Civil War Supply and Strategy

Civil War Supply and Strategy PDF

Author: Earl J. Hess

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2020-10-07

Total Pages: 447

ISBN-13: 0807174475

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Winner of the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award Civil War Supply and Strategy stands as a sweeping examination of the decisive link between the distribution of provisions to soldiers and the strategic movement of armies during the Civil War. Award-winning historian Earl J. Hess reveals how that dynamic served as the key to success, especially for the Union army as it undertook bold offensives striking far behind Confederate lines. How generals and their subordinates organized military resources to provide food for both men and animals under their command, he argues, proved essential to Union victory. The Union army developed a powerful logistical capability that enabled it to penetrate deep into Confederate territory and exert control over select regions of the South. Logistics and supply empowered Union offensive strategy but limited it as well; heavily dependent on supply lines, road systems, preexisting railroad lines, and natural waterways, Union strategy worked far better in the more developed Upper South. Union commanders encountered unique problems in the Deep South, where needed infrastructure was more scarce. While the Mississippi River allowed Northern armies to access the region along a narrow corridor and capture key cities and towns along its banks, the dearth of rail lines nearly stymied William T. Sherman’s advance to Atlanta. In other parts of the Deep South, the Union army relied on massive strategic raids to destroy resources and propel its military might into the heart of the Confederacy. As Hess’s study shows, from the perspective of maintaining food supply and moving armies, there existed two main theaters of operation, north and south, that proved just as important as the three conventional eastern, western, and Trans-Mississippi theaters. Indeed, the conflict in the Upper South proved so different from that in the Deep South that the ability of Federal officials to negotiate the logistical complications associated with army mobility played a crucial role in determining the outcome of the war.

The Grand Design

The Grand Design PDF

Author: Donald Stoker

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-07-20

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 0199752567

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Despite the abundance of books on the Civil War, not one has focused exclusively on what was in fact the determining factor in the outcome of the conflict: differences in Union and Southern strategy. In The Grand Design, Donald Stoker provides for the first time a comprehensive and often surprising account of strategy as it evolved between Fort Sumter and Appomattox. Reminding us that strategy is different from tactics (battlefield deployments) and operations (campaigns conducted in pursuit of a strategy), Stoker examines how Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis identified their political goals and worked with their generals to craft the military means to achieve them--or how they often failed to do so. Stoker shows that Davis, despite a West Point education and experience as Secretary of War, ultimately failed as a strategist by losing control of the political side of the war. Lincoln, in contrast, evolved a clear strategic vision, but he failed for years to make his generals implement it. And while Robert E. Lee was unerring in his ability to determine the Union's strategic heart--its center of gravity--he proved mistaken in his assessment of how to destroy it. Historians have often argued that the North's advantages in population and industry ensured certain victory. In The Grand Design, Stoker reasserts the centrality of the overarching plan on each side, arguing convincingly that it was strategy that determined the result of America's great national conflict.

Civil War Command And Strategy

Civil War Command And Strategy PDF

Author: Jones Archer

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-05-11

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 1439105812

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In this comparative history of Union & Confederate command & strategy, Jones shows us how the Civil War was actually conducted. Looking at decision-making at the highest levels, Jones argues that President Lincoln & Davis & most of their senior generals brought to the context of the Civil War a broad grasp of established mil. strategy & its historical applications, as well as the ability to make significant strategic innovations. He emphasizes the role of maneuvers as well as the significance of battles, & demonstrates that the war was a multi-faceted blend of traditional warfare with early influences of the industrial age.

War Upon the Land

War Upon the Land PDF

Author: Lisa M. Brady

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2012-04-01

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 0820343838

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In this first book-length environmental history of the American Civil War, Lisa M. Brady argues that ideas about nature and the environment were central to the development and success of Union military strategy. From the start of the war, both sides had to contend with forces of nature, even as they battled one another. Northern soldiers encountered unfamiliar landscapes in the South that suggested, to them, an uncivilized society's failure to control nature. Under the leadership of Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Philip Sheridan, the Union army increasingly targeted southern environments as the war dragged on. Whether digging canals, shooting livestock, or dramatically attempting to divert the Mississippi River, the Union aimed to assert mastery over nature by attacking the most potent aspect of southern identity and power--agriculture. Brady focuses on the siege of Vicksburg, the 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign, marches through Georgia and the Carolinas, and events along the Mississippi River to examine this strategy and its devastating physical and psychological impact. Before the war, many Americans believed in the idea that nature must be conquered and subdued. Brady shows how this perception changed during the war, leading to a wider acceptance of wilderness. Connecting environmental trauma with the onset of American preservation, Brady pays particular attention to how these new ideas of wilderness can be seen in the creation of national battlefield memorial parks as unaltered spaces. Deftly combining environmental and military history with cultural studies, War upon the Land elucidates an intriguing, largely unexplored side of the nation's greatest conflict.

Battle in the Civil War

Battle in the Civil War PDF

Author: Paddy Griffith

Publisher: Independently Published

Published: 2021-07-23

Total Pages: 102

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Battle in the Civil War is a step-by-step explanation of how the Blue and Gray armies squared up to fight each other; how they maneuvered on the battlefield and what happened when they came to close combat. It is a concise summary of the art of war in that conflict. Military historian Paddy Griffith looks at the problems faced by the commanders in this fascinating conflict and examines in detail how they overcame them. Working closely with illustrator Peter Dennis, Dr. Griffith reveals in a new and exciting way the mechanisms of command, the instruments of victory and of defeat during those four terrible years. This second edition is edited by John Curry as part of the History of Wargaming Project series of books.

Civil War Infantry Tactics

Civil War Infantry Tactics PDF

Author: Earl J. Hess

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2015-04-13

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0807159387

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

EARL J. HESS is Stewart W. McClelland Chair in History at Lincoln Memorial University and the author of fifteen books on the Civil War, including Kennesaw Mountain: Sherman, Johnston, and the Atlanta Campaign ; The Knoxville Campaign: Burnside and Longstreet in East Tennessee ; and The Civil War in the West: Victory and Defeat from the Appalachians to the Mississippi.

Battle Tactics of the Civil War

Battle Tactics of the Civil War PDF

Author: Paddy Griffith

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2001-01-01

Total Pages: 496

ISBN-13: 9780300084610

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Military expert Paddy Griffith argues that despite the use of new weapons and of trench warfare techniques, the Civil War was in reality the last Napoleonic-style war. Illustrations.

Strategy in the Civil War

Strategy in the Civil War PDF

Author: John Barron Deaderick

Publisher:

Published: 1946

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Amerikansk bog der gennemgår Den Nordamerikanske Borgerkrigs strategi, som netop er en vigtig del af Amerikas krigshistorie. Der skrives således om krigshandlinger i forbindelse med Manassas, Donelsen, Shiloh, Seven Days, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, The Wilderness, Atlanta, Nashville og Petersburg og med 27 kortskitser.

Attack and Die

Attack and Die PDF

Author: Grady McWhiney

Publisher:

Published: 1982

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Why did the Confederacy lose so many men? The authors contend that the Confederates bled themselves nearly to death in the first three years of the war by making costly attacks more often than the Federals. Offensive tactics, which had been used successfully by Americans in the Mexican War, were much less effective in the 1860s because an improved weapon - the rifle - had given increased strength to defenders. This book describes tactical theory in the 1850s and suggests how each related to Civil War tactics. It also considers the development of tactics in all three arms of the service during the Civil War.

Retreat to Victory?

Retreat to Victory? PDF

Author: Robert G. Tanner

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 9780842028820

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Did Confederate armies attack too often for their own good during the Civil War? Was the relentless, sometimes costly effort to preserve territory a blunder? These questions about Confederate strategy have dogged historians since Appomattox. Many have come to believe that the South might have won the Civil War if it had only avoided head-on battles, conducted an aggressive guerrilla campaign, and manoeuvred across wide swaths of territory. This volume offers a consideration of this widely-held theory.