General (then Major) Edward Porter Alexander thought so. This opinion, found in Alexander's personal recollections Fighting for the Confederacy, comes from a participant whose judgments deserve the utmost consideration. His memoir is one of the very best to come out of the Civil War, or any war for that matter. I think it is matched only by Grant's. Alexander's insightful analysis and intelligent review of both events and personalities is of the highest order.
Porter Alexander's assessment of the battle of Glendale on 30 June, 1862, which is covered in Malvern Hill (The Gamers' newest and final release in their Seven Days triumvirate), is sure to whet the gaming appetites of anyone interested in this campaign. I have been eagerly anticipating this opportunity to test Alexander's views, especially his criticisms of Stonewall Jackson, ever since the series started. I want to congratulate and thank Dave Powell, Dean Essig, and everyone else at The Gamers who make such wonderful games possible. Now having run through the scenario on Glendale, I can say that Malvern Hill comes up to the high expectations set by the first two games in the series (Gaines Mill and Seven Pines).
Alexander believed that on two separate occasions (a third might possibly be included) "we were within reach of military successes so great that we might have hoped to end the war...(the) chance of June 30th '62 impresses me as the best of all." Apart from other significant and puzzling aspects, with which this battle abounds, this alone makes Glendale a fascinating subject for study and recreation. It is interesting that Alexander did not include Gettysburg in his list. The eminent British military historian Colonel G.F.R. Henderson, in his brilliant biography of Stonewall Jackson, wrote that Glendale was "the crisis of the 'Seven Days.' Had Lee been able to concentrate his whole strength against the Federals it is probable that McClellan would never have reached the James."
Primarily because of the nature of defensive warfare as it had developed by the middle of the nineteenth century, and the weapons then in use, it was very difficult for any army to win a truly decisive victory. It was common for Civil War engagements to conclude with the winners being as exhausted and disorganized as the losers. Finding your army in a position that legitimately gave you an opportunity to defeat your enemy in detail was a very rare thing indeed.
That a soldier of Alexander's experience could see in the circumstances of Glendale a possible end to the war marks this battle as unique. It is hard to imagine a situation with more drama or a game that presents a more dazzling challenge!
The depth of Alexander's disappointment concerning Jackson can be seen in every word of this comment, "When one thinks of the great chances in General Lee's grasp that one summer afternoon, it is enough to make one cry to go over the story how they were all lost. And to think too that our Stonewall Jackson lost them...never, before or after, did the fates put such a prize within our reach." Was Jackson to blame for the loss of this last golden opportunity to destroy the Army of the Potomac before it escaped to the sheltering fire of the Union gunboats on the James? Was he primarily responsible for the tragic sequence of Confederate miscues that led to the slaughter of Malvern Hill? This is the stuff that great wargames are made of.
D.H. Hill's men attempted to repair the White Oak Bridge under Federal musket and artillery fire. Getting the bridge repaired in time to affect the outcome at the Glendale crossroads does appear to have been impossible. But as Clifford Dowdey writes in The Seven Days: the Emergence of Lee, "He (Jackson) need not have crossed the swamp in order to affect the battle." Colonel Thomas Munford's cavalry discovered a crossing suitable for infantry a quarter mile downstream.
General Wade Hampton found another usable passage across the swamp, also a short distance east of the bridge. It was Jackson's failure to use these crossing sites that Alexander, and many others, have found so inexplicable and blameworthy. Dowdey, echoing Alexander, contends that infantry crossing at the site discovered by Hampton, and forces supporting Wright at Brackett's Ford, along with the artillery bombardment at White Oak Bridge, "would beyond speculation have profoundly affected the action at Glendale."
Franklin, commanding the Federal troops opposing Jackson, is among many who believe that Brackett's Ford was the key to the tactical situation. Years later he wrote: "When he (Jackson) found how strenuous was our defence at the bridge, he should have turned his attention to Brackett's Ford...In fact, it is likely that we should have been defeated that day had General Jackson done what his great reputation seems to make it imperative he should have done."
Alexander considered Franklin's statement of great significance. But Henderson reflects the view of others when he writes, "General Franklin's opinion as to the ease with which Brackett's Ford might have been passed is not justified by the facts." Who is correct? Wargaming is one of the best ways to sift through the conflicting opinions.
Stephen Sears reaches the same conclusion as Dowdey in his excellent history of the Peninsula Campaign To The Gates of Richmond. Sears argues that if Jackson had used the passages available to him, he could have produced "a flanking movement so threatening to Franklin that he would not dare send reinforcements to the contest at Glendale . . . As it happened, the two brigades sent to Franklin by Sumner were returned in time to play an important role at Glendale, and two of Richardson's brigades also entered the fight. These 11,700 Yankee reinforcements were the literal measure of Stonewall Jackson's failure on June 30." After the battle, Longstreet criticized the Valley hero for not marching west when he found himself checked at White Oak Bridge or doing more to get his troops into the fight.
BLame?
It would appear from all the evidence that a large share of the blame must be shouldered by Jackson. But historian James I. Robertson, in his superb 1997 biography Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend, gives a different explanation for the great general's puzzling behavior. He presents a strong case that a message from Lee to Stuart and Jackson on 29 June, unknown to contemporary critics (like Alexander) and overlooked by most Jackson biographers, provides the key to understanding Stonewall's controversial movements over the next day and a half. Robertson writes that, "Its importance cannot be overemphasized."
By this poorly written communique, which is quoted in full in Robertson's book, Jackson would have understood that Lee was now ordering him to guard the Chickahominy bridges (not cross them), and to resist the passage of (not attack) any enemy troops who attempted to cross the river. Jackson would have viewed this as a change in Lee's orders. The conclusion this account leads to is that on 30 June Stonewall did not fail in doing his duty, but carried out his orders as he now understood them.
This also best explains his response to General Jones' messenger asking when his troops would arrive to support Magruder. Jackson sent a messenger back to inform Jones that he could not join Magruder because he had "other important duty to perform." Likewise, when two weeks later an officer raised the question of why Jackson did not go to the aid of Longstreet and A.P. Hill at Glendale, he responded, "If General Lee had wanted me, he could have sent for me." Sears concurs that this misunderstood message best explains what happened. Lee's poor staff work was at fault.
While Douglas Southall Freeman thoroughly reviews the various explanations for Jackson's uncharacteristic failure in his landmark biography R. E. Lee, he doesn't deal with this communique. Alexander blamed Jackson's religious convictions, a view which doesn't stand up. Robertson has also written a fine biography of A. P. Hill in which he thoroughly discusses the venereal disease Hill contracted as a cadet at West Point. This was "the tragedy of his life" and had a profound impact on Hill's performance as a commander in several campaigns. The treatment for venereal disease in the nineteenth century was also a "tragedy."
The battle at Glendale raises tantalizing questions concerning the consequences of the participants' actions and failures to act. Was Edward Porter Alexander correct in his belief that this was the South's best opportunity to end the war in an afternoon? Was he right in asserting that it was Jackson's failure to carry out his part of Lee's plan, along with the absence of a properly working staff, that lost for the Confederacy this golden moment? Could Jackson have crossed White Oak Swamp to threaten the Federal position from flank and rear if he had started sooner and displayed greater initiative? Could he have succeeded by using Brackett's Ford and the other crossings that were found? Could Old Jack have drawn off enough Union troops to affect the outcome without having to actually cross the swamp? With an efficiently operating staff, could Lee have orchestrated the destruction of the "Young Napoleon's" army even if Stonewall wasn't functioning up to snuff?
I have been intrigued by these possibilities ever since I first read Porter Alexander's immensely thought-provoking recollections. I have been enjoying wargames since the early Avalon Hill days in the 1960s, and I have been waiting for an accurate, balanced game with which to explore and -- who knows? -- maybe even answer some of these questions. Malvern Hill is the best tool I've seen to turn back the clock to those fateful days in the summer of '62.
Investigating the "what-ifs" of history is one of the most rewarding aspects of solitaire gaming. I enjoy those games in which crucial changes in tactics or planning can lead to dramatically different outcomes. To begin an exploration of what might have happened on the sixth (or by a different dating the fifth) of the Seven Days, the first gaming step is to alter the existing scenario so that it frames the military "might-have-been" with as much reality as possible. The situation I wanted to create was a version of Lee's army that would function as Alexander believed would have been possible with a more engaged Jackson and a better staff for the commanding general.
Variants for Scenario 1
The first change in Scenario 1: Jackson's Valley Army arrives two hours earlier than in the Confederate Reinforcement schedule.
The first change I made was in the Valley Army's arrival time. D.H. Hill was in the van of Jackson's column on that Monday morning. It took the leading units more than seven hours to march barely seven miles on their approach to White Oak Bridge. With nothing above normal exertion, the head of the column could easily have begun arriving by 9:00 a.m., two hours earlier than the time given in the scenario's Confederate Reinforcement schedule. Although the Federals did not destroy the bridge until 10:00 a.m., according to General Richardson, they surely would have fired it earlier had the Confederates arrived earlier. So we will leave the bridge destroyed.
The next change concerns the initial orders given to Jackson, Magruder, Holmes and Huger. These changes assume that Lee, while not having a chief of staff the caliber of Napoleon's Marshal Berthier, did have in place a capable staff. It assumes that the commanding general himself understood just how crucial it was that his orders be clearly communicated, and that his staff is there to ensure that those orders were carried out. The serious deficiency in this regard hamstrung the effectiveness of Lee's operations during the Seven Days. Alexander described how they waited hour after precious hour for Huger or Jackson to begin the battle at Glendale. All the while the priceless time was slipping away, never once did Lee send a staff officer to find out the reason for the delay.
To have a realistic chance of dealing the Yankee army a mortal blow, it is a necessary that Lee get all of his troops, not only Jackson's command, into the fight. Many of the brigades of the two Hills and Longstreet, which have done most of the fighting so far, have suffered heavy casualties and will become wrecked quickly. Therefore, it is essential that the fresh units do their part. The Union generals must see threats coming from every direction. This overriding concern governs the changes that must be made in the orders to Lee's subordinate commanders.
Both Munford and Hampton wrote that the passages they found were beyond the Union flank. Munford expected Jackson to attempt a crossing; Hampton asked for permission to lead his brigade across, believing that if Franklin could be defeated the Federal army would be destroyed. It is impossible to know how many troops could have actually crossed because no attempt was made. Even if some had reached the south bank, the advantage of being on the enemy's flank might still have not materialized. The movement of a large body of men would probably have been quickly discovered. Still, the Yankees knew nothing of the great flank march at Chancellorsville until the rabbits, deer, and Rebels came pouring out of the woods.
This "what-if" is just too intriguing to pass up. One way to simulate the passages Munford and Hampton found would be to have a ford from hex I1.31 into hex I2.30 or I2.31. Another possibility is allowing hex I1.34 to be an entry hex. I think the first better models the reality. Jackson or a division commander must roll for initiative to use "Hampton's Ford."
Changed CSA Orders
Holmes and the Dept of NC are ordered to move southeast on the New Market Road to the River Road, then east to Crewes Channel. Assault Union forces east of Crewes Channel when Longstreet's guns signal the start of the attack.
Huger and Hu Div (including W-Hu) are ordered to move southeast to Hass Creek. Attack Federals southeast of Hass Creek when Longstreet's guns open. The Valley Army is ordered to attack "those people" south of White Oak Swamp when Longstreet begins his assault.
The Right Wing is ordered to move down the Darbytown Road to the Long Bridge Road, then east to support the Left Wing's attack.
The Left Wing will move as in Scenario 1 and attack at 1:00 p.m.
Jackson can detach one or two divisions to enter at I1.17 and use Brackett's Ford directly, which an aggressive reconnaissance would have brought to the attention of Lee and Jackson. Another change to consider is allowing both Huger and Holmes to be 1-rated leaders, due to the improved staff work. Jackson operates as a non-fluctuating 2-rated leader. He certainly was not at his best during this period, but with officers from Lee now regularly communicating with him and reporting back, I think we can expect a steady, if somewhat subdued performance from Stonewall.
Alexander thought Lee could have directed the battle more effectively if he had been with Huger in his more central location on the battlefield. He wrote that Lee "should have been in person with Huger, and have had reliable members of his staff with Jackson on his left and Longstreet and others on his right." Try having Lee, ANVa HQ and Supply enter with Huger. With the above changes in place everything is set to see if the war can be won in an afternoon. While the guns of Malvern Hill have blasted their way into history, it was the desperate drama of the previous day that held truly momentous consequences for both sides. The 1 July assault on those sinister heights was as ill-considered as the Pickett-Pettigrew charge at Gettysburg. General D.H. Hill said, "Had all our troops been at Frazer's Farm (Glendale), there would have been no Malvern Hill." Many veterans believed there should have been no Malvern Hill. Even if the war's end is an impossible dream, preventing the bloodbath of 1 July by a major victory on 30 June is a worthy goal to shoot for.
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