Washington Post Article on ACW (2 Viewers)
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Rob
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Thanks Brad, that one and ' The Coming Fury' are the two I'm after. I've been wanting to read about it for so long, but always seem to have another WW1/2 Book to read first, but I'm taking the plunge and ordering today!:smile2:
Rob
Terp152
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Well, my use of the term Napoleonic was in reference to your mention of it. Taking it to mean frontal assaults by large numbers of troops in linear/massed formations. Forrest did use traditional tactics at Brice's Crossroads to great success (perhaps the greatest of the war). Taylor also fought the Red River campaign attacking far superior numbers and forcing the Union forces to retreat with same tactics. All Federal cavalry were armed with carbines in these campaigns and had 2 or 3 to1 advantange in artillery. So, back to the theories about Lee's tactics, I could not say he was wrong in being on the attack tactically. It would not have been prohibitive odds in all cases, third day at Gettysburg being an obvious exception.
Maybe the best example of the success of the frontal assault would be Missionary Ridge. Union troops attacking multiple fixed lines of defense on very dominating terrain with emplaced artillery.
Chris
Combat
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Nice article in the Smithsonian Magazine on the beginning of the war - the entire article can be found here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Fort-Sumter-The-Civil-War-Begins.html
Generations of historians have argued over the cause of the war. “Everyone knew at the time that the war was ultimately about slavery,” says Orville Vernon Burton, a native South Carolinian and author of The Age of Lincoln. “After the war, some began saying that it was really about states’ rights, or a clash of two different cultures, or about the tariff, or about the industrializing North versus the agrarian South. All these interpretations came together to portray the Civil War as a collision of two noble civilizations from which black slaves had been airbrushed out.” African-American historians from W.E.B. Du Bois to John Hope Franklin begged to differ with the revisionist view, but they were overwhelmed by white historians, both Southern and Northern, who, during the long era of Jim Crow, largely ignored the importance of slavery in shaping the politics of secession.
Fifty years ago, the question of slavery was so loaded, says Harold Holzer, author of Lincoln President-Elect and other works on the 16th president, that the issue virtually paralyzed the federal commission charged with organizing events commemorating the war’s centennial in 1961, from which African-Americans were virtually excluded. (Arrangements for the sesquicentennial have been left to individual states.) At the time, some Southern members reacted with hostility to any emphasis on slavery, for fear that it would embolden the then-burgeoning civil rights movement. Only later were African-American views of the war and its origins finally heard, and scholarly opinion began to shift. Says Holzer, “Only in recent years have we returned to the obvious—that it was about slavery.”
As Emory Thomas, author of The Confederate Nation 1861-1865 and a retired professor of history at the University of Georgia, puts it, “The heart and soul of the secession argument was slavery and race. Most white Southerners favored racial subordination, and they wanted to protect the status quo. They were concerned that the Lincoln administration would restrict slavery, and they were right.”
Generations of historians have argued over the cause of the war. “Everyone knew at the time that the war was ultimately about slavery,” says Orville Vernon Burton, a native South Carolinian and author of The Age of Lincoln. “After the war, some began saying that it was really about states’ rights, or a clash of two different cultures, or about the tariff, or about the industrializing North versus the agrarian South. All these interpretations came together to portray the Civil War as a collision of two noble civilizations from which black slaves had been airbrushed out.” African-American historians from W.E.B. Du Bois to John Hope Franklin begged to differ with the revisionist view, but they were overwhelmed by white historians, both Southern and Northern, who, during the long era of Jim Crow, largely ignored the importance of slavery in shaping the politics of secession.
Fifty years ago, the question of slavery was so loaded, says Harold Holzer, author of Lincoln President-Elect and other works on the 16th president, that the issue virtually paralyzed the federal commission charged with organizing events commemorating the war’s centennial in 1961, from which African-Americans were virtually excluded. (Arrangements for the sesquicentennial have been left to individual states.) At the time, some Southern members reacted with hostility to any emphasis on slavery, for fear that it would embolden the then-burgeoning civil rights movement. Only later were African-American views of the war and its origins finally heard, and scholarly opinion began to shift. Says Holzer, “Only in recent years have we returned to the obvious—that it was about slavery.”
As Emory Thomas, author of The Confederate Nation 1861-1865 and a retired professor of history at the University of Georgia, puts it, “The heart and soul of the secession argument was slavery and race. Most white Southerners favored racial subordination, and they wanted to protect the status quo. They were concerned that the Lincoln administration would restrict slavery, and they were right.”
UKReb
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Guys using the term "Napoleonic Tactics" being fought in the ACW I have always found confuses students and some historians. Sure Jomini's Precis de l'art de la Guerre was taught at West Point and in the French language until the first English translation appeared in 1854. But by 1860 studying the tactics of Napoleon of Waterloo was not exactly in vogue. It was his nephew Louis Napoleon III (he who had the light 12 pounder bronze field gun named after him) who was all the rage.
Following the excellent performance of his Zouaves and Chasseurs at the Crimea and especially at the battle of Solferino during the Franco/Austria war he had rewritten Jomini's tome to what he considered to be a more modern war doctrine. Both wars saw an abundance of US Army officers in attendance as observers and when they returned they were only too keen to emulate him and his doctrine and at the same time lionizing the Zouave and Chasseur French soldier. Hence the number of regiments from both the North and the South who adopted their uniforms.
Back to Louis's question on his premise of defensive vs offensive I have to agree with Chris's reply. When Lee took over the ANV in June '62 he had done the maths and knew the South could not win fighting a defensive war, it needed to- whenever it could- to take the fight to the North and wear them down until they were sick of it. And in praise of Lee the old gentleman didn't do too bad considering he was tutored in the science of Engineering and his skills of warfare only came from his experiences in Mexico and on the job training at the Peninsular.
But when he met Grant he was forced to go on the defensive at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania each battle robbing him of his manoeuvreability (the first lesson in Jomini's doctrine) pushing him back to siege warfare at Petersburg and eventual defeat.
Bob
Following the excellent performance of his Zouaves and Chasseurs at the Crimea and especially at the battle of Solferino during the Franco/Austria war he had rewritten Jomini's tome to what he considered to be a more modern war doctrine. Both wars saw an abundance of US Army officers in attendance as observers and when they returned they were only too keen to emulate him and his doctrine and at the same time lionizing the Zouave and Chasseur French soldier. Hence the number of regiments from both the North and the South who adopted their uniforms.
Back to Louis's question on his premise of defensive vs offensive I have to agree with Chris's reply. When Lee took over the ANV in June '62 he had done the maths and knew the South could not win fighting a defensive war, it needed to- whenever it could- to take the fight to the North and wear them down until they were sick of it. And in praise of Lee the old gentleman didn't do too bad considering he was tutored in the science of Engineering and his skills of warfare only came from his experiences in Mexico and on the job training at the Peninsular.
But when he met Grant he was forced to go on the defensive at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania each battle robbing him of his manoeuvreability (the first lesson in Jomini's doctrine) pushing him back to siege warfare at Petersburg and eventual defeat.
Bob
jazzeum
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Very good article Doug. What this article describes is the fight over American memory, the battle between the reconciliationist school (of which the lost cause is a part) and the emancipationist, which enphasized the causes of the War and why it was fought. The former was ascendant until recently.
The Lost Causers would have had you believe that the South was fighting against a Union mob preserving the old ways (and that they were overwhelmed by Union might) and that the Slaves were content with their lot. They preferred to avoid the reasons why the War took place. Their vision became the predomonant one in American culture, e.g. Gone With the Wind, a prime example (African Americans are pictured as content with their lot, contrary to the truth).
This movement was also a reaction to the industrial upheaval we were going through and looked back at what they perceived were quieter times.
I would like to suggest 4 books by Gordon C. Rhea for those of you interested in the Grant vs Lee Wilderness campaign. All printed by LSU Press (Louisiana State Univ).
1- Battle of the Wilderness; May 5-6, 1864
2-Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern; May 7-12, 1864
3-To the North Anna River; Grant vs Lee, May 13-25, 1864
4-Cold Harbor; Grant vs Lee, May 26-June 3, 1864
All are outstanding books and are not hard to find. Be hard pressed to find a better history of these desperate actions. -- Al
1- Battle of the Wilderness; May 5-6, 1864
2-Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern; May 7-12, 1864
3-To the North Anna River; Grant vs Lee, May 13-25, 1864
4-Cold Harbor; Grant vs Lee, May 26-June 3, 1864
All are outstanding books and are not hard to find. Be hard pressed to find a better history of these desperate actions. -- Al
UKReb
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I go to sleep every night reading one of these- anyone who says he stopped reading the ACW after Gettysburg is really missing out on some superb story telling courtesy of Rhea
jazzeum
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I somehow missed posting this on the Disunion thread back in early April so thought I'd post it here. It's by Professor Nina Silber of Boston University, who has written "Daughter of the Union: Northern Women Fight the Civil War."
****
Men At War
Most historians now argue — and contemporary documents bear them out — that the leaders of the Confederacy were, above all, motivated by a desire to protect their system of slavery. Leaving the Union, they believed, was the surest way to preserve an institution that was now threatened by the newly-elected, and self-proclaimed anti-slavery, president, Abraham Lincoln.
But if slavery motivated the leaders — almost all of them slave-owners — where did that leave the vast majority of Southerners, the men who owned no slaves but filled the ranks of the Confederate army? For them, the answer was less about the slave economy or states’ rights than the perceived threat that abolition posed to their very identity as white men.
Men go to war for all kinds of reasons — glory, money, peer pressure — and that was clearly true in the Civil War South. Yet the speeches, newspapers and writings from the time indicate that white masculine identity mattered a great deal, particularly for those Southerners who had little else that guaranteed their social status. As long as slaves were legally below them, they were secure. The belief that Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party would end that distinction drove them to a near panic — a fear that secession leaders were all too happy to exploit. Those who did not support the cause of separation, secession leaders said, would themselves become slaves. “On the fourth of March, 1861,” explained one Georgia orator in reference to Lincoln’s inauguration, “we are either slaves in the Union or freemen out of it.” For the new Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, the question was “will you be slaves or will you be independent?”
But there was more to their fear than social status. The Republican Party, as depicted by Southern leaders, was not only pro-abolition, but pro-equality — “black Republicans,” they were called. Perhaps secession leaders would have called this a rhetorical flourish, but the phrase certainly summoned up an image of African Americans, now empowered by the new federal agenda, wreaking havoc on the South’s social order. “Black Republicans” would not be constrained by the Republican Party’s official pledge to leave slavery as it was in the slave states. Rather, like rebellious slaves throughout history, they would enforce their emancipation policies by any means necessary. Or, as one South Carolina clergyman put it, submission to Republican rule meant that “abolition preachers will be at hand to consummate the marriage of your daughters to black husbands.”
Thus the war fever among the South’s nonslaveholders was as much about masculinity as it was about class. In fact, the trope of masculinity became a convenient way for the slaveholding class to erase the tensions of economic difference; in this light, all Southern men, regardless of wealth or lack thereof, had to defend their region—and, by implication, the women and children who lived there with them.
To allow the policies of Lincoln and the “black Republicans” to triumph would be the same as abandoning one’s manly duties to keep women and children safe. “Do you love your mother, your wife, your sister, your daughter?” asked one Georgia politician. A Union under Lincoln’s rule, he proclaimed, would mean “our CHILDREN will be the slaves of negroes.” In an explicit appeal to the nonslaveholder, a South Carolina planter decried “womanly fears of disunion” and urged the “men of the South” to defend their “political mother” as well as their literal wives and children.
Perhaps the Georgia secession proclamation, approved on Jan. 29, 1861, put the issue most starkly when it urged opposition to the Republicans’ “avowed purpose … to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides.” Here, indeed, was a threat that no real man, slaveowner or not, could ignore.
****
Men At War
Most historians now argue — and contemporary documents bear them out — that the leaders of the Confederacy were, above all, motivated by a desire to protect their system of slavery. Leaving the Union, they believed, was the surest way to preserve an institution that was now threatened by the newly-elected, and self-proclaimed anti-slavery, president, Abraham Lincoln.
But if slavery motivated the leaders — almost all of them slave-owners — where did that leave the vast majority of Southerners, the men who owned no slaves but filled the ranks of the Confederate army? For them, the answer was less about the slave economy or states’ rights than the perceived threat that abolition posed to their very identity as white men.
Men go to war for all kinds of reasons — glory, money, peer pressure — and that was clearly true in the Civil War South. Yet the speeches, newspapers and writings from the time indicate that white masculine identity mattered a great deal, particularly for those Southerners who had little else that guaranteed their social status. As long as slaves were legally below them, they were secure. The belief that Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party would end that distinction drove them to a near panic — a fear that secession leaders were all too happy to exploit. Those who did not support the cause of separation, secession leaders said, would themselves become slaves. “On the fourth of March, 1861,” explained one Georgia orator in reference to Lincoln’s inauguration, “we are either slaves in the Union or freemen out of it.” For the new Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, the question was “will you be slaves or will you be independent?”
But there was more to their fear than social status. The Republican Party, as depicted by Southern leaders, was not only pro-abolition, but pro-equality — “black Republicans,” they were called. Perhaps secession leaders would have called this a rhetorical flourish, but the phrase certainly summoned up an image of African Americans, now empowered by the new federal agenda, wreaking havoc on the South’s social order. “Black Republicans” would not be constrained by the Republican Party’s official pledge to leave slavery as it was in the slave states. Rather, like rebellious slaves throughout history, they would enforce their emancipation policies by any means necessary. Or, as one South Carolina clergyman put it, submission to Republican rule meant that “abolition preachers will be at hand to consummate the marriage of your daughters to black husbands.”
Thus the war fever among the South’s nonslaveholders was as much about masculinity as it was about class. In fact, the trope of masculinity became a convenient way for the slaveholding class to erase the tensions of economic difference; in this light, all Southern men, regardless of wealth or lack thereof, had to defend their region—and, by implication, the women and children who lived there with them.
To allow the policies of Lincoln and the “black Republicans” to triumph would be the same as abandoning one’s manly duties to keep women and children safe. “Do you love your mother, your wife, your sister, your daughter?” asked one Georgia politician. A Union under Lincoln’s rule, he proclaimed, would mean “our CHILDREN will be the slaves of negroes.” In an explicit appeal to the nonslaveholder, a South Carolina planter decried “womanly fears of disunion” and urged the “men of the South” to defend their “political mother” as well as their literal wives and children.
Perhaps the Georgia secession proclamation, approved on Jan. 29, 1861, put the issue most starkly when it urged opposition to the Republicans’ “avowed purpose … to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides.” Here, indeed, was a threat that no real man, slaveowner or not, could ignore.