Engineering Victory: How Technology Won the Civil War

by Thomas F. Army Jr.

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421419374
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	06/01/2016
Series:	Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.40(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Thomas F. Army, Jr., is an adjunct assistant professor of history at Quinebaug Valley Community College.

Table of Contents

List of Maps ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: Masters and Mechanics 1

Part I The Education and Management Gap: Schooling, Business, and Culture in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America 15

1 Common School Reform and Science Education 17

2 Mechanics' Institutes and Agricultural Fairs: Transmitting Knowledge and Information in Antebellum America 34

3 Building the Railroads: Early Development of the Modern Management System 54

Part II Skills Go To War 67

4 Wanted: Volunteer Engineers 69

5 Early Successes and Failures: Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, Island No, 10, and Middle Tennessee 95

6 McClellan Tests His Engineers: The Peninsula Campaign, 1862 116

7 The Birth of the United States Military Railroad: Thomas Scott, Daniel McCallum, and Herman Haupt 133

8 Summer-Fall 1862: Maryland, Kentucky, and Tennessee 148

Part II Applied Engineering 167

9 Vicksburg 169

10 Gettysburg 206

11 Chattanooga 221

12 The Red River and Petersburg 241

13 Atlanta and the Carolina Campaigns 264

Conclusion: Know-How Triumphant 289

Notes 307

Essay on Sources 355

Index 359

What People are Saying About This

Michael C. C. Adams

A comprehensive, highly erudite history of military engineering in the Civil War, Engineering Victory should become the standard work against which all others are measured.

From the Publisher

A comprehensive, highly erudite history of military engineering in the Civil War, Engineering Victory should become the standard work against which all others are measured.
—Michael C. C. Adams, Northern Kentucky University, author of Living Hell: The Dark Side of the Civil War

Editorial Reviews

Highly recommended.
—Choice

A thoughtful treatise on an important subject related to war, culture, and society, Engineering Victory is highly recommended reading.
—Civil War Books and Authors

Army's description of Union Army engineers and their accomplishments is certainly thorough and impressive. He relates numerous examples of how the effective use of engineers led to victory while an ineffective application led to defeat.
—The Michigan Historical Review

Thomas Army Jr. has produced an interesting and thought-provoking study of military engineering in the Civil War with which students of the war, logistics, and technology will have to reckon.
—Civil War Book Review

. . . Army has made a major contribution to the understanding of how engineering and technology played a vital role in Union victory. Every scholar interested in the Civil War, the Union war effort, and the history of technology should grapple with his arguments and their implications.
—The Journal of Southern History

. . . Engineering Victory deserves praise . . .
—Journal of the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era

Engineering Victory will appeal to historians in the areas of technology, education, and military studies. Obviously, historians of science and technology will benefit the most from this book since it is primarily written for the purposes of highlighting engineering advancements and implementations by the Union Army during the Civil War . . . While Army does not deny that the Union had material and industrial advantages over the Confederacy, by examining the state of education in the North and the role Union engineers played in winning the war, he has opened a new avenue to explore in why the Civil War ended with a Union victory. Military historians would be wise to follow the trail that Army has started and continue this exploration of avenue of Civil War history.
—Joshua Camper, University of Tennessee Martin, H-War Book Reviews

From the Publisher

A thoughtful treatise on an important subject related to war, culture, and society, Engineering Victory is highly recommended reading.

Civil War Books and Authors

. . . Engineering Victory deserves praise . . .

Journal of the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era

. . . Army has made a major contribution to the understanding of how engineering and technology played a vital role in Union victory. Every scholar interested in the Civil War, the Union war effort, and the history of technology should grapple with his arguments and their implications.

The Journal of Southern History

Engineering Victory will appeal to historians in the areas of technology, education, and military studies. Obviously, historians of science and technology will benefit the most from this book since it is primarily written for the purposes of highlighting engineering advancements and implementations by the Union Army during the Civil War . . . While Army does not deny that the Union had material and industrial advantages over the Confederacy, by examining the state of education in the North and the role Union engineers played in winning the war, he has opened a new avenue to explore in why the Civil War ended with a Union victory. Military historians would be wise to follow the trail that Army has started and continue this exploration of avenue of Civil War history.

H-War Book Reviews - Joshua Camper

Highly recommended.

Choice

Thomas Army Jr. has produced an interesting and thought-provoking study of military engineering in the Civil War with which students of the war, logistics, and technology will have to reckon.

Civil War Book Review

Army's description of Union Army engineers and their accomplishments is certainly thorough and impressive. He relates numerous examples of how the effective use of engineers led to victory while an ineffective application led to defeat.

The Michigan Historical Review