Lincoln as War President

[Valin]

The importance of practical wisdom
Mackubin Thomas Owens

A common thread among comments on my recent NRO posts regarding the Civil War sesquicentennial is that, given its material advantages, everyone knows that the Union was predestined to win the war. But the old adage is true: “It’s not the things we don’t know that get us into trouble; it’s the things we know that just ain’t so.” So it is with the inevitability of a Union victory.

The fact is that, throughout history, materially weaker opponents have defeated stronger ones. The late historian of the Vietnam War Colonel Harry Summers recounted a joke that applies in this case. After the election of 1968, the Nixon Pentagon fed all of the relevant data regarding the United States and North Vietnam into a super-computer and asked: “When will we win?” The computer processed the data and spat out its answer: “You won in 1964.”

The problem with looking only at relative material power was identified by the 19th-century Prussian “philosopher of war,” Carl von Clausewitz:

The moral elements are among the most important in war. They constitute the spirit that permeates war as a whole, and at an early stage they establish a close affinity with the will that moves and leads a whole mass of force, practically merging with it, since the will is itself a moral quantity. Unfortunately they will not yield to academic wisdom. They cannot be classified or counted. They have to be seen or felt. . . . It is paltry philosophy if in the old-fashioned way one lays down rules and principles in total disregard of moral values. As soon as these appear one regards them as exceptions, which gives them a certain scientific status, and thus makes them into rules. Or again one may appeal to genius, which is above all rules; which amounts to admitting that rules are not only made for idiots, but are idiotic in themselves.

(Snip)

In general, Lincoln performed effectively as a military leader. He understood what had to be done and then found the generals who could implement his vision. The Union may have possessed a material edge over the Confederacy, but it was necessary to develop and implement a strategy that would translate this advantage into victory. This Lincoln did.