The Grand Design

In The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War (2010), a non-fiction Civil War book, American author and military historian Donald Stoker examines the differing strategies employed by the Union Army and the Confederacy and how these strategies affected the outcome of the war.

Stoker's general thesis is that while the Union eventually developed a brilliant strategy—or "grand design"—to overpower the Confederate Army, it took far too long and cost the nation far too many lives. But before diving into specific examples, Stoker lays out a grand unifying theory of war strategy, visualizing it as an inverted pyramid with "policy" at the top, followed by "grand strategy," "strategy," "operations," and "tactics." Other major discussions of military strategy limit the "three areas of warfare" to just strategy, operation, and tactics. In this way, the author places added weight on the ways that the respective commanders-in-chief, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, influenced broader military actions.

The Union's first two chief generals, George B. McClellan and Henry W. Halleck, emerge somewhat as "whipping boys" for the author's thesis about the Union's early failures. Halleck, in particular, is criticized for being too focused on occupying and holding contested areas, as opposed to advancing troops as quickly as possible through Southern areas all the way to the sea. With a surplus of resources and soldiers, the Union should have been bolder in capturing key cities in Tennessee like Chattanooga. Instead, the author writes that Halleck wasted a great deal of time and effort in making territorial gains in the more rural, lesser-populated areas of Western Tennessee. Moreover, the author argues that Halleck failed to capitalize on a key victory against General Beauregard in Corinth, Mississippi. Rather than running down Beauregard's troops all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, where they would be cornered and presumably crushed, Stoker asserts that Halleck lingered too long in Corinth, holding the city instead of aggressively hunting down the enemy.



As for McClellan, Stoker contends that his strategies were sound in theory, and furthermore, he gives the general credit for the invention of a "national military strategy," a term still used today by the U.S. Pentagon for modern engagements. However, he also paints McClellan as myopic and unable to alter this strategy to meet the changing dynamics of the war. For instance, McClellan was certain that the smartest strategy was to attack the capital of the Confederacy in Richmond. Winning such a battle would certainly demoralize the Confederate troops and probably lead to a speedy end to the war.

Unfortunately, taking Richmond was no easy feat, as Robert E. Lee repeatedly beat back McClellan's attempts to take the capital. Moreover, fighting so close to Washington, D.C. perhaps put the Northern army's own capital at undue risk. Meanwhile, Lincoln disagreed with McClellan's strategy, believing—correctly, in retrospect—that aggressively running roughshod over Confederate armies throughout the South would achieve a similar sense of demoralization with less risk. However, Lincoln, Stoker argues, distrusted his own instincts, preferring instead to put his trust in experienced military commanders. While this was a well-intentioned general policy, it resulted in fifteen months of wasted military campaigns—and, arguably, wasted lives—before Lincoln finally removed McClellan as the Union Army's chief general.

As for Jefferson Davis, the commander-in-chief of the Confederacy, Stoker argues that he was a capable strategist hamstrung by his inability to properly control his generals and his inner circle of advisers. In this way, his failures were political rather than strategic. He also possessed a number of personality quirks, such as a desire to micromanage his subordinates that resulted in a revolving door of war secretaries as well as confusion over who was the true chief general of the Confederate Army. In fact, Stoker posits, it's possible that Lincoln realized that Robert E. Lee was the most formidable general of the Confederate Army before Davis even did, as the Union President increasingly marshaled his own most formidable regiments and military leaders against Lee whenever possible.



However, while strategy was obviously an important component leading to the outcome of the war, the reality of the Confederacy's smaller number of troops and resources cannot be ignored, according to Stoker. Had Lee managed to win the decisive Battle of Gettysburg, for example, overcoming the Union's surplus of military resources, the war might have ended much differently. Nevertheless, he credits Ulysses S. Grant, the final chief general for the Union, and William Tecumseh Sherman with successfully executing his army's new grand strategy of driving troops from Nashville to Chattanooga to Atlanta, allowing for an expedient end to the war after years of strategic waffling.

The Grand Design is a fascinating book that counters prevailing myths that the Union only won because of its outsized resources compared to its adversary.