An Extreme Gaming What If

People who enjoy historical "What If?" scenarios usually confine themselves to well known junctures that have obvious ramifications (Lee's lost 1862 orders being a well known example). However, everyone who plays historical war games indulges in much the same level of what if.

One of the ones that has intrigued me the most was a game I played a few years ago. The game was a recreation of the First Battle of Kernstown (the only battle Stonewall Jackson ever lost) and this one game was memorable to me based on how badly things went for me (I was playing the Confederates). In the very first turn, as I was pushing my forces across Hogg Run when a long single cannon shot killed Stonewall Jackson! This act destroyed my morale and the dice went against me the rest of the game. I ended up withdrawing most of my forces by the halfway point of the game with Brig. Gen. Garnett's First Brigade suffering over 50% casualties and Col. Fulkerson's Third Brigade nearly annihilated and Fulkerson wounded. Based on the 3,800 Confederate participants, I figure this would have resulted in over 1000 casualties, far more than the original 718; to say nothing of the loss of Jackson himself.

Playing this out is probably the most difficult aspect. The Battle of Kernstown was a tactical defeat for the Confederates but a strategic victory as the Union committed more troops to protecting Washington and driving Jackson out of the Shenandoah rather than reinforcing McClellan on the Peninsula. If my game had actually happened, Garnett would have probably taken command of Jackson's command (ironic given that Jackson blamed Garnett for the loss and had him removed from command). Lincoln would still have committed the troops he did to the Shenandoah Valley so the immediate result would not have changed.

It is likely that even with Jackson's death, Lee would have still advised Jefferson Davis to continue to harass the Union in the Shenandoah to protect Johnson's Army. Garnett would have likely been reinforced by Maj. Gen. Richard Ewell's division, however, in this scenario, Ewell would have taken command rather than been under Jackson. It is at this point that things get interesting. Ewell, while a good general, did not have the command mastery, nor the ability to drive his men at the 30+ miles a day that Jackson did. It is somewhat likely that Ewell would have made several offensive feints before settling in to a good defensive position and letting Gen. Fremont's and Gen. Banks' armies attack him on ground of his choosing.

No matter what the outcome of these battles, this series of movements would have been less immediately costly to the Union and would likely have permitted some, if not all, of Gen. McDowell's army (stationed at Fredricksburg) to move south and reinforce McClellan outside of Richmond. What's more, Ewell would have been unlikely to have been able to reinforce Lee for the planned attack on McClellan's right flank (Battle of Beaver Dam Creek) before McClellan pushed forward with his own attacks.

The ultimate result of this would likely have still been Confederate victory as McClellan technically won most of the battles of the Seven Days but withdrew as though he had been beaten. However, it likely would have been an even bloodier affair as Lee would have had to shift even more troops from the main body to attack the Union right (likely reinforced by McDowell) and the reduced strength in the middle would have given allowed the Union to maul the Confederates even more. Even with McClellan's withdrawal from the Peninsula, the Union would likely have still had two reasonably sized armies in the Shenandoah Valley. McDowell might have been pulled back to Fredricksburg or even Manassas but it still would have left a strong Union presence in Northern Virginia.

With Gen. Pope taking over for McClellan, there is a reasonable chance that he would have had a stronger army than he had historically and Lee's army would have likely been weaker than historically. What's more, historically Gen. Pope's army was heavily harassed by Jackson's army, to the point that Gen. Longstreet was able to outflank him and devastate the Union army at Second Manassas. Pope would have probably still found a way to have been defeated, but the bloody attrition that would have taken place would have likely played out much differently. What's more, there is a reasonable chance that Pope might have been able to win a small victory somewhere in Virginia that would have allowed Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation a month or so earlier than originally issued on September 22, 1862.

My ultimate theory is that had Jackson died at Kernstown in March 1862, the Confederates would have been able to hold on much as they did, but it would have been a harder grind. So much so, that I would speculate that there would have been a real chance that the Union Army under either Gen. Burnsides or Gen. Hooker would have successfully captured Richmond in 1863, although I imagine that Lee would have found a way to keep the Army of Northern Virginia intact and fighting for upwards of another year.

With the likely defeat of the Confederacy in 1864, Lincoln would have been easily reelected (especially if McClellan was nominated by the Democrats as he was historically). John Wilkes Booth was in high demand as an actor in New England throughout most of 1863, although the opening of Ford's Theater in November 1863 gave him several opportunities to perform in Washington. Booth would have likely tried to go ahead with his plans of either kidnapping or killing Lincoln in 1864, but the high visibility of the upcoming election might have made that difficult. If Booth had succeeded prior to the inauguration, Hannibal Hamlin would have become President.

If Booth had killed Lincoln after the election, the Electoral College would have likely been thrown into chaos with many different candidates jockeying for position. Hamlin had broad support among Northern Radicals and Andrew Johnson was only nominated to replace him as VP to keep the loyalty of Northern Democrats. If the war had been going as well as above, Hamlin might have been kept on the ticket. With Hamlin already installed as President, the Electoral College might have felt it best to keep Hamlin as mode of stability, even if he had been replaced on the ticket by Andrew Johnson. Hamlin and Lincoln were not friends per se but they did work well together, although Hamlin did not regularly attend cabinet meetings (as was the style of the time).

A Hamlin Presidency would likely have been harsher on the South as Hamlin was a staunch abolitionist prior to the war (leading to his defection from the Democratic Party in 1856). Hamlin might have gone ahead and indulged in the hanging of prominent Southern politicians for treason and sticking closer to the Republican line of giving closer to equal treatment of blacks (although probably not fully equal status).

From this we could spin out further about how white-black relations would have evolved in the South and whether Ulysses Grant would have achieved enough fame to propel himself to the Presidency in 1868 or if the Republicans would have stuck with Hamlin (with Grant as VP possibly).

All this (possibly) from a single lucky cannon shot south of Kernstown in March 1862.