Download or read book The Class of 1846 written by John C. Waugh and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2010-12-29 with total page 673 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No single group of men at West Point--or possibly any academy--has been so indelibly written into history as the class of 1846. The names are legendary: Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, George B. McClellan, Ambrose Powell Hill, Darius Nash Couch, George Edward Pickett, Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox, and George Stoneman. The class fought in three wars, produced twenty generals, and left the nation a lasting legacy of bravery, brilliance, and bloodshed. This fascinating, remarkably intimate chronicle traces the lives of these unforgettable men--their training, their personalities, and the events in which they made their names and met their fates. Drawing on letters, diaries, and personal accounts, John C. Waugh has written a collective biography of masterful proportions, as vivid and engrossing as fiction in its re-creation of these brilliant figures and their pivotal roles in American history.
Download or read book Jackson And McClellan A Study In Leadership And Doctrine written by Major Kent Thomas and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Central to the waging of war at the tactical level is the interplay between leadership and doctrine. Within a doctrinal context, the Army must develop leaders capable of winning the next war. This study examines the balance between leadership and doctrine and identifies the characteristics that distinguish the great leader from the also-ran. The vehicle for this examination is a comparison of two American Civil war generals, Stonewall Jackson and George McClellan. Purporting to support the same doctrine, the two men achieved remarkably dissimilar results on the battlefield. This analysis demonstrates that the reasons for that difference lay primarily in the realm of leadership rather than in the implementation of doctrine, and identifies the leadership principles key to success at the tactical level of war.
Download or read book Jackson and McClellan written by Kent Thomas and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Central of the waging of war of the tactical level is the inter play between leadership and doctrine. Within a doctrinal context, the Army must develop leaders capable of winning the next war. This study examines the balance between leadership and doctrine and identifies the characteristics that distinguish the great leader from the also-ran. The vehicle for this examination is a comparison of two American Civil War generals, Stonewall Jackson and George McClellan. Purporting to support the same doctrine, the two men achieved remarkably dissimilar results on the battlefield. This analysis demonstrates that the reasons for that difference lay primarily in the realm of leadership rather than in the implementation of doctrine, and identifies the leadership principles KWY to success at the tactical level of war.
Download or read book Lincoln and McClellan written by John C. Waugh and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There was no more remarkable pair in the Civil War than Abraham Lincoln and George McClellan. At only 35 years old, McClellan commanded the Ohio troops early in the war, and won skirmishes for the Union in western Virginia. After the disastrous Union defeat at Bull Run in the summer of 1861, Lincoln sent word for McClellan to come to Washington, and soon elevated him to commander-in-chief of the Union army. But in the late summer and fall of 1861, things took a turn for the worst. Meticulous in his planning and preparations, McClellan began to delay attacking the enemy and developed a penchant for vastly overestimating the Confederate forces he faced. All of this hampered his ability to lead an aggressive force in a fast-moving battlefield environment. Finally losing his patience, Lincoln was famously quoted as saying, "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time." Lincoln and McClellan takes an in-depth look at this fascinating relationship, from the early days of the Civil War to the 1864 presidential election when McClellan ran against Lincoln on an anti-war platform and lost. Here, award-winning author John C. Waugh weaves a tale of hubris, paranoia, failure, and triumph, illuminating as never before this unique and complicated alliance.
Download or read book The Class of 1846 written by John C. Waugh and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 1999-06-01 with total page 673 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No single group of men at West Point--or possibly any academy--has been so indelibly written into history as the class of 1846. The names are legendary: Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, George B. McClellan, Ambrose Powell Hill, Darius Nash Couch, George Edward Pickett, Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox, and George Stoneman. The class fought in three wars, produced twenty generals, and left the nation a lasting legacy of bravery, brilliance, and bloodshed. This fascinating, remarkably intimate chronicle traces the lives of these unforgettable men--their training, their personalities, and the events in which they made their names and met their fates. Drawing on letters, diaries, and personal accounts, John C. Waugh has written a collective biography of masterful proportions, as vivid and engrossing as fiction in its re-creation of these brilliant figures and their pivotal roles in American history.
Download or read book McClellan and Failure written by Edward H. Bonekemper, III and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2010-08-17 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the eyes of many historians, Union general George B. McClellan single-handedly did more damage to the Union war effort than any other individual--including Confederate commander Robert E. Lee. Promoting his own ideas and career regardless of the consequences, McClellan eventually became a thorn in the side of President Lincoln. Removed from command on November 5, 1862, McClellan left a legacy of excessive caution that continued to affect the Army of the Potomac. From West Point to Antietam, this volume examines McClellan's army career and especially how his decisions affected the course of the Civil War. Union actions are examined in detail with special emphasis on the roles McClellan played--or did not play. Excerpts from McClellan's orders and correspondence provide a contemporary picture and motives for his actions. An appendix examines the treatment given McClellan by various historians.
Download or read book Landscape Turned Red written by Stephen W. Sears and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The best account of the Battle of Antietam” from the award-winning, national bestselling author of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville (The New York Times Book Review). The Civil War battle waged on September 17, 1862, at Antietam Creek, Maryland, was one of the bloodiest in the nation’s history: in this single day, the war claimed nearly 23,000 casualties. In Landscape Turned Red, the renowned historian Stephen Sears draws on a remarkable cache of diaries, dispatches, and letters to recreate the vivid drama of Antietam as experienced not only by its leaders but also by its soldiers, both Union and Confederate. Combining brilliant military analysis with narrative history of enormous power, Landscape Turned Red is the definitive work on this climactic and bitter struggle. “A modern classic.”—The Chicago Tribune “No other book so vividly depicts that battle, the campaign that preceded it, and the dramatic political events that followed.”—The Washington Post Book World “Authoritative and graceful . . . a first-rate work of history.”—Newsweek
Download or read book Unfurl Those Colors written by Marion V. Armstrong and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2008-03-26 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first in his authoritative two-volume study of the Battle of Antietam, Unfurl Those Colors! traces the engrossing story of the Union Army's strategies, stratagems, and movements on the bloodiest day in American military history.
Download or read book The Great Partnership written by Christian B Keller and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why were Generals Lee and Jackson so successful in their partner- ship in trying to win the war for the South? What was it about their styles, friendship, even their faith, that cemented them together into a fighting machine that consistently won despite often overwhelming odds against them?The Great Partnership has the power to change how we think about Confederate strategic decision-making and the value of personal relationships among senior leaders responsible for organizational survival. Those relationships in the Confederate high command were particularly critical for victory, especially the one that existed between the two great Army of Northern Virginia generals.It has been over two decades since any author attempted a joint study of the two generals. At the very least, the book will inspire a very lively debate among the thousands of students of Civil War his- tory. At best, it will significantly revise how we evaluate Confederate strategy during the height the war and our understanding of why, in the end, the South lost.
Download or read book The Last Road North written by Robert Orrison and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2016-06-19 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to the Gettysburg Civil War battlefields and their history, featuring lesser-known sites, side trips, and optional stops along the way. "I thought my men were invincible,” admitted Robert E. Lee. A string of battlefield victories through 1862 had culminated in the spring of 1863 with Lee’s greatest victory yet: the battle of Chancellorsville. Propelled by the momentum of that supreme moment, confident in the abilities of his men, Lee decided to once more take the fight to the Yankees and launched this army on another invasion of the North. An appointment with destiny awaited in the little Pennsylvania college town of Gettysburg. Historian Dan Welch follows in the footsteps of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac as the two foes cat-and-mouse their way northward, ultimately clashing in the costliest battle in North American history. Based on the Gettysburg Civil War Trails, and packed with dozens of lesser-known sites related to the Gettysburg Campaign, The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign offers the ultimate Civil War road trip. “Orrison and Welch have created something different. Historians must search for innovative ways to engage the public on the battle’s relevance. This book offers a new experience for tourists—one that enriches their visit to the site of one of the most consequential battles in American history.” —Matt Arendt, TCU, for Gettysburg Magazine “Shows a deep knowledge of the subject and the style of writing is clear and easy to follow . . . buy this book!” —Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy
Download or read book George B McClellan written by H. J. Eckenrode and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-13 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THIS IS MORE THAN THE STORY OF “Little Mac.” It is the story also of that dark center of intrigue, the nation’s capital in 1862—of Washington shaking in its shoes for fear of an invasion by “gaunt hairy beings riding into Washington like Centaurs and perhaps setting fire to the Capitol”; a Washington dominated by politicians and partisans, where party strife and bitterness were so strong that some members of the government itself preferred Union defeat to a victory which might make a Democrat (McClellan) a national hero and a presidential possibility; a Washington in which even the President and his Cabinet showed a childish impatience because McClellan did not remove the threat to the capital overnight—in spite of a liquid terrain and “the greatest military combination in modern history, Lee and Jackson”; a Washington rotten with military gossip and spy-talk in back alleys.... “THIS BOOK ORIGINATED in studies made by the historians of the Conservation Commission in the Richmond battlefield area, which is comprised in the Richmond Battlefield Park, a charge of the commission. These battlefields are the best preserved and least studied (because long inaccessible) in the country. A detailed examination of the terrain convinced the historians, both of them Southerners, that McClellan was a great general and that he has been underestimated by historians. Their opinion was confirmed by a study of the records. They came to the conclusion that it was McClellan who prevented the defeat of the North in 1861-62 when the Confederacy was relatively stronger than it was at a later time. Believing that politics should not be permitted to influence military judgments, they have written this book, partly for the purpose of doing justice to a great man who has suffered at the hands of history. It is based on the ground itself and the original sources, and is believed to be a contribution to American and Virginia history.”—Foreword
Download or read book Extraordinary Circumstances written by Brian K. Burton and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: McClellan's defeat meant that his dream of bringing the United States together as it was before the outbreak of the war was gone forever, and the country's very nature changed as a result."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book McClellan s War written by Ethan S. Rafuse and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2011-11-23 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a result, Rafuse sheds light not only on McClellan's conduct on the battlefields of 1861-62 but on United States politics and culture in the years leading up to the Civil War.
Download or read book McClellan s War written by Ethan S. Rafuse and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2011-11-23 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An important book that rescues George B. McClellan’s military reputation.” —Chronicles Bold, brash, and full of ambition, George Brinton McClellan seemed destined for greatness when he assumed command of all the Union armies before he was 35. It was not to be. Ultimately deemed a failure on the battlefield by Abraham Lincoln, he was finally dismissed from command following the bloody battle of Antietam. To better understand this fascinating, however flawed, character, Ethan S. Rafuse considers the broad and complicated political climate of the earlier 19th Century. Rather than blaming McClellan for the Union’s military losses, Rafuse attempts to understand his political thinking as it affected his wartime strategy. As a result, Rafuse sheds light not only on McClellan’s conduct on the battlefields of 1861-62 but also on United States politics and culture in the years leading up to the Civil War. “Any historian seriously interested in the period will come away from the book with useful material and a better understanding of George B. McClellan.” —Journal of Southern History “Exhaustively researched and lucidly written, Rafuse has done an excellent job in giving us a different perspective on ‘Little Mac.’” —Civil War History “Rafuse’s thoughtful study of Little Mac shows just how enthralling this complex and flawed individual continues to be.” —Blue & Gray magazine
Download or read book One Man Great Enough written by John C. Waugh and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2007 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines Abraham Lincoln's emergence onto the political scene in the years leading up to the Civil War and draws on Lincoln's own words to explore his response to the issues that shaped the war and his presidency.
Download or read book A P Hill written by William W. Hassler and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2000-11-09 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A. P. Hill: Lee's Forgotten General is the first biography of the Confederacy's long-neglected hero whom Lee ranked next to Jackson and Longstreet. Although the name and deeds ot this gallant Virginian conspicuously punctuate the record of every major campaign of the Army of Northern Virginia, the man himself has persistently remained what Douglas Southall Freman termed an "elusive personality." William Woods Hassler, through careful and persistent research, has compiled an interesting documentary study from which emerges a balanced portrait of this distinguished but complex character. Here for the first time is detailed the romantic triangle which enmeshed Hill and McClellan, former roommates at West Point, with beauteous Nelly Marcy, reigning queen of pre-war Washington's younger set. Hill lost this contest to Nelly's parents, but he later won the hand of General John Hunt Morgan's lovely and talented sister, Dolly. And at Sharpsburg, Hill wreaked vengeance upon McClellan by his timely arrival which saved Lee from defeat at the same time it spelled McClellan's subsequent dismissal from command of the Army of the Potomac. The author traces Hill's meteoric rise from Colonel of the redoubtable Thirteenth Virginia Regiment to Major General in command of the famed Light Division. Against a "you are there" background of intimate detail, the reader follows the exploits of tempestous Ambrose Powell Hill as he welds his officers and men into fierce striking units. Where the fighing is thickests there is the red-haired, red-shirted Hill brandishing his sword and exhorting his men to victory. Sometimes the issue ends ignominiously as at Bristoe Station, but more often the outcome is glorious as at Second Manassas and Reams Station. Gray greats and near-greats stalk through these pages with vivid reality as one meets Jeb Stuart, Dorsey Pender, John Hood, Heros von Borcke, Ham Chamerlayne, Willie Pegram, Rev. J. Wm. Jones, Cadmus Wilcox, Harry Heth, J. R. Anderson, Lawrence O'Brien Branch, James Archer, Jim Lane, Thomas Wooten, Charles Field, George Tucker, Kyd Douglas, Johnston Pettigrew, Moxley Sorrel, William H. Palmer, Wade Hampton, Jube Early, Lindsay Walker, Maxcy Gregg, Sam McGowan, and others. Accompanying Hill and his commands from pre-Manassas to the final breakthrough at Petersburg, the reader relives the campaigns in the Eastern theater. At the same time the reader gains a deeper insight into the problems of command, together with an appreciation of the hardships which the Confederate soldiers endured during even the early days of the conflict. Although Powell Hill's consideration and ability won for him the unbounded respect and devotion of his troops, his proud, sensitive nature continually embroiled him with his superiors. His dispute with Longstreet following the Seven Days Battles almost culminated in a duel. Transferred to Jackson's command, Hill outspokenly quarreled with "Old Jack" until the latter's mortal wounding at Chancellorsville effected a dramatic battlefield reconciliation. As Jackson's successor, Hill performed irregularly. The author analyzes objectively the various factors which may have caused the changes in Hill's fortunes following his elevation to corps command.
Download or read book Reelecting Lincoln written by John Waugh and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2009-04-30 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here, from the author of the acclaimed book The Class of 1846, is the dramatic story of what may have been the most critical election campaign in American history. Taking place in the midst of the Civil War, the election of 1864 would determine the very future of the nation. Would the country be unified or permanently divided? Would slavery continue? Weaving rich anecdotal material into a fast-paced narrative, John C. Waugh places this pivotal election in its historical context while evoking its human drama. The men and women who figured in this epic campaign—most notably Lincoln himself—emerge with all their strengths, weaknesses, and idiosyncrasies. "It's an inherently dramatic story, and one that has been told before. But never quite so well as by John C. Waugh, [who] brings to his task the keen eye for detail and scene-setting that one would expect from a career reporter," said the Wall Street Journal. Drawing on an extensive array of sources, including published and unpublished reminiscences, memoirs, autobiographies, letters, newspapers, and periodicals, Waugh re-creates that fateful year with all the immediacy of a political reporter covering a national presidential election today.
