From: whale@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stephen Schmidt)
Subject: Re: Grant in the East (was Jackson at the Seven Days)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 09:07:20 GMT

In article <tecump.724721812@purple> tecump@purple.ucsb.edu (Dominic J. Dal bello) writes:
>whale@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stephen Schmidt) writes:
>
>>First, this point is right but the example is wrong: Bragg was a full
>>general while Longstreet was only a lieutenant general. (See R.H. Zimmerman
>
>i beg to differ.  if you read first hand accounts, and other
>accounts, i believe you will 
>find that there was some discussion as to who would command once 
>Longstreet arrived , but i will look it up.

I think the issue was not whether Bragg ranked Longstreet, but whether
Longstreet was under Bragg in the command structure or was an independent
commander (of lower rank.) I believe that they decided that Longstreet
was technically independent but he agreed to follow Bragg's orders anyway,
for the sake of a unified command of all troops present. Not sure of this.

>>The command of THE army is appointed by the President but the command of
>>a field army (ie, AotP, Army of the Cumberland, etc.) is not. It falls
>>to the senior general assigned to that field army. You can always pull
>>shenanigans here: for example, for 2nd Bull Run, most of AotP had been
>>sent to Pope but McClellan had not been ordered to proceed there, if he
>>had the battle would have been under his command and the (badly deluded)
>>administration wanted Pope to command. So they just sent all McClellan's
>>units to him :) but didn't send Little Mac along.
>
>You are overlooking the fact that the Pres. is the Commander in Chief of
>the Army.  A junior officer commands under Presidential order.
>If there is no commander specified, then of course it falls to the
>senior officer.  Now, how was Meade appointed?  By the President, even if
>the orders go through Halleck, it is the pres. who decides who will
>command, and it does not necessarily need to fall on the next senior
>officer, although it is the normal practice. 

We're gonna have to look this up: I think that the President MUST assign
the senior officer present to the command. If he doesn't want that officer
in command he must reassign him elsewhere. Again, unless the ranking officer
is willing to yield his privileges.

>The 2nd Bull Run thing is confusing at best.  Was not McClellan relieved
>of command of the Army of the Potomac? (although still commander of the
>ARMY) and his units ordered to support the Army of Virginia under Pope?

Hm, I am not sure. I think the units were placed under Pope's command,
which means out from under McClellan's. Things were a bit confused and
I'm sure Mac thought that he was being wronged, but he got command of
the whole force before he could force any decisions.
> 
>In any event, I think we should give Burnside more credit for knowing his
>own limitations, at least in 1862 when he tried to keep command of the AoftheP
>at arms length.  As a corps commander he was alright.  As an army commander,
>eh. But the command of the AoftP was Meade's, and would not be Burnsides.
>The 9th Corps wsa in fact put back in the AotP, and Meade, not Burnside,
>was the commander.  Grant did not have to be there. 

Even as a corps commander he was pretty bad... As above, I think there is no
way that Meade could have given orders to Burnside. The best Meade could
hope for was to act as independent commander, not under Burnside's orders
but not able to give him orders either. This was contrary to the whole point
of having them act together. :)  I think you are right that Burnside could
not have insisted on taking command of AotP, though. However, I think he
would have been justified in not being happy with the sitation of a divided
command (as would Meade have been.) If Grant had desired to attach IX Corps
to AotP, in that case I think Burnside would have been able to insist on
command of the joint force.
-- 
Steve Schmidt			<><		   whale@leland.stanford.edu
I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist
indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist
conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids!
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa