Retreat to Victory

Retreat to Victory? Confederate Strategy Reconsidered. By Robert G. Tanner. The American Crisis Series: Books on the Civil War Era, No. 2. (Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 2001. Pp. xxiv, 162.)

Retreat to Victory? is a succinct study of Confederate Civil War strategy that challenges some of the most persistent critiques of southern policy. In his introduction, Robert G. Tanner outlines the argument presented in much Civil War scholarship that the South could have won the war by employing a defensive Fabian strategy that involved troop maneuver and battle-avoidance. A Fabian defense, some scholars suggest, would have exhausted northern armies and damaged morale. Southern armies needed only to wait out the war by retreating into the vast Confederacy and by maneuvering to avoid major engagements. Contrary to this view, Tanner argues that Confederate command adopted the best approach available to it for achieving the South’s goals. He concludes that the arguments set forth for a Fabian defense are seriously flawed by showing that the course of the war, geography, and the South’s political and social policies were all incompatible with a Fabian strategy. Carl von Clausewitz is a central figure in Tanner’s study because his seminal volume, On War, provides an analytical framework for investigating warfare, policy, and Fabian strategy. Tanner organizes his book in thematic chapters that scrutinize the argument that a Fabian strategy would have led to Confederate victory.

Tanner’s introduction provides an overview of Civil War scholarship, focusing on those scholars who assert that a defensive, guerilla-type strategy would have led to Confederate triumph. The goal of the rest of the volume is to “delineate assumptions upon which the Fabian concept stands” to assess whether or not it would have worked for the Confederacy (xix). The first two chapters provide an overview of Confederate strategy and the geography of the South. Tanner contends that the military course of the war and the geography of the South made a Fabian resistance unrealistic. Scholars have pointed to the impressive geographic expanse of the Confederacy as one reason why a defensive strategy was ideal, but Tanner explains that the area of the South that was of strategic significance and safe from Union armies and warships was actually quite small and thus not appropriate for deep retreat. A chapter on the Shenandoah Valley campaign provides another example of the problems associated with Fabian policy by revealing the burden on Confederate armies of maneuver to avoid battle. Tanner explains that the forced marching of Confederate troops took a detrimental toll on their morale and physical fitness.

After establishing that the South lacked ample room for a deep retreat and that a battle-avoidance strategy was difficult on soldiers, Tanner turns to an in-depth analysis of On War because he believes it is “vital for comprehending why the South fought as it did” (69). Clausewitz established the need for a connection between military strategy and national policy and Tanner follows this theory by asserting that it is important to understand Confederate military strategy in light of its larger policy. Clausewitz provided a practical set of conditions for retreating into the interior, including when the objective is to gain time and when the landscape is favorable. Tanner has already shown that the condition of the land was not ideal for retreat, and he dedicates the rest of his study to showing that the South wanted more out of warfare than to gain time. In two subsequent chapters he analyzes the salient aspects of Confederate policy—defense of slavery and independence—and argues that a Fabian strategy was not feasible when considering the political goals of the Confederacy. A policy of retreating and drawing Union forces deep into the South, risking social collapse and the loss of territory and slave populations, was not a valid strategic option when Confederates hoped to create an independent slave-based society.

Tanner concludes that scholars who have criticized the Confederate military leadership of figures like Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, or Stonewall Jackson have failed to see the weaknesses in the Fabian defensive strategy. Tanner successfully challenges the idea that the South could have won by wearing down the North through defensive strategy that involved retreat, maneuver, and battle-avoidance. The geography and, above all, the policies of the South meant that it had to engage in a more aggressive and offensive style of warfare. Tanner excels in situating the Civil War within the larger context of military theory, especially Clausewitzian thinking outlined in On War. Retreat to Victory? is part of the American Crisis Series edited by Steven E. Woodworth.

Jensen Branscombe Texas Christian University

Retreat to Victory? Confederate Strategy Reconsidered. By Robert G. Tanner. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 2001.

Historians have long debated the wisdom of the Confederate armies risking large casualties through ferocious combat in order to preserve Southern territorial integrity and win independence through aggressive tactical engagement. As the South was ultimately unsuccessful in its quest for a separate Confederate state born on the battlefield, many famous Civil War historians such as Bevin Alexander, Gary Gallagher, and James McPherson, among others, have declared that the Confederacy would have been better served by conducting a Fabian defense, retreating into the largely unsettled Southern interior wage a war of maneuver and guerrilla raids, all while avoiding large scale battle with the superior Union army unless victory was absolutely assured, in an effort to wear down Northern morale and resolve to the point that Confederate victory is achieved. Noted Civil War scholar Robert G. Tanner reexamines this assertion in Retreat to Victory? Confederate Strategy Reconsidered, and persuasively argues that the Fabian defense was not a viable strategic option for the South. Tanner, the author of a widely acclaimed study of Stonewall Jackson’s 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign, analyzes Southern strategy through the teachings of the brilliant 19th century military strategist Carl von Clauswitz and his legendary treatise On War. In reappraising the failed Southern strategy, Tanner examines how Confederate geography, the character of its armies, the nature of Southern industrial production and the slave economy, and the destructive effects of guerilla warfare forced the Confederacy to pursue its strategic goals through battle. Ultimately, Tanner proves that a widespread guerilla war would have had little chance of success for the South and that the Confederacy had no other practical options other than to risk defeat by engaging the Northern invader.

Tanner’s work is well researched and documented, and his assessment of the Southern population and geographical weaknesses is particularly enlightening. Unfortunately for the South, almost all of its industrial resources and agricultural production were located in exposed areas on the periphery of the Confederacy, most notably the cities of Richmond, Nashville, and New Orleans and in the states of Virginia and Tennessee. The almost impregnable superiority of the U.S. Navy threatened all essential resources on the coast and along the numerous navigable rivers of the South, and rendered vast amounts of Confederate territory, such as Texas and the Florida peninsula, unsuited for strategic warfare. In addition to this, Tanner proves that a war of maneuver and avoiding battle would have likely severely damaged Confederate morale and any chance of foreign recognition, while exposing the critical centers of industry and natural resources to capture. Also, the many adherents of the mythical guerrilla war in the Appalachian Mountains often fail to note the scarcity of supplies and the strong Unionist sentiment that characterized this region. Furthermore, the fragile nature of the slave economy and the ever present threat of servile insurrection forced the South to defend areas of the agricultural heartland in order to avoid emancipation and preserve production, while constructing new manufacturing centers in safer interior cities, such as Atlanta and Selma. Despite the large casualties the Confederacy endured during the first three violent years of the war, it inflicted serious losses upon the Union army and came tantalizingly close to depleting Northern morale to the point that Lincoln’s campaign for reelection in 1864 seemed likely to fail, all while in large part preserving crucial transportation networks and industrial output. Only the fall of Atlanta and Union General William T. Sherman’s devastating March to the Sea altered the strategic balance in favor of the North and assured Southern defeat, and interestingly, Tanner demonstrates conclusively that the Fabian defense of Atlanta favored by Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston was doomed failure and played a large role in losing the irreplaceable city.

In his conclusion, Tanner states that a Fabian strategy “at some times and in some places could be helpful, as it was during the second stage of the war, but as a comprehensive national strategy it was unworkable in light of the South’s war goals. The Confederate States of American was not destined to retreat its way to victory.” Retreat to Victory? Confederate Strategy Reconsidered, a much needed and well written study of the way in which the South conducted the war, should be required reading for all serious students of the conflict.

Retreat to Victory? Confederate Strategy Revisited. By Robert G. Tanner. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Inc. 2001, Pp. xxiii, 162.

Many historians have sought to reconcile the Confederate loss of the Civil War with various suggestions on what could have been. As a result of heavy losses the South sustained as a result of offensive tactics, historians propose a Fabian approach to war as one with which the Confederates could have won. Roman commander Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus in the Second Punic War (219-201 B.C.) maneuvered to avoid battle and used guerrilla tactics to harass Hannibal’s Carthaginian army, while Rome marshaled its power to crush the Carthaginian’s home. Robert G. Tanner examines the validity of using Fabian strategy in his accurately titled book Retreat to Victory? Confederate Strategy Revisited.

Tanner begins by looking at how the Confederates actually waged the war. He then discusses strategically important areas that needed defense at all times; noting that Southern geography played a key role in the defense of all regions. Tanner examines instances in which it appears that Confederate commanders implemented a Fabianesque strategy. He inserts a chapter on the Prussian military commander and theorist Carl von Clausewitz and discusses some of Clausewitz’s theories to undergird his claim, that applying a Fabian strategy to this situation is inappropriate. Using Clausewitz’s theory that war and politics are united, Tanner analyzes Southern strategy and takes into account its political goal of maintaining a slave-based society separate from the North. Next the writer investigates the problems of implementing a Fabian strategy in a region that contains large numbers of slaves who potentially would aide the enemy, Union. Examining Confederate strategy in areas of Federal control and reconstruction, Tanner considers that the Confederate Congress needed to take an aggressive approach that Fabian tactics would or could not yield. The author finishes by considering “whether retreat to victory was a realistic option” (p. xxii).

Tanner shows that few historians viewed in context the variables of strategy that were considered to be assets, like land for a vast area for maneuver. The Confederacy contained a very large amount of land, 750,000 square miles, but much of its territory existed on its Trans-Mississippi side. Arguably this part of the Confederacy held little military strategic significance because it had a small population and little industry. Sis-Mississippi territory like Florida had within its boundaries area to maneuver but no real strategic significance for either the Confederacy to protect or the Union to pursue; some of its minimal value derived from a small railroad that could support Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Territory like the swampy Appalachians held minimal military value and possessed people who resisted secession. The area of the Confederacy was not that deep from North to South approximately 600 miles which rivers divvied up into manageable tracts of land. Tanner mentions that the Mississippi, Tennessee, and Cumberland Rivers were fissures in the fabric of the fragile Southern nation and the Union exploited them by transporting troops and supplies.

The author does not put the Fabian strategy into context. Fabian was only a part of the grand Roman strategy in the Second Punic War. Tanner’s work analyzes the effectiveness of the Fabian strategy in the context of being the Confederate’s grand strategy and not as a part of a grand strategy. Fabius fought an external invading army and not an internal invading army. Southerners and Northerners shared a somewhat similar background, derived from similar societies, and most shared the English language; while, Hannibal’s army and Fabian’s army did not share such similarities. Many southerners not only sympathized with the North but also held a comparable ideology. Union sympathizers aided the North by spying and relaying to them important information; on the other hand, Fabian had little to worry about regarding Hannibal’s army receiving similar intelligence. Hannibal was not attempting to subjugate a related people who sympathized with his actions. The wars were fought for different purposes, Southerners fought to maintain the status quo, while Fabian fought to not be conquered. Northerners battled to suppress rebellion from within, while Hannibal battled to control an independent nation from without. Tanner needed to assess the Fabian strategy as a potential part of a whole and not wholly of itself; this type of investigation might have led to different conclusions.

Tanner shows that the Fabian strategy could not be used as the Confederate-grand strategy. This well written book neither needs nor uses many primary sources. Some may criticize Tanner relying heavily on Clausewitz, whose book on military theory, On War, was not in heavy circulation before the Civil War. Even though several participants seem to follow the ideas On War sets forth, many wonder how much the book actually impacted the war’s execution. Tanner’s Retreat to Victory? needs to be read by all historians who believe that the Fabian strategy would save the Confederacy so they may see the problems of blindly applying a seemingly appropriate strategic idea out of context and making it the grand strategy.