The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost—From Ancient Greece to Iraq (45 page)

50.
It is likely that the losses to the plague, suspicion of Belisarius, and the toll of over a decade of continual warring all explain the scanty supplies sent to Belisarius, who in his second invasion of Italy was short of both provisions and money. Cf. Baker,
Justinian and the Later Roman Empire,
160–61.

51.
For the mess in Italy in the 540s and the final recall of Belisarius from the west, see Moorhead,
Justinian,
101–15; and cf. Procopius’s charges of incompetence: Kaldellis,
Prokopios,
21–23.

52.
There is a brief assessment of Belisarius’ second Italian command and the subsequent role of Narses in Norwich,
Byzantium,
244–45.

53.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Belisarius” ends with the last two stanzas:

Ah! vainest of all things
Is the gratitude of kings.
The plaudits of the crowd
Are but the clatter of feet
At midnight in the street,
Hollow and restless and loud.

But the bitterest disgrace
Is to see forever the face
Of the Monk of Ephesus!
The unconquerable will
This, too, can bear;—I still
Am Belisarius!

In the subhead I have adapted the second to the last line by the addition of “I” (“I can bear”).

54.
Belisarius found himself called upon to be an emissary between the feuding emperor Justinian and Pope Vigilius in the so-called crisis of the “Three Chapters,” in which Orthodox Christians fought the Monophysites over the question of whether Jesus Christ had both a human and divine nature (Orthodox) or was always wholly divine (Monophysite). For the religious wars, see again Ure,
Justinian and His Age,
121–38.

55.
During the career of Belisarius, the emperor expanded its territory by nearly 45 percent, and yet the army did not permanently increase, and, if
anything, due to the plague, perhaps shrank. Agathias (
Histories,
5.7) claimed that Justinian had allowed imperial forces on all fronts to fall from 645,000 to scarcely 150,000—no doubt in large part because of the devastating outbreak of 542.

56.
There is a lengthy account of Zabergan’s raid in Agathias’
Histories,
5.5–27; and cf. the quotes at 5.15.8 and 5.20.5.

57.
There is still some disagreement on the actual end of Belisarius. Stanhope long ago made the case that the popular legends about the beggar Belisarius were in fact plausible (Stanhope,
Life of Belisarius,
208–9).

58.
On the accomplishments of Belisarius and what might have been, see Hughes,
Belisarius,
244–45. “Name can never die,” cf. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall,
4.43 (458). For the role of the plague in derailing traditional Byzantine grand strategy and prompting renewed emphasis on diplomatic initiatives, Luttwak’s analyses are excellent and need more dissemination (
Grand Strategy,
92–94).

59.
Cf. Baker,
Justinian and the Later Roman Empire,
75–76, who cites his only—and perhaps fatal—flaw: “his exceedingly trusting and pliant nature” that ensured that Belisarius was often on the wrong end of court intrigue, much of it instigated by his own wife, Antonia. On the loyalty of Belisarius, see Kaegi,
Byzantine Military Unrest,
42.

60.
Delbrück,
Barbarian Invasions,
340–41. We are not sure why Procopius praised and then later damned Belisarius. The about-face may have reflected the general’s own fortunes at the court in Constantinople, or perhaps Procopius saw originally in Belisarius a sort of magnificent hero who might take on Justinian and Theodora but whose unquestioned loyalty in the end meant to Procopius that the maverick, in fact, was little different from other toadies and intriguers, and bullied by a scoundrel like Antonia. Or, most likely, Procopius proved an encomiast when an ascendant Belisarius was of value to his own career and a critic when he became a liability. Cf. Kaldellis,
Procopius of Caesarea,
145–47. Roman discipline under Belisarius: Lee,
Empire at War,
122–23.

61.
Procopius,
History of the Wars,
2.16.7.

62.
Liddell Hart,
Way to Win Wars,
50–56.

63.
The multifaceted nature of the Byzantine military is reviewed by Delbrück,
Barbarian Invasions,
342–45.

64.
For the innovative stratagems of Belisarius, see Rosen,
Justinian’s Flea,
153–54. Cf. 82–84.

65.
Justinian’s propensity both to commemorate himself and the general impermanence of his own megalomania is noted by Stanhope,
Life of Belisarius,
59–60.

66.
For the quotes from Procopius and Gibbon, see Procopius,
History of the War,
7.1.12–16; Gibbon,
Decline and Fall,
4.41. On the idea that Justinian’s
dream was not improbable, cf. the assessment of Jacobsen, “The recovery of the empire was not to happen, but with Belisarius’ military ability, it was—in 540—a distinct possibility. The chance would never come again.” (Jacobsen,
Gothic War,
260.)

1.
For a synopsis of Sherman’s pre–Civil War life, see variously Hirshson,
White Tecumseh,
18–70; Kennett,
Sherman,
23–108. Almost all biographers note both Sherman’s failure and his own recognition of such failure—and the importance of it in forming his character and views later on during the war.

2.
Hirshson,
White Tecumseh,
388–89, notes the high incidence of instability in the Sherman family; for Shiloh and Sherman, cf. Hanson,
Ripples of Battle,
71–94.

3.
Hanson,
Soul of Battle,
214–31, on the Sherman “catharsis” between his leaving the army and Bull Run. Just four years before Shiloh, an unemployed Sherman sighed, “I am doomed to be a vagabond, and shall no longer struggle against my fate.” After the March to the Sea, a surprised Sherman said of himself in a letter to his wife, “I look back and wonder if I really did it.”

4.
For the connection between Sherman’s prewar failures and the uncanny knowledge and insight he drew on in Georgia, see again Hanson,
Soul of Battle,
224–29.

5.
Flood,
1864,
117. Apparently, northerners assumed that Grant could defeat Lee in the manner he had taken Forts Henry and Donaldson, and Vicksburg—without the sort of casualties they had suffered in September 1862 under McClellan, who, it should be remembered, at one point had reached within four miles of Richmond.

6.
There is a discrepancy between what McClellan believed and what the Democratic plank on which he eventually was nominated on demanded. As Lincoln put it, a war Democrat was riding into the campaign on a peace horse: The Copperheads had inserted into the Democratic platform a plank calling for an immediate armistice—even as McClellan assured veterans and their families that he would simply not give up the war, but use the carrot and the stick to restore the Union by ignoring slavery. Democratic unity obtained at the convention in late August was doomed to come apart by November, given the seemingly mutually exclusive views of McClellan and the Copperheads—and Sherman’s sudden and unexpected military successes. There is a fascinating account of the Democratic convention at Chicago in Waugh,
Reelecting Lincoln,
276–94. For his speech, Sears,
McClellan,
595–96.

7.
McDonough and Jones,
War So Terrible,
12–13, review the perfect storm that had hit Lincoln by 1864, from draft riots and higher war taxes to charges that he was either an abolitionist zealot and race mixer, or an appeaser of the Confederacy.

8.
See Flood,
1864,
28–31, on Mary Todd’s friends who sought patronage in exchange for enabling her to charge her personal debts as government expenditure. The degree to which Lincoln himself knew of all this is uncertain.

9.
For a survey of Lincoln’s various personal crises during 1864, see, again, Flood,
1864,
14, 43–44. The popular anti-Lincoln hysteria that began in earnest before his nomination and then peaked before the November election hinged on Lincoln himself—but not in comparison to any alternative to his policies. For all the furor, no critic had yet explained to the Northern public how in mid-1864 the Union could either sue for peace with an independent Confederacy, bring the South back with slavery, or find a way to crush the rebellion without losing tens of thousands more dead.

10.
Waugh,
Reelecting Lincoln,
132–47. Like any unpopular war, from Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq, unconditional cessation is seen by many as an admission that the previous butcher’s bill was all in vain.

11.
On the scheming of this talented but ill-assorted bunch, see Waugh,
Reelecting Lincoln,
32–45. If in 1860, the outsider Lincoln had seemed to be the ideal compromise to bridge the various agendas of eastern politicos, by 1864 he was written off as too unsophisticated and inexperienced to navigate through Washington politics and being devoured by his far more savvy cabinet.

12.
Waugh,
Reelecting Lincoln,
110–20, 273–74. Oddly, the more McClellan posed as Lincoln’s replacement, the less he seemed able to explain what he would do instead as commander in chief. The Peninsula campaign had in retrospect looked like a colossal blunder in July 1862; now, by July 1864, McClellan claimed that it did not seem so horrific in comparison with Cold Harbor.

13.
For the machinations of Frémont and others, and the general vice-presidency intrigue, see Flood,
1864,
107–11, 141–43. In general, the fortunes of both Frémont and McClellan were in direct proportion to the news from the front; Union defeat had created their candidacies, and only Union victories would end them.

14.
So, too, the midterm elections of 1862 had not gone Lincoln’s way, given the so-so performance of Union armies from Bull Run to Antietam. Even amid victories such as Shiloh, there followed disappointment with the Northern inability to translate Southern tactical setback into strategic defeat. Cf. Waugh,
Reelecting Lincoln,
203; and Castel,
Decision in the West,
2–5, on the status of the Union army and the Northern cause as 1864 began.

15.
Quoted in Waugh, 267; see McClure,
Abraham Lincoln,
113. Reports, however, of a saddened Lincoln were frequent from nearly the day he entered office to his assassination.

16.
Waugh,
Reelecting Lincoln,
151, 164. There was just as much division in the South as well, among those who wished to rejoin the Union if slavery were kept intact; those who insisted on an independent Confederacy at any cost; and a few who, in exchange for an immediate armistice, were willing to accept a gradual end to slavery and acceptance without penalty back into the Union.

17.
Cf. McMurry,
Atlanta 1864,
12–25. The war would end in Virginia, where the major land battles had started; but Lee’s army would more likely surrender before it was destroyed—largely because operations elsewhere to his rear had deprived him of both men and supplies.

18.
Grant’s ongoing bloodbath in Virginia convinced Sherman that he had to achieve a result that was both spectacular and at seemingly tolerable cost. Cf. Flood,
1864,
91–116.

19.
For the politics of the respective campaigns, see Lewis,
Sherman,
394–96. Some of the 100-day call-ups of new troops in spring 1864 were apparently predicated on the notion that Grant might win the war within three months of taking over direct command of the Army of the Potomac in Virginia. The distance from Georgia, and the difficult rural terrain in which Sherman operated, made it difficult to fathom the pulse of battle out west between June and September.

20.
See Caudill and Ashdown,
Sherman’s March,
5; cf. “Sherman made defeat for the South akin to being beaten by a corporate magnate good at reading balance sheets but indifferent to glory and legacy.” For an analysis of the generals on both sides of the Atlanta campaign, see Castel,
Decision in the West,
28–57. In contrast to General Joe Johnston, who was loathed by Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, William Tecumseh Sherman enjoyed the confidence of both Lincoln and Grant. Such support gave the latter as much confidence as the former was often unsure of his tenure.

21.
There is some controversy over the exact orders given Sherman, and Sherman’s own interpretation of what precisely his chief aim was when he left Tennessee—whether to weaken Johnston’s army, capture Atlanta, stop reinforcements from joining Lee, occupy Southern territory, or embarrass the Confederacy. Of course, these aims were not mutually exclusive, and in the end Sherman essentially accomplished nearly all of them. See Castel,
Decision in the West,
90–93, for an excellent discussion of how Sherman opportunistically seemed to emphasize a particular goal at a particular time as he saw fit.

22.
Sherman,
Memoirs,
589; for the Union strategy, see McMurry,
Atlanta 1864,
12–16, and especially Castel,
Decision in the West,
563, who makes the salient point that “the most important task was to forestall Johnston from
reinforcing Lee.” There was an apparent assumption that Lee and the Southern cause were not contingent wholly on their losses in the west; in dire contrast, the viability of the Confederacy in the west hinged in large part how well Lee in saving Virginia and the Confederate capital.