MAY 22, 1864:
Robert E. Lee has one advantage over Ulysses S. Grant and it is that the smaller, more compact, Army of Northern Virginia can move more quickly than the behemoth that is The Army of The Potomac, especially on its home ground. While it has thus far been Grant who has disengaged first and moved first during every step of the Overland Campaign, Lee always discovers where he is going and manages to get there first. And so it is today, as units of the Southern army assemble along the bank of the North Anna River.
Grant, in transit, has a few moments to attend to military housekeeping, and so he issues orders officially bringing the Union’s Red River Campaign to an end. In three months of fighting the Union has accomplished precisely none of its objectives in the Campaign, the major ones being the restoration of all of Arkansas and Louisiana to the Union. A vast combined Army-Navy undertaking, the Red River Campaign has descended from an offensive to merely being offensive.
Small, ill-equipped, but fast-moving Confederate units have been able to harry the large, better-equipped Union forces all during the Campaign. As a result the Union troops have returned to their starting points, neither defeated nor victorious, but merely brought to a standstill. All in all, the Campaign has degenerated into a huge waste of materiel and lives.
Grant might be able to damn his uncertain commanders, but he is experiencing the same unyielding resistance in Virginia. Unlike all his subordinates though, Grant understands that the Civil War is a war of attrition --- engage the enemy, stay engaged, and wear them down slowly but surely with the inevitability of gravity. The cost is high, Grant admits, but the Confederacy is gobbling its seed corn to continue the fight. It is just a matter of time.
Still, Grant is aware that the Campaign in the Western Theatre is good and finally over when he reads reports of the Battles of Mansura, Louisiana (May 16) and Yellow Bayou, Texas (May 18). In both battles neither side recorded any casualties. A Civil War battle without casualties is a rare blessing indeed; but to have two consecutive battles without casualties in the same Campaign is a sign that the fight has gone out of both friend and foe. In modern parlance, they could have stayed home and phoned it in.
Reading these field reports, Grant ends the Campaign. Portions of Louisiana and Arkansas will remain in rebel hands for the balance of the war. This is regrettable, but Lieutenant General U.S. Grant knows two things: One, that victory in the East will mean victory, and two, that he will need those troops and ships to obtain that victory. The Red River Campaign is over.
Robert E. Lee has one advantage over Ulysses S. Grant and it is that the smaller, more compact, Army of Northern Virginia can move more quickly than the behemoth that is The Army of The Potomac, especially on its home ground. While it has thus far been Grant who has disengaged first and moved first during every step of the Overland Campaign, Lee always discovers where he is going and manages to get there first. And so it is today, as units of the Southern army assemble along the bank of the North Anna River.
Grant, in transit, has a few moments to attend to military housekeeping, and so he issues orders officially bringing the Union’s Red River Campaign to an end. In three months of fighting the Union has accomplished precisely none of its objectives in the Campaign, the major ones being the restoration of all of Arkansas and Louisiana to the Union. A vast combined Army-Navy undertaking, the Red River Campaign has descended from an offensive to merely being offensive.
Small, ill-equipped, but fast-moving Confederate units have been able to harry the large, better-equipped Union forces all during the Campaign. As a result the Union troops have returned to their starting points, neither defeated nor victorious, but merely brought to a standstill. All in all, the Campaign has degenerated into a huge waste of materiel and lives.
Grant might be able to damn his uncertain commanders, but he is experiencing the same unyielding resistance in Virginia. Unlike all his subordinates though, Grant understands that the Civil War is a war of attrition --- engage the enemy, stay engaged, and wear them down slowly but surely with the inevitability of gravity. The cost is high, Grant admits, but the Confederacy is gobbling its seed corn to continue the fight. It is just a matter of time.
Still, Grant is aware that the Campaign in the Western Theatre is good and finally over when he reads reports of the Battles of Mansura, Louisiana (May 16) and Yellow Bayou, Texas (May 18). In both battles neither side recorded any casualties. A Civil War battle without casualties is a rare blessing indeed; but to have two consecutive battles without casualties in the same Campaign is a sign that the fight has gone out of both friend and foe. In modern parlance, they could have stayed home and phoned it in.
Reading these field reports, Grant ends the Campaign. Portions of Louisiana and Arkansas will remain in rebel hands for the balance of the war. This is regrettable, but Lieutenant General U.S. Grant knows two things: One, that victory in the East will mean victory, and two, that he will need those troops and ships to obtain that victory. The Red River Campaign is over.
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