Category: Miscellaneous

  • Grant & The Red River Campaign, Part 3

    Delayed a couple weeks, but picking up where Part 2 left off… The planning of the Red River campaign involved multiple proponents; multiple motives; and multiple goals. Previously I discussed how Grant had been drawn into it because of Sherman’s interest. He also was involved because of Halleck, who was general-in-chief until Grant’s promotion in […]

  • Steam Trains and the Last Confederate Victory

    Sorry to be missing in action but several projects have left little time for blogging. However I did want to pass on a few items of interest. One is a lengthy look at the effect that steam trains had on warfare in the 19th Century. They were unknown to Napoleon and only began to be […]

  • Grant & The Red River Campaign, Part 2

    Continued from Part 1. In testimony before Congress’s Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, Admiral Porter boasted that “The Red River expedition was originally proposed by General Sherman and myself.”1 Porter’s statement is presumptuous — there was an earlier plan by Halleck2 — but Sherman did raise the idea to Grant’s Chief of […]

  • Grant & The Red River Campaign, Part 1

    Update March 30, 2015: post edited to show a change in how the series will unfold. In my opinion, several aspects of the Red River campaign of 1864 are misunderstood. An example of this is the role of General Ulysses S Grant. This post is the first in a six an eight part series that […]

  • Civil War Book Review: Blood on the Bayou: Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and the Trans-Mississippi by Donald S. Frazier

    Frazier, Donald S. Blood on the Bayou: Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and the Trans-Mississippi. (State House Press: March 2015). 500 pages, 125 illustrations, 30 maps, notes, bibliography, index.  ISBN: 978-1-933337-63-0. $39.99 (Cloth) — Blood on the Bayou, the third installment in what is called Frazier’s Louisiana Quadrille, begins “This is not the book I intended to write.” […]

  • The Other General: Cassius Clay and the politics of command

    October 30, 1862 – General George Thomas was annoyed. Thomas believed strongly in the traditions and protocols of the regular army: seniority and service should matter. After learning that his new boss was going to be William Rosecrans, he wrote to General Halleck that “no just cause exists for overslaughing me by placing me under […]

  • Confederate Reinforcements & the Second Manassas Campaign

    I have been reading about the Antietam campaign and a question occured to me.  It is generally acknowledged that before entering Maryland, Gen. Lee was reinforced by a column of roughly 25,000 troops consisting of the infantry divisions of DH Hill, McLaws and Walker; a cavalry brigade under Hampton; and the reserve artillery under Pendleton. […]