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Abstract
Irrespective our views on the rationality of our opponent's continuing to conduct operations against us, unless utterly extirpated, he retains a vote on when and how conflict will end. This is because war is about power — compelling another actor to do something he would not otherwise do, or to cease doing something he would otherwise prefer to do. In planning for conflict termination we should account for the peculiarities of opponents who may decide not to quit when we have beat them fair and square. We do not desire that they cease conventional fighting, but that they cease fighting altogether.
Notes
1President Lincoln and his senior military commanders were apparently of common mind on the necessity for generous terms; Lincoln's Cabinet, Seward and Stanton notably, entertained more severe terms.
2We focus on the problem of unconventional or irregular warfare, conducted by itself or as complement to conventional military action. Guerrillas, partisans, and insurgents are today defined interchangeably as those groups or individuals, who, under international law, are lawful combatants; they carry arms openly, are recognizable at a distance, and conform to the international law of armed conflict. During the nineteenth century, these discriminating factors were much less clear and only inconsistently applied. Today, any weaker force may practice guerrilla warfare as part of total, general, limited, or revolutionary warfare. See Arthur Campbell, Guerrillas: A History and Analysis from Napoleon to the 1960s (New York: John Day 1968), 1–5. The guerrilla is distinguished from the insurgent only in that the objective of the latter is the overthrow of an existing government. See Rod Paschall, LIC 2010: Special Operations and Unconventional Warfare in the Next Century (Washington DC: Brassey's 1990), 7–10.
3Virgil Carrinton Jones, Grey Ghosts and Rebel Riders (New York: Henry Holt 1956), 273.
4Francis Lieber, Guerrilla Parties Considered with Reference to the Laws and Usages of War (New York: D. Van Nostrand 1862). See General Order No. 100; Section IV, paras. 81, 82 in Richard Shelly Hartigan, Lieber's Code and the Laws of War (Chicago: Precedent Press 1983), 60. A professor at Columbia College, Lieber was the preeminent constitutional scholar of the time. See Frank Feidel, Francis Lieber, Nineteenth-Century Liberal (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith 1968).
5Jones, Grey Ghosts, 129–30. Grant's authorization to Sheridan to hang Mosby's men and to take hostages is but one example of Union violations of its own instructions on how to deal with guerrillas.
6C.E. Grant, ‘Partisan Warfare, Model 1861–1865’, Military Review 22 (Nov. 1958), 42.
7Ibid., 45–46.
8Some of the regular army establishment may have disdained Mosby's troopers; Lee and his cavalry commander Jeb Stuart had only praise. Richard E. Beringer, Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones, and William N. Still Jr, Why the South Lost the Civil War (Athens, GA: Univ. of Georgia Press 1986), 446.
9Clifford Dowdey, (ed.), The Wartime Papers of Robert E. Lee (New York: Bramhall House 1961), 688–89.
10Grant, ‘Partisan Warfare, Model 1861–1865’, 53. Army bureaucracy sometimes stymied irregular operations; e.g. the Confederate Army failed to destroy the Baltimore & Ohio railroad bridge on the Cheat River with a large clumsy expedition, something a small, efficient guerrilla force could have readily accomplished. Jones, Grey Ghosts, 162–64. Lee's lack of confidence in guerrilla forces likely stemmed from his unhappy experience in western Virginia with Governor Henry A. Wise's partisans in autumn 1861.
11Jubal Early to Lee, 31 Jan. 1865 in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Four Series, in 128 vols. (Washington DC: Government Printing Office 1880–1901), Series I, Vol. LI, Pt. II, 1061. Lee favorably endorsed Early's request to Secretary of War John Seddon, but the latter took no action. Early's reference was to the Confederate Congressional Act of 17 Feb. 1864.
12Virgil Carrington Jones, Ranger Mosby (Chapel Hill : Univ. of North Carolina Press 1944) is an entertaining account of Mosby, while Jones, Grey Ghosts, takes a scholarly approach. Maj. Gen. James E.B. Stuart's endorsement of Mosby to Maj. Gen. Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson was high praise: ‘He is bold, intelligent, and discreet. The information he may obtain and transmit to you may be relied upon, and I have no doubt that he will soon give additional proofs of his value.’ Stuart to Jackson 19 July 1862, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. LI, Pt. II, 594; Jones, Grey Ghosts, 101. In June 1863, Mosby's Partisan Rangers were formally incorporated into the Confederate Army as the 43rd Virginia Cavalry, providing a mantle of legitimacy it was hoped would protect Mosby and his troopers in event of capture.
13As Mosby himself noted, ‘The North has always given our command more credit for damage done than did the South.’ Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones, How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War (Chicago and London: Univ. of Illinois Press 1983), 622.
14Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, 357; Jones, Grey Ghosts, 337.
15Pope's mauling by Lee at Second Manassas ended his role in Virginia. Jones, Grey Ghosts, 99–100.
16Jesse assumed command upon his father's death. Jones, Grey Ghosts, 307.
17Richard Orr Curry, A House Divided: A Study of Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press 1964), 75. There were some Union-sponsored guerrillas. President Lincoln encouraged loyalist attacks on the railroads linking Bristol, Tennessee and Stevenson, Alabama, and encouraged those pro-Union residents of the Appalachian Mountains in Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. Later, the Confederate Draft Law provided added incentive to the anti-Confederate sentiment of the region. Carleton Beals, War Within a War: The Confederacy Against Itself (Philadelphia: Chilton Books 1965), 21, 62.
18Brig. Gen. Robert Huston Milroy to Francis H. Pierpont, Governor of W. Virginia Territory, 27 Oct. 1862, Pierpont Manuscript Collection, Virginia State Library, Richmond, Va., as cited by Curry, A House Divided, 75.
19Jones, Grey Ghosts, 136–37, 177–78, 182, 204–6, 260–64. For Mosby's capture of Stoughton, see Jones, Ranger Mosby, 93–97. For Crook's capture, see Martin F. Schmitt, (ed.), General George Crook: His Autobiography (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press 1946), 135–36, 304–306. McNiell kept a large supply of pre-signed paroles for those Yankee troops willing to trade coffee or other rarities for a quick trip home. Jones, Grey Ghosts, 144.
20Jones, Grey Ghosts, 237–41, 252–54. Grant had already stripped troops from the very railroads upon which the Federals depended. Jones, Grey Ghosts, 229–30.
21 The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. XLIII, Pt. 1, 811. Mosby's role in prompting that solution, according to Stackpole, was problematic: the Valley served the Confederacy as much more than a haven for irregulars. Edward J. Stackpole, Sheridan in the Shenandoah, Jubal Early's Nemesis (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole 1961), 161–63.
22 The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. XLIII, Pt. 1, 43.
23Ibid., 822.
24 The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, XLVIII, Pt. 2, 909–10.
25Ibid., 910.
26Ibid., 566.
27 The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, XLVIII, Pt. 2, 920.
28Jones, Grey Ghosts, 191, 301–2.
29Schmitt, General George Crook, 135; Jones, Grey Ghosts, 288; Stackpole, Sheridan in the Shenandoah, 376, 377; Jones Ranger Mosby. 200–1, 230–32.
30 The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. XLIII, Pt. 1, 32.
31Jones, Grey Ghosts, 336. Jones argues that neither Hunter nor Sheridan acknowledged the importance of guerrillas because of the regulars' bias against irregular warfare. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. XLIII, Pt. 1, 55.
32See Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, 206–7, 216–17. Oddly, the Confederates sometimes failed to accurately assess the guerrillas' effectiveness in cutting supplies and halting Federal advances. Beringer et al., Why the South Lost the Civil War, 173.
33Hattaway and Jones, 357.
34Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, 251, 300, 357, 422.
35Ulysses Simpson Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1886), Vol. II, 504-5.
36Shelby Foote, The Civil War, A Narrative, 3 vols. (New York: Random House, 1958–1974), Vol. I., 562–63.
37Bruce Catton, Grant Moves South (Boston: Little, Brown 1960), 291–92.
38Even if the guerrillas had been fair in their treatment of prisoners, they were reluctant to encumber themselves with their care and feeding.
39See Stephen Z. Starr, Jennison's Jayhawkers (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP 1973).
40Starr, Jennison's Jayhawkers, 215.
41Albert Castel, A Frontier State of War: Kansas, 1861–1865 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1958), 122–23.
42See C.R. Mink, ‘General Orders, No. 11: The Forced Evacuation of Civilians During the Civil War’, Military Affairs 34 (Dec. 1970), 132–36.
43Frank Moore, The Rebellion Record, 8 vols. (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1861–1868), Vol. IV, 513–17.
44Mink, ‘General Orders, No. 11’, 135.
45George Caleb Bingham (1811–1879) captured the depth of this anger in his famous propaganda painting of Ewing and Jennison in the act of destruction and murder, depicting the Red Legs' participating with Ewing's approval in the enforcement of Order No. 11. However, Ewing tried, with little success, to control the Red Legs. Blunt later issued shoot-on-sight orders to the troops sent to Western Missouri to combat the Red Legs' depredations. Castel, A Frontier State of War: Kansas, 1861-1865, 152–53, 214–15. Bingham's painting hangs in the State Historical Society of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Mink, ‘General Orders, No. 11’,135, 136n.
46‘General Orders, No. 11’, 134.
47‘General Orders, No. 11’, 134, emphasis added.
48David Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (New York: D. Appleton 1885), 282. Porter ‘made it a rule during the war to write down at night … what had occurred during each day, and … was particularly careful in doing so in this instance’. Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes, 313. From at least 1866 Porter's published remarks favored Sherman over Stanton.
49When Vice President Andrew Johnson and former Senator Preston King of New York state came down unbidden to call on the President, the latter instructed Porter: ‘Don't let those men come into my presence … I won't see either of them; send them away. They have no business here, any way; no right to come here without my permission. I won't see them now, and never want to lay eyes on them. I don't care what you do with them, nor where you send them, but don't let them come near me.’ So the Admiral did. Of Lincoln's decision to come alone to City Point, Porter remarked: ‘He [Lincoln] did not want any of his cabinet down there to contest the views he had formed in regard to this matter [terms of surrender], nor to try to turn him from his plans. Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes, 285–86, 287.
50William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman[1875] (Library of America 1990), 815.
51Ibid., 814. Emphasis added.
52Ibid., 816.
53Gary W. Gallagher, (ed.), Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press 1989), 532–33. A slightly different version of the conversation is in Charles Bracelen Flood, Lee, The Last Years (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1981), 5, and in Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee (New York: Scribner's 1934), Vol. IV, 122–23. Both cite Edward Porter Alexander The Military Memoirs of a Confederate (New York: Scribner's 1907), 604–5.
54Hattaway and Jones, How the North Won, 702.
55Beringer et al., Why the South Lost the Civil War, 343.
56Sherman, Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman, 853.
57Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs and Selected Letters, 1839–1865 (Library of America 1990), 842.
58Ibid., 727.
59Ibid.
60Ibid., 843.
61Ibid., 843.
62Ibid., 844.
63Ibid., 739. Side arms meant pistols and swords.
64Ibdi., 844.
65Ibid., 740.
66Ibid., 741.
67Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, The Passing of the Armies[1915] (New York: Bantam Books 1993), 194–96.
68Emphasis added.
69See ‘Admiral Porter's Account of the Interview with Mr. Lincoln’ (1866) in Sherman, Memoirs, 814–17.
70Grant, Personal Memoirs and Selected Letters, 1839–1865, 769. Grant later commented that ‘Mr. Lincoln gained influence over men by making them feel it was a pleasure to serve him … . He had whatever he wished, but in the least offensive way. Mr. Stanton never questioned his own authority to command, unless resisted. He cared nothing for the feeling of others. In fact, it seemed to be pleasanter to him to disappoint than to gratify. He felt no hesitation in assuming the functions of the executive, or in acting without advising with him. If his act was not sustained, he would change it – if he saw the matter would be followed up until he did so.’ Ibid., 461.
71Sherman Memoirs, 839.
72Ibid., 832.
73Ibid., 835.
74Ibid. 835.
75Stanton believed that Jefferson Davis had dictated the letter to Johnston. George C. Gorham, Life and Public Services of Edwin M. Stanton, Vol. II (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin 1899), 174–75.
76Sherman Memoirs, 843.
77James M. McPherson, Ordeal by Fire, Volume Two, The Civil War, 3rd edn (Princeton UP 2001), 522–23. At the same time, Sherman later stated in his memoirs that ‘Mr. Stanton had failed to communicate to me in advance, as was his duty, the purpose of the Administration to limit our negotiations to purely military matters; but, on the contrary, at Savannah he had authorized me to control all matters, civil and military.’ Sherman, Memoirs, 853–54. Emphasis in the original.
78Sherman, Memoirs, 848. Stanton also directed Gen. Halleck to send dispatches to Major Generals George G. Meade, Sheridan, and Horatio G. Wright instructing them to ‘pay no regard to any truce or orders of General Sherman respecting hostilities, on the ground that Sherman's agreement could bind his command only, and no other.” Sherman, Memoirs, 860.
79Ibid., 847.
80Ibid., 849.
81Ibid., 850.
82Ibid., 851.
83Gorham, Life and Public Services of Edwin M. Stanton, 173.
84Quoted in ibid., 179.
85On the Stanton–Sherman conflict, McPherson commented that ‘Sherman unhesitatingly negotiated a new surrender agreement with Johnston on April 26 that duplicated the Grant-Lee terms. There the matter might have rested except that Stanton, distrustful of Sherman's motives (Democrats were beginning to sing his praises), released to the press a distorted version of the affair that put Sherman in a bad light. Stanton's fears were unfounded; his action, though sincere, was unjust, and Sherman never forgave the secretary of war.’ McPherson, Ordeal by Fire, Volume Two, The Civil War, 523.
86Sherman, Memoirs, 817.
87McPherson, Ordeal by Fire, Volume Two, The Civil War, 523.
88It may be reasonably argued, however, that given the low-level insurgency and civil unrest that described the post-war South, the Civil War really did not end until about 1880.
89The US record shows the relatively frequent incidence of change in President between the beginning of a major conflict or war and its conclusion: Civil War, Lincoln to Johnson; Spanish–American War/Philippine Insurrection, McKinley to Roosevelt; World War II, Roosevelt to Truman; Korean War, Truman to Eisenhower; Vietnam War, Kennedy to Johnson to Nixon. Such has also obtained in small wars, such as the 1916–1924 Dominican Intervention.
90Consider, for example, US ambivalence about assisting its European allies to regain the status quo ante bellum in the Far East at the close of World War II – in particular, recovery of their colonies by the European powers.
91As early as Jan. 1945, the German hierarchy was beginning to collapse, while control over senior German military commanders was weakening. See Forrest C. Pogue, The European Theater of Operations: The Supreme Command (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army 1954), Ch. XXV ‘The German Surrender’, 475–94.
92Some senior Japanese military leaders grasped by June 1943 that the war as they had conceived it had become unwinnable. Still, the Allies' public demand for unconditional surrender and threatened invasion of the Home Islands led the Japanese to a dual policy of inflicting as many casualties on US forces as possible in effort to persuade the latter to desist and an elaborate water's-edge deployment of forces in Japan proper to provide what would have been an effective defense had the Allies invaded – including surface suicide boats, midget submarines, swimmers with explosives, Kamikaze aircraft (Japan possessed more than 11,000 operational aircraft of all types at war's end), conventional land forces, and civilian militias. Comparison of Japanese force deployments on Kyushu (determined through signals intercepts) with intended landing areas reveals that the defenders had accurately divined where the Allied would strike. See Donald Chisholm, ‘Industrial-Scale Asymmetric Warfare: Japanese Surface Suicide Boats in World War II’ (Unpublished MS, June 2002); and D. Chisholm, ‘The Risk of Optimism in the Conduct of War’, Parameters 33/4 (Winter 2003–2004), 114–31.
93Grant, Personal Memoirs and Selected Letters, 1839–1865, 844–45.