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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.
Logistics constantly shape military affairs and sometimes even dictate strategy and tactics. This monograph 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. Maps, tables and figures.
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.
How the Civil War changed the face of war The Civil War represented a momentous change in the character of war. It combined the projection of military might across a continent on a scale never before seen with an unprecedented mass mobilization of peoples. Yet despite the revolutionizing aspects of the Civil War, its leaders faced the same uncertainties and vagaries of chance that have vexed combatants since the days of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War. A Savage War sheds critical new light on this defining chapter in military history. In a masterful narrative that propels readers from the first shots fired at Fort Sumter to the surrender of Robert E. Lee's army at Appomattox, Williamson Murray and Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh bring every aspect of the battlefield vividly to life. They show how this new way of waging war was made possible by the powerful historical forces unleashed by the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution, yet how the war was far from being simply a story of the triumph of superior machines. Despite the Union’s material superiority, a Union victory remained in doubt for most of the war. Murray and Hsieh paint indelible portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and other major figures whose leadership, judgment, and personal character played such decisive roles in the fate of a nation. They also examine how the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Northern Virginia, and the other major armies developed entirely different cultures that influenced the war’s outcome. A military history of breathtaking sweep and scope, A Savage War reveals how the Civil War ushered in the age of modern warfare.
Many commanders in the American Civil War (1861-1865) served in the Mexican War (1846-1848). This book explores influence of the earlier war on those men who would become leaders of Federal and Confederate forces. Kevin Dougherty discusses professional soldiering before both wars. He shows experiences of twenty-six men in Mexico, thirteen who would serve the Confederacy and thirteen who would remain with the Union. He traces how tactics they used and reactions they had to Civil War combat reveal a remarkable connection to what they learned campaigning against Santa Anna and Mexican generals. Personalities discussed range from well-known leaders to lesser-known figures, from geniuses to mediocrities and from aged heroes to developing practitioners. Impact of these experiences on major tactical decisions in the Civil War is far-reaching--Publisher's description.
Few generals of the Confederate States Army had such a glittering career as John Brown Gordon, although without any formal military training he rose from captain of a company of Georgia mountineers to the rank of Major-General. He was described by the Robert E. Lee as one of his finest commanders and that his actions were “characterized by splendid audacity”. He was distinguished in many the early battles of the Army of North Viginia; First Bull Run, Malvern Hill; holding the vital “Bloody Lane” at Antietam he was shot five times as he encouraged his men. After a period of recuperation he plunged back into the fray and won further laurels at battles at Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House and the final surrender at Appomattox. His memoirs are justly famous and are an acclaimed classic. “For many years I have been urged to place on record my reminiscences of the war between the States. In undertaking the task now, it is not my purpose to attempt a comprehensive description of that great struggle, nor an elaborate analysis of the momentous interests and issues involved. The time may not have arrived for a full and fair history of that most interesting period in the Republic’s life. The man capable of writing it with entire justice to both sides is perhaps yet unborn. ... I have also recorded in this volume a large number of those characteristic and thrilling incidents which illustrate a unique and hitherto unwritten phase of the war, the story of which should not be lost, because it is luminous with the noblest lessons. Many of these incidents came under my own observation”--Introduction.
The Nashville and Decatur Railroad was in operation five months before the start of the Civil War and 17 months before the Federals took control of Nashville and the railroad. Running through Central Tennessee to Alabama, the highly contested line passed through Confederate-held territory, where rebels and their sympathizers continually sabotaged bridges, trestles and track. This first full-length work on the N&D Railroad emphasizes its importance in the Western Theater and brings to light the four key men who kept it open for the duration of the war. Significant military activities in the region are described, along with the contraband camp, military complex and other features surrounding the railroad's only tunnel.
Winner of the Eugene Feit Award in Civil War Studies by the New York Military Affairs Symposium During the Civil War, neither the Union nor the Confederate army could have operated without effective transportation systems. Moving men, supplies, and equipment required coordination on a massive scale, and Earl J. Hess’s Civil War Logistics offers the first comprehensive analysis of this vital process. Utilizing an enormous array of reports, dispatches, and personal accounts by quartermasters involved in transporting war materials, Hess reveals how each conveyance system operated as well as the degree to which both armies accomplished their logistical goals. In a society just realizing the benefits of modern travel technology, both sides of the conflict faced challenges in maintaining national and regional lines of transportation. Union and Confederate quartermasters used riverboats, steamers, coastal shipping, railroads, wagon trains, pack trains, cattle herds, and their soldiers in the long and complicated chain that supported the military operations of their forces. Soldiers in blue and gray alike tried to destroy the transportation facilities of their enemy, firing on river boats and dismantling rails to disrupt opposing supply lines while defending their own means of transport. According to Hess, Union logistical efforts proved far more successful than Confederate attempts to move and supply its fighting forces, due mainly to the North’s superior administrative management and willingness to seize transportation resources when needed. As the war went on, the Union’s protean system grew in complexity, size, and efficiency, while that of the Confederates steadily declined in size and effectiveness until it hardly met the needs of its army. Indeed, Hess concludes that in its use of all types of military transportation, the Federal government far surpassed its opponent and thus laid the foundation for Union victory in the Civil War.
How railroads both united and divided us: “Integrates military and social history…a must-read for students, scholars and enthusiasts alike.”—Civil War Monitor Beginning with Frederick Douglass’s escape from slavery in 1838 on the railroad, and ending with the driving of the golden spike to link the transcontinental railroad in 1869, this book charts a critical period of American expansion and national formation, one largely dominated by the dynamic growth of railroads and telegraphs. William G. Thomas brings new evidence to bear on railroads, the Confederate South, slavery, and the Civil War era, based on groundbreaking research in digitized sources never available before. The Iron Way revises our ideas about the emergence of modern America and the role of the railroads in shaping the sectional conflict. Both the North and the South invested in railroads to serve their larger purposes, Thomas contends. Though railroads are often cited as a major factor in the Union’s victory, he shows that they were also essential to the formation of “the South” as a unified region. He discusses the many—and sometimes unexpected—effects of railroad expansion, and proposes that America’s great railroads became an important symbolic touchstone for the nation’s vision of itself. “In this provocative and deeply researched book, William G. Thomas follows the railroad into virtually every aspect of Civil War history, showing how it influenced everything from slavery’s antebellum expansion to emancipation and segregation—from guerrilla warfare to grand strategy. At every step, Thomas challenges old assumptions and finds new connections on this much-traveled historical landscape."—T.J. Stiles, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt