Q-Ball wrote:AS Johnston was ill-served by nearly all his subordinates (though, he put them in those spots)
McCown did a lousy job at Island 10; he waited too long, then ended up trapped with his garrison. 5000 men gone.
Zollicoffer botched Mill Springs completely, setting up for battle with a swollen river in his rear. He paid with his life.
Floyd and Pillow's incompetence at Donelson is well documented. But Johnston was negligent in not having Tilghman improve the Ft. Henry defenses enough by fortifying the opposite bank. He sat on it for 4 months.
Finally, Polk's move on Columbus was a political failure. (Though, he probably felt the KY Legislature was about to throw in with the Union anyway, and he was probably right)
Hardee was the only subordinate that didn't screw up, but with only 15,000 men or so at Bowling Green, he had no choice but to withdraw in haste once Donelson fell
AS Johnston's decision to hit Grant's army before Buell could join him was probably correct; they did acheive surprise and nearly won, but Grant's determination carried the day
But the CSA early defense of Tennessee was nothing short of a poorly led disaster
Exactly, the further we get from Virginia, the more we see that the CSA was just a brand new creation, not a state, it didn't have its structures, its knowhow, its hierarchy, basically it didn't function. In Virginia where the war was started you had the newly formed capital, you were a stone throw away from Washington, and you had the infrastructure (railways, depots, some industry) to run the war. Close to the new political power, the army and overall war effort looked like one a state could muster. By no means fantastic, but it looked rational.
In the West and transmississippi, the CSA leadership and war effort was just shambolic until mid62 at least ! Missouri was Price and Van Dorn's personal folly in terms of campaigning and decision making, and AJ Johnston and all his subordinates had no real overall plan, had a no point carried a proper assesment of their ressources, how to use them at best, what should the strategic goals be, etc.... But most of all, the leadership of the CSA in Richmond hadn't either !
Campaigning in Virginia was "mentally" and strategically easy for the CSA, it alternated between "we need to save Richmond" and "we ned to take Washington / Union terrtory to make them give up". But in the west and transmississippi, there had been no real thought as to what the goals should / could be, what was realistic or not, etc...
I would go so far as to say that the conduct of war in those two theater by the CSA in the first year of the war are the most shambolic examples of poorly run military operations in the whole war, and I would even say that contrary to what many think, ie that the Civil war was a drown out long affair where the CSA lasted a lot longer than it should have, it should have been a lot harder on the union had the CSA had even the basis of a functioning apparatus in the west and transmississipi.
So to me, Union historical success in both those theaters should be almost impossible against a halfway competent CSA player, or even as you have all stated, the AI. Basically the only way one should able to emulate what happened, would be if one had all CSA forces locked in place throughout 61 in the west so that the Union player can at will surround and manouver without fear...
