Challenges of Command in the Civil War: Generalship, Leadership, and Strategy at Gettysburg, Petersburg, and Beyond: Volume 1 - Generals and Generalship

by Richard J. Sommers

Overview

Dr. Richard Sommers’ Challenges of Command in the Civil War distills six decades of studying the Civil War into two succinct, thought-provoking volumes. This first installment focuses on “Civil War Generals and Generalship.” The subsequent volume will explore “Civil War Strategy, Operations, and Organization.” Each chapter is a free-standing essay that can be appreciated in its own right without reading the entire book.

Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee stand out in Volume I as Dr. Sommers analyzes their generalship throughout the Civil War. Their exercise of command in the decisive Virginia Campaign from May 1864 to April 1865 receives particular attention—especially during the great Siege of Petersburg, about which the author has long ranked as the pioneering and pre-eminent historian.

Five chapters evaluating Grant and Lee are followed by five more on “Civil War Generals and Generalship.” One of those essays, “American Cincinnatus,” explores twenty citizen-soldiers who commanded mobile army corps in the Union Army and explains why such officers were selected for senior command. Antietam, Gettysburg, and Petersburg are central to three essays on Northern corps and wing commanders. Both Federals and Confederates are featured in “Founding Fathers: Renowned Revolutionary War Relatives of Significant Civil War Soldiers and Statesmen.” The ground-breaking original research underlying that chapter identifies scores of connections between the “Greatest Generations” of the 18th and 19th Centuries—far more than just the well-known link of “Light Horse Harry” Lee to his son, Robert E. Lee.

From original research in Chapter 10 to new ways of looking at familiar facts in Chapters 6-9 to distilled judgments from a lifetime of study in Chapters 1-5, Challenges of Command invites readers to think—and rethink—about the generalship of Grant, Lee, and senior commanders of the Civil War.

This book is an essential part of every Civil War library.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611214321
Publisher:	Savas Beatie
Publication date:	06/05/2018
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Dr. Richard J. Sommers has contributed extensively to Civil War and military history. In addition to his latest books Challenges of Command, and Richmond Redeemed, he has authored more than 100 books, chapters, articles, entries, and reviews on a wide variety of Civil War topics. The SB updated, expanded 150th anniversary edition of Richmond Redeemed earned the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award as the best reprint on U.S. Army history for 2014. The original edition was awarded the Bell Wiley Prize for the best Civil War book published in 1981-82. Dr. Sommers himself is also the recipient of a host of awards, including the Harrisburg Civil War Round Table General John F. Hartranft Award “for meritorious service,” the Houston Civil War Round Table Frank E. Vandiver Award “for merit,” and the Army Heritage Center Foundation General John Armstrong Award “for significant contributions.” In 2015, the Army War College designated him a “Distinguished Fellow.” He is a popular speaker to Civil War audiences, including the Civil War Round Table circuit, all across America. He retired in 2014 as the Senior Historian of the Army Heritage and Education Center, where he served for more than four decades, but he continues to teach at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and to write and speak about the Civil War. Born in Indiana and educated at Carleton College (B.A.) and Rice University (Ph.D.), Dr. Sommers resides in Carlisle with his wife, Tracy.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments xi

Part I Grant and Lee

Chapter 1 The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant and the American Civil War 1

Chapter 2 The Generalship of Robert E. Lee and the Civil War in the East 13

Chapter 3 Success through a Succession of Setbacks: Ulysses S. Grant and the Virginia Campaign of 1864-1865 29

Chapter 4 "Winged Victory": Ulysses S. Grant and the Search for Success in the Siege of Petersburg 43

Chapter 5 The Generalship of Grant and Lee at Petersburg 63

Part II The Generals

Chapter 6 American Cincinnatus: Lincoln's Civilian Corps Commanders 89

Chapter 7 Mac's Main Men: Federal Wing and Corps Commanders in the Antietam Campaign 123

Chapter 8 Meade's Main Men: Federal Wing and Corps Commanders in the Gettysburg Campaign 143

Chapter 9 Grant's Main Men: Senior Federal Commanders in the Fifth Offensive at Petersburg 169

Chapter 10 Founding Fathers: Renowned Revolutionary War Relatives of Significant Civil War Soldiers and Statesmen 193

Epilogue 233

Bibliography 235

Index 247

List of Tables and Charts

1 Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Relation to Civil War Kin 204

2 Continental and Militia Generals and Senior Officers and Their Staffs, Relation to Civil War Kin 205

3 Revolutionary War Patriots, Relation to Civil War Kin 206

4 Signers of the United States Constitution, Relation to Civil War Kin 207

5 Frontier Patriot: William C. Preston (WCP), Relation to Civil War Kin 207

Preston (WCP)-Breckinridge-Johnston Family Tree, Relation to Civil War Kin 225

Preston (WCP)-Radford Family Tree, Relation to Civil War Kin 229

List of Maps

Grant's Third Offensive at Petersburg, July 27-30, 1864 50

Grant's Fourth Offensive at Petersburg, August 14-25, 1864 51

Grant's Fifth Offensive at Petersburg, September 29-October 19, 1864 53

Grant's Sixth Offensive at Petersburg, October 27-28, 1864 55

Grant's Seventh Offensive at Petersburg, December 7-12, 1864 57

Grant's Eighth Offensive at Petersburg, February 5-7, 1865 58

Grant's Ninth Offensive at Petersburg, March 29-April 3, 1865 59

List of Photographs

1 Ulysses S. Grant xviii

2 Robert E. Lee xviii

Other Prominent Federal Leaders (end of Chapter 1)

3 Abraham Lincoln 12

4 William T. Sherman 12

5 Philip H. Sheridan 12

6 George H. Thomas 12

Other Prominent Confederate Leaders (end of Chapter 2)

7 Jefferson Davis 28

8 Thomas J. ("Stonewall") Jackson 28

9 James Longstreet 28

10 James E. B. ("Jeb") Stuart 28

Senior Federal Commanders at Petersburg (end of Chapter 5)

11 Ulysses S. Grant 83

12 George G. Meade 83

13 Benjamin F. Butler 83

14 Edward O.C. Ord 83

Senior Confederate Commanders at Petersburg (end of Chapter 5)

15 Robert E. Lee 84

16 P.G.T. Beauregard 84

17 Ambrose Powell Hill 84

18 Richard S. Ewell 84

Generals Mentioned Throughout Part Two

19 Jacob D. Cox 87

20 Daniel E. Sickles 87

21 David B. Birney 87

22 Alfred H. Terry 87

23 George G. Meade 88

24 Winfield Scott Hancock 88

25 Alfred Pleasonton 88

26 Alpheus S. Williams 88

Citizen-Soldier Federal Corps Commanders (end of Chapter 6)

27 Abraham Lincoln and John McClernand at Antietam 118

28 Nathaniel P. Banks 118

29 Francis P. Blair, Jr. 118

30 Cadwallader C. Washburn 118

31 John A. McClernand 119

32 Stephen A. Hurlbut 119

33 John A. Logan 119

34 John M. Palmer 119

35 Grenville M. Dodge 120

36 Robert B. Potter 120

37 Benjamin Grierson 120

38 Thomas E.G. Ransom 120

39 Daniel Butterfield 121

40 Thomas L. Crittenden 121

41 Mahlon D. Manson 121

42 Robert B. Mitchell 121

Mac's Main Men at Antietam (end of Chapter 7)

43 George B. McClellan 140

44 Joseph Hooker 140

45 Edwin V. Sumner, Sr. 140

46 Fitz John Porter 140

47 William B. Franklin 141

48 Ambrose E. Burnside 141

49 Jesse L. Reno 141

50 Joseph K. F. Mansfield 141

Meade's Main Men at Gettysburg (end of Chapter 8)

51 John F. Reynolds 165

52 Abner Doubleday 165

53 John Newton 165

54 William H. French 165

55 John Gibbon 166

56 John C. Caldwell 166

57 William Hays 166

58 George Sykes 166

59 John Sedgwick 167

60 Oliver Otis Howard 167

61 Carl Schurz 167

62 Henry W. Slocum 167

Grant's Main Men at Petersburg (end of Chapter 9)

63 Gouverneur K. Warren 190

64 John G. Parke 190

65 Samuel W. Crawford 190

66 David M. Gregg 190

67 Charles A. Heckman 191

68 Godfrey Weitzel 191

69 August V. Kautz 191

70 P. Regis DeTrobriand 191

Founding Fathers and Their Sons and Nephews (end of Chapter 10)

71 John Quincy Adams 230

72 Charles Francis Adams, Sr. 230

73 "Light Horse Harry" Lee 230

74 Sydney Smith Lee 230

75 Robert E. Lee 230

76 George Rogers Clark 231

77 Meriwether Lewis Clark 231

78 William Radford 231

79 John Laurens 231

80 Duncan N. Ingraham 231

Editorial Reviews

Richard J. Sommers is the dean of Civil War military history, and with Challenges of Command in the Civil War, he brings more than half-a-century of study to his task. Sommers’s insights and analysis of the war’s leadership and strategy demand the attention of any reader interested in our nation’s most consequential conflict. This is destined to be one of the most important books on its subject ever published.

A. Wilson Greene

One of this generation’s most thoughtful Civil War historians, Dr. Richard J. Sommers, has written a trenchant analysis on leadership during the conflict in Challenges of Command in the Civil War. The book is replete with telling details, cogent judgments, and discerning arguments, all based on extensive reading and deep scholarship. Dr. Sommers’s new book needs to be read by all students of America’s great saga.

Jeffry D. Wert