Our Masters the Rebels: A Speculation on Union Military Failure in the East, 1861-1865 (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS Our Masters the Rebels: A Speculation on Union Military Failure in the East, 1861-1865. By Michael C. C. Adams. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978. Pp. x, 256. $12.50.) The author begins by developing a thread in ante-bellum Northern thought which attributed militarysuperiority to the South. This idea had its roots among conservatives who admired the aristocratic element in Southern society, which they believed was characterized by natural leaders and more subordination than the democratic and commercial civilization of the North. Others saw in the supposedly moreviolent and chivalrous South a culture well adapted to war. To these views was added the image of a rural South, a society characterized by riding and hunting, clearly providing better material for soldiers than the consumptive wretches of Northen factory towns. The Southern victory in the first battle of Bull Run confirmed for many the pre-existing notions of a South with more martial potential than the North. Victory in this "opening round of the conflict gave the rebels a real advantage - psychological mastery over some of their opponents." Not only did McClellan's behavior display this Southern mastery, but Adams' thesis really hangs on his interpretation of McClellan and of his lasting influence on the Army of the Potomac. In this sense this is a McClellan book. McClellan exemplified those Northerners who had "what may be loosely termed" an "inferiority complex" which "handicapped the North in realizing its military potential." Aristocratic in outlook, as were many other generals, McClellan had a psychological disadvantage in fighting opponents who supposedly better represented conservative and military values. The conspiracy thesis that the South had begun preparation for war earlier than the North reinforced this prewar concept. Certainly Adams ably delineates McClellan's excessive caution, rationalized with his constant overestimation of enemy numbers. What he cannot document is that McClellan's attitude was actually caused by an awe of an imagined Southern superiority rather than, say, by an innate tendency to exaggerate difficulties. As it is always hard to make explicit connections between actions and the climate of opinion, such a failure does not mean his hypothesis is not well supported. It is. He presents a strong case that this was a factor in McClellan's thinking, one which should fascinate historians for years to come. 90CIVIL WAR HISTORY After his dismissal, McClellan's influence continued to dominate the Army of the Potomac. He had planted an ineradicable conviction of the enemy's superiority, leaving his army feeling "inferior long after he was gone." Thereafter the Army of the Potomac would "fight to survive, not to win." This attitude affected his successors, including Burnside and Hooker. Like McClellan, they overestimated "enemy strength, leading to the failure of nerve and the loss of opportunities." The fact that so many of theiropponents were from Virginia, the state which "seemed most truly to represent the Cavalier ideal," aggravated this inferiority complex. Fighting Lee, who so well personified the superiority of their aristocratic opponents, increased these feelings of inadequacy. Hooker's "awe of Lee" may well have caused his failure to follow through at Chancellorsville. He was incapable of believing that he could succeed against Lee, Virginians, and Southerners. Adams employs his thesis to explain the behavior of Meade after Gettysburg. This seems to overextend it somewhat, especially in view of Meade's well-documented belief in the strength of the defense, preference for the peninsular route, and conviction that politicians were imposing on the army an unworkable strategy. Western generals, removed from the influence of McClellan, do not seem to have been much affected by any conviction of Confederate military superiority. On assuming command in Virginia, Grant had to combat both the McClellan legacy in the army and the popular conception of the enemy's superiority. Adams astutely points out that Grant's operations in Virginia were, in a sense, political, intended to dispel debilitating images of the enemy, as well as fixing Lee's army. Adams implicitly assumes that the Army of the Potomac was capable"of destroying the Army of Northern Virginia." But such an unrealistic assumption is not necessary for the idea held by many Northerners, that the aristocratic South "would naturally...