If Robert E. Lee fought for the Union, would the war have ended sooner?

Answer 1

Definitely!

Consider the Generals on the Union side before Grant was moved to the Eastern Theater.

McClellan couldn't bring himself to stage an offensive. He drove Lincoln crazy worrying about getting into an engagement where he "might" be facing superior forces. Following Antietam he let Lee's army slip away back into Virginia. Lincoln commented that he had "grasped defeat from the jaws of victory".

Burnside was a disaster. After a bloodbath at "Burnside's Bridge" at Antietam he pulled an equally stupid tactic at Fredericksburg. He had a talent for attacking unassailable positions and getting thousands of his men killed. I have visited both battlefields and a buck private would have had more sense than to attack the positions that Burnside wasted thousands of lives to try to take.

What finally turned the tide was the depletion of Confederate resources in the face of the Union's industrial base and putting Grant in charge of the Army of the Potomac. He threw his entire army in every fight, and took a lot of heat for the high casualty rates. But he just wore the Confederate forces down to the point where they could not continue the fight.

Lee was, in comparison, a strategic and tactical genius (WRT Pickett's' charge - everyone can have a bad day). If he had accepted the position with the Union Army, the war would definitely have been shorter.

Answer 2

At first blush, i would say yes, since many of the early Confederate victories were attributed to Lee. However, when you analyze his style of command and the reason for his victories, the answer may not be so apparent.

First of all, he had a lax leadership style, he gave vague commands and let the Corps commanders make the tactical decisions in the field, eg. Stonewall Jacksons achievement in the Shenadoah Valley and his crowning achievement at Chanclorsville.

At Gettysburg, He told Gen Ewell to take Culps Hill/Cemetery Hill "if at all practicable." Ewell was no Jackson, and the missed chance of taking the high ground proved Lee's downfall. Lee's HQ staff was small and his orders were too vague or lax. Without sub-lieutenants the likes of Jackson, Lee proved not to be the great tactician that he's been known for.

Lee blundered on July 3, 1863 by sending 12-15,000 men into entrenched positions and massed artillery over a clear field of fire....

Leading the Union army, with sub-commanders the likes of Pope, McClellen and Meade, (and facing Jackson, Longstreet, Hood, Johnson) i doubt whether the war would've ended sooner under Lee's command.

Answer 3

Possibly. The deciding factor for Lee was Virginia's secession. If Virginia had stayed with the Union, all (or most) of Virginia's resources, including Lee, would have gone over to the North. Plus, with the Confederate capital somewhere other than Richmond, Union strategy would have been different. All of this could have resulted in a quicker war, but there's no way to be certain.

Answer 4

One of the greatest reasons that the American Civil War lasted so long wasn't just that the South had good generals (as mentioned, even without Lee there were others who could hold their mustard), but that the North's generals were craptacular. If Lincoln had a good general to put in charge of the Union armies, then the war would have been over much quicker, at the least.

Answer 5

If Lee had commanded the Union Army of the Potomac in the Seven Days Battle instead of McClellan and if Joe Johnston was the commander of the Confederate army - which is basically the scenario you are suggesting - I believe that Lee would have captured Richmond (the Seven Days Battle was a Confederate victory largely because of McClellan's incompetency).

Lee's capture of Richmond in 1862 would probably have ended the war sooner.

But would Lee have been the commander of the Union Army at that time? - that is a bigger question, in my mind, and certainly a more interesting one on which to speculate. What would Lee's history have been if he was a Union general?

Answer 6

As you remember, Robert E. Lee was a Union Officer to begin with...he resigned his commission to become a Confederate Officer, because he could not fight against his fellow Virginians.

Now to your question...No, the war would not have ended any sooner. There were plenty of other officers that would have taken up Lee's position as being the Commander of the Army of the Confederacy.... One of which could have been General Stonewall Jackson....had he of been the commanding general, he most probably would not have been accidental shot after the Battle of Chancellorsville (May of 1863).

Answer 7

Maybe. Maybe not.
I'm always amazed the South did not fight a more defensive, guerilla action. They could have kept the North bogged down for years, similar to the Viet Cong. The Am. revolutionaries essentially did this in 1776. In retrospect, there's really no reason the South should have lost the war. In a real sense, Lee was responsible for the South fighting a more conventional war and so he may actually be resposible for Southern defeat.

Answer 8

Probably. He was the best general of the American Civil War and had great abilities to lead. The fact that Lincoln wanted him first shows how much people thought of him in the north. If he was not the leading general of the south I don't know who could have taken his place. Perhaps Longstreet, but I believe the reason why the war lasted as long as it did was because of Lee.

Answer 9

Most assuredly. My namesake, however, believed that his duties lay with his own people and in those days, the idea of being a citizen of a state was still more important than being a citizen of the United States.

General Lee was highly respected and even greatly feared by Union generals. Lee was never defeated in battle once he was in charge of things. He merely retreated from two battles--Gettsburg and Petersburg out of concern for his men. But he was not defeated at either battle.

Answer 10

Yes I believe it would have, it wasn't a coincidence that he was asked first. Winfield Scott told him it was a bad decision, but like other participants in "Yahoo Answers", have said, in those days , being from a state was very important. One of the "Answerer's" said it was more important than country, I don't believe that but people from Georgia didn't interact with people say from Maine. So Lee would have been a General who directed people to kill his neighbors, I don't blame him, that would have been a horrible decision to make