Download or read book Union Command Failure in the Shenandoah written by David Powell and published by . This book was released on 2018-12-19 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of New Market in the Shenandoah Valley suffers from no lack of drama, interest, or importance. The ramifications of the May 1864 engagement, which involved only 10,000 troops, were substantial. Previous studies, however, focused on the Confederate side of the story. David Powell’s, Union Command Failure in the Shenandoah: Major General Franz Sigel and the War in the Valley of Virginia, May 1864, provides the balance that has so long been needed. Union General Ulysses S. Grant regarded a spring campaign in the Valley of Virginia as integral to his overall strategy designed to turn Robert E. Lee’s strategic western flank, deny his Army of Northern Virginia much needed supplies, and prevent other Confederates from reinforcing Lee. It fell to Union general and German transplant Franz Sigel to execute Grant’s strategy in the northern reaches of the Shenandoah while Maj. Gen. George Crook struck elsewhere in southwestern Virginia. Sigel’s record in the field was checkered at best, and he was not Grant’s first choice to lead the effort, but a combination of politics and other factors left the German in command. Sigel met Confederate Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge and his small army on May 15 just outside the crossroads town of New Market. The hard-fought affair hung in the balance until finally the Union lines broke, and Sigel’s Yankees fled the field. Breckinridge’s command included some 300 young men from the Virginia Military Institute’s Corps of Cadets. VMI’s presence and dramatic role in the fighting ensured that New Market would never be forgotten, but pushed other aspects of this interesting and important campaign into the back seat of history. Award-winning author David Powell’s years of archival and other research provides an outstanding foundation for this outstanding study. Previous works have focused on the Confederate side of the battle, using Sigel’s incompetence as sufficient excuse to explain why the Federals were defeated. This methodology, however, neglects the other important factors that contributed to the ruin of Grant’s scheme in the Valley. Union Command Failure in the Shenandoah delves into all the issues, analyzing the campaign from an operational standpoint. Complete with original maps, photos, and the skillful writing readers have come to expect from the pen of David Powell, Union Command Failure in the Shenandoah will satisfy the most demanding students of Civil War history.
Download or read book Shenandoah Valley 1862 written by Clayton Donnell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-07-20 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major General “Stonewall” Jackson became a legend for his actions in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, in 1862. Marching over 600 miles in 48 days, he, along with his army, won five major battles. His forces, never numbering more than 17,000 men, overcame a combined Union force of 50,000, demonstrating his ability to maneuvre his troops and deceive his enemies into believing he possessed the advantage. Charted throughout these pages is the journey leading up to, and including, “Stonewall” Jackson's final victory, all the while performing better than anyone could have expected. The campaign became a showcase for the mobility and success of Jackson's outnumbered men, who held the larger Union forces pinned down and off balance, consequently allowing Jackson to force march his men to take part in the Seven Days Battles that saved Richmond and gained him victory.
Download or read book The Shenandoah Valley Campaign written by Raymond K. Bluhm and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Shenandoah Valley Campaign, March November 1864, by Raymond K. Bluhm Jr., covers Union and Confederate military operations in the Shenandoah Valley region of southwestern Virginia, and in Maryland and Washington, D.C., during the last full year of the conflict. Bluhm describes the Union advance in the Shenandoah Valley in May 1864 that led to the Federal defeat at the Battle of New Market, Maj. Gen. David Hunter's destructive campaign later that spring culminating in his retreat from Lynchburg, and Maj. Gen. Jubal Early's subsequent Confederate offensive against the U.S. capital, resulting in the Battle of Monocacy in July. Also covered is Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan's tenure in command of Union forces in the Valley and his two key victories at Winchester and Cedar Creek, in which rebel forces under Early were defeated, giving Union forces control over the region by November 1864."
Download or read book Struggle for the Shenandoah written by Gary W. Gallagher and published by Kent State University Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The product of a symposium held in 1989, this book of essays provides an introduction to the cardinal aspects of an important American Civil War campaign. The authors disagree on the relative importance of certain operations or leaders in the valley.
Download or read book Tullahoma written by David A. Powell and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The definitive account of Union Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans’ operational masterpiece—the almost bloodless conquest . . . of Middle Tennessee.” —Sam Davis Elliott, author of Soldier of Tennessee July 1863 was a momentous month in the Civil War. News of Gettysburg and Vicksburg electrified the North and devastated the South. Sandwiched geographically between those victories and lost in the heady tumult of events was news that William S. Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland had driven Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee entirely out of Middle Tennessee. The brilliant campaign nearly cleared the state of Rebels and changed the calculus of the Civil War in the Western Theater. Despite its decisive significance, few readers even today know of these events. The publication of Tullahoma by award-winning authors David A. Powell and Eric J. Wittenberg, forever rectifies that oversight. Powell and Wittenberg mined hundreds of archival and firsthand accounts to craft a splendid study of this overlooked campaign that set the stage for the Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga, the removal of Rosecrans and Bragg from the chessboard of war, the elevation of U.S. Grant to command all Union armies, and the early stages of William T. Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign. Tullahoma—one of the most brilliantly executed major campaigns of the war—was pivotal to Union success in 1863 and beyond. And now readers everywhere will know precisely why. “An outstanding study of the decidedly under-appreciated 1863 Tullahoma Campaign in Middle Tennessee.” —Carol Reardon, George Winfree Professor Emerita of American History, Penn State University “Tullahoma ranks among the best of modern Civil War campaign histories.” —Civil War Books and Authors
Download or read book Call out the Cadets written by Sarah Kay Bierle and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2019-06-18 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War historian recounts a significant yet smaller battle in the Shenandoah Valley—showing how it changed the war and the lives of those present. The battle of New Market came at a crucial moment in the Union’s offensive movements. It would also be the last major Confederate victory in the Shenandoah Valley. The outcome altered campaign plans across the North and South, while the bloody battle changed the lives of those who witnessed or fought it. In the spring of 1864, Union Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel prepared to lead a new invasion into the Valley. Confederate Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge scrambled to organize a defense. Young cadets from the Virginia Military Institute were called to the battle lines just days after leaving their studies. When the opposing divisions clashed on May 15th, 1864, local civilians watched as the combat unfold in their streets and churchyards and aided the fallen. In Call Out the Cadets, Sarah Kay Bierle traces the history of this battle, covering its military aspects and shedding light on the lives it forever changed. Youth and veterans, generals and privates, farmers and teachers—all were called into the conflict or its aftermath, an event that changed a community, a military institute, and the very fate of the Shenandoah Valley.
Download or read book The 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-02 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures*Includes accounts of the campaign written by soldiers and generals*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading*Includes a table of contents"Jackson and his army, in one month, have routed Milroy-annihilated Banks-discomfited Fr�mont, and overthrown Shields! Was there ever such a series of victories won by an inferior force by dauntless courage and consummate generalship?" - An anonymous newspaper correspondent for the Richmond Whig, June 6, 1862Confederate general Thomas Jonathan Jackson had been a virtual unknown upon his arrival at the front line of First Bull Run, but by the spring of 1862, thanks to his actions at that battle, "Stonewall" was already becoming known across the battlefields. Ultimately, it would be the Valley Campaign of 1862 that made him a legend. In the early months of 1862, Jackson was given command of an army numbering about 17,000 in the Shenandoah Valley. His task was daunting. The loss at Bull Run prompted a changing of the guard, with George B. McClellan, the "Young Napoleon", put in charge of reorganizing and leading the Army of the Potomac. That spring, the Army of the Potomac conducted an ambitious amphibious invasion of Virginia's Peninsula, circumventing the Confederate defenses to the north of Richmond by attacking Richmond from the southeast.General Johnston's outnumbered army headed toward Richmond to confront McClellan, but the Union still had three armies totaling another 50,000 around the Shenandoah Valley, which represented a threat to Richmond from the north. It was these armies that Jackson would be tasked with stopping. Jackson would go on to lead his undermanned army through what military strategists and historians consider the most incredible campaign of the Civil War. From late March to early June, Jackson kept all three Union armies bottled up and separated from each other in the Shenandoah Valley by marching up and down the Valley about 650 miles in 50 days, earning his army the nickname "foot cavalry." After the amazing campaign in the Shenandoah Valley in June of 1862, Lee recalled Stonewall's men to travel by rail to Richmond in an effort to envelop the right flank of the Army of the Potomac. Upon taking command, Lee immediately took the offensive, attacking the Army of the Potomac repeatedly in a flurry of battles known as the Seven Days Battles. Fearing he was heavily outnumbered, McClellan began a strategic retreat, and despite badly defeating the Confederates at the Battle of Malvern Hill, the last battle of the Peninsula Campaign, it was clear that the Army of the Potomac was quitting the campaign. The failure of McClellan's campaign devastated the morale of the North, as McClellan had failed to advance despite originally having almost double the manpower. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign has been analyzed meticulously and is considered one of the grandest failures of the Union war effort, with McClellan made the scapegoat. In actuality, there was plenty of blame to go around, including Lincoln and his administration, which was so concerned about Jackson's army in the Valley that several Union armies were left in the Valley to defend Washington D.C. and even more were held back from McClellan for fear of the capital's safety. The Administration also micromanaged the deployment of certain divisions, and with Stanton's decision to shut down recruiting stations in early 1862, combined with the Confederacy concentrating all their troops in the area, the Army of the Potomac was eventually outnumbered in front of Richmond. The 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign: The History of the Civil War Campaign that Made Stonewall Jackson a Confederate Legend analyzes the history of one of the most famous campaigns of the war. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Valley Campaign like never before.
Download or read book All Hell Can t Stop Them written by David Powell and published by . This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To many of the Federal soldiers watching the Stars and Stripes unfurl atop Lookout Mountain on the morning of November 25, 1863, it seemed that the battle to relieve Chattanooga was complete. The Union Army of the Cumberland was no longer trapped in the city, subsisting on short rations and awaiting rescue; instead, they were again on the attack. Ulysses S. Grant did not share their certainty. For Grant, the job he had been sent to accomplish was only half-finished. Braxton Bragg’s Confederate Army of Tennessee still held Missionary Ridge, with other Rebels under James Longstreet threatening more Federals in Knoxville, Tennessee. Grant’s greatest fear was that the Rebels would slip away before he could deliver the final blows necessary to crush Bragg completely. That blow landed on the afternoon of November 25. Each of Grant’s assembled forces—troops led by Union Generals William T. Sherman, George H. Thomas, and Joseph Hooker—all moved to the attack. Stubbornly, Bragg refused to retreat, and instead accepted battle. That decision would cost him dearly. But everything did not go Grant’s way. Despite what Grant’s many admirers would later insist was his most successful, most carefully planned battle, Grant’s strategy failed him—as did his most trusted commander, Sherman. Victory instead charged straight up the seemingly impregnable slopes of Missionary Ridge’s western face, as the men of the much-maligned Army of the Cumberland swarmed up and over Bragg’s defenses in an irresistible blue tide. Caught flat-footed by this impetuous charge, Grant could only watch nervously as the men started up . . . All Hell Can’t Stop Them: The Battles for Chattanooga—Missionary Ridge and Ringgold, November 24-27, 1863—sequel to Battle Above the Clouds—details the dramatic final actions of the battles for Chattanooga: Missionary Ridge and the final Confederate rearguard action at Ringgold, where Patrick Cleburne held Grant’s Federals at bay and saved the Army of Tennessee from further disaster.
Download or read book Shenandoah 1864 written by Mark Lardas and published by Osprey Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virginia's Shenandoah Valley in 1864 was the scene of one of the most crucial campaigns of the Civil War. The outcome of the fighting there would have consequences that stretched far outside the valley to help decide the fate of the nation. In 1864 the Union Army's new commander, Ulysses Grant, created the Union's first cohesive strategy for conquering the Confederacy. One of his key objectives was to control the Shenandoah Valley. The valley shielded the Confederacy, served as the bread basket for Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, and provided remounts for Confederate cavalry. When an initial invasion in spring 1864 failed in the face of a skillful counter-attack by General Jubal Early, Grant turned to his cavalry commander, Brigadier-General Philip Sheridan, to drive the Confederacy from the valley. On August 7, 1864, "Little Phil" assumed command of the Army of the Shenandoah, as the new command was styled. Over the next 90 days two armies--the Union forces led by Sheridan and the Confederate troops commanded by Early--maneuvered across the Shenandoah Valley in a storied campaign of move and countermove, where unexpected attacks were met by equally unexpected ripostes. The stakes in the battles were not just the fate of one disputed agricultural valley in the United States. Rather, its implications would be felt throughout a nation torn by Civil War. Victory or defeat in the Shenandoah could affect the outcome of the Presidential election to be held in November 1864. Confederate loss of the Valley would cripple the Army of Northern Virginia. Sheridan's eventual victory helped ensure Lincoln's re-election and removed the Confederate threat, hastening the eventual end to the Civil War.
Download or read book Brigadier General John D Imboden written by Spencer Tucker and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brigadier General John D. Imboden is an extremely important but often overlooked figure in the Civil War. Born in Virginia and trained as a lawyer, Imboden was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1850. Despite his limited military training, he secured a commission as a captain of artillery in a militia company. When Virginia seceded from the Union, Imboden came to play a prominent role in the fighting and rose to the rank of brigadier generals commanding the Shenandoah Valley District. Imboden, his four brothers, and his brother-in-law all served in the Confederate Army and were known as the "Six Brothers in Gray." Imboden claimed to have participated in "67 encounters with the enemy, battles, affairs, etc., in which the fighting was hard." He organized and led the Staunton Artillery in the capture of the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry and participated in the First Battle of Bull Run/Manassas, organizing a cavalry command that fought under Stonewall Jackson in his Shenandoah Valley Campaign. His raid with Brigadier General William Jones into West Virginia, supported by 5,500 troops and cavalry, cut the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad line and ravaged the Kanawha Valley petroleum fields. Imboden's cavalry screened the Army of Northern Virginia's left flank during the 1863 invasion of Pennsylvania. His protection of the wagon trains carrying wounded soldiers during the retreat from Gettysburg, culminating in a brilliant defensive battle at Williamsport on the Potomac, helped prevent Union troops from capturing important Confederate supplies. Imboden later led his men in hard fighting in the Shenandoah Valley in the battles of New Market, Piedmont, and Lynchburg. In late 1864, Imboden contracted typhoid fever. On his return to duty, he closed out his war service in command of Confederate prisons in Georgia, Alambama, and Mississippi. One of Imboden's hallmark characteristics was his concern for others, especially those in his charge, including Union prisoners of war at Andersonville. After the war, Imboden turned his interests to restoring the economic well-being of his native Virginia. He worked to promote the extension of rail lines and, to overcome a prolileration of different gauges, he invented a car lifter that was adopted by a number of lines. He traveled extensively to secure investments to develop the state's natural resources, founding the city of Damascus, which he hoped to make into a new iron and steel center.
Download or read book Sacrifice All for the Union written by Philip Hatfield, PhD and published by 35th Star Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-21 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Captain John Valley Young personifies the body of rugged Union Army volunteers from West Virginia during the Civil War: highly resilient, stubbornly independent, and fiercely patriotic. Using Captain Young’s wartime letters to his wife, Paulina Franklin Young, and his daughters, Sarah and Emily Young, along with his diary and numerous other original soldier accounts, this book reveals the experiences of a Union soldier and his family who were truly willing to “Sacrifice All for the Union.” Young, a farmer and Methodist-Episcopalian minister prior to the Civil War, during April 1861 raised a company of Union volunteers at the strongly pro-Southern village of Coalsmouth, Virginia, (modern St. Albans, West Virginia). He was adamantly opposed to slavery, yet often expressed a bitter ire at having to fight a violent civil war because his beloved nation had thus far failed to eradicate the awful practice. While he displayed an unshakeable desire to preserve the Union, Young’s convictions were severely tested as he and his family faced constant dangers from guerillas and Confederate raids in the Kanawha Valley. Captain Young also participated in more than one hundred skirmishes and eleven major engagements in the bloody Shenandoah Valley, and at Petersburg, and Appomattox; more than any other Union officer from West Virginia. He died from tuberculosis in 1867, a sad irony after surviving some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. “…Stand firm to the good old Cause. I have just come from Charleston, and found while there that there will be a change of Commanders in the Department of [West] Virginia. The authorities feel determined that we shall have protection. But if we cannot have better protection than we have had, the country is ruined. But I assure you there will be a change for the better. I don’t know how you will get up to see me now. Well, we must bear it the best we can. Sacrifice All for the Union.” - Captain John Valley Young, Letter to his wife, February 3, 1862
Download or read book The Impulse of Victory written by David Alan Powell and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2020-11-04 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Grant secured a Tennessee victory and a promotion Union soldiers in the Army of the Cumberland, who were trapped and facing starvation or surrender in the fall of 1863, saw the arrival of Major General Ulysses S. Grant in Tennessee as an impetus to reverse the tides of war. David A. Powell’s sophisticated strategic and operational analysis of Grant’s command decisions and actions shows how his determined leadership relieved the siege and shattered the enemy, resulting in the creation of a new strategic base of Union operations and Grant’s elevation to commander of all the Federal armies the following year. Powell’s detailed exploration of the Union Army of the Cumberland’s six-week-long campaign for Chattanooga is complemented by his careful attention to the personal issues Grant faced at the time and his relationships with his superiors and subordinates. Though unfamiliar with the tactical situation, the army, and its officers, Grant delivered another resounding victory. His success, explains Powell, was due to his tactical flexibility, communication with his superiors, perseverance despite setbacks, and dogged determination to win the campaign. Through attention to postwar accounts, Powell reconciles the differences between what happened and the participants’ memories of the events. He focuses throughout on Grant’s controversial decisions, showing how they were made and their impact on the campaign. As Powell shows, Grant’s choices demonstrate how he managed to be a thoughtful, deliberate commander despite the fog of war.
Download or read book Fighting for Defeat written by Michael C. C. Adams and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fighting for Defeat argues that the Union army’s lack of success in the eastern theater early in the Civil War was due largely to its fear that the Confederate army was invincible. Certain to arouse discussion, this study by Michael C. C. Adams combines probing social and psychological analysis, blood-rushing description of events, and candid pictures of President Lincoln, and Generals George McClellan and Ulysses Grant, among many others. It was first published in 1978 with the main title Our Masters the Rebels.
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 From the Mountains to the Bay written by Ethan S. Rafuse and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2022-12-09 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From January to July of 1862, the armies and navies of the Union and Confederacy conducted an incredibly complex and remarkably diverse range of operations in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Under the direction of leaders like Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, George McClellan, Joseph E. Johnston, John Rodgers, Robert E. Lee, Franklin Buchanan, Irvin McDowell, and Louis M. Goldsborough, men of the Union and Confederate armed forces marched over mountains and through shallow valleys, maneuvered on and along great tidal rivers, bridged and waded their tributaries, battled malarial swamps, dug trenches and constructed fortifications, and advanced and retreated in search of operational and tactical advantage. In the course of these operations, the North demonstrated it had learned quite a bit from its setbacks of 1861 and was able to achieve significant operational and tactical success on both land and sea. This enabled Union arms to bring a considerable portion of Virginia under Federal control—in some cases temporarily and in others permanently. Indeed, at points during the spring and early summer of 1862, it appeared the North just might succeed in bringing about the defeat of the rebellion before the year was out. A sweeping study of the operations on land and sea, From the Mountains to the Bay is the only modern scholarly work that looks at the operations that took place in Virginia in early 1862, from the Romney Campaign that opened the year to the naval engagement between the Monitor and Merrimac to the movements and engagements fought by Union and Confederate forces in the Shenandoah Valley, on the York-James Peninsula, and in northern Virginia, as a single, comprehensive campaign. Rafuse draws from extensive research in primary sources to provide a fast-paced, complete account of operations throughout Virginia, while also incorporating findings of recent scholarship on the factors that shaped these campaigns. The work provides invaluable insights into the factors and individuals who shaped these operations, how they influenced the course of the war, the relationships between political leaders and men in uniform, and how all these factors affected the development and execution of strategy, operations, and tactics.
Download or read book Failure to Pursue written by David Frey and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Was the Civil War preordained to last four years or were there reasons why neither side could land a knockout punch? From the outset, both North and South had anticipated a brief conflict but despite more than 50 bloody battles neither could force a decisive conclusion. For most of the war, these battles followed a pattern: the victors claimed the field and the vanquished retreated to rest, resupply and fight another day. Some generals began to realize that pursuit to capture or destroy the retreating enemy was needed to end the war--not an easy task. Taking a fresh look at the tactics that characterized many major combat actions in the war, this book examines the performance of unsuccessful (sometimes insubordinate) commanders and credits two generals with eventually seeing the need for organized pursuit.
Download or read book The Union Army States and regiments written by and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
