Dmitri Rotov is into a discussion of the influence of Clausewitz’s work On War on our Civil War. I’m not really a student of strategy, but thought I’d add that although Dmitri has found some earlier magazine excerpts, the first full publication of an English translation seems to have been that of Col. J. J. Graham in 1873. Selling only a few hundred copies, it wasn’t exactly a roaring success. Since it’s out of copyright both it and the German original can be found at the above referenced link.

UPDATE: Had to drop this post half-finished but wanted to add a few more thoughts tonight. Rotov brings up a good point—how much influence do various pundits actually have on military thought? And when? Clausewitz and Jomini were contemporaries and their works appeared at roughly the same time and pertained to the same Napoleonic period. However Rotov is correct, I think, to say that Jomini was extremely influential and Clausewitz a minor figure, even in his native Prussia, in the 19th Century. Today the situation is completely reversed—Clausewitz is revered, Jomini a period curiosity.

Thus when discussing the effect of pundits and philosophers, we must take care to specify what period we’re talking about. For example, in the decade 1960-70 literally thousands of books came out on guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency. One of the many was Frenchman David Galula’s Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice. It was not considered especially noteworthy at the time, nor did anyone use it as the basis of an actual counterinsurgency campaign. Today it’s a very influential text, required reading at the Army’s Command & Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, and was the basis of the successful American counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq.

When looking back as far as the Civil War, one finds hundreds, even thousands, of newspaper articles, books, and the like on military strategy and commentary on the same. The trick is figuring out which ones people, especially the ones at the top, actually read and acted on. A good example is a man who’s almost entirely forgotten today (you’d be hard put to find his name in any CW book written since at least the 1920s) but who was enormously influential at the time. His books, articles, and commentaries were read by generals and statesmen, and his work translated and widely read in Europe.

His name? John Watts de Peyster. He was adjutant general of the New York National Guard and prominent in the militia as well, and merited the title general although he did not, because of health reasons, serve in the Civil War. He was rich, blue-blooded, friends with generals and politicians, Phil Kearney’s first cousin, and a prolific writer on a dozen subjects. In short, a man to whom people listened. De Peyster was opinionated but not vindictive, and at times quite prescient, as when he predicted that the line of battle would eventually give way to a skirmish line. If you’re interested his bio (written in 1908) is here.

De Peyster was a great fan (you might almost say a groupie) of George Thomas, and thought highly of Rosecrans also. He did not think much of Meade or Grant, and said so. After the war he hosted regular confabs for generals but stopped writing about the war because, he said, things tended to get too heated. At one point he claimed he’d had to stop an impending duel between two officers over something he’d written. He began writing about the Revolutionary War instead.

Today I’d venture to say you’d be hard put to find half a dozen Civil War historians who have even heard of him.

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Clausewitz, his influence…and that of other pundits.

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I’m not sure how I managed to miss this, but Gary Grigsby’s new Civil War game has received a title: Gary Grigsby’s War Between the States. A new forum is now available at Matrix games for those of you interested in tracking its final stages of development. In addition, an AAR thread has been started by several of the playtesters on the game. Lastly, the development team has put out an open call for Beta testers. Joel Billings provides some details here:

After publishing 30 wargames covering battles of the 20th century, Gary Grigsby finally decided to design a game set earlier in history. You can always count on Gary to come up with some unique design ideas, and here’s your chance to be a part of Gary’s first pre-20th century design.

After being in alpha testing since January, we’re now ready to move on to beta testing. We’re looking for some new testers that are willing to put in time to learn and test the game during the beta stage, which should last between 3 to 6 months. We have a core group of about a half dozen alpha testers but would like to add to that. Although there are a few additional features we hope to sneak in at the end, testers will be focused on learning the game so they can identify bugs and assist us in balancing the victory conditions.

WBTS is a monthly turn based game with area movement covering the entire American Civil War. You can play either side against the AI or via Play by Email. Its interface is a descendent of the one used in World at War. This game is more complicated than World at War, and has many unique rules that will be new to most wargamers. This is not an easy game to learn how to play well, however we do have a good first draft of the manual and 16 video tutorials (almost an hour of video) that will help you learn the game.

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Gary Grigsby’s War Between the States

Related posts:

1. Beta Testers Wanted for Gary Grigsby’s American Civil War
2. Out of Eight Reviews Gary Grigsby’s War Between the States
3. Gary Grigsby’s War Between the States Has Been Released

Why Does Brett Review Older Books?

Review In Brief: Mine Run: A Campaign Of Lost Opportunities

Books on Bristoe Station & Mine Run

Mine Run: A Campaign of Lost Opportunities October 21, 1863-May 1, 1864. Martin F. Graham & George Skoch. Lynchburg, VA: H.E. Howard, Inc., June 1987.

130 pp. 6 maps, including 1 large fold-out map.

The post-Gettysburg campaigns of 1863 have always received scant attention in Civil War literature. The twin attractions of Gettysburg as the “turning point” of the war (a view I vehemently disagree with) and “Grant vs. Lee” serve to distract the Civil War buff from the maneuvering and small fights taking place in the fall of 1863 in the East. Meade had detached his XI and XII Corps and sent them west to Chattanooga. Earlier, Lee had sent Longstreet and his I Corps to augment Braxton Bragg’s attack at Chickamauga. This is a period that needs further study, as Brooks Simpson recently pointed out. Although no major fights occurred, the game of cat and mouse between Meade and Lee was no less real or full of consequences. A.P. Hill’s III corps of the ANV received a bloody nose at the hands of Gouverneur Warren and the Union II Corps at Bristoe Station on October 14, 1863, and after several more days of contact, Lee aborted this offensive and retired south behind the Rappahannock, destroying the railroad along the way to discourage a Union offensive.

It is at this point where Graham and Skoch step in and start their book Mine Run: A Campaign of Lost Opportunities. Meade would have been happy to occupy Warrenton and head into winter camp, according to the authors, but Lincoln and his government, frustrated by what the perceived to be Meade’s lack of killer instinct, pressured him to advance. They wouldn’t even allow Meade to shift the advance to the left, using Fredericksburg as a base. Realizing that a failure to move forward might mean the loss of his command, Meade decided to act. Repairing the railroad to Warrenton, Meade moved south to cautiously probe Lee’s forces on the south bank of the Rappahannock. Lee left a bridgehead at Rappahannock Station, thus forcing Meade to worry about a flank attack if he crossed some or all of his army to the south side of the river. The problem lay in the strength of the bridgehead. Lee believed it to be impregnable, but it turned out to be nothing of the sort.

On November 7, 1863, Meade’s troops launched attacks at Kelly’s Ford to the east and Rappahannock Station to the west. Kelly’s Ford was weakly defended because artillery deployed on the north bank would dominate any defenders trying to directly hold the ford. Instead, Lee had his main line farther south, with only a regiment and some artillery holding the ford proper. Naturally enough, the Northern III Corps, led by the 1st and 2nd U.S.S.S. and aided by Union artillery on the high ground, were able to cross the river rather easily. Lee decided to strike this force and wipe it out the next day. As he was making those plans, however, he received word that the Rappahannock Station position had fallen. Late in the day, the Yankees at that point, also backed by artillery, were able to break the Confederate line, capturing over 1600 men of Harry Hays’ Louisiana Brigade and Robert Hoke’s North Carolina Brigade, two of the better brigades in the entire Army of Northern Virginia. Needless to say, this made Lee’s line vulnerable to flanking, and he decided to retreat.

Over a two-day span, Lee made the march south and crossed the Rapidan River, creating a new line. Meade’s army cautiously followed, and many in the Army of the Potomac believed they had wasted an opportunity to catch Lee’s army out in the open in a vulnerable position, their backs to the Rapidan. In any event, Meade was now between the rivers, with Lee to his south and west covering a new river line from Morton’s Ford southwest to Liberty Mills. However, Lee had left unguarded several fords to the east.

Meade formulated a plan calling for his troops to cross the Rapidan to the east using these three fords, then move quickly west along the Orange Turnpike and the Orange Plank Road. Meade believed he could quickly be on Lee’s right flank and rear to the west of Mine Run before the Confederate general had time to react. Plans do not always work out in practice, and numerous delays involving less than enough pontoon boats at two fords, confusion on the march, and dallying generals meant that Lee was able to act in plenty of time. The lines actually settled to the east of Mine Run, not too far west of the future Wilderness battlefield.

There was a sharp action between French’s Union III Corps (Meade’s right flank) and Edward Johnson’s Confederate Division (Lee’s left flank) at Payne’s Farm on November 27, 1863, not too far south of the Rapidan. Johnson not only prevented French from reaching Meade’s center at Robertson’s Tavern farther south. He also stopped Sedgwick’s large VI Corps, trailing behind III Corps on narrow forest roads. Lee, after reviewing the situation, decided to retreat west across Mine Run, and created a formidable line following the north-south flow of that stream. Over the next few days, Meade searched in vain for ways to get at Lee. Finally, on November 30, Warren’s II Corps was to attack Lee’s right. Warren, with the coming light, saw that Lee had vastly strengthened the position and called off the attack. The Union soldiers who had been drawn up in line of battle were delighted, but Meade was embarrassed. He now had no choice but to withdraw and go into winter quarters without a victory. Lee, ever aggressive, had planned a flank attack of his own for December 2, but Meade had already gone. The Mine Run Campaign had ended without a major battle, but neither side knew it would happen that way at the time.

I was very pleasantly surprised with this particular entry in the Virginia Civil War Battles and Leaders Series, published by H.E. Howard. Graham and Skoch laid out an easy, informative read on the campaign, and allowed someone new to the situation such as myself to quickly grasp what was going on. The maps, happily created by George Skoch, go down to regimental level detail in many places. In addition, there is a large fold-out map of the Mine Run area at the back of the book. The only thing I would have liked to have seen was a map covering the area around Rappahannock Station and Kelly’s Ford as a whole. The book was pretty short at only 100 pages of text, but I thought it to be a solid introduction to the campaign. As with most H.E. Howard books, it can in no way be considered “definitive”. The authors relied mainly on unit histories from the looks of the bibliography, though they also looked at around 10 manuscript collections as well. An appendix containing the Orders of Battle was a welcome addition for wargamers such as myself, though there were no unit strengths listed. I would recommend this book to any fan of the war in the east, especially those tired of Gettysburg. More happened in 1863 in the east than your typical short history of the war will tell. As this is the only book on the Mine Run Campaign, and since it was pretty well done for this series of books, I consider this a must-own.

Note: This blog entry originally appeared on June 7, 2006 on the American Civil War Gaming & Reading blog, but was not in the last saved archive. These old posts from June 2006-February 2007 will be gradually added here over time.

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Review In Brief: Mine Run: A Campaign of Lost Opportunities

Related posts:

1. Mine Run Campaign Addendum
2. Meade, Mud, Mistakes, and Stalemate: The Mine Run Campaign
3. Trudeau to Take on Bristoe Station and Mine Run?

Over the past few years, a few folks in my extended family have been researching the family’s history, which can be traced to the 17th century in Europe (England and Germany). Of interest to me was the number of Civil War ancestors. I knew that my great-great-grandfather, William Sisson, fought in the 60th Ohio at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, and the Chambers boys of the 7th WV were at Antietam and Gettysburg. The research revealed two more great-great-grandfathers who fought for the Union in the ACW.

My passion for studying the Civil War stems from my grandmother (her uncles were the forementioned Chambers boys). She taught me to respect our heritage and our history, a fact reinforced by my Dad, a WWII veteran.

Did you have ancestors in the war? Did stories of their exploits get handed down through your family? How did they influence your love for history?

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Did your ancestors serve in the ACW?

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1. Antietam
2. Dr. Tom Clemens to Serve as Tour Guide of Phase I of Antietam Campaign

I think that sometimes as we are looking back on the war we tend to get lost in the research and in the controversy. We look at things from a detached view. We see the general, or the army, or the campaign. THE CAUSE! Every so often I think it is important that we sit back, relax, and look at the individuals who fought this great war. Be they Federals, or Confederates, the men who fought and died on both sides are real supermen.

In the past few years I have gotten into the hobby of Civil War reenacting. As much as I enjoy the events and the camaraderie, I am utterly exhausted at the end of the weekend! On the rides home I have plenty of time to think about the weekend, and how tired I am, and what we are trying to represent. How tired I am… after about 48 hours of sitting in a camp and a couple hours of drill. Wow…

Invariably, on these long drives home, I come to the realization that what I just experienced is nothing compared to what these men did. For 4 years, these men marched hundreds… thousands of miles, fought pitched battles after marching 18 hours strait, in the pouring rain, Fought tooth and nail for every inch of ground, sometimes went days without a single bite to eat and still answered the call when it came. When I stop to think about all this, I can’t help but wonder how in the world they were able to go on. Exhausted, starving, drenched in sweat or rain, injured, bleeding, being shot at, shoeless (even the ones with shoes I feel for, those shoes aren’t very comfortable anyways) hour after hour, day after day. Summer’s stifling heat, the brutal cold in the winter camps. And what was the reward when they made it back to camp or stopped to rest after a battle? A few less men in the ranks. Empty tents, missing buddies who they had walked besides mile after mile. And 2 hours later when it was time to go, did they complain? Did they ask the officers for five minutes more to sleep? Where was their snooze alarm? “Wait just a minute Captain my coffee is almost done!” No… they stood up, grabbed their muskets, strapped on their accouterments and stormed the bridges.

So when you are reading the next book, pondering what you would have done differently, or arguing over why the war was fought on some online forum, just take a breath, sit back and think about the little guy. Think about the supermen.

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Supermen

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