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The First Republican Army

The First Republican Army PDF Author: John H. Matsui
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813939283
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Book Description
Although much is known about the political stance of the military at large during the Civil War, the political party affiliations of individual soldiers have received little attention. Drawing on archival sources from twenty-five generals and 250 volunteer officers and enlisted men, John Matsui offers the first major study to examine the ways in which individual politics were as important as military considerations to battlefield outcomes and how the experience of war could alter soldiers’ political views. The conservative war aims pursued by Abraham Lincoln’s generals (and to some extent, the president himself) in the first year of the American Civil War focused on the preservation of the Union and the restoration of the antebellum status quo. This approach was particularly evident in the prevailing policies and attitudes toward Confederacy-supporting Southern civilians and slavery. But this changed in Virginia during the summer of 1862 with the formation of the Army of Virginia. If the Army of the Potomac (the major Union force in Virginia) was dominated by generals who concurred with the ideology of the Democratic Party, the Army of Virginia (though likewise a Union force) was its political opposite, from its senior generals to the common soldiers. The majority of officers and soldiers in the Army of Virginia saw slavery and pro-Confederate civilians as crucial components of the rebel war effort and blamed them for prolonging the war. The frustrating occupation experiences of the Army of Virginia radicalized them further, making them a vanguard against Southern rebellion and slavery within the Union army as a whole and paving the way for Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

The First Republican Army

The First Republican Army PDF Author: John H. Matsui
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813939283
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Book Description
Although much is known about the political stance of the military at large during the Civil War, the political party affiliations of individual soldiers have received little attention. Drawing on archival sources from twenty-five generals and 250 volunteer officers and enlisted men, John Matsui offers the first major study to examine the ways in which individual politics were as important as military considerations to battlefield outcomes and how the experience of war could alter soldiers’ political views. The conservative war aims pursued by Abraham Lincoln’s generals (and to some extent, the president himself) in the first year of the American Civil War focused on the preservation of the Union and the restoration of the antebellum status quo. This approach was particularly evident in the prevailing policies and attitudes toward Confederacy-supporting Southern civilians and slavery. But this changed in Virginia during the summer of 1862 with the formation of the Army of Virginia. If the Army of the Potomac (the major Union force in Virginia) was dominated by generals who concurred with the ideology of the Democratic Party, the Army of Virginia (though likewise a Union force) was its political opposite, from its senior generals to the common soldiers. The majority of officers and soldiers in the Army of Virginia saw slavery and pro-Confederate civilians as crucial components of the rebel war effort and blamed them for prolonging the war. The frustrating occupation experiences of the Army of Virginia radicalized them further, making them a vanguard against Southern rebellion and slavery within the Union army as a whole and paving the way for Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Ends of War

Ends of War PDF Author: Caroline E. Janney
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469663384
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Book Description
The Army of Northern Virginia's chaotic dispersal began even before Lee and Grant met at Appomattox Court House. As the Confederates had pushed west at a relentless pace for nearly a week, thousands of wounded and exhausted men fell out of the ranks. When word spread that Lee planned to surrender, most remaining troops stacked their arms and accepted paroles allowing them to return home, even as they lamented the loss of their country and cause. But others broke south and west, hoping to continue the fight. Fearing a guerrilla war, Grant extended the generous Appomattox terms to every rebel who would surrender himself. Provost marshals fanned out across Virginia and beyond, seeking nearly 18,000 of Lee's men who had yet to surrender. But the shock of Lincoln's assassination led Northern authorities to see threats of new rebellion in every rail depot and harbor where Confederates gathered for transport, even among those already paroled. While Federal troops struggled to keep order and sustain a fragile peace, their newly surrendered adversaries seethed with anger and confusion at the sight of Union troops occupying their towns and former slaves celebrating freedom. In this dramatic new history of the weeks and months after Appomattox, Caroline E. Janney reveals that Lee's surrender was less an ending than the start of an interregnum marked by military and political uncertainty, legal and logistical confusion, and continued outbursts of violence. Janney takes readers from the deliberations of government and military authorities to the ground-level experiences of common soldiers. Ultimately, what unfolds is the messy birth narrative of the Lost Cause, laying the groundwork for the defiant resilience of rebellion in the years that followed.

Engineering Victory

Engineering Victory PDF Author: Thomas F. Army Jr.
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421419386
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
Superior engineering skills among Union soldiers helped ensure victory in the Civil War. Engineering Victory brings a fresh approach to the question of why the North prevailed in the Civil War. Historian Thomas F. Army, Jr., identifies strength in engineering—not superior military strategy or industrial advantage—as the critical determining factor in the war’s outcome. Army finds that Union soldiers were able to apply scientific ingenuity and innovation to complex problems in a way that Confederate soldiers simply could not match. Skilled Free State engineers who were trained during the antebellum period benefited from basic educational reforms, the spread of informal educational practices, and a culture that encouraged learning and innovation. During the war, their rapid construction and repair of roads, railways, and bridges allowed Northern troops to pass quickly through the forbidding terrain of the South as retreating and maneuvering Confederates struggled to cut supply lines and stop the Yankees from pressing any advantage. By presenting detailed case studies from both theaters of the war, Army clearly demonstrates how the soldiers’ education, training, and talents spelled the difference between success and failure, victory and defeat. He also reveals massive logistical operations as critical in determining the war’s outcome.

Reluctant Rebels

Reluctant Rebels PDF Author: Kenneth W. Noe
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807895636
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Book Description
After the feverish mobilization of secession had faded, why did Southern men join the Confederate army? Kenneth Noe examines the motives and subsequent performance of "later enlisters." He offers a nuanced view of men who have often been cast as less patriotic and less committed to the cause, rekindling the debate over who these later enlistees were, why they joined, and why they stayed and fought. Noe refutes the claim that later enlisters were more likely to desert or perform poorly in battle and reassesses the argument that they were less ideologically savvy than their counterparts who enlisted early in the conflict. He argues that kinship and neighborhood, not conscription, compelled these men to fight: they were determined to protect their families and property and were fueled by resentment over emancipation and pillaging and destruction by Union forces. But their age often combined with their duties to wear them down more quickly than younger men, making them less effective soldiers for a Confederate nation that desperately needed every able-bodied man it could muster. Reluctant Rebels places the stories of individual soldiers in the larger context of the Confederate war effort and follows them from the initial optimism of enlistment through the weariness of battle and defeat.

Marching Masters

Marching Masters PDF Author: Colin Edward Woodward
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813935423
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Book Description
The Confederate army went to war to defend a nation of slaveholding states, and although men rushed to recruiting stations for many reasons, they understood that the fundamental political issue at stake in the conflict was the future of slavery. Most Confederate soldiers were not slaveholders themselves, but they were products of the largest and most prosperous slaveholding civilization the world had ever seen, and they sought to maintain clear divisions between black and white, master and servant, free and slave. In Marching Masters Colin Woodward explores not only the importance of slavery in the minds of Confederate soldiers but also its effects on military policy and decision making. Beyond showing how essential the defense of slavery was in motivating Confederate troops to fight, Woodward examines the Rebels’ persistent belief in the need to defend slavery and deploy it militarily as the war raged on. Slavery proved essential to the Confederate war machine, and Rebels strove to protect it just as they did Southern cities, towns, and railroads. Slaves served by the tens of thousands in the Southern armies—never as soldiers, but as menial laborers who cooked meals, washed horses, and dug ditches. By following Rebel troops' continued adherence to notions of white supremacy into the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras, the book carries the story beyond the Confederacy’s surrender. Drawing upon hundreds of soldiers’ letters, diaries, and memoirs, Marching Masters combines the latest social and military history in its compelling examination of the last bloody years of slavery in the United States.

For Cause and Comrades

For Cause and Comrades PDF Author: James M. McPherson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199741050
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
General John A. Wickham, commander of the famous 101st Airborne Division in the 1970s and subsequently Army Chief of Staff, once visited Antietam battlefield. Gazing at Bloody Lane where, in 1862, several Union assaults were brutally repulsed before they finally broke through, he marveled, "You couldn't get American soldiers today to make an attack like that." Why did those men risk certain death, over and over again, through countless bloody battles and four long, awful years ? Why did the conventional wisdom -- that soldiers become increasingly cynical and disillusioned as war progresses -- not hold true in the Civil War? It is to this question--why did they fight--that James McPherson, America's preeminent Civil War historian, now turns his attention. He shows that, contrary to what many scholars believe, the soldiers of the Civil War remained powerfully convinced of the ideals for which they fought throughout the conflict. Motivated by duty and honor, and often by religious faith, these men wrote frequently of their firm belief in the cause for which they fought: the principles of liberty, freedom, justice, and patriotism. Soldiers on both sides harkened back to the Founding Fathers, and the ideals of the American Revolution. They fought to defend their country, either the Union--"the best Government ever made"--or the Confederate states, where their very homes and families were under siege. And they fought to defend their honor and manhood. "I should not lik to go home with the name of a couhard," one Massachusetts private wrote, and another private from Ohio said, "My wife would sooner hear of my death than my disgrace." Even after three years of bloody battles, more than half of the Union soldiers reenlisted voluntarily. "While duty calls me here and my country demands my services I should be willing to make the sacrifice," one man wrote to his protesting parents. And another soldier said simply, "I still love my country." McPherson draws on more than 25,000 letters and nearly 250 private diaries from men on both sides. Civil War soldiers were among the most literate soldiers in history, and most of them wrote home frequently, as it was the only way for them to keep in touch with homes that many of them had left for the first time in their lives. Significantly, their letters were also uncensored by military authorities, and are uniquely frank in their criticism and detailed in their reports of marches and battles, relations between officers and men, political debates, and morale. For Cause and Comrades lets these soldiers tell their own stories in their own words to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books on war. Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times, called "history writing of the highest order." For Cause and Comrades deserves similar accolades, as McPherson's masterful prose and the soldiers' own words combine to create both an important book on an often-overlooked aspect of our bloody Civil War, and a powerfully moving account of the men who fought it.

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

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

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

The Army of Tennessee in Retreat

The Army of Tennessee in Retreat PDF Author: O.C. Hood
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147667292X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Book Description
Following the Battle of Nashville, Confederate General John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee was in full retreat, from the battle lines south of Nashville to the Tennessee River at the Alabama state line. Ferocious engagements broke out along the way as Hood's small rearguard, harried by Federal Cavalry brigades, fought a 10-day running battle over 100 miles of impoverished countryside during one of the worst winters on record.

Rails To Oblivion: The Decline Of Confederate Railroads In The Civil War [Illustrated Edition]

Rails To Oblivion: The Decline Of Confederate Railroads In The Civil War [Illustrated Edition] PDF Author: Dr. Christopher R. Gabel
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1782895701
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 45

Book Description
Includes 2 charts, 7 maps, 7 figures and 5 Illustrations. Renowned Military Historian Dr Christopher Gabel charts the decline of the Confederate Railways system that was to spell ultimate doom to the outnumbered soldiers of the Southern states. Military professionals need always to recognize the centrality of logistics to military operations. In this booklet, Dr. Christopher R. Gabel provides a companion piece to his “Railroad Generalship” which explores the same issues from the other side of the tracks, so to speak. “Rails to Oblivion” shows that neither brilliant generals nor valiant soldiers can, in the long run, overcome the effects of a neglected and deteriorating logistics system. Moreover, the cumulative effect of mundane factors such as metal fatigue, mechanical friction, and accidents in the civilian workplace can contribute significantly to the outcome of a war. And no matter how good some thing or idea may look on paper, or how we delude ourselves, we and our soldiers must live with, and die in, reality. War is a complex business. This booklet explores some of the facets of war that often escape the notice of military officers, and as COL Jerry Morelock intimated in his foreword to “Railroad Generalship,” these facets decide who wins and who loses.

What This Cruel War Was Over

What This Cruel War Was Over PDF Author: Chandra Manning
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307267431
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
Using letters, diaries, and regimental newspapers to take us inside the minds of Civil War soldiers—black and white, Northern and Southern—as they fought and marched across a divided country, this unprecedented account is “an essential contribution to our understanding of slavery and the Civil War" (The Philadelphia Inquirer). In this unprecedented account, Chandra Manning With stunning poise and narrative verve, Manning explores how the Union and Confederate soldiers came to identify slavery as the central issue of the war and what that meant for a tumultuous nation. This is a brilliant and eye-opening debut and an invaluable addition to our understanding of the Civil War as it has never been rendered before.