Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861-1862. - Review - book review

Parameters, Autumn, 2000

Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861-1862. By Joseph L. Harsh. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1998. 278 pages. $35.00.

Taken at the Flood: Robert E. Lee and Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862. By Joseph L. Harsh. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1999. 649 pages. $45.00.

Reviewed by Colonel Len Fullenkamp, USA Ret., Professor of Military History, US Army War College.

In William Shakespeare's epic play Julius Caesar, Brutus calls to arms his followers with these words:

Our legions are brimful, our cause is ripe:

The enemy increaseth every day;

We, at the height, are ready to decline.

There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries;

On such a full sea are we now afloat;

And we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures.

And so it was for the Confederacy in late summer 1862.

On the evening of his victory at 2d Manassas, General Robert E. Lee wrote confidently to Jefferson Davis, "The present seems to be the most propitious time since the commencement of the war for the Confederate Army to enter Maryland." If Davis did not concur at least he did not object, and shortly thereafter Lee undertook operations in Maryland, which ultimately led to the single bloodiest day of the war. Indeed, to some, Antietam was the turning point in the war, marking the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. But to focus an examination of the Antietam Campaign on 17 September, the day of the battle, is in Joseph Harsh's judgment to enter the movie in mid-reel. To understand Lee's campaign objectives, his operational plans and tactical orders, one must properly begin at the beginning.

Confederate Tide Rising serves as an introduction to Harsh's comprehensive campaign study. In six chapters tied to major events or pivotal decisions, Harsh traces the evolution of Confederate strategy from the spring of 1861 to late summer 1862, or in his words from "Sumter to 2d Manassas." As the chapters unfold, the reader is introduced to the principal strategic architects of Southern strategy, including Davis, Lee, P. G. T. Beauregard, and Joseph Johnston, to name only a few. In summary fashion, but no less thorough for being so--thanks to extensive endnotes, several excellent appendixes, and sharply reasoned analysis--the author critiques Davis's performance as commander-in-chief and his formulation and implementation of Confederate national military strategy, the much maligned "offensive-defensive." Although criticism of Davis as both strategist and commander-in-chief has become a staple of Civil War literature, what sets apart this critique is the evenhandedness with which Harsh treats his subject. Ye t as good as the analysis of Davis is, clearly the central figure in this study is Robert E. Lee, and the primary focus of the work is Lee's generalship.

About Lee's generalship much has been written. For decades after the war he enjoyed almost uniform praise for his leadership in what became known as "the Lost Cause." Later historians such as Thomas Connelly (The Marble Man) and Alan T. Noland (Lee Considered) have rendered more critical judgments. Most often Lee has been criticized for his obsession with protecting Virginia while states in the western Confederacy fell to Union forces. Others found fault with his combative nature, his willingness to engage Union forces in battle, too often trading precious Southern lives for strategic gains too meager to justify the human cost. Harsh disagrees with this analysis and summarizes his thesis as follows:

Critics have sometimes depicted him [Lee] as a general without an overall strategy, a brilliant practitioner who lacked farsightedness. This has not been my conclusion. It is possible that Lee's perception of the war was wrong and that his prescription for victory was mistaken. But it has not seemed possible to me that Lee acted without serious and constant regard to pursuing the cause he believed best suited to bring success to the Confederacy.

Studiously avoiding hagiography, Harsh seeks to portray Lee's generalship as consistent with the situation at hand. "Lee," he writes,

... took command in the field as a pragmatist. During the first year of the war he had the time and the opportunity to form a comprehensive view of the struggle. He came to recognize that the Confederacy had at best a long-shot chance to gain independence. He knew that the imbalance of resources that existed between the North and the South, coupled with the laws of mathematics, worked inexorably against his country. He recognized that as long as the North remained determined to subdue the South, the Confederacy could not win the war. Confederate victory could come only from a Union abandonment of the conflict.

Armed with that knowledge and with a perspective gained at great price over the first 16 months of the war, Lee found himself in September 1862 confronted with what Harsh believes was the pivotal strategic decision of the war. The tide had started to rise with the victories in the Seven Days Battles, which, while not decisive, succeeded in pushing the Federal Army away from Richmond. It crested with Lee's victory on the banks of Bull Run and the repulse of Major General John Pope's Federal Army. Confederate Tide Rising ends with Lee's decision to carry operations into Maryland, a decision arrived at in context and with the full knowledge of all that had transpired in the war thus far.