McClellan and the Union High Command, 1861-1863

McClellan and the Union High Command, 1861-1863 PDF Author: Jeffrey W. Green
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476627096
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
With Washington's proximity to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Union military operations in the first two years of the Civil War focused mainly on the Eastern Theater, where General McClellan commanded the Army of the Potomac. McClellan's "On to Richmond" battle cry dominated strategic thinking in the high command. When he failed and was sacked by President Lincoln, a coterie of senior officers sought his return. This re-examination of the high command and McClellan's war in the East provides a broader understanding of the Union's inability to achieve victory in the first two years, and takes the debate about the Union's leadership into new areas.

McClellan and the Union High Command, 1861-1863

McClellan and the Union High Command, 1861-1863 PDF Author: Jeffrey W. Green
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476627096
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
With Washington's proximity to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Union military operations in the first two years of the Civil War focused mainly on the Eastern Theater, where General McClellan commanded the Army of the Potomac. McClellan's "On to Richmond" battle cry dominated strategic thinking in the high command. When he failed and was sacked by President Lincoln, a coterie of senior officers sought his return. This re-examination of the high command and McClellan's war in the East provides a broader understanding of the Union's inability to achieve victory in the first two years, and takes the debate about the Union's leadership into new areas.

Combined Operations in the Civil War

Combined Operations in the Civil War PDF Author: Rowena Reed
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803289437
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
In his introduction John D. Milligan considers Reed's provocative thesis that General George B. McClellan's concept of a grand strategy would have ended the bloodshed sooner.

Staff Ride Handbook For The Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863 [Illustrated Edition]

Staff Ride Handbook For The Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863 [Illustrated Edition] PDF Author: Dr. Christopher Gabel
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1782899359
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Includes over 30 maps and Illustrations The Staff Ride Handbook for the Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863, provides a systematic approach to the analysis of this key Civil War campaign. Part I describes the organization of the Union and Confederate Armies, detailing their weapons, tactics, and logistical, engineer, communications, and medical support. It also includes a description of the U.S. Navy elements that featured so prominently in the campaign. Part II consists of a campaign overview that establishes the context for the individual actions to be studied in the field. Part III consists of a suggested itinerary of sites to visit in order to obtain a concrete view of the campaign in its several phases. For each site, or “stand,” there is a set of travel directions, a discussion of the action that occurred there, and vignettes by participants in the campaign that further explain the action and which also allow the student to sense the human “face of battle.” Part IV provides practical information on conducting a Staff Ride in the Vicksburg area, including sources of assistance and logistical considerations. Appendix A outlines the order of battle for the significant actions in the campaign. Appendix B provides biographical sketches of key participants. Appendix C provides an overview of Medal of Honor conferral in the campaign. An annotated bibliography suggests sources for preliminary study.

On to Petersburg

On to Petersburg PDF Author: Gordon C. Rhea
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807167495
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 607

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Book Description
With On to Petersburg, Gordon C. Rhea completes his much-lauded history of the Overland Campaign, a series of Civil War battles fought between Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in southeastern Virginia in the spring of 1864. Having previously covered the campaign in his magisterial volumes on The Battle of the Wilderness, The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern, To the North Anna River, and Cold Harbor, Rhea ends this series with a comprehensive account of the last twelve days of the campaign, which concluded with the beginning of the siege of Petersburg. On to Petersburg follows the Union army’s movement to the James River, the military response from the Confederates, and the initial assault on Petersburg, which Rhea suggests marked the true end of the Overland Campaign. Beginning his account in the immediate aftermath of Grant’s three-day attack on Confederate troops at Cold Harbor, Rhea argues that the Union general’s primary goal was not—as often supposed—to take Richmond, but rather to destroy Lee’s army by closing off its retreat routes and disrupting its supply chains. While Grant struggled at times to communicate strategic objectives to his subordinates and to adapt his army to a faster-paced, more flexible style of warfare, Rhea suggests that the general successfully shifted the military landscape in the Union’s favor. On the rebel side, Lee and his staff predicted rightly that Grant would attempt to cross the James River and lay siege to the Army of Northern Virginia while simultaneously targeting Confederate supply lines. Rhea examines how Lee, facing a better-provisioned army whose troops outnumbered Lee’s two to one, consistently fought the Union army to an impasse, employing risky, innovative field tactics to counter Grant’s forces. Like the four volumes that preceded it, On to Petersburg represents decades of research and scholarship and will stand as the most authoritative history of the final battles in the campaign.

McClellan's Own Story

McClellan's Own Story PDF Author: George Brinton McClellan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 710

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Book Description
The Civil War memoirs of Lincoln's controversial commander of the Army of the Potomac, with steel-engraved frontispiece portrait, nine illustrations, 3 maps and a two-page facsimile letter; spine and cover corners mended with green mending tape.

Railroad Generalship: Foundations Of Civil War Strategy [Illustrated Edition]

Railroad Generalship: Foundations Of Civil War Strategy [Illustrated Edition] PDF Author: Dr. Christopher R. Gabel
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1782895698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
Includes 4 figures, 13 maps and 4 tables. Renowned Military Historian Dr Christopher Gabel investigates the effects of the Railroad on the strategies employed by both the Union and Confederate Generals of the Civil War. According to an old saying, “amateurs study tactics: professionals study logistics.” Any serious student of the military profession will know that logistics constantly shape military affairs and sometimes even dictate strategy and tactics. This excellent monograph by Dr. Christopher Gabel shows that the appearance of the steam-powered railroad had enormous implications for military logistics, and thus for strategy, in the American Civil War. Not surprisingly, the side that proved superior in “railroad generalship,” or the utilization of the railroads for military purposes, was also the side that won the war.

General John Pope

General John Pope PDF Author: Peter Cozzens
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780252072598
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
Ambitious and outspoken, John Pope was one of the most controversial figures to hold high command during the Civil War, Reconstruction, and in the American West. General John Pope: A Life for the Nation is the first full biography of this much maligned figure who played crucial roles in both the Eastern and the Western Theaters of the Civil War. Renowned Civil War scholar Peter Cozzens has mined Pope's own memoirs and a wealth of other primary sources to provide a complete picture of this gifted strategist. Uncovering new information about Pope's pre- and postwar career and his path to power, Cozzens delineates the political environment that surrounded Pope and provided the context for his actions. Cozzens examines Pope's early career first as commander of the Army of the Mississippi and then as leader of a hastily formed Army of Virginia against Robert E. Lee. After his famous defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Pope was sent to the frontier. There he held important commands on the western plains over the next twenty-four years, all the while struggling to clear his reputation of the events at Second Bull Run. A principal architect of the Red River War, which broke the resistance of the Southern Plains Indians, Pope espoused humanitarian treatment of subjugated tribes and was recognized as one of the army's leading authorities on Indian affairs. In place of the simplistic caricature that has satisfied most historians, Cozzens has crafted an accurate, humane, balanced portrait of a complex man involved with the most complex issues of his day. A monumental work on a long-neglected figure, General John Pope offers a fresh look at a key nineteenth-century military leader as well as the most detailed analysis available of Federal leadership during the Second Bull Run campaign.

Lincoln's Lieutenants

Lincoln's Lieutenants PDF Author: Stephen W. Sears
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0544826256
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 901

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Book Description
A multilayered group biography of the Civil War commanders who led the Army of the Potomac: “a staggering work . . . by a masterly historian” (Kirkus, starred review). The high command of the Army of the Potomac was a changeable, often dysfunctional band of brothers, going through the fires of war under seven commanding generals in three years, until Grant came east in 1864. The men in charge all too frequently appeared to be fighting against the administration in Washington instead of for it, increasingly cast as political pawns facing down a vindictive congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. President Lincoln oversaw, argued with, and finally tamed his unruly team of lieutenants as the eastern army was stabilized by an unsung supporting cast of corps, division, and brigade generals. With characteristic style and insight, Stephen Sears brings these courageous, determined officers, who rose through the ranks and led from the front, to life and legend. “A masterful synthesis . . . A narrative about amazing courage and astonishing gutlessness . . . It explains why Union movements worked and, more often, didn’t work in clear-eyed explanatory prose that’s vivid and direct.” —Chicago Tribune

Mr. Lincoln's Army

Mr. Lincoln's Army PDF Author: Bruce Catton
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504024184
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 519

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Book Description
A vivid account of the early battles, first in the Pulitzer Prize-winning trilogy: “One of America’s foremost Civil War authorities” (Kirkus Reviews). The first book in Bruce Catton’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Army of the Potomac Trilogy, Mr. Lincoln’s Army is a riveting history of the early years of the Civil War, when a fledgling Union Army took its stumbling first steps under the command of the controversial general George McClellan. Following the secession of the Southern states, a beleaguered President Abraham Lincoln entrusted the dashing, charismatic McClellan with the creation of the Union’s Army of the Potomac and the responsibility of leading it to a swift and decisive victory against Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Although a brilliant tactician who was beloved by his troops and embraced by the hero-hungry North, McClellan’s ego and ambition ultimately put him at loggerheads with his commander in chief—a man McClellan considered unworthy of the presidency. McClellan’s weaknesses were exposed during the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American military history, which ended in a stalemate even though the Confederate troops were greatly outnumbered. After Antietam, Lincoln ordered McClellan’s removal from command, and the Union entered the war’s next chapter having suffered thousands of casualties and with great uncertainty ahead. America’s premier chronicler of the nation’s brutal internecine conflict, Bruce Catton is renowned for his unparalleled ability to bring a detailed and vivid immediacy to Civil War battlefields and military strategy sessions. With tremendous depth and insight, he presents legendary commanders and common soldiers in all their complex and heartbreaking humanity.

War on the Waters

War on the Waters PDF Author: James M. McPherson
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807837326
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Although previously undervalued for their strategic impact because they represented only a small percentage of total forces, the Union and Confederate navies were crucial to the outcome of the Civil War. In War on the Waters, James M. McPherson has crafted an enlightening, at times harrowing, and ultimately thrilling account of the war's naval campaigns and their military leaders. McPherson recounts how the Union navy's blockade of the Confederate coast, leaky as a sieve in the war's early months, became increasingly effective as it choked off vital imports and exports. Meanwhile, the Confederate navy, dwarfed by its giant adversary, demonstrated daring and military innovation. Commerce raiders sank Union ships and drove the American merchant marine from the high seas. Southern ironclads sent several Union warships to the bottom, naval mines sank many more, and the Confederates deployed the world's first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. But in the end, it was the Union navy that won some of the war's most important strategic victories--as an essential partner to the army on the ground at Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Mobile Bay, and Fort Fisher, and all by itself at Port Royal, Fort Henry, New Orleans, and Memphis.