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Hardcover August 2010 ISBN 978-0-393-06039-3 6.5 × 9.5 in / 336 pages
The good folks at W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. sent me a pre-release copy of Elizabeth D. Leonard’s new book, Continue Reading →
The American Military University (AMU) and the Weider History Group will be presenting a series of live webcasts on the Civil War that look promising. I’m excited to see this line up and think it a terrific educational venue made accessible to [...]
Continue Reading →I’m wrapping up my paper on Civil War Admiral David Farragut’s command of the Battle of Mobile Bay. This guy was impressive. To begin with, he came from good stock. This quote is his son Loyall’s 1879 work, The life [...]
Continue Reading →JOSEPH T. GLATTHAAR. Partners In Command: The Relationships Between Leaders in the Civil War New York: The Free Press . 1994. Pp. xi, 286. $16.95.
Warriors are at their core human beings who succeed or fail in their endeavors in some part because [...]
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I previously posted a piece on the impact of disease on soldiers in the Civil War [see "The American Civil War Experience: Lice, Disease and Quinine" ]. The following discusses the other side of death during the war, the experience on the battlefield. Please be aware [...]
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Men who hurried to sign up for the armies of the North and South in the early years of the American Civil War, joined – to varying degrees – for the follow reasons: out of a sense of duty and honor to country (whether North or South), to feel and prove oneself “manly,” a trait [...]
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Mackubin Thomas Owen, a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, provides one of the best descriptions I’ve found of Lincoln’s approach as a commander of a military at war. He called Lincoln “an activist commander-in-chief who frequently ‘interfered’ with his generals. [Lincoln] [...]
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This post concludes a series exploring Causes of the Civil War.
A review of the literature reveals – not surprisingly – a lack of agreement over whether the American Civil War was inevitable. Given the fact that it did occur, the question under consideration might be better stated [...]
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The second installation in a series on the causes of the American Civil War. A summary of conditions in Antebellum America.
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To celebrate the opening of Wig-Wags.com, I’m republishing a series of posts on the much debated topic of the causes of the American Civil war. Let today’s post serve as its introduction. I’ll attempt in the series to address two questions. The first is whether economic interests, political agitation, and the cultural [...]
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Dodge began the war inauspiciously enough, as colonel of the Fourth Iowa infantry regiment. He was to make his mark at Pea Ridge in early 1862, where he sustained multiple minor wounds and had three horses shot from under him. He was promoted to brigadier general in April of that year, and was commanded to rebuild the Mobile & Ohio Railroad between Corinth, Miss., and Columbus, Ky.
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In class, we’ve been discussing how the decisions of the two commanders-in-chief during the American Civil War impacted events at the operational level. Modern scholars have challenged the notion that Lincoln simply stayed involved in military details until he found the right general (Grant).
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The good folks at Oxford University Press recently sent me a copy of the new paperback edition of James McPherson’s This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War.
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I’ve decided choose as topic for the research paper I’m writing for my current class, the leadership of David G. Farragut during the New Orleans Campaign. I’m on the hunt for both primary and secondary sources. Let me know if you have recommendations.
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Much has been written about the political and military genius of Abraham Lincoln and the successful leader he grew to be while Commander in Chief of a fractured union. But as the country divided and civil war became a reality, a new leader was called upon to assume the role of Commander in Chief for the Confederacy, the seasoned Jefferson Davis.
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