Great Civil War A Military & Political History 1861 1865

A Great Civil War is a major new interpretation of the events which continue to dominate the American imagination and identity nearly 150 years after the war's end. In personal as well as historical terms, more even than the war for independence, the Civil War has been the defining experience of American democracy.

A lifelong student of both strategy and tactics, Weigley also brings to his account a deep understanding of the importance of individuals from generals to captains to privates. He can put the reader on the battlefield as well as anyone who has ever written about war. All of the important engagements are covered, and he does it countless times in A Great Civil War. From Fort Sumter to the early clashes in the West and border states to the naval encounters in the East and on through the great and horrible battles whose names resound in American history--Shiloh, Corinth, Bull Run, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Antietam, Wilderness, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Appomattox. A brilliant narrator of battle action and historical events, Weigley is never content merely to tell a good story. Every student of war will find new insights and interpretations at the strategic and the tactical level. There are firm judgments throughout of the leaders on both sides of the conflict.

A Great Civil War also analyzes the politics of both sides in relationship to battlefield situations. Weigley is unique in his ability to put all of the pieces on the board at once; the reader understands as never before how war and politics (and individuals) interacted to produce the infinitely complex story which is the Civil War.

As with any major work, there are themes and subtexts, explicit and implicit:

Both sides began the war with strategic and tactical concepts based on Napoleon which were already obsolete because of changes in technology--and both sides struggled throughout the war to develop new strategic and tactical procedures.

The Civil War was great not only in the massiveness of the slaughter and destruction. It was, for all its horror, a war about values--democracy and the freeing of the slaves--that was worth the effort.

The South, despite its powerful defense, was ultimately ambivalent about leaving the Union and gave up more easily than might have been expected.

Finally, there is an intimacy, a sense of personal urgency, in Weigley's grand account. He is connected by blood as well as profession. Jacob Weigley, the author's great grandfather, visited Gettysburg soon after the battle and wrote about it to his brother Francis, who was serving with the 7th Pennsylvania Cavalry; Francis later died in a Confederate prison camp. Then and now the Weigleys live in Pennsylvania, and the war and its lessons remain part of the family's living memory, as it is also the nation's.

A major new narrative interpretation of the Civil War is offered by the dean of American military historians. In his most controversial assertion, Weigley contends that the South, despite its powerful defense, was ambivalent about leaving the Union and gave up more easily than might have been expected. 50 maps.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [565]-588) and index.

Russell F. Weigley (1930-2004) was Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at Temple University. He is author of numerous books, including The American Way of War, Eisenhower's Lieutenants, and The Age of Battles: The Quest for Decisive Warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo, all available from Indiana University Press.

List of Maps

Note on Style

Introduction

To the Gettysburg Address

Nineteenth-Century Americans at War

Why Did They Fight?

Chapter One. From Secession to War

The Forts at Charleston

The Anomalous Southern Nation

The South Begins to Mobilize

Fort Sumter: The Crisis Approaches

Fort Sumter: The Bombardment

Militant America

Chapter Two. The Battle Lines Form

Napoleonic War

War in a New Style

Washington Rescued

Contentious Missouri: A Failure for Both Sides

Neutralist Kentucky

Western Virginia: Secession within Secession

Mobilizing the Union

First Bull Run

Chapter Three. Groping for Strategy and Purpose

The Union: War Aims at Military Frustration

The Confederacy: Recruitment, finance, Blockade, and War Production

The Invincible United States Navy

The Trent Affair and a Paper Tiger

The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War

Lincoln and the Purpose of the War

McClellan and the Purpose of the War

Chapter Four. Bloodshed and Indecision

An Unhappy New Year

Mill Springs

A Western Strategy Takes Shape

Pea Ridge: The Great Battle of the Trans-Mississippi

The Far West

Forts Henry and Donelson

Shiloh

Western Drumbeat: New Madrid, Island No. 10, The Locomotive General, Corinth, New Orleans

Conscription in the South

The Potomac Front

Battle of Ironclads

McClellan Launches the Peninsula Campaign

Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign

The Climax on the Peninsula: The Seven Days

Chapter Five. The Confederacy Takes the Initiative

Cedar Mountain and Second Bull Run

Lee's First Strategic Offensive: The Maryland Campaign

Confederate Riposte in the West: Iuka and Corinth

Confederate Offensive in the West: The Kentucky Campaign

Lee versus McClellan--For the Last Time

Chapter Six. Of Liberty and War

The End of Slavery: The Sea Islands

The End of Slavery: Congressional Action

The End of Slavery: The President

Liberty Imperiled in the Name of Liberty

The End of Slavery: Arming African Americans

Chapter Seven. Armies and Societies

Fredericksburg, the Mississippi River Campaign, and Stones River

Lincoln and the Republican Party

Congress Refashions the Union

The Union Pays for Its War

Dissent in War: The Opposition in the North

Inside the Confederacy

Charleston Harbor and Chancellorsville

Chapter Eight. Three Seasons of Battle

Paying the Toll of War: The Military Draft in the North

The March to Gettysburg

Gettysburg: The Battle

Gettysburg: The Assessment

Vicksburg: Preparations

Vicksburg: Grant's Great Campaign of Maneuver Warfare

The Trans-Mississippi

Chickamauga

Chattanooga

Coda

Chapter Nine. On the Horizon, the Postwar World

Assuring Freedom

The Burden of Race

From Battlefield to Polling Place (I)

The Beginnings of Reconstruction

The Union: The War, the Economy, and the Society

The Confederacy: Accelerating Breakdown

Chapter Ten. Traditional Politics and Modern War

Lincoln Renominated

The Union Army Retained

The Generalship of U.S. Grant

The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor

The Race to Petersburg

The Siege of Petersburg: The First Phase

C.S.S. Alabama

A Catalog of Union Frustration: Red River, Bermuda Hundred, and Washington

The Politics of Military Deadlock

Chapter Eleven. Suspense and Resolution

Chattanooga to Atlanta

Battling for Atlanta

Mobile Bay

Sheridan's Valley Campaign

From Battlefield to Polling Place (II)

Chapter Twelve. The Relentless War

Sheridan's War against the Enemy's Economy

Sheridan's War against the Enemy's Economy and Morale

The Death Throes of the Confederacy

The End of Slavery: The Constitutional Assurance

Chapter Thirteen. The Fires Die

Franklin and Nashville

The Campaign of the Carolinas

The Petersburg Campaign: Summer 1865 - Spring 1865

To Appomattox

Richmond and Reunion

Durham Station

The Terrible Assassination, and the Terrible War

The Sudden Death of the Confederacy

Notes

Bibliography