these positions. After reading this book, be sure to check each of the theories and find out why they are considered questionable.
This is NOT a Myth of the Lost Cause or the South Will Rise Again book. This author has spent the time to catalogue the how and the where that could have changed the course of a war.

Acclaimed historian and prolific author, Bevin Alexander, is known for his revealing, insightful examinations of some of history's most famous conflicts and commanders. His previous books include: How Great Generals Win; How Hitler Could Have Won World War II; How Wars Are Won; and How America Got It Right (all available on amazon). This time, Alexander turns his sights on America's most deadly conflict, the Civil War, arguing that the Union victory in 1865 was far from preordained. In fact, as the book clearly lays out, it was the South's "fatal errors," a relatively small number of tactical and strategic mistakes by Confederate leaders - not overwhelming Union advantages in manpower and industrial might - that doomed Confederate fortunes on the battlefield.

"There is nothing inevitable about military victory, even for a state with apparently overwhelming strength," Alexander writes, citing the improbable triumphs of outnumbered Greeks at Marathon, Alexander the Great's conquest of the massive Persian empire, and even our own defeat of global superpower, Britain, in the American Revolution. Although the side with the "bigger battalions" usually prevails in a war of attrition, he reminds readers, "the tables can be turned when a weak state produces inspired leaders." Alexander points out that the Confederacy produced a disproportionate share of the Civil War's brilliant battlefield leaders; yet, it was above all Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson who recognized "the need to adapt to a new kind of war ... and offered the South plans that would have succeeded." The tragedy for the South was that President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee "refused to carry them out."

Jackson, Alexander asserts, proposed an overall Southern strategy that was the "polar opposite" of his president and his Army of Northern Virginia commander. While Davis favored a totally defensive strategy that would keep Confederate armies on their own soil, Lee was always offensive minded. But, to Lee, an offensive strategy meant hitting the enemy head on, meeting strength with strength - an operational method that led to bloody battles (such as Gettysburg) and a war of attrition that the South could not hope to win. Jackson, according to Alexander, "proposed moving against the Northern people's industries" by "bypassing the Union armies and to win indirectly by assaulting the Northern people's will to pursue the war." It was precisely the strategy that the South's nemesis, Union Gen. William T. Sherman employed to gut the heart of the Confederacy in 1864.

In twelve chapters, Alexander presents the plans that Jackson and other Confederate commanders actually proposed in critical Civil War battles that, had they been effectively followed, might have changed the course of history. The result is far from a fanciful "what if?" game, relying on 20-20 hindsight and far-fetched schemes. Instead, Alexander mines the historical record to illuminate the tactics and strategies that Jackson and others pleaded for when the battle - and the war - might still have been won for the South.

Finally, lest readers think this is merely the wishful thinking of an "unreconstructed Rebel," Alexander explains: "I sincerely hope no reader will conclude that this book's title implies in any way that I am advocating some reappraisal of the Lost Cause or some nostalgic longing for what is gone with the wind ... This book is about something entirely different ... My purpose is to show that, despite the odds, wars are won by human beings. When superior military leaders come along and political leaders pay attention to them, they can overcome great power and great strength. That is the lesson we need to remember today."

That lesson shines through in Alexander's superbly written, cogently argued and ingeniously conceived new book.

The problem that the South had in the Civil War was that the North not only had all the industry but it had about two and a half times the population. In years gone by it had been occasionally possible for a smaller country to defeat a larger one. Frederick the Great of Prussia had, in years gone by, been able to use superior strategy to overcome more numerous opponents. However the development of the rifle as an infantry weapon made battles much more difficult to win and drawish. Probably the real question about the civil war is not if the South could have won by why it took the North so long to win. The reason for that was of course that in 1860 the total army of the US was only about 10,000 and what both sides had to do was to build up armies and to develop the skills to lead them.

But we have diverged from the issue at hand. The author of this book suggests three ways the South could have won. These are following up the first battle of Bull Run by taking Washington. The second was to have a series of raids into the north in the same way that Sherman did in the South towards the end of the war. The last is to use the secret strategy of Stonewall Jackson.

None of these suggestions really passes any close examination. If the Southern forces had advanced after Bull Run it is not clear that they could have captured Washington. However if they did what is to suggest it would have ended the war? In the revolutionary war what was to become the United States had its two largest cities occupied by the British but that had no effect on the wars outcome. Later in the war of 1812 the British conquered and burned Washington.

In the same way it is not clear how a Southern Army advancing into the north would have led to victory. The burning of a few railroads would not be the sortof thing to convince Lincoln and Congress to give in. In addition any army which moved north would face a real chance of being cut off from supply and forced to give in.

The last suggestion about the secret strategy of Jackson has been suggested by other authors. Early in the war Jackson had been able to defeat stupid Union commanders by concentrating his forces and then overwhelming their divided armies. However the author suggests that Jackson's secret strategy was to allow for an enemy to attack and then when the units were engaged to have a flanking movement. The problem is that in the civil war flanking movements almost never worked. (In battle as opposed to armies not in contact manouvering) The reason why was the mobility of troops because of the adoption of the rifle. Not only did the rifle make it more difficult for an attacker to move troops close to defensive positions but it also made it easier for defenders to move their troops around. It was possible to man lines with fewer troops and to extend the line. The movement of small numbers of troops to head off flanking movements meant that in practice it was hard in a battle for an attacker to move around the flank of any defensive units. The defender could use quite small units to extend the line and these units would be deadly.

The book gives quite a reasonable outline of the early battles in the east. It however attempts to trash the reputation of Lee by suggesting that he sought a strategy of destroying the enemy by pointless head on attacks. In fact Lee only used this method in two battles. One the seven days campaign when there was no real alternative as McCellan had moved his army so close to Richmond. The second was Gettysburgh which was in fact a major mistake.

However his other battles consisted of him keeping an army in being and manouvering around so that the Union forces had to attack him. With these battles he was almost always succesfull.

How the South Could Have Won the Civil War is a pure speculative look at situations where following a different military path would have led to a different result. The author's thesis rests on the fact that the three principle leaders of Confederate Army, Lee, Jackson and Davis each had different approaches to the conduct of the war that that Jackson's methods were the correct ones. That if followed, the South could have won the Civil War or at least had the opportunity to do so. Sadly, this is all wishful thinking for the author assumes that certain results would flow from certain actions. He often fails to fully understand the situation on the ground at the time or that outside forces would be acting to prevent what he suggest is an inevitable result.

While we may all speculate that certain actions would be probable we must have a good understanding of what was reality at the time. This the author fails to do. Finally, a careful reading of the author's statements will show errors in fact; in one case he states as fact something that was not even a reality until after the war when popular opinion had turned against Longstreet. While an enjoyable read and fun to speculate there are too many errors and omissions of fact to substantiate the author's case. Read this book for enjoyment but be careful of statements made as fact. Not recommended as plausible history.