New and Noteworthy--Emory Upton's Reputation Redeemed

Emory Upton: Misunderstood Reformer, David J. Fitzpatrick, 344 pp., 15 black and white illustrations, 4 maps, Campaigns and Commanders Series, Oklahoma University Press, July 1017, $35.95 hardcover.

From the publisher: Emory Upton (1839–1881) is widely recognized as one of America’s most influential military thinkers. His works—The Armies of Asia and Europe and The Military Policy of the United States—fueled the army’s intellectual ferment in the late nineteenth century and guided Secretary of War Elihu Root’s reforms in the early 1900s. Yet as David J. Fitzpatrick contends, Upton is also widely misunderstood as an antidemocratic militaristic zealot whose ideas were “too Prussian” for America. In this first full biography in nearly half a century, Fitzpatrick, the leading authority on Upton, radically revises our view of this important figure in American military thought.

A devout Methodist farm boy from upstate New York, Upton attended the United States Military Academy at West Point and served in the Civil War. His use of a mass infantry attack to break the Confederate lines at Spotsylvania Courthouse in 1864 identified him as a rising figure in the U.S. Army. Upton’s subsequent work on military organizations in Asia and Europe, commissioned by Commanding General William T. Sherman, influenced the army’s turn toward a European, largely German ideal of soldiering as a profession. Yet it was this same text, along with Upton’s Military Policy of the United States, that also propelled the misinterpretations of Upton—first by some contemporaries, and more recently by noted historians Stephen Ambrose and Russell Weigley. By showing Upton’s dedication to the ideal of the citizen-soldier and placing him within the context of contemporary military, political, and intellectual discourse, Fitzpatrick shows how Upton’s ideas clearly grew out of an American military-political tradition.

Emory Upton: Misunderstood Reformer clarifies Upton’s influence on the army by offering a new and necessary understanding of the military’s intellectual direction at a critical juncture in American history.

New and Noteworthy: The Science of War at West Point Before the Civil War

Excerpts with edits from Michigan War Studies Review, December 26, 2016

In A Scientific Way of War, Ian Hope, a Canadian military officer, combat commander (Afghanistan), and teacher discusses the source and the influence of a particular mentality that emerged in the US Army in the nineteenth century.

"I attempt here to demonstrate that the doctrine inculcated at West Point in the antebellum period, called military science, containing an enduring and coherent military theory, was the foundation for broader American military thought … applied in the Civil War. The doctrine came not from any particular strategy or ideas of policy choices but from a prevailing—perhaps obsessive—intellectual movement that sought mathematical and scientific explanation for the phenomenon of war…. [Dennis Hart Mahan and others taught a] "system of tactics" … at West Point, based on a theory of war as a science…. [It] was maintained deliberately as the dominant antebellum military doctrine, which, by the end of the Civil War, became foundational in American thought. This paradigm maintained faith not in natural individual genius but in collective acceptance of an educated, and therefore scientific way of war."(10–11, 16)

Hope's book combines intellectual and institutional history in a perceptive, well documented study of the sociology of evolving military professions. Its structure is forecast in the elements listed in its subtitle. The author outlines a formal theory of war that differs sharply from the familiar Clausewitzian vocabulary:  the manipulation of topography, the "arithmetic" functions of artillery, fortification, and practical engineering; and the organization, supply, and encampment of armies, and logistics.



Hope's masterful survey of the relevant French primary sources and their American interpreters is notable for his contention that the thought of Antoine-Henri Jomini did not shape the USMA curriculum as much a many have claimed. He admits that Gen. Henry Halleck, for a time Abraham Lincoln's General-in-Chief, was a strict Jominian, but downplays his influence on the Academy and Army compared to Dennis Hart Mahan's.

Hope argues that critics of antebellum theory are guilty of anachronism, ignoring the circumstances and policies the Academy and the theory were intended to support. He quotes Matthew Moten to the effect that historians have concluded that "When the profession needed men to concentrate on high-level problems of military policy and strategy, few were equal to the task."
Hope responds that:

What is meant by this is that America missed the opportunity to create a Prussian-style general staff, a larger standing army, elite military colleges, conscripted reserves, and elaborate war plans for la grande guerre that could re-create Cannae against any foe. The West Point academy is here judged against the "high-level problems of military policy and strategy" of Europe, not the United States. (142)

The heart of the book concerns the evolution of key concepts and their diffusion within the Army by West Point graduates, specifically in the context of post-War of 1812 defense policies; Hope highlights President James Madison and Secretary of War James Monroe's "Third System of defense" and succeeding Secretary of War John C. Calhoun's notion of an "expansible army" (51–59).

The author astutely explores the paradox that a small army in a relatively isolated, hence secure, nation, preoccupied with internal expansion, fortress construction, and constabulary operations against indigenes, nonetheless studied and planned intensively for a most unlikely continental war. He shows that this, on the face of it, counterintuitive focus paid off during the Mexican War (1846–46) and, ironically, after the Union descended into a long civil war.

Tracing "military science" to the Enlightenment and particularly French precedents explains much about the history of instruction at the USMA that historians often gloss over. Older Academy graduates like myself will appreciate Hope's meticulous explication of the "Thayer system," much of which survived into the 1960s.

 Cadets had to master the basic principles and operations of all service branches, and graduates were regularly seconded to arms other than their own, notably the engineering corps and several bureaus. Hope's statistical analysis of the careers of West Point graduates shows that, at the outbreak of the Civil War, they already had considerable experience in higher administration and large-scale operations. The expertise of topographical engineers in operational planning is a case in point (136–38).

A Scientific Way of War will appeal to both professionals and lay persons with a serious interest in the US Army, its premier professional Academy, nineteenth-century American defense policy, the nature of a particular national approach to military theory and doctrine, and the professionalization of the American armed forces. Ian Hope makes the case for the importance of the study of the calculable part of war in pre-Civil War officer education and, implicitly, for its continued significance in professional education.

Full Text of Book Review is at Michigan War Studies Review, December 26, 2016

New and Noteworthy--- The Savage Civil War: A Military History

A Savage War: A Military History of the Civil War, Williamson Murray and Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh Princeton University Press; 616 pages; maps, $35.

Brief: Combines scholarly and military perspectives in a study that emphasizes the distinct martial cultures of North and South, and the conflict's role in the rise of modern warfare.

From the Publisher: 
The Civil War represented a momentous change in the character of war. It combined the projection of military might across a continent on a scale never before seen with an unprecedented mass mobilization of peoples. Yet despite the revolutionizing aspects of the Civil War, its leaders faced the same uncertainties and vagaries of chance that have vexed combatants since the days of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War. A Savage War sheds critical new light on this defining chapter in military history.

In a masterful narrative that propels readers from the first shots fired at Fort Sumter to the surrender of Robert E. Lee’s army at Appomattox, Williamson Murray and Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh bring every aspect of the battlefield vividly to life. They show how this new way of waging war was made possible by the powerful historical forces unleashed by the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution, yet how the war was far from being simply a story of the triumph of superior machines. Despite the Union’s material superiority, a Union victory remained in doubt for most of the war. Murray and Hsieh paint indelible portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and other major figures whose leadership, judgment, and personal character played such decisive roles in the fate of a nation. They also examine how the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Northern Virginia, and the other major armies developed entirely different cultures that influenced the war’s outcome.

A military history of breathtaking sweep and scope, A Savage War reveals how the Civil War ushered in the age of modern warfare.

Williamson Murray is professor emeritus of history at Ohio State University. His many books include The Iran-Iraq War.  
Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh is associate professor of history at the United States Naval Academy. He is the author of West Pointers and the Civil War. They both live in Fairfax, Virginia.

Reviews:
"[An] outstanding account of the American Civil War. . . . This expertly written narrative will draw in anyone with an interest in the Civil War at any knowledge level."--Library Journal, starred review

"A genuinely fresh, persuasive perspective on the Civil War. . . . [A Savage War] will make even readers with a strong knowledge of the war think about how it was fought and why it ended as it did. A winner for Civil War history buffs."--Kirkus, starred review

"[A] very important new history of the American Civil War by two important historians."--Newt Gingrich

"[A] new and interesting military history of the American Civil War."--Francis P. Sempa, New York Journal of Books

"The best, clearest, and most instructive military history of the Civil War I have ever read. . . . [A Savage War] hit a home run."--Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution

Endorsements:
"If you think that there is nothing new to write about the Civil War, this book will prove you wrong."--H. R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam

"More than just another narrative of the Civil War, this thoughtful and often provocative book is an engaging analysis of the leadership, personalities, and strategies of both sides during America’s great nineteenth-century trauma."--Craig L. Symonds, author of Lincoln and His Admirals

"A Savage War is not just a riveting military narrative of the American Civil War written by two military historians with singular pragmatic experience, but a rare and much needed strategic assessment of the aims and methods of the Union and the Confederacy--highlighted with incisive, blunt--and persuasive-- appraisals of all the major generals and supreme commanders."--Victor Davis Hanson, author of Carnage and Culture and The Savior Generals

Table of Contents:  List of Maps ix, Preface xi, Introduction 1
1 The Origins
2 The War’s Strategic Framework
3 “And the War Came”
4 First Battles and the Making of Armies
5 Stillborn between Earth and Water: The Unfulfilled Promise of Joint Operations
6 The Confederacy Recovers, 1862
7 The Confederate Counter-Offensives, 1862
8 The War in the East, 1863
9 The War in the West, 1863
10 The Killing Time: The War in the East, 1864
11 Victory in the West, 1864
12 The Collapse of the Confederacy
13 The Civil War in History
Acknowledgments , Notes , Further Reading, Index

Text Source: Princeton University Press

Review--With the Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other

With A Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other: The Problem of Militiary Thought in the Civil War North, Carol Reardon, Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 177 pp., 2012, $30.00

Review by Lawrence A. Kreiser, Jr., Stillman College

First Paragraph of the Review: Carol Reardon (Penn State Univ.) has had a remarkably wide-ranging and influential career. She has written many books and articles on the Civil War and the Vietnam War, Pickett's Charge in History and Memory  perhaps the best known among them, particularly for its innovative approach to the battle at Gettysburg and its aftermath. She has also bridged the still considerable gap between academia and the public with appearances on C-Span and PBS and membership on the advisory boards of several museums and Civil War battlefield parks.

Last Paragraph of the Review: With a Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other is a fascinating and novel work. Some may quibble over its brevity and strict focus on the Union high command. But its concise and engaging style of presentation, cogent organization, and depth of research make it a very welcome contribution among the outpouring of publications marking the Civil War sesquicentennial. Well suited to undergraduate courses and graduate seminars, it will also provide much food for thought for anyone interested in the Union's strategic decisions and the formulation of military thought in democratic societies generally.

Read the entire review at   Michigan War Studies Review

Forthcoming: With A Sword In One Hand and Jomini In the Other

With a Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other: The Problem of Military Thought in the Civil War North , Carol Reardon, The University of North Carolina Press, 224 pp., notes, bibliography, index, $30.00

From the Publisher: When the Civil War began, Northern soldiers and civilians alike sought a framework to help make sense of the chaos that confronted them. Many turned first to the classic European military texts from the Napoleonic era, especially Antoine Henri Jomini's Summary of the Art of War. As Carol Reardon shows, Jomini's work was only one voice in what ultimately became a lively and contentious national discourse about how the North should conduct war at a time when warfare itself was rapidly changing. She argues that the absence of a strong intellectual foundation for the conduct of war at its start--or, indeed, any consensus on the need for such a foundation--ultimately contributed to the length and cost of the conflict.

Reardon examines the great profusion of new or newly translated military texts of the Civil War years, intended to fill that intellectual void, and draws as well on the views of the soldiers and civilians who turned t them in the search for a winning strategy. In examining how debates over principles of military thought entered into the question of qualifications of officers entrusted to command the armies of Northern citizen soldiers, she explores the limitations of nineteenth-century military thought in dealing with the human elements of combat.

Carol Reardon is George Winfree Professor of American History at Pennsylvania State University and author of Pickett's Charge in History and Memory.

Pre-publication Reviews:"This excellent book will change the perceptions of military historians in general and Civil War historians in particular." --John F. Marszalek, executive director, The Ulysses S. Grant Association, Mississippi State University

"A superb book. Ingeniously researched, powerfully argued, and clearly written, it is a strikingly original contribution not only to Civil War literature but to the field of military theory as well." --George C. Rable, author of God's Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War

"Carol Reardon offers an incisive analysis of the impact--or lack thereof--of Jomini and other writers on military strategy, but she does a great deal more. This book provides one of the best accounts we have of leadership, morale, and combat stress in the Union army." --James M. McPherson

CWL---Sheridan's Lieutenants And The Birth Of The Modern Army

Sheridan's Lieutenants: Phil Sheridan, His Generals, and the Final Year of the Civil War, David Coffey, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 168 pages, maps, illustrations, notes, bibliographic essay, index, hardcover, $22.95.

In a clear and concise manner, David Coffey describes and explains the career of Phil Sheridan, who was brash, arrogant, connected to Grant, lucky and someone who could recognize talent. Best known of his victory at Cedar Creek, Virginia in October 1864 and for relieving Gouvernor Warren from command of the Fifth Corps at the Battle of Five Forks in March 1865, Sheridan is usually stereotyped as scrappy Irishman whom U.S. Grant pulled from staff service and put in command of troops.

Coffey details how Sheridan's division and brigade commanders created his luck. Custer, Crook, Merrit, Mackenzie, Devin, Miles, Wilson, Torbert and Lowell served Sheridan in 1864 and 1865. In twelve months, troops commanded by Sheridan wore out the Army of Northern Virginia's cavalry, killed J.E.B. Stuart, defeated Early at Winchester and Fisher's Hill, broke Lee's right flank at Five Forks and cornered him at Appomattox. Coffey also details the success of Wright and Getty at halting the retreating Union force and initiating an counter-attack Cedar Creek before Sheridan's ride makes it close to the battlefield. In detailing the Burning of the Shenandoah Valley, Coffey allows for some doubt regarding the actual amount of destruction reported by Custer and Sheridan.

In a footnote, Coffey suggests that the reader consult The Shenandoah Valley, 1861-1865: The Destruction of the Granary of the Confederacy by Michael G. Mahon. Though acknowledging the immense destruction in the valley during 1861-1865, Mahon refutes stereotypes regarding the volume of destruction in the fall of 1864 and its impact on the Army of Northern Virginia, which was drawing supplies more from the deep South than it was from the Shenandoah Valley. Also, CWL has found in
Virgina 1861, edited by Davis and Robertson, an essay that describes the amount of seizures of food stuffs and farm stock by Confederate authorities in the first summer, fall and winter of the war. These 1861 seizures limited the future production of crops and livestock later in the war.

The author finds the roots of Sheridan's success in his commanders, who time and again made Sheridan look better than he was. In the epilogue, Coffey describes the careers of Sheridan's lieutenants after the war and convincingly explains that the lessons they learned during the war made a significant impact on the next fifty years of U.S. army history. The Plains Wars, the Spanish-American War's Pacific Theatre, the administration of West Point, and the institutional growth of the army itself were heavily marked by officers under Sheridan during the last twelve months of the war.

Though sponsored by Grant, Sheridan on several occasions after the Battle of Cedar Creek refused to consent to Grant's pleas for a forward movement to Lynchburg in order to break the railroad before winter. Ironically, it is the railroad at Lynchburg to which the Army of Northern Virginia marches toward after its withdrawal from Petersburg and at which Sheridan's cavalry division corners Lee's army. Treading on his relationship with Grant, Sheridan dismissed Warren from command of the Fifth Corps at Five Forks. Grants allowed it and alienated Meade and the corps commanders of the Army of the Potomac, though payback came from Grant within two months.

Immediately after Lee's surrender, Grant ordered Sheridan to take the cavalry to North Carolina and aid Sherman. Sheridan had resisted that order twice before but he began to march toward North Carolina this time. Johnson surrendered before Sheridan's force arrived; Grant quickly removed Sheridan from command and sent him to Texas with orders to force the surrender of Confederates in that region and to intimidate Maximilian of Mexico who was France's puppet. Sheridan missed the Grand Review in Washington, D.C. Meade and his corps commanders rode at the head of the Army of the Potomac with out Sheridan, though his cavalry commanders were there in the parade. Later as a remembrance and for Plains War duty, President Grant advanced Sheridan to full general though Halleck and Meade had seniority. It was a tremendous slight, if not insult, to them.

Among the accolades given Sheridan at his death, Coffey offers this quote from Crook, who delivered victories at Winchester and Fisher's Hill to Sheridan: ". . . the adulations heaped upon him by a grateful Nation for his supposed genius turned his head, which added to his natural disposition, caused him to bloat his little carcass with debauchery and dissipation, which carried him off prematurely."

Other Voices---Early Review of Noswothy's Roll-Call to Destiny

Roll Call to Destiny: The Soldier's Eye View of Civil War Battles , Brent Nosworthy, Basic Books, 336 pages, March 2008, $27.95.

Reviewed by Bruce Trinque, Amston, CT on Civil War Discussion Group, Yahoogroups.com

Although in some ways Brent Nosworthy’s new Roll-Call to Destiny: The Soldier’s Eye View of Civil War Battle can be viewed as a companion to his previous, ground-breaking The Bloody Crucible of Courage: Fighting Methods and Combat Experience of the Civil War, fundamentally Roll-Call to Destiny is independent of that earlier volume, written from a quite different perspective. Thoroughly grounded in firsthand accounts, Roll-Call to Destiny provides a vivid examination of combat during the American Civil War: infantry, cavalry, and artillery (and even naval, or at least riverine, action), from the beginning of the war until nearly its end, both Eastern and Western theaters, Union and Confederate.

The focus is not principally upon the experiences of individual soldiers, but rather upon the activities of “small units” (usually, regiments or batteries, but also brigades or larger organizations, where appropriate) at several different battles, including First Bull Run, Gettysburg, and Missionary Ridge, but also lesser-known actions such as Arkansas Post and Darbytown Road. The author does not attempt to provide detailed accounts of the whole battles, but rather focuses upon one or more selected small units at those actions to illustrate numerous facets of Civil War warfare. He is particularly careful to link the theory and practice of such American combat to European military history and technical developments, showing how the American experience fit into a broader picture and that it is impossible to really understand the battlefields of 1861-65 without taking that broader picture into account. In several cases, the author challenges conventional wisdom and provides convincing new answers to old questions.

Besides this innovative and insightful assessment of Civil War combat, Roll-Call to Destiny offers plenty of more traditional military history in the form of stirring narratives of dramatic episodes peopled by soldiers whose courage and skill rose to the occasion – or sometimes did not. This is a book that should be of great interest and value to anyone seriously interested in the real nature of fighting during the American Civil War. Even those who think that they have already read everything there is to be said on the subject will come away with new information and ideas. This is definitely a book that deserves a strong thumbs-up.

Source: cwdg@yahoogroups.com

New--The Command and Control of Troops In Battle

America's Civil War: The Operational Battlefield, 1861-1863,Brian Holden Reid, Prometheus Books, 540 pages, $34.95. March 2007.

In 1861, when the Confederate States of America seceded from the Union and Civil War broke out between the North and the South, few people had much idea of the scale, intensity, and duration of the conflict they were about to enter. Politicians, generals, and common folk on both sides blithely assumed that the conflict would be over quickly and were naively convinced of the superiority of the leadership and the forces at their disposal. Three years later, after many horrendous battles and huge loss of life, the tragic realities of this war had begun to sink in. Stalemate had led to great frustration and suggested a protracted conflict with no end in sight.
In this successor volume to his acclaimed Origins of the American Civil War (1996), Civil War historian Brian Holden Reid examines in depth the operational military history during the first three years of America's Civil War. In particular, he focuses on generalship, command decisions, strategy, and tactics, as well as the experiences of ordinary soldiers.

Besides lack of experience among generals, Holden Reid reveals that for the first few years of the war there was considerable indecisiveness in the North, a hesitancy to punish the South, and a fruitless hope that the Confederacy would agree to some form of reconciliation. He highlights certain important political and social developments during the course of the war that had an effect on Union soldiers and shows how their views became a catalyst in hardening the attitudes in the North toward the South.

This important analysis makes a major contribution to Civil War military history within the larger context of a turbulent political and social climate. It will be followed by another work covering the final eighteen months of the conflict.

Brian Holden Reid (London, England) is professor of American history and military institutions and head of the Department of War Studies at King's College, London. Since 1993, he has been a member of the Council of the Society for Army Historical Research and from 1998 to 2004 served as chairman. In 2004-2005, he was the first non-American to serve as a member of the Lincoln Prize jury panel, which awards the most important literary prize in the field of Civil War history. His many books include The Origins of the American Civil War, The Civil War and the Wars of the Nineteenth Century, and Robert E. Lee: Icon for a Nation. (Text From Publisher)

Forthcoming--- Roll Call To Destiny: The Soldier's Eye View of Civil War Battles

Roll Call to Destiny: The Soldier's Eye View of Civil War Battles, Brent Nosworthy, Basic Books Inc., 336pp. $27.95. Release Date: March 2008.

Brent Nosworthy' last three books—The Bloody Crucible, The Anatomy of Victory, and With Musket, Sword, and Cannon—are each considered classic on the subject of military tactics and weaponry and how they affected warfare between the 17th and 19th centuries. In his new book, he takes a slightly different approach, choosing to focus more on the actual experiences of soldiers (in this case, concerning the American Civil War), and less on tactics and strategies from a command point of view; rather than provide a bird's-eye view of battle, he conveys a ground-level account of what the average soldier saw, smelled and felt.

Weaponry, tactics, strategy and the experience of combat are, of course, all interconnected, and Nosworthy doesn't lose sight of the fact. He has not created a simple miscellany of disconnected firsthand combat accounts. Instead, he begins Roll Call to Destiny with an enlightening chapter about Europe in the mid-19th century—a particularly progressive period when it came to weapons technology and military doctrine. America wasted no time learning about and creating new weapons and tactics, and then putting them to deadly use in the Civil War.

Having sifted through mountains of firsthand accounts (many never previously published), Nosworthy pieces together his relevant findings to paint a crisp, clear picture of the Civil War frontlines, from the perspective of soldiers standing on them. Nosworthy's subjects of interest here are infantry, artillery and cavalry. What was it like to stand behind a cannon and beat back an infantry charge? To take part in a chaotic, fast-paced cavalry raid? To confront the enemy face to face in thick, forest foliage? Nosworthy puts us in the middle of it all.

To illustrate the average soldier's experience, Nosworthy uses a number of case studies, including Burnside's advance during Bull Run, the Marye's Heights artillery battle at Fredericksburg, cavalry versus cavalry on the third day at Gettysburg, and the defense of Fort Sanders during the Knoxville campaign. He includes three lengthy sections under the rubric “Tactical Observations,” which function as mini chapters examining how the soldiers' experiences covered under the previous chapter are connected with certain issues concerning tactics, training and weapons that made their appearance during the fight, along with the terrain on which the battle took place. These sections are typical of the author's detailed, insightful and original thinking, and will be of great value to Civil War scholars and buffs.

With Roll Call to Destiny, Nosworthy has honed his characteristic approach to military history into an extraordinarily detailed study that is both supremely informative and inviting to read. This is a fascinating, superbly researched work that belongs on the shelves of anyone interested in the Civil War.

Source: Text from Publisher

CWL --- Brave, Dutiful, Good: George Gordon Meade

George Gordon Meade and the War in the East, Ethan S. Rafuse, McWhiney Foundation Press, 2003, 192 pp., illustrations, maps, index, notes, $29.95.

Ethan Rafuse states his purpose frankly. To provide a chronicle of the life and career of George Gordon Meade and to delineate the forces that shaped the Union war effort in the East and the military and political problems that Meade and other generals encountered as they pursed victory are his goals.(p. 15) He splendidly achieves them.

As in A Single Grand Victory: The First Campaign and Battle of Manassas (2002) and McClellan's War: The Failure Of Moderation In The Struggle For The Union (2005), Rafuse deftly handles the primary sources to reveal the men and their mindsets on the battlefield. In each of his three works, the major dispute between the West Point trained generals, the political generals, and the administration of Lincoln is the line of operations to be pursued when the army advanced upon Richmond.

The West Pointer officers, even Hooker, believed the appropriate base to be the James River. The Lincoln administration, even Halleck, believed the appropriate base to be the railroads running north to south between Washington, DC and Richmond. The West Pointers in the Army of the Potomac were constantly frustrated by the Overland approach and were unable to convince the administration to adopt the James River approach. In the end, it is Grant who uses the Overland route to reach the appropriate base of operations, the James River.

Within the context of this struggle, Meade the commander of a brigade, a division, a corps and an army manages to excel. Citing Meade's extensive letters to his wife, Rafuse reveals a general who while it "was his job to offer suggestions, the final decision as to what policy he was to implement" rested with the Lincoln administration.(p. 169) Unlike McClellan and Hooker, Meade had a great contempt for history that had yet to be written. The statement of this attitude was in a letter to his wife written on April 10, 1865, the day after the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. The first draft of that yet to be final draft of history appeared in newspapers. He had a very low opinion of politicians and newspaper editors. He made a effort to shape policy with politicians but made no effort to shape perceptions of newspapermen. He did not attempt to work with politicians by cultivating his own lobby of congressmen and senators.

As a commander of a brigade in the Pennsylvania Reserve division, Meade suffered two wounds at the Battle of Glendale, June 30, 1862. He recovered and rejoined his brigade in time for the Battle of 2nd Manassas in which the Pennsylvania Reserves refused to retreat in the late afternoon of August 30 and, it can be argued, saved the Army of Virginia, from a truly ignominious defeat by capture. Meade ascended to division command before Antietam and to corps command during the battle. He returned to command of the Pennsylvania Reserve division for the Fredericksburg Campaign. He commanded a the Fifth Corps during the January 1863 'Mud March.' He became the last commander of the Army of the Potomac during the early morning hours of June 28, three days before the Battle of Gettysburg.

Meade confided to his wife many personal evaluations. McClellan 'errs on the side of prudence and caution, and that a little more rashness on his part would improve his generalship.' (p.47) Towards Burnside "I never felt so disappointed and sorry for any one in my life as I did" for him; "he really seems to have even the elements against him." (p. 57) "Hooker has disappointed the army and myself in failing to show the nerve. . . . I am sorry for Hooker, because I like him and my relations have been agreeable with him; but I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that he has on this occasion [Chancellorsville] missed a brilliant opportunity." (p. 66)

As for Meade's own generalship, Rafuse provides quotations from both Rebel and Union generals, particularly E.P. Alexander and U.S. Grant, that express an appreciation of his competence and perception of duty. In the course of less than 200 pages, Ethan Rafuse has provided readable, even suspenseful, biography that will be enjoyed by both the buff and the scholar.

CWL --- A Single Grand Victory: Manassas 1861

You may recall from you public library or you middle school/high school library a book, Edward Creasy's Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World from Marathon to Waterloo. You may have encountered a revised version that included all the 19th century or even the edition that included WWII.

The original edition was 1851 and became an immediate and constant bestseller for the remainder of the 19th century. John Keegan writes that Creasy's intention was to offer a 'jolly good read' and oversimplied his analysis in order to reach a general audience. Creasy's idea of indentifably decisive battles took hold among the general readership.

On a single day on a single battlefield an army could be annihilated or rescued, a nation could be destroyed or saved, and an empire could be founded or meet its demise. The general of the victorious army must be brilliant. Logistics, political factors, and strategy are secondary factors. The virtue and character of the commanders is the decisive factor of the decisive battle. Brillant commanders with courageous armies make decisive victories.

The expectations for a single, grand victory by Northerners and Southerners, their newspaper editors, and their political leaders were based up on the virtue of their societies. Having honor-bound societies with God-on-their-side, with superior versions of capitalism, the North and the South contemplated each other. In the eyes of the South, the North was a mud-sill society of wage slaves, ruled by Yankee merchants and bankers and the seedbed of radical, free love abolitionists. In the eyes of the North, the South was an indolent society of poor farmers and wealthly slaveholders, ruled by a Slave Power Conspiracy and the seedbed of mercenaries eager expand slavery into the American West and Latin America.

Aristocratic and chivalrous Southerners expected to be embraced by the aristocratic and chivalrous monarchs of Europe, who would despise the egalitarian North and who would submit to King Cotton. Southerners believed that the North did not have the capacity to accept the economic sacrafice of a war with the Kingdom of Cotton.

For the South, 'One Single Grand Victory' would be the story of the Southern War for Independence.

for the North, 'One Single Grand Victory' would be the story of the War of the Slaveholders Rebellion.

Looking back from the early 21st century upon the war and its interpretations, the Single Grand Victory notion worked its way into the Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War as well at the Centenial writings (and videos) of the 1960-2000 era.

Gettysburg is the turning point of the war.
Pickett's Charge was the turning point of the turning point.
Where did these ideas come from?

From Creasy's book written in 1851.

A Single Grand Victory: The First Campaign and the Battle of Manassas, Ethan S. Rafuse, Scholarly Resources, 2002.

CWL --- A Single Grand Victory

An immensely powerful idea---A Single Grand Victory--a victory that would be sufficient to convince the other side of the hopelessness of its cause and persuade its adherents to abandon their war aims.

Austerlitz, 1805, The War of the Third Coalition
Solferino, 1859, The Austro-Franco War
Sadowa, 1866, Prussia-Austrian War

These are single battles that ended a 19th century war.
In a era when leadership alone was viewed as the sole factor that could lead to a truely decisive victory, Davis, Lee, and McClellan were reading military history at West Point
Were they really looking for such a battle in 1862? 1863? 1864?

Ethan S. Rafuse examines the origins of the 'Single Grand Victory' perspective in his book on the first Manassas Campaign. The next entry will follow the development of this 19th century mind set and the constraints it put upon CW generalship as Rafuse describes the beginning of the war.

CWL --- McClellan Reflected in the Mirror of the Times

McClellan's War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union, Rafuse, Ethan, Indiana University Press, 525 pp., maps, illustrations, notes, index, 2005, $35.

Rafuse cites Grant as remarking during the 1870s that McClellan 'is to me one to the mysteries of the war.' Did Grant intuit that McClellan was old-fashioned and unwilling to fight a war without moderation? Possibly Grant understood McClellan to have psychological problems that rendered him ill-suited for the task at hand in 1862. Was Grant prescient regarding historian's judgement of McClellan?

Cultural environment and family environments made McClellan essentially different from both Grant and Burnside. The Market Revolution during the Age of Jackson, upward social and political mobility and post-Mexican War nationalism are elements which are present in McClellan's life, much more present than in Grant's life, and somewhat more present than in Bursides' life.

Rafuse presents these dual environments, cultural and family, as being the seed-bed for McClellan's faith in elnightened reason, critical moderation, and the rational direction of activities. An attachment to order and hierarchy and the rigorous practice of deductive reasoning from established principles to the significant details of campaigns is the hallmark of McClellan, the man and soldier. If Grant had known McClellan as thoroughly as Rafuse does, McClellan would not have been a mystery to him. Grant's cultural and family environments were very different from McClellan's. Burnside's cultural and family environments were only somewhat different from McClellan's. Though having West Point in common, upon graduation all three took different lessons away from it.

During the Winter Campaign of November 1862-January 1863, things that went wrong for Burside (besides have Franklin as a wing commander) include the over-attachment to his plans in the face change, unfamiliarity with some the established principles of warfare, and his inability to reason deductively rather than inductively. Both Rable and O'Reilly present the activities of Burnside in the light of this failure to reason deductively, which includes the ability to gather information on the enemy and assess it with an eye to changing plans.