The Inferior Leadership of the Confederate Army

The Civil War of the United States lost more lives than any other war in American history, as an estimated 620,000 people died during the war. In 1861, the war was stimulated by intense disagreements between the north and south regarding the rights to important land and the legality of slavery, but by 1865 the Union army of the north had officially attained victory over the Confederate army of the south. Although the confederate army was placed at a disadvantage due to having significantly fewer troops and resources than the Union army, the primary reason that the Confederates lost the war was that insufficient leadership abilities caused the army to implement inferior battlefield tactics and allowed the soldiers to remain inadequately trained.

The majority of Confederate soldiers were comprised of volunteers or regular citizens who joined the Confederate army to defend the south in major combat against the Union army. These volunteers were highly motivated by their passionate support of the Confederacy along with their fierce opposition to the supposedly tyrannical Union. As a result, the beginning stages of the war featured a very enthusiastic attitude, an extremely positive morale and a powerful solidarity among the Confederate volunteer soldiers, and this strong morale provided the soldiers with an abundance of motivation and confidence. However, the inferior leadership from the top failed to capitalize on this strong morale or maximize the true potential of the soldiers (Sheehan-Dean).

One reason why the soldiers of the civil war often displayed poor battlefield performances was due to the lack of training they received. Although some Confederate soldiers were educated and trained by military institutions, the vast majority of soldiers were volunteers who had little experience or training regarding warfare, and the various leaders and generals of the armies did not mandate adequate training and discipline requirements to improve the military intelligence and enhance the battle skills of the soldiers. Many historical research studies indicate that this lack of training was a result of the leaders and the soldiers, for leaders did not emphasize the importance of intense training and the soldiers apparently were also reluctant to maximize their training. Thus, although the Confederate volunteer soldiers were sincerely passionate about the cause they were fighting for and exerted all of their possible effort in each battle, the lack of training caused the soldiers to demonstrate poor performances on the battlefield (Allen).

Another flaw that prevented the Confederate soldiers from being successful was that the leaders failed to develop and implement effective tactics during the war. Many historians and scholars assert that the tactics utilized by the Confederate army were often outdated or obsolete and that the leaders were unwilling to update their strategies due to stubbornness or lack of ideas. The army also did not try to learn from previous defeats, which prevented the leaders from making appropriate adjustments to avoid repeating prior mistakes and to develop more effective strategies. Additionally, reports indicate that the leaders failed to study the land, debate different military strategies, develop innovative tactics or experiment with different methods on the drill or practice field. For instance, after the loss of Shiloh in 1862, the Confederates failed to make any impactful adjustments to their strategies, and this stagnation led to a series of successive battlefield defeats until the Army of Tennessee had collapsed and the Confederates surrendered. Thus, the military and battlefield tactics employed by the Confederate commanders were obsolete in the evolving condition of the war, the strategies were often ineffective, lacking power, command, and moral courage, and the tactics remained inflexibly stagnant due to the refusal or inability of the commanders to adjust and develop more innovative tactics (Solonick).

The general tactic of the Confederacy is a strategy often referred to as an offensive-defensive strategy. The offensive-defensive tactic was largely developed during a few significant battles, including the Virginia-Maryland theater, the Tennessee-Kentucky theater and the Battle of Gettysburg. The strategy consists of dispersing and concentrating the military forces around the southern territory to defend important locations from enemy invasion and to only launch offensive attacks when the opportunity arose. An advantage of the offensive-defensive tactic is that it can allow smaller armies to trade space to create more time. The Confederate army featured fewer soldiers and fewer resources than the Union army, and therefore the offensive-defensive tactic gave the Confederate army the potential to retreat when they were outnumbered or outmatched, to avoid engaging in battles where success was unlikely, to defend important locations, and to prolong the war so the larger enemy forces might lose energy, morale, and resources. This tactic had been successful for General Washington in the revolutionary war, which was similar in that Washington was challenging a much larger and more resourceful army. The vast size of the southern territory also was conducive for an offensive-defensive tactic (Peregoy).

However, there was a significant flaw in the excessive use of the offensive-defensive tactic of the south. Because the generals dispersed armies to various locations to defend almost every important area in the south, each location was generally fortified and defended by a relatively small amount of troops. Thus, the thinly dispersed troops prevented the confederate soldiers from being able to adequately defend their territory and enabled the Union army to attack and seize many ideal territories. Significant losses that the Confederates suffered include battles in Atlanta, Virginia, Georgia, Vicksburg and Fort Donelson (Farmer).

General Albert Johnston was one of the ineffective leaders of the Confederates, as his Army of Tennessee delivered inferior performances on the battlefield, suffered continual defeats and were forced to constantly retreat. Thus, Johnston’s poor leadership abilities enabled the Union army to infiltrate Tennessee and Cumberland. Additionally, General Bragg, General Hord, and General Joe Johnston also experienced significant defeats on the battlefield. These consistent defeats and retreats over the years began to diminish and deflate the morale, enthusiasm, and confidence of the South. The morale of the soldiers also diminished as the many volunteers began to suffer from the death, destruction and economic losses that were facilitated by the war and by their government. Although General Lee and his Confederate Army of Northern Virginia was revered among the Confederates for obtaining some victories and for providing southerners with hope, eventually General Lee was also defeated and forced to surrender to Union leader General Grant on April 9, 1865 (Farmer).

The soldiers of the confederate army fought valiantly throughout the Civil War, as the soldiers were invigorated and motivated by a passion for the cause and by the determination to defend their land and homes against enemy invaders. Because the Confederate army was significantly outnumbered by a Union army that had more soldiers and more resources, winning the war would have been a difficult challenge for the south. However, the potential for the Confederate army to be successful was dramatically impaired by insufficient leadership, for the leaders failed to adequately train the soldiers, executed obsolete and ineffective military tactics, and were unable to adjust and improve their battle strategies as the war progressed.

Works Cited

Allen, Stacy. "Training, Tactics, and Leadership in the Confederate Army of Tennessee (review)." Project MUSE. N.p., 4 Dec. 2011. Web. 4 Oct. 2013. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cwh/summary

Farmer, Alan. "Why was the Confederacy Defeated? | History Today." History Today | The World's Best History Writing. N.p., 15 Jan. 2005. Web. 4 Oct. 2013. <http://www.historytoday.com/alan-farmer/why-was-confederacy-defeated

Peregoy, Tony. "Battle of West Point -- Confederate Strategy." Civil War Discovery Trail. N.p., 15 July 2012. Web. 13 Oct. 2004. <www.forttyler.com/confederatestrategy.

Sheehan-Dean, Aaron. "Encyclopedia Virginia: Confederate Morale during the Civil War." Encyclopedia Virginia. N.p., 10 Mar. 2010. Web. 4 Oct. 2013. <http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Confederate_Morale_during_the_Civil_War

Solonick, Justin . "Training, Tactics, and Leadership in the Confederate Army of Tennessee. By Andrew Haughton. ." Texas Christian University. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Oct. 2013. <http://personal.tcu.edu/swoodworth/Haughton