Assaulting With Success: Part 1

Chickamauga

Longstreet had his best day of the war two months later, at Chickamauga. In the aftermath of Gettysburg, Longstreet's First Corps detached from Virginia and went west to join Bragg's Army in Tennessee. Bragg, reinforced by this and other arrivals, determined to attack his opponent just south of the TennesseeGeorgia state line, along West Chickamauga Creek. Longstreet arrived on the field after the first day of righting was over. It was an inconclusive action that neither side could call a victory. Upon Longstreet's arrival, Bragg took a startling step. He completely reorganized his army into two wings. One was lead by Longstreet and the other by Polk, the highest ranking corps commander in the Army of Tennessee.

Longstreet faced a gargantuan task. Arriving after midnight, he had to locate the scattered elements of his new command in the dark forests of completely unfamiliar terrain. Only his own nine brigades were familiar troops. Pickett's Division remained behind in Richmond to recover from its famous charge. Hood commanded the Corps, with Law and McLaws leading the divisions. To make matters worse, only five of his brigades were on the field. The rest of the infantry and all the corps artillery failed to arrive in time for the fighting.

Bragg's plan called for a dawn attack with Polk's troops farther north. Once the Federal attention was drawn there, Longstreet would hit the Union center. Polk failed to deliver the dawn attack or any coordinated attack at all. About 10:00 a.m., his command began a series of fruitless, piecemeal frontal attacks against the Union forces. These lasted for several hours but accomplished little. Longstreet rose to the challenge. He had located his various forces by 11:00 am. and assembled them into a powerful attack column of great depth. He was ready to go.

This time the attack had the requisite strength. Longstreet commanded 17 brigades in six divisions after deducting the first day's losses, about 21,000 men. What was more important, he could concentrate these forces on a relatively narrow frontage. He deployed three divisions abreast of each other, facing west along the Lafayette Road. Stewart's Division was northernmost. Johnson's held the center, and Hindman's was on the south flank. Each lead division had two brigades in the front line and one in support. Behind Johnson were Law's men, in two more supporting lines. Kershaw's two brigades were in a final line. At the point of concentration, Longstreet had no less than one attacking and four supporting battle lines. The frontage of the entire attack was slightly more than a mile from north to south. The remaining division, Preston's, was farther south to protect the flank of the attacking force as it advanced.

Longstreet's men went forward and got lucky. The Union commander had left a gap located directly in front of Johnson's Rebels. The result was a Federal disaster. The Rebels drove four of the ten Union divisions from the field in less than an hour. Almost half of Rosecrans' army fled. The other half, under Thomas, pulled back to Snodgrass Hill. Longstreet turned his attention to Thomas' men and hammered on the Federal position.

By 5:30, Thomas decided to withdraw because he realized that his men could no longer with stand the pressure of Bragg's entire army. The days end found the Rebels victorious but severely weakened. However, Bragg failed to grasp the extent of his victory and Chickamauga did little to change the outcome of the war in the end.

Longstreet's attack benefited tremendously from the gap in the Union lines. However, only the tight tactical control he maintained on the advance allowed him to drive the Union completely from the field. The choice of deployments created a depth of attack and degree of control that made it possible to flank the Union defenders each time they tried to stand. After the initial success, Longstreet pivoted 90 degrees with a minimum of reorganization time and attacked Thomas' flank. The pivot was, perhaps, the most spectacular aspect of Longstreet's attack. It was quite a feat given the state of battlefield communications in 1863. The attacks against Thomas were bloodier but finally forced the last Union troops to withdraw. Still, the Union infantry of the l4th and Reserve Corps had held long enough to preclude any Rebel pursuit that day.

The Wilderness

The Wilderness saw the last of Longstreet's four great attacks and concluded the middle phase of the war. Longstreet's men arrived on the morning of the 6th of May, the second day of the battle. A powerful dawn attack by Union General Hancock's Second Corps drove the troops of A. P. Hill's CSA Third Corps who were badly disorganized from the previous night's fight. Longstreet's troops arrived and counterattacked, halting the Federals. They slowly drove back Hancock's line and reached Hill's starting positions by 10:00 a.m.

A scout brought word that the Union southern flank was unprotected, extending only a short way past the Plank Road which was the axis of advance for both Hancock and Longstreet until now. He also informed them that an abandoned RR cut provided a concealed route of approach for a flanking attack. Longstreet quickly and methodically assembled an attacking force. He selected three brigades mostly due to proximity and in the interests of time. Anderson's, Wofford's, and Mahone's Brigades got the job. At the last minute Davis' Brigade volunteered. Mahone had command and, within an hour, they were in place.

In the meantime, Longstreet reorganized the rest of his command for a supporting attack once Mahone began. The remainder of Field's, Kershaw's and Anderson's Divisions deployed frontally. These ten brigades were in line along 3/4 mile of frontage. It is difficult to determine the exact order of placement. Given the size of the force and the frontage, Longstreet's formation was probably two to three battle lines deep.

Mahone advanced around 11:00 a.m., achieving complete surprise. Longstreet's main force joined in. The Union flank collapsed and fell back in disorder to the Brock Road. The Confederate General Smith, chief engineer, reported that they could repeat the morning's maneuver on a grander scale. If another flanking force moved to the south and attacked astride the Brock Road (perpendicular to the Plank Road), they could shatter the already fragile Union 2nd Corps. This would menace the entire Federal rear and enable them to threaten the massive supply trains and lines of communication back to the Rapidan River fords.

Again, Longstreet grabbed whatever troops were available. However, this time they were mostly in the same division- Kershaw's. His remaining three brigades were already in place on the south. Jenkin's brigade was in reserve and joined Kershaw's command. Longstreet outlined the plan to Kershaw and numerous other officers. However, before he could finish, fire from his own troops seriously wounded him. Longstreet was the only officer who had a grasp of the complete positions and plans of his men. Given the ad-hoc nature of the attacks of the morning there was little time to explain fully the details to everyone involved. Longstreet improvised, grabbing brigades wherever he found them and seizing on fleeting opportunities. When he got wounded, no one was prepared to step in. The second flanking effort never got started and the opportunity passed. Later in the day Lee renewed the attack as a straight frontal assault. The attack did break one Federal division but never came close to success.

As with all lost opportunities, others greatly exaggerated its importance later. In reality, Kershaw's attack might have seriously disrupted the Union army and Grant's plans, but would have hardly destroyed the Army of the Potomac. At most, it would have forced Grant back across the Rapidan to save his trains.

Longstreet assembled this offensive on the fly, reminiscent of the efficiency with which he took charge at Chickamauga. In the tangled growth of the Wilderness, both Armies had major difficulties coordinating even brigade movements. It is significant that Longstreet again managed to use all his forces in concert.

Comparisons: Shiloh

Now it is time to contrast success with failure. A cursory look at several other Confederate attacks might give some clue about what could go wrong. It may not be fair to contrast the above actions with Shiloh, which occurred within the period of my "phase one " definition. However, it is an excellent example of over-ambition. Shiloh is significant because it provides illustration of an improper deployment.

The Rebels deployed their attacking army in two lines. The first line consisted of three brigades over 1500 yards, the second of six brigades over 1700 yards. Polk's First Corps was in line, in column of brigades, behind the second line in support, and the Reserve Corps, also in line in column of brigades, behind Polk. Each front in the two front lines had a frontage of three brigades. The single supporting line consisted of a different corps than the leaders. The two corps in column fed into gaps in the line as it advanced and broadened the attack frontage rather than adding depth. As the battle developed, this formation produced endless confusion. Eventually, each significant commander agreed to direct a portion of the attack in his own vicinity, regardless of chain of command. The net result was conflicting orders, commanders unfamiliar to the men and chaos.

One of the major participants at Shiloh who observed the mess first hand still promulgated nearly the same mess at Murfreesburo. He again spread his division over too long a line and failed to provide adequate support. That time the subordinate commanders adopted the Shiloh solution beforehand, agreeing to direct only a portion of the field. Still, there was major confusion among the attacking Rebels.

Comparisons: Chancellorsville

In self defense, I should say something about the traditionally accepted "best Rebel attack of the War", Jackson at Chancellorsville. Since the net result was that the Union army withdrew in defeat, many will claim that I missed this one or accuse me of being a 'Jackson Hater'. I will not argue that Lee and Jackson beat the hell out of Joe Hooker; they did. However, the real damage to the Army of the Potomac was minimal. Jackson's attack was not a failure, but it was wanting.

In fact, Jackson handled the attack poorly in tactical terms. Jackson's 2nd Corps marched about 12 miles in 8 hours (slower than Longstreet at Gettysburg) and consumed a further 1 1/2 hours deploying into battle line. His column was discovered early 'in its move, but only one Federal corps commander moved to interfere. Hooker allowed Jackson to continue. Jackson's main mistake was in his deployment. He placed each of the three divisions, one behind the other, in a single battle line over a mile in length. As at Shiloh, this was too long a frontage for a division commander to control effectively especially in the dense underbrush of the Wilderness. The supporting lines were separate commands from each other and the lead line. Deploying each division one beside another on a one or two brigade frontage would have saved time and increased the tactical control of the divisional commanders.

Time was critical. Jackson's attack was not ready even at 5:00 p.m., but he decided to begin because dark was approaching. The assault by 25,000 Rebels surprised the 11,000 men of the Union 11th Corps and routed them but achieved little else. The 11th Corps lost 2400 men in this action. It was a heavy loss but not a crippling one. More important, the Federals needed few others to stop Jackson. The faulty Rebel formation had already done that. Mingling of the first two lines caused massive confusion. Coupled with increasing darkness, the Rebel attack came to a jumbled halt. A. P. Hill's division did not even get in the fight. Jackson was wounded after dark and, unlike Longstreet a year later, would have had little chance of resuming a successful attack that night even if he had not been injured.

Jackson's attack involved the greater portion of Lee's available men, 30,000 troops, but only disrupted one Union corps. The bulk of Hooker's army remained full of fight. It was the Federal commander, not his army, that Jackson defeated. The one significant attribute Jackson displayed was daring which finally persuaded Hooker to give up. It was an important moral victory and I do not discount it. In actual tactical terms, however, Lee got much too small a return for his investment of 30,000 troops. Jackson could have done much better. The afterglow of Hooker's shocking collapse and the romanticized demise of "Stonewall" obscure an objective analysis of the attack.

Tactical Threads

Two distinct tactical threads run through all of these four attacks. They are the bedrock of Longstreet's tactical success. He consistently employed narrow divisional frontages, never more than two brigades wide. This practice ensured tactical control by his divisional commanders. He also employed great depth wherever possible, guaranteeing plenty of tactical reserves. As we have seen, his formations were sometimes as much as seven lines deep. They were coherent as well. Due to the limited divisional frontages used, the front and the support were often part of the same division, giving a level of co-operation and unity of command. A lack of such unity disrupted many other attacks preventing complete success.

Longstreet was a man who knew when to attack, not just how. He preferred the defense, because he recognized that the defender possessed significant advantages. He always sought to gain the tactical advantage in a situation. When ordered to or when offered a fleeting battlefield opportunity, Longstreet could switch to the attack rapidly. His performance at both Chickamauga and The Wilderness demonstrate how quickly he could assimilate, evaluate, and act upon a situation. Yet, his greatest skill was in coordinating the efforts of numerous brigades to orchestrate simultaneous and controlled effort. There are dozens of examples of attacks deteriorating into piecemeal brigade or divisional actions, Union and Confederate. Longstreet consistently proved that he could make the many act as one.