The Iron Dice of Battle

The Iron Dice of Battle PDF

Author: Timothy B. Smith

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2023-11-29

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 0807180831

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Killed in action at the bloody Battle of Shiloh, Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston stands as the highest-ranking American military officer to die in combat. His unexpected demise had cascading negative consequences for the South’s war effort, as his absence created a void in adequate leadership in the years that followed. In The Iron Dice of Battle, noted Civil War historian Timothy B. Smith reexamines Johnston’s life and death, offering remarkable insights into this often-contradictory figure. As a commander, Johnston frequently faced larger and better-armed Union forces, dramatically shaping his battlefield decisions and convincing him that victory could only be attained by taking strategic risks while fighting. The final wager came while leading his army at Shiloh in April 1862. During a desperate gambit to turn the tide of battle, Johnston charged to the front of the Confederate line to direct his troops and fell mortally wounded after sustaining enemy fire. The first work to survey the general’s career in detail in nearly sixty years, The Iron Dice of Battle builds on recent scholarship to provide a new and incisive assessment of Johnston’s life, his Confederate command, and the effect his death had on the course of the Civil War in the West.

The Iron Dice of Battle

The Iron Dice of Battle PDF

Author: Timothy B. Smith

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2023-11-29

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 080718084X

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Killed in action at the bloody Battle of Shiloh, Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston stands as the highest-ranking American military officer to die in combat. His unexpected demise had cascading negative consequences for the South’s war effort, as his absence created a void in adequate leadership in the years that followed. In The Iron Dice of Battle, noted Civil War historian Timothy B. Smith reexamines Johnston’s life and death, offering remarkable insights into this often-contradictory figure. As a commander, Johnston frequently faced larger and better-armed Union forces, dramatically shaping his battlefield decisions and convincing him that victory could only be attained by taking strategic risks while fighting. The final wager came while leading his army at Shiloh in April 1862. During a desperate gambit to turn the tide of battle, Johnston charged to the front of the Confederate line to direct his troops and fell mortally wounded after sustaining enemy fire. The first work to survey the general’s career in detail in nearly sixty years, The Iron Dice of Battle builds on recent scholarship to provide a new and incisive assessment of Johnston’s life, his Confederate command, and the effect his death had on the course of the Civil War in the West.

Rolling the Iron Dice

Rolling the Iron Dice PDF

Author: Scot Macdonald

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2000-07-30

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 0313001723

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Does history provide lessons for foreign policy makers today? Macdonald combines cognitive psychology theories about analogical reasoning, international relations theories about military intervention, and original archival research to analyze the role of historical information in foreign policy decision making. He looks at the role of historical analogies in Anglo-American decision making during foreign policy crises involving the possible use of force in regional contingencies during a crucial period in the 1950s when the West faced an emerging Soviet threat. This study analyzes the influence of situational and individual variables in a comparison of more than ten leaders from two nations facing four different crises. Rolling the Iron Dice describes the often significant effect of historical analogies on perceptions of the adversary and of allies, time constraints, policy options and risks, as well as the justification of policy in four crises: the 1950 Korean invasion; the 1951-53 Iranian oil nationalization incident; the 1956 Suez crisis; and the 1958 crisis in Lebanon and Jordan. Contrary to both the slippery slope and the escalation models of military intervention, Macdonald argues that leaders decide extremely early in a crisis, often on the basis of an historical analogy, but also based on perceptions of the rationality of an adversary, whether to use military force. Their decision does not change unless the adversary capitulates to every demand.

Dark and Bloody Ground

Dark and Bloody Ground PDF

Author: Thomas Ayres

Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13:

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This book chronicles not only the remarkable military victory at Mansfield but the subsequent engagements that forced Union forces into an ignominious withdrawal.

The Siege of Vicksburg

The Siege of Vicksburg PDF

Author: Timothy B. Smith

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2021-06-18

Total Pages: 752

ISBN-13: 0700632255

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In The Siege of Vicksburg: Climax of the Campaign to Open the Mississippi River, May 23–July 4, 1863, noted Civil War scholar Timothy B. Smith offers the first comprehensive account of the siege that split the Confederacy in two. While the siege is often given a chapter or two in larger campaign studies and portrayed as a foregone conclusion, The Siege of Vicksburg offers a new perspective and thus a fuller understanding of the larger Vicksburg Campaign. Smith takes full advantage of all the resources, both Union and Confederate—from official reports to soldiers’ diaries and letters to newspaper accounts—to offer in vivid detail a compelling narrative of the operations. The siege was unlike anything Grant’s Army of the Tennessee had attempted to this point and Smith helps the reader understand the complexity of the strategy and tactics, the brilliance of the engineers’ work, the grueling nature of the day-by-day participation, and the effect on all involved, from townspeople to the soldiers manning the fortifications. The Siege of Vicksburg portrays a high-stakes moment in the course of the Civil War because both sides understood what was at stake: the fate of the Mississippi River, the trans-Mississippi region, and perhaps the Confederacy itself. Smith’s detailed command-level analysis extends from army to corps, brigades, and regiments and offers fresh insights on where each side held an advantage. One key advantage was that the Federals had vast confidence in their commander while the Confederates showed no such assurance, whether it was Pemberton inside Vicksburg or Johnston outside. Smith offers an equally appealing and richly drawn look at the combat experiences of the soldiers in the trenches. He also tackles the many controversies surrounding the siege, including detailed accounts and analyses of Johnston’s efforts to lift the siege, and answers the questions of why Vicksburg fell and what were the ultimate consequences of Grant’s victory.

The Allure of Battle

The Allure of Battle PDF

Author: Cathal Nolan

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-01-02

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0199874654

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History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered "decisive." Cannae, Konigsberg, Austerlitz, Midway, Agincourt-all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But these legendary battles may or may not have determined the final outcome of the wars in which they were fought. Nor has the "genius" of the so-called Great Captains - from Alexander the Great to Frederick the Great and Napoleon - play a major role. Wars are decided in other ways. Cathal J. Nolan's The Allure of Battle systematically and engrossingly examines the great battles, tracing what he calls "short-war thinking," the hope that victory might be swift and wars brief. As he proves persuasively, however, such has almost never been the case. Even the major engagements have mainly contributed to victory or defeat by accelerating the erosion of the other side's defences. Massive conflicts, the so-called "people's wars," beginning with Napoleon and continuing until 1945, have consisted of and been determined by prolonged stalemate and attrition, industrial wars in which the determining factor has been not military but matériel. Nolan's masterful book places battles squarely and mercilessly within the context of the wider conflict in which they took place. In the process it help corrects a distorted view of battle's role in war, replacing popular images of the "battles of annihilation" with somber appreciation of the commitments and human sacrifices made throughout centuries of war particularly among the Great Powers. Accessible, provocative, exhaustive, and illuminating, The Allure of Battle will spark fresh debate about the history and conduct of warfare.

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