Download or read book Civil War High Commands written by John Eicher and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2002-06-01 with total page 1062 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on nearly five decades of research, this magisterial work is a biographical register and analysis of the people who most directly influenced the course of the Civil War, its high commanders. Numbering 3,396, they include the presidents and their cabinet members, state governors, general officers of the Union and Confederate armies (regular, provisional, volunteers, and militia), and admirals and commodores of the two navies. Civil War High Commands will become a cornerstone reference work on these personalities and the meaning of their commands, and on the Civil War itself. Errors of fact and interpretation concerning the high commanders are legion in the Civil War literature, in reference works as well as in narrative accounts. The present work brings together for the first time in one volume the most reliable facts available, drawn from more than 1,000 sources and including the most recent research. The biographical entries include complete names, birthplaces, important relatives, education, vocations, publications, military grades, wartime assignments, wounds, captures, exchanges, paroles, honors, and place of death and interment. In addition to its main component, the biographies, the volume also includes a number of essays, tables, and synopses designed to clarify previously obscure matters such as the definition of grades and ranks; the difference between commissions in regular, provisional, volunteer, and militia services; the chronology of military laws and executive decisions before, during, and after the war; and the geographical breakdown of command structures. The book is illustrated with 84 new diagrams of all the insignias used throughout the war and with 129 portraits of the most important high commanders.

Download or read book Civil War Command And Strategy written by Jones Archer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Jefferson Davis and His Generals written by Steven E. Woodworth and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jefferson Davis is a historical figure who provokes strong passions among scholars. Through the years historians have place him at both ends of the spectrum: some have portrayed him as a hero, others have judged him incompetent.

Download or read book Lincoln s Lieutenants written by Stephen W. Sears and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 901 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Download or read book Commanding the Army of the Potomac written by Stephen R. Taaffe and published by Modern War Studies. This book was released on 2006 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Stephen Taaffe takes a close look at this command cadre, examining who was appointed to these positions, why they were appointed, and why so many of them ultimately failed to fulfill their responsibilities. He demonstrates that ambitious officers such as Gouverneur Warren, John Reynolds, and Winfield Scott Hancock employed all the weapons at their disposal, from personal connections to exaggerated accounts of prowess in combat, to claw their way into these important posts." "Once there, however, as Taaffe reveals, many of these officers failed to navigate the tricky and ever-changing political currents that swirled around the Army of the Potomac. As a result, only three of them managed to retain their commands for more than a year, and their machinations caused considerable turmoil in the army's high command structure."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book Taming The Tar Heel Department D H Hill And The Challenges Of Operational Level Command During The American Civil War written by Major Brit K. Erslev and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this monograph is to identify skills and capabilities required by commanders to excel at the operational level of war and in the practice of operational art. The author evaluated the performance of Confederate Major General Daniel Harvey Hill in his role as a department commander during the American Civil War. Department commanders were responsible for sequencing tactical operations to support the accomplishment of their government’s strategic objectives but received little guidance on how to fulfill their missions. The monograph concludes that twenty first century American military officers in similar command positions must be able to make decisions given ambiguous guidance and a fluid operational environment, be creative and active in developing innovative techniques to better understand the operational environment, and be able to craft holistic campaign plans that go beyond offensive and defensive operations. An examination of Hill’s tenure as commander of the Confederate Department of North Carolina from February to July 1863 found that he was uncomfortable translating discretionary orders into action, he was unable to adequately visualize his operational environment, and he did not construct a coherent campaign plan to accomplish disparate missions and support Confederate strategic aims. Some of Hill’s struggles were due to the inability of the Confederate high command to articulate strategic priorities, the actions of the Union forces, and lack of experience in higher level commands. Previous tactical-level experiences in the war made Hill more cautious about committing force when presented with ambiguous situations and in his capacity as department commander he did not grasp his responsibility to provide recommendations to strategic-level decision makers regarding force disposition and types of combat operations.

Download or read book The War Within the Union High Command written by Thomas Joseph Goss and published by Modern War Studies. This book was released on 2003 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As this book reveals, professional generals viewed the war as a military problem requiring battlefield solutions, while appointees (and President Lincoln) focused more emphatically on the broader political contours of the struggle. The resulting friction often eroded Northern morale and damaged the North's war effort. Goss challenges the traditional idea that success was measured only on the battlefield by demonstrating significant links between military success and the achievement of the Union's political objectives. Examining commanders like Benjamin Butler, Nathaniel Banks, John McClernand, John Fremont, and Franz Sigel, Goss shows how many filled vital functions by raising troops, boosting homefront morale, securing national support for the war--and sometimes even achieving significant success on the battlefield.

Download or read book Challenges of Command in the Civil War written by Richard J. Sommers and published by . This book was released on 2018-06-14 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. Richard Sommers’ Challenges of Command in the Civil War distills six decades of studying the Civil War into two succinct, thought-provoking volumes. This first installment focuses on “Civil War Generals and Generalship.” The subsequent volume will explore “Civil War Strategy, Operations, and Organization.” Each chapter is a free-standing essay that can be appreciated in its own right without reading the entire book. Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee stand out in Volume I as Dr. Sommers analyzes their generalship throughout the Civil War. Their exercise of command in the decisive Virginia Campaign from May 1864 to April 1865 receives particular attention—especially during the great Siege of Petersburg, about which the author has long ranked as the pioneering and pre-eminent historian. Five chapters evaluating Grant and Lee are followed by five more on “Civil War Generals and Generalship.” One of those essays, “American Cincinnatus,” explores twenty citizen-soldiers who commanded mobile army corps in the Union Army and explains why such officers were selected for senior command. Antietam, Gettysburg, and Petersburg are central to three essays on Northern corps and wing commanders. Both Federals and Confederates are featured in “Founding Fathers: Renowned Revolutionary War Relatives of Significant Civil War Soldiers and Statesmen.” The ground-breaking original research underlying that chapter identifies scores of connections between the “Greatest Generations” of the 18th and 19th Centuries—far more than just the well-known link of “Light Horse Harry” Lee to his son, Robert E. Lee. From original research in Chapter 10 to new ways of looking at familiar facts in Chapters 6-9 to distilled judgments from a lifetime of study in Chapters 1-5, Challenges of Command invites readers to think—and rethink—about the generalship of Grant, Lee, and senior commanders of the Civil War. This book is an essential part of every Civil War library.

Download or read book The Soviet Army s High Commands in War and Peace 1941 1992 written by Richard W. Harrison and published by Casemate Academic. This book was released on 2022-07-28 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full treatment of the unique phenomenon of High Commands in the Soviet Army during World War II and the Cold War. The war on the Eastern Front during 1941–45 was an immense struggle, running from the Barents Sea to the Caucasus Mountains. The vast distances involved forced the Soviet political-military leadership to resort to new organizational expedients in order to control operations along the extended front. These were the high commands of the directions, which were responsible for two or more fronts (army groups) and, along maritime axes, one or more fleets. In all, five high commands were created along the northwestern, western, southwestern, and North Caucasus strategic directions during 1941–42. However, the highly unfavorable strategic situation during the first year of the war, as well as interference in day-to-day operations by Stalin, severely limited the high commands' effectiveness. As a consequence, the high commands were abolished in mid-1942 and replaced by the more flexible system of supreme command representatives at the front. A High Command of Soviet Forces in the Far East was established in 1945 and oversaw the Red Army's highly effective campaign against Japanese forces in Manchuria. The Far Eastern High Command was briefly resurrected in 1947 as a response to the tense situation along the Korean peninsula and the ongoing civil war in China, but was abolished in 1953, soon after Stalin's death. Growing tensions with China brought about the recreation of the Far Eastern High Command in 1979, followed a few years later by the appearance of new high commands in Europe and South Asia. However, these new high commands did not long survive the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and were abolished a year later. The book relies almost exclusively on Soviet and post-communist archival and other sources and is the first unclassified treatment of this subject in any country, East or West.

Download or read book The Right Hand of Command written by R. Steven Jones and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Civil War generals had both special and personal staffs to help them with their duties. The use of special staff-quartermasters, commissaries, ordnance chiefs, and engineers-has been well chronicled. But little attention has been paid to how generals utilized (or underutilized) their personal staff-the chiefs of staff, adjutants general, and aides-de- camp. Drawing on Generals Lee, Sherman, McClellan, and Grant as examples, this study provides a new perspective not only on the Civil War, but also on the tradition of military leadership.

Download or read book Civil War Generals in Defeat written by Steven E. Woodworth and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains seven case studies evaluating Confederate and Union generals who might be considered "capable failures": officers of high pre-war reputation, some with distinguished records in the Civil War. Explores the various reasons these men suffered defeat such as flaws of character, errors of judgment, lack of preparation, or circumstances beyond their control. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book No Band of Brothers written by Steven E. Woodworth and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War was barely over before Southerners and other students of the war began to examine the Confederate high command in search of an explanation for the South's failure. Although years of research failed to show that the South's defeat was due to a single, overriding cause, the actions of the Southern leaders during the war were certainly among the reasons the South lost the war. In No Band of Brothers, Steven Woodworth explores, through a series of essays, various facets of the way the Confederacy waged its unsuccessful war for secession. He examines Jefferson Davis and some of his more important generals, including Pierre G. T. Beauregard, Leonidas Polk, Joseph E. Johnston, Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson; the Confederacy's strategic plans; and the South's success in making competent officers out of men with very little military preparation. Woodworth particularly looks at the personalities and personal relationships that affected the course and outcome of the war. What made a good general? What could make an otherwise able man a failure as a general? What role did personal friendships or animosities play in the Confederacy's top command assignments and decisions? How successful was the Confederacy in making competent generals out of its civilian leaders? In what ways did Jefferson Davis succeed or fail in maximizing the chances for the success of his cause? In analyzing the Confederate leadership, Woodworth reveals some weaknesses, many strengths, and much new information. No Band of Brothers will be an important addition to Civil War scholarship and will be welcomed by professional historians, amateur historians, students, and the general reader alike.

Download or read book American Civil War 6 volumes written by Spencer C. Tucker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-09-30 with total page 3030 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This expansive, multivolume reference work provides a broad, multidisciplinary examination of the Civil War period ranging from pre-Civil War developments and catalysts such as the Mexican-American War to the rebuilding of the war-torn nation during Reconstruction. The Civil War was undoubtedly the most important and seminal event in 19th-century American history. Students who understand the Civil War have a better grasp of the central dilemmas in the American historical narrative: states rights versus federalism, freedom versus slavery, the role of the military establishment, the extent of presidential powers, and individual rights versus collective rights. Many of these dilemmas continue to shape modern society and politics. This comprehensive work facilitates both detailed reading and quick referencing for readers from the high school level to senior scholars in the field. The exhaustive coverage of this encyclopedia includes all significant battles and skirmishes; important figures, both civilian and military; weapons; government relations with Native Americans; and a plethora of social, political, cultural, military, and economic developments. The entries also address the many events that led to the conflict, the international diplomacy of the war, the rise of the Republican Party and the growing crisis and stalemate in American politics, slavery and its impact on the nation as a whole, the secession crisis, the emergence of the "total war" concept, and the complex challenges of the aftermath of the conflict.

Download or read book Inside Hitler s High Command written by Geoffrey P. Megargee and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2000-06-08 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging previous accounts, Geoffrey Megargee shatters the myth that German generals would have prevailed in World War II if only Hitler had not meddled in their affairs. Indeed, Megargee argues, the German high command was much more flawed than many have suspected or acknowledged. Inside Hitler's High Command reveals that while Hitler was the central figure in many military decisions, his generals were equal partners in Germany's catastrophic defeat. Megargee exposes the structure, processes, and personalities that governed the Third Reich's military decision making and shows how Germany's presumed battlefield superiority was undermined by poor strategic and operational planning at the highest levels. His study tracks the evolution of German military leadership under the Nazis from 1933 to 1945 and expands our understanding of the balance of power within the high command, the role of personalities in its organizational development, and the influence of German military intellectuals on its structure and function. He also shows how the organization of the high command was plagued by ambition, stubbornness, political intrigue, and overworked staff officers. And his "a week in the life" chapter puts the high command under a magnifying glass to reveal its inner workings during the fierce fighting on the Russian Front in December 1941. Megargee also offers new insights into the high command crises of 1938 and shows how German general staff made fatal mistakes in their planning for Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Their arrogant dismissal of the Soviet military's ability to defend its homeland and virtual disregard for the extensive intelligence and sound logistics that undergird successful large-scale military campaigns ultimately came back to haunt them. In the final assessment, observes Megargee, the generals' strategic ideas were no better than Hitler's and often worse. Heinz Guderian, Franz Halder, and the rest were as guilty of self-deception as their Fuhrer, believing that innate German superiority and strength of will were enough to overcome nearly any obstacle. Inside Hitler's High Command exposes these surprising flaws and illuminates the process of strategy and decision making in the Third Reich.

Download or read book The Soviet High Command written by John Erickson and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 934 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study documents the history of the Workers-Peasants Red Army from its origins in the post-revolutionary Civil War to the battle for Moscow in December 1941. Drawing from Soviet military histories, specialist monographs, Red Army publications, memoirs, and documentary collections on Soviet military organization and Army-Party relations, Erickson (emeritus, defense studies, U. or Edinburgh) considers such events as the secret collaboration with the Reichswehr, the military build-up in the Far East, the Tukhachevsky affair, Stalinist purges, and the Winter War in Finland. This edition features a new preface by the author. c. Book News Inc.

Download or read book Corps Commanders in Blue written by Ethan S. Rafuse and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The outcomes of campaigns in the Civil War often depended on top generals having the right corps commanders in the right place at the right time. Mutual trust and respect between generals and their corps commanders, though vital to military success, was all too rare: Corps commanders were often forced to exercise considerable discretion in the execution of orders from their generals, and bitter public arguments over commanders' performances in battle followed hard on the heels of many major engagements. Controversies that arose during the war around the decisions of corps and army commanders-such as Daniel Sickles's disregard of George Meade's orders at the Battle of Gettysburg-continue to provoke vigorous debate among students of the Civil War. Corps Commanders in Blue offers eight case studies that illuminate the critical roles the Union corps commanders played in shaping the war's course and outcome. The contributors examine, and in many cases challenge, widespread assumptions about these men while considering the array of internal and external forces that shaped their efforts on and off the battlefield. Providing insight into the military conduct of the Civil War, Corps Commanders in Blue fills a significant gap in the historiography of the war by offering compelling examinations of the challenges of corps command in particular campaigns, the men who exercised that command, and the array of factors that shaped their efforts, for good or for ill.

Download or read book The Soviet High Command a Military political History 1918 1941 written by John Erickson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 1005 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An objective and documentary history of the earliest origins and formative years of the Workers-Peasants Red Army from the Civil War to the initial disasters of the war with Germany, the Great Patriotic War, culminating in the "battle for Moscow" in November-December 1941.