Retreat to Victory?: Confederate Strategy Reconsidered / Edition 1

by Robert G. Tanner

Overview

Did Confederate armies attack too often for their own good? Was the relentless, sometimes costly effort to preserve territory a blunder? Why great battles in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Tennessee rather than well-laid ambushes in Alabama's sandhills or the pine forests of the Carolinas?

These questions about Confederate strategy have dogged historians since Appomattox. Many have come to believe that the South might have won the Civil War if it had only avoided head-on battles, conducted an aggressive guerrilla campaign, and maneuvered across wide swaths of territory to exhaust the Union's willingness to continue the war. Retreat to Victory? Confederate Strategy Reconsidered challenges this widely held theory. Robert G. Tanner argues that deep retreats and battle avoidance (the strategy of maneuver rather than combat) were not available to Southern leaders in planning their wartime strategy. The South fought as it did for valid reasons, according to Tanner, and this book examines these reasons in detail, including the South's need to protect its slave-based economy, to establish a state's rights-oriented government, and to win independence from the Union. Tanner uses Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz's classic On War as a means for evaluating Confederate actions. On War provides a single measure for testing claims that the South could have prevailed by avoiding battles and forcing the Union to hold large tracts of land.

Provocative and carefully researched, Retreat to Victory offers a fresh perspective on Confederate strategy and makes an important contribution to the field that no serious student of American history will want to miss.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780842028820
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	01/01/2002
Series:	The American Crisis Series: Books on the Civil War Era , #2
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	162
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Robert G. Tanner practices law in Atlanta, Georgia. He has studied and lectured on the Civil War for more than twenty-five years.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Confederate Strategy: An Overview Chapter 2 Confederate Geography Chapter 3 Rebel Armies on the March Chapter 4 On Clausewitz Chapter 5 Slavery and Confederate Strategy Chapter 6 Independence and Confederate Strategy Chapter 7 No Place to Hide

What People are Saying About This

Robert K. Krick

A thoughtful analysis of strategic options available to the fledgling Confederate nation. Tanner argues cogently that 'as a comprehensive national strategy,' retreat to victory simply would not have worked.
—(Robert K. Krick, author of Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain and Lee's Colonels)

Gary W. Gallagher

Anyone interested in how the Confederacy fought its war should consult this book.
—(Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Confederate War and Lee and His Generals in War and Memory)

Russell F. Weigley

No one fascinated by the American Civil War or by military strategy in general should miss this persuasively and even elegantly argued book.

Editorial Reviews

A fascinating insight and analysis of Confederate strategy.

Abilene Reporter-News (Texas)

No one fascinated by the American Civil War or by military strategy in general should miss this persuasively and even elegantly argued book.

Russell F. Weigley

Persuasive and compelling. A fascinating examination of Confederate strategy that makes an important contribution to an overall understanding of the Civil War.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

A number of historians have insisted the confederacy should have pursued a defensive strategy that would have avoided costly set-piece battles and conserved limited Southern manpower. In Retreat to Victory? Robert Tanner offers a compelling rejoinder to such arguments, assessing Confederate strategic options with an eye toward military, political, geographic, economic, and social factors. Anyone interested in how the Confederacy fought its war should consult this book.

Gary W. Gallagher

A short, readable, interesting book.

Civil War Times

Robert G. Tanner's latest foray into the often contentious arena of Civil War publishing will generate a firestorm of controversy.

North and South

Retreat to Victory is a must-read for anyone interested in investigating why the South lost the Civil War.

America's Civil War Magazine

...a fascinating examination of Confederate strategy that makes an important contribution to an overall understanding of the Civil War.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Through a review of Confederate strategy, geography, and political goals, Tanner (an Atlanta lawyer and graduate of Virginia Military Institute) challenges a widely held belief that the South might have won the Civil War by conducting an aggressive guerrilla campaign. Using the principles of Prussian military theorist Claus von Clausewitz's to evaluate rebel actions, Tanner shows why such a campaign is unlikely to have led to a clear Southern victory. Instead, he concludes, black Southerners would likely have continued fighting the Confederacy or headed for free soil, and the upper states crucial for long-term Southern independence would have been devastated economically as well as politically. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

A fascinating insight and analysis of Confederate strategy.

Abilene Reporter-News

This concise book is impressive....For those interested in Civil War (especially southern) military strategy, this is a valuable book that students and teachers alike will find a nice addition to the classroom.

Military History Of The West - 2007

This concise book is impressive....For those interested in Civil War (especially southern) military strategy, this is a valuable book that students and teachers alike will find a nice addition to the classroom.

From the Publisher

This concise book is impressive....For those interested in Civil War (especially southern) military strategy, this is a valuable book that students and teachers alike will find a nice addition to the classroom. 2007

Military History Of The West

A fascinating insight and analysis of Confederate strategy.

Abilene Reporter News