Quote Originally Posted by Fisherking View Post
The only reason that war lasted so long was Union incompetence.
I am not sure that's right. One factor is the scale of the conflict relative to the initial preparedness of the starting forces. American did not have much of a military before the conflict and trying to raise armies of the scale they did, to subdue the size of territory they did, was a non-trivial task. Think about how long it took the US to mobilise in arguably more favorable circumstances in WW1 and WW2. Yes, many of the starting generals on the Union side don't look great, but the task they faced was daunting.

Another factor is the changing technology, which tended to favour the defender. The development of the rifle and of artillery saw the transformation of tactics from Napoleonic at the start of the conflict to essentially WW1 style trench warfare at the end. In a way, this is linked to my first point about scale: the world was moving away from wars that could be won by single decisive battles, into ones which inherently would last longer. Yes, Grant can be called a butcher, but maybe he just understood that attrition is the reality of trench warfare? Similarly, Sherman's grasp of total war and the importance of civilian support for the war effort seems rather prescient of WW2 era thinking.

Calling the Union generals incompetent seems very similar to calling the WW1 British generals donkeys. It's one reading of the evidence, but I suspect it is blaming individual actors for circumstances largely beyond their control.