ITT: Jow Forums in 1861

>Outgoing president Buchanan told Lincoln "Sir, if you are as happy about assuming the office of president as I am of leaving it, then you truly are a happy man." He went on to advise Lincoln that the White House had two wells, one off the East Wing and one off the West Wing, and to avoid drinking from the former at all costs.

I know that feel, bro. Fuck redskins.

TRY AND STOP US, YANKS

An army bigger than anything ever seen in the Americas before, consisting of kids from Boston, NYC and Philly who've never fired a gun before, led by a general who's only ever done staff work and never commanded troops in the field.

What could possibly go wrong?

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>The Los Angeles County sheriff just enlisted in the Confederate army lmao
Good luck crossing the desert to get to the Confederacy. Hopefully he doesn't get bit by rattlesnakes or skinned alive by Apaches on the way.

It's 133 more years until Justin Bieber is born. Enjoy it while it lasts.

>Command of the US Army lay in the hands of the 74 year old Winfield Scott, who was severely obese and unable to mount a horse. Scott drew up a plan for crushing the rebellion which involved a naval blockade of Southern ports followed by an attack down the Mississippi to cut off the Confederacy from the rear. It was widely dubbed the Anaconda Plan in the press and rejected by the Lincoln Administration who were eager for a quick 90 day victory.

Or maybe we actually do want that to happen. ;)

>slightly less shitty neighbors
>still filthy rich and peaceful
ok

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so now we're french ? cool

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Whoops.

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Well that was sad. Maybe we should try training a real army from now on...

They reckon now it may take until next summer before Richmond falls. Pity...

what should i do?
become a railroadman in the boetenrepublics, or a plantation owner in the east?

Three thousand men killed and wounded. Heaven above, what a slaughter. At least it can never get worse than that, right?

Eat shit, secess.

Come settle in Minnesota. She's only been in the union three years and needs settlers.

>DOWN WITH THE TRAITORS, UP WITH THE STARS!

*hack* damn, my lung look like DAT?

>want to immigrate to yankland
>cant since people keep us as white niggers
I bet the swedes are behind this

I was thinking about emigrating soon actually. America seems like a nice, peaceful place.

>America seems like a nice, peaceful place

It is out here in Oregon anyway. ;)

2012 wants their joke back

You made him, moosenigger.

The Commonwealth of Kentucky hereby proclaims its neutrality in this war. Neither the armies of the North or South shall be permitted on our soil.

Fuck you Billy. We want only to assert our sovereignty. Stop trying to colonize us.

Avanti Savoia!

Looks like a fun place. Maybe I'll come visit some day in the next decade if things don't turn out so favorably here in the South.

Ok, good luck with that. We're all rooting for you.

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Have you any surplus rifles to sell, Pierre? We're looking to buy since these ancient flintlocks from the '30s aren't cutting it.

>Wrote an officer of the 3rd New York in the dazed weeks following the rout at Bull Run, "Tonight not 200 men are in camp. A hundred men are drunk, another hundred at houses of ill fame. Capt. Catlin, Capt. Hurlbut, Lt. Cooper, and one or two other officers are under arrest. Col. Alford is very drunk all the time now."

Oh God, who'd have thought a musket ball in the groin could hurt this badly.

Take a shot of whiskey and the surgeon will extract the ball. And pray you don't succumb to gangrene.

EAT MY NORTHERN COCK DIXIEFAGS
THE UNION IS FOREVER

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This rebellion is going to be harder to put down than it looks.

It’s the same but everything’s in black and white and I’ll probably die of dysentry

America what the fuck?!

t. Crypto Shitalian

Imagine the fools and the politicians (can be used interchangeably) who thought this would be like suppressing a band of rioters in the town square.

>tfw uniting at last
Maybe the Turks are finally gonna leave us alone

A champion has arisen! I shall forge a real army out of this mob and we shall be in Richmond within a year's time and put an end to this rebellion.

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The pic of American War of Independence which was painted by a Japanese

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*dies of measles during basic training*

Accurate

>tfw want to die
How can I compete with the Chad Dixie? I might as well rot on a farm.

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>tfw in Civil War

Ah fuck, we can't never get out of this shit

He should have had buns, hon.

Sherman wasn't that prominent yet in 1861. He commanded a brigade at Bull Run and was one of the few Union officers to display above-average performance. Afterwards, he requested and got a transfer to the West, where he said the "real" war would be fought.

In stark contrast with his later reputation, he was notorious for trying to stop soldiers from foraging during the initial march down from Washington DC. He'd go up and down the lines saying "Stay in column. Do not chase the pigs and chickens." There's a story that he confronted some soldier holding a slab of meat on his shoulder and reminded him of the orders against foraging to which, the soldier replied "But Colonel, I was hungry and it was rebel mutton anyhow."

These ancient muskets we got from the state armory can't even hit the side of a barn. I wonder when they'll issue us some of those Enfields they're buying over in England. Oh well, we've got the whole winter to worry about that.

We just adopted our own currency (first ones minted 1860), the finnish 'silver' markka. Markka having already been established as measure of volume and had already been widely used as currency (even under Swedish rule) in Finland (one markka of this, one markka of that), but the finnish 'silver' markka made it an official currency.

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My knowledge of the Civil War primarily comes from 10th grade history, Ken Burns' The Civil War, and memes. My understanding of Sherman in 1861 was that Manassas nearly destroyed his self-confidence, and that was what he was mainly known for at the time. Quite the contrast from the man who would eventually dab so hard on Southerners as to cause eternal seething.

Dear Diary. Today we had another live fire drill. We're starting to feel like real soldiers now who can take on anything they throw at us (not so much the 20 or so boys who died of dysentery and fever the other week, rest in peace). Genl. McClellan visited camp and everyone threw up a cheer so loud Jeff Davis must've heard it in Richmond. The Rebs have sure built some wicked entrenchments down there at Bull Run since the battle took place. They must have at least 100,000 men and 200 cannons. I suppose we're not doing anything more this year and it'll be sometime next April when we march.

Actually it was while holding independent command in Kentucky at the start of 1862 that he had a mental breakdown and he credited Grant with saving him from his demons.

Oh hey, we now exist

Fucking stupid ass hicks launching a rebellion cause they want to keep their slaves, now I'm being drafted :/

McDowell had no experience with field command. His battle plan was imaginative but impossible to execute with the green troops he had. Aside from Sherman, the brigade and division commanders he had were not very good and none of them would go on to establish any kind of successful record in the war.

>Samuel Heintzelman
>Burnside
>David Hunter
>Erasmus Keyes

Real bunch of winners there.

They didn't start using the draft until 1863 (Confederates used it from spring 1862 though).

Also he didn't want to move out and he knew the army wasn't ready, but political pressure. Winfield Scott didn't think McDowell was the right guy for the job due to his aforementioned lack of experience in field command. Scott had thought Robert E. Lee was the best choice until he resigned his commission after Virginia seceded. With Lee gone, Scott favored Gen. Joseph Mansfield followed by other ranking officers like Heintzelman, Hunter, and Charles Stone. Though I doubt any of those guys would have fared better.

He made several key mistakes during the battle, but still they need not have been fatal if that ancient fuck Robert Patterson hadn't gotten bamboozled in the Shenandoah Valley and come to reinforce him.

If dubs we invade Vietnam

From what I understand, Spain didn't recognize the independence of its Latin American colonies until some time in the 1860s.

Anyway, Patterson's subordinates weren't exactly aggressive and the old fart (he was crowning 70) didn't have the energy or willpower to do anything about it. Grant actually claimed McDowell had "the best battle plan of the war" but his troops were too inexperienced to carry it out especially when they weren't conditioned to army life and were marching around in the blazing summer heat. The early morning flank march wore a lot of men out and by the time the battle was on, they were dropping from exhaustion.

And arguably no US Army officer had ever commanded 37,000 men at once.

The division commanders (Daniel Tyler, Samuel Heinzelman, David Hunter, and Dixon Miles)...none of them amounted to squat and two could barely even be called incompetent. The brigade commanders were also all over the map. I'm not sure if any Union commander in the war went into battle with as poor a cast of subordinates as McDowell did.

Denmark, Austria, France bout to be dabbed on

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Looking at the brigade commanders:

Sherman: Ditto
Burnside: Enough has been written about the man that we don't need to repeat it.
Israel Richardson: Headed for big things had he not met his untimely demise at Antietam
Oliver Howard: Bit of a mixed record but did have some real moments in the sun and after the war fighting Indians
Erasmus Keyes: Aliented powerful people, didn't get to do as much as he could have
Robert Schneck: Political appointee who had no military qualifications or skills
Andrew Porter: Eventual provost marshal of the Army of the Potomac. Forced into retirement in 1864 for health reasons.
William Franklin: Corps command under McClellan, got fucked from the Porter debacle, eventually participated in the ill-starred Red River Campaign.
Orlando Willcox: Eventual division commander during Petersburg, decent if not amazing record.

So not as terrible as the division commanders and some actual talent there. The regimental level would have some major names like Alfred Terry, Henry Slocum, Andrew McCook, and Henry Hunt.

FREEEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

We're not far behind. Give it another four years. ;)

>And arguably no US Army officer had ever commanded 37,000 men at once

37,000 men would be a moderate-sized army...by European standards. Yes nobody in the US had any experience commanding what would be the population of a medium-sized city at the time, or much experience fighting a proper war. The War of 1812 was half a century earlier, as distant as Vietnam is from 2019 and only certified Old Farts (TM) like Winfield Scott and Robert Patterson had been around for that. The Mexican War was much more recent and many of the officers at Bull Run had served there, but it was still a very much smaller conflict and still fought in the old-fashioned method with line infantry and smoothbore muskets.

Remember that the Confederate side was no better off in the that regard.

About time

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They said McClellan had the slows, but in this particular case he was absolutely correct that he needed a _lot_ of time to prepare the army. The White House initially hoped for a second thrust in fall 1861 but it soon became clear that that wasn't happening. Lincoln then went so far as to order a general offensive from all Union armies on February 22, 1862, Washington's Birthday. In the 1863 and 64 campaigns, May was considered the beginning of the active campaigning season in the Virginia theater and spring 1862 had also been an unbelievably wet one across North America. California was drowning and there were raging storms in the Atlantic. Of course, Lincoln's order to march on February 22 amounted to nothing due to logistics problems, but the "Take Richmond in 90 Days" mentality was still holding strong and McClellan was forced to break camp in April, a full month before he should have, and as a result the Peninsula Campaign kept getting delayed by rains that turned the dirt roads of Virginia into bottomless pits of mud.

Shut up nerd

By European standards, the degree of battlefield tactics in the ACW was also appallingly bad. Staff work was primitive from beginning to end of the war and most formations never got beyond rudimentary tactics or even mastered basic marksmanship. But you do have to respect how quickly everyone figured out how to handle huge bodies of troops which had never been done before in the American military experience.

Plus regular officers weren't used to handling volunteer troops. It's actually another argument in favor of longer training times - enough training and McDowell's men will act like he expects.

Clausewitz said that all war is friction; regular or well-trained troops reduce the amount of avoidable friction involved in basic maneuvers.

We could probably all agree that the army that McDowell took down to Bull Run had no business being there. Barely any cavalry, shit staff work, shit reconnaissance, undertrained troops, officers, and NCOs. It was all they had though and Lincoln was under huge pressure to do something. The Confederates had many of the same problems and if Joe Johnson hadn't been able to escape Patterson in the Valley, the outcome might have been a lot different.

McDowell had about 400 cavalrymen. His artillery amounted to 57 guns. Consider that at Gettysburg, the AOP numbered around 80,000 men and had 350 guns. Going by the same guns-to-total-men figure, they would have needed 120 at Bull Run. In any case, this army was extremely infantry-heavy.

>Erasmus Keyes: Alienated powerful people, didn't get to do as much as he could have
Became a corps commander on the Peninsula with Heintzelman, Sumner, Franklin, and Porter. Picked by Lincoln over McClellan's head--he wasn't happy with that, but the president claimed he only chose the corps commanders because McClellan wouldn't name anybody.

What's curious is how many times the AOP held "councils of war" to vote on something which sort of degrades the role of the commanding general since he becomes just another officer who can be outvoted. I guess it had something to do with the democratic nature of American society unlike in Europe where the commanding general's word was law and not up for a vote or questioning.

>Tfw living in missouri border state

Who the fuck do I join?

OH, IM A GOOD OL REBEL
NOW THATS JUST WHAT I AM

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WE WILL SEE ABOUT THAT.
I AM CALLING THE KAISER RIGHT NOW

Pussy