Product Description

In this unique examination of Civil War leadership, W. J. Wood looks at the tactical and strategic problems that threatened to overwhelm untried Civil War generals and the pragmatic strategies, born of necessity, that they developed to solve them. Focusing on three decisive battles involving six generals, Wood provides the background necessary to understand the problems confronting commanders on both sides of the war, then looks at the campaign of Cedar Mountain, directed by Stonewall Jackson and Nathaniel Banks; the battle of Chickamauga, where Confederate Army leader Braxton Bragg and Union General William Rosecrans faced each other; the battle of Nashville, where Jon Bell Hood led his Southern troops against George H. Thomas and his Union army. Deftly describing the art of war these men developed, an art that provides paradigms for military leaders to this day, Wood demonstrate why Civil War remains a topic of never-diminishing interest.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #547957 in Books
• Published on: 2000-05-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

Stonewall, Banks, Old Rosy, Bragg, Gallant Hood, The Rock
CIVIL WAR GENERALSHIP is a treatise on the nature of military command leadership written for the popular market. To make his case, author W.J. Wood, an ex-Army war gamer for weapons system analysis, focuses on three battles: Cedar Mountain in August 1862 between commanders Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson and Nathaniel Banks, Chickamauga in September 1863 between commanders Braxton Bragg and William "Old Rosy" Rosecrans, and Nashville in December 1864 between commanders John Hood ("The Gallant Hood") and George Thomas ("The Rock of Chickamauga").

In a prefatory Part One of the book, Wood pretty much establishes the lack of any formalized pre-Civil War military thought in the U.S. Army as to how battles should be fought and won. West Point, attended by all the aforementioned commanders except Banks, focused mainly on engineering; during the four-year curriculum, only nine hours were devoted to battlefield tactics. Thus, the army commander had to learn his skills through on-the-job combat experience during his ascent through the command structure.

As a reader possessing a casual interest in the Civil War history, I can minimal fault with CIVIL WAR GENERALSHIP as a brief (245 paperbacked pages), and therefore relatively superficial, treatment of the topic. Indeed, the concise and lucid summary of each of the three battles, each supplemented by more than adequate maps, was, for me, even more valuable than Wood's dissection of the leadership skills displayed by each of the six protagonists. After all, a century and a half after the War Between the States, the battles of Cedar Mountain, Chickamauga, and Nashville are sometimes lost against the backdrop of confrontations considered more pivotal to the final outcome, e.g. Vicksburg, Gettysburg, or Appomattox, or simply more dramatic, e.g. Shiloh, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, or Cold Harbor.

At no point does the author explain why he picked the three battles and their opposing generals for his book. By definition, each commander had to be exercising independent field command of an army at the time. And perhaps his choice of battles was unconsciously limited to those not including Grant, McClellan, Lee, and Sherman, whose names pop up with consistent regularity in popular Civil War history and whose careers have been fields well-plowed by historians.

Wood's examination of the characters and personality traits of Jackson, Banks, Bragg, Rosecrans, Hood, and Thomas adds an endearing human element to the work as a whole. It also leads to my only minor criticism of the book, which is that no epilogue describing the post-battle careers of the six is included. Jackson, of course, was mortally wounded by friendly fire at Chancellorsville, but the remaining five, as far as I know, survived the Civil War, and it would be nice to know what happened to them without having to resort to further research.

Excellent analysis of Civil War command. Highly Recommended
This is an excellent and very readable book. William Wood uses three battles of the American Civil War (Cedar Mountain, Chickamauga and Nashville) as vehicles for examining the business of command. The book is made very accessible by Wood's decision not to get into the 'nitty-gritty' detail of the battles but rather to focus on the commanders, the decisions they made (or didn't) and the problems they faced. His analysis is thorough and supported with well-researched evidence. This is not however a dry historical text; far from it. Instead he manages to bring alive the character and personality of the commanders, allowing the reader to have a real understanding of how they worked, what motivated them, and what made them react in the way they did at critical times in the battles. The book also touches on and considers many of the key issues relating to command in the Civil War, for example the amateur general versus the professional, and the immense challenges of developing the doctrine and tactics necessary to turn huge armies of civilian soldiers into effective fighting forces. Finally as an ex-American Army Officer, Wood has also made some interesting and thought-provoking analogies with similar issues facing the military in the late 20th century.

This book gave me a new and different perspective on battles and commanders with which I was familiar, as well as providing an entertaining and informative examination of the whole topic of American Civil War generalship. I highly recommend this book, not only to the American Civil War enthusiast who will find that it fits a hereto-unfilled niche in the Civil War library, but also to anyone with an interesting in learning more about The Art of Command.