Division Commander Research Articles

The Mystery of Nomonhan, 1939

The Battle of Nomonhan ended decisively in favor of the Soviet Red Army. Yet why it turned out so has not always been clearly understood. In fact, there are other mysteries about Nomonhan: why small skirmishes turned into a major battle, why the command of the Japanese troops (especially its core force, the 23rd Division) was so poor, why the Division Commander Michitarō Komatsubara behaved so peculiarly throughout the battle and after. The present essay suggests that Komatsubara's treachery provides an explanation to these mysteries; he appears to have been a Soviet agent.

The Bravest of the Brave: The Correspondence of Stephen Dodson Ramseur (review)

Reviewed by: The Bravest of the Brave: The Correspondence of Stephen Dodson Ramseur Keith Bohanon (bio) The Bravest of the Brave: The Correspondence of Stephen Dodson Ramseur. Edited by George G. Kundahl. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Pp. xv, 324. $45.00 cloth) This volume includes the edited correspondence, over 180 letters, of Confederate army general Stephen D. Ramseur. The great majority of this correspondence is addressed to David Schenk, Ramseur's closest friend and brother-in-law, and Ellen Richmond, Ramseur's cousin and wife. Ramseur was on intimate terms with both of these people, but the overall tone and subject matter of his correspondence with each of them is very different. The insightful letters to Schenk deal in large part with political, military, and business affairs. Those to Ellen, or "Nellie," reflect Ramseur's intense love for her and his Christian convictions. Stephen D. Ramseur hailed from a mercantile family in the North Carolina Piedmont town of Lincolnton, and his values and religious beliefs reflect those of a typical small, slaveholding family of the antebellum South. Following two years of study at Davidson College, Ramseur attended West Point, graduating in the class of 1860. He then served as an artillery officer in the U.S. Army before resigning his commission in the first week of April 1861. Ramseur's subsequent outstanding service in the Confederate army on the battlefield and in camp led to a rapid series of promotions. A severe wound in the arm sustained at Malvern Hill while leading his regiment, the Forty-ninth North Carolina, kept Ramseur away from the army for much of the remainder of 1862. When he rejoined Lee's army, he was a brigadier general in command of an infantry brigade. Ramseur subsequently directed his regiments with skill and courage at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House. At the end of May 1864, Ramseur received a promotion to major general shortly after his twenty-seventh birthday. As a division commander, Ramseur amassed a mixed record, his penchant for attacking resulting in costly defeats at Bethesda Church in early June 1864 and at Stephenson's Depot the following month. The later battle particularly upset Ramseur, as it elicited harsh criticism of him [End Page 102] in the southern press. Ramseur repeatedly defended his actions at Stephenson's Depot in letters that contain no admission of misjudgments that could have contributed to the rout of his command. Ramseur's letters are valuable not only for statements about military and political matters, but also for what they reveal about the cultural, religious, and social values of mid-nineteenth-century white Southerners. The missives reveal a deep hatred for the foe, particularly those written in the summer and fall of 1864 when Ramseur witnessed the devastation of the Shenandoah Valley. Ramseur was a fervent and unwavering believer in southern independence, even in the midst of battlefield defeats and the anguish that military duty entailed because of separation from his beloved Nellie. George Kundahl did a fine job editing these literate letters, thoroughly identifying the people, places, and events mentioned in them and providing satisfying background commentary. This reader did question the inclusion in their entirety of a few mundane official Confederate army documents, such as requests for commissions and blank bonds for a quartermaster in Ramseur's original regiment. Such documents could probably have been summarized in footnotes or omitted entirely from the volume. The final letters in the book, written in the fall of 1864, are particularly poignant as they express Ramseur's deep concern for his wife as she approached the birth of their first child. Ramseur's death at the battle of Cedar Creek in October 1864 occurred immediately after the birth of the baby; the general never knew the sex or name of his child. Keith Bohanon Keith Bohanon teaches in the department of history at the University of West Georgia, in Carrollton, Georgia. Copyright © 2011 Kentucky Historical Society

Civil War to the Bloody End: The Life and Times of Major General Samuel P. Heintzelman (review)

Reviewed by: Civil War to the Bloody End: The Life and Times of Major General Samuel P. Heintzelman Ethan S. Rafuse Civil War to the Bloody End: The Life and Times of Major General Samuel P. Heintzelman. By Jerry Thompson. (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2006. Pp. xv, 443. Cloth, $35.00). Although he never achieved the fame of a Winfield Scott Hancock or Dan Sickles, Samuel P. Heintzelman is a familiar name to students of the Civil War, for in addition to his having been one of the Army of the Potomac’s original corps commanders and played a significant role in two major campaigns in Virginia in 1862, his journals have long been valuable sources of information for researchers. Unfortunately, as is the case with nearly all of the Army of the Potomac’s original corps commanders, for over 140 years no historian deemed Heintzelman worthy of study in his own right. Jerry Thompson’s thorough and impressive Civil War to the Bloody End not only effectively fills this void in Civil War military history but offers much of value to students of the antebellum army and Reconstruction as well. Of course, it was the Civil War that made Heintzelman a subject worthy of a major biography. After a solid performance as a division commander at First Manassas, Heintzelman found himself subordinate to George McClellan, who had not even been born when Heintzelman graduated from West Point, and outside the clique of officers the “Young Napoleon” relied on as he built the Army of the Potomac and formulated strategy. That Heintzelman resented this is understandable. Not only was he senior to McClellan in the antebellum army, but, as Thompson ably documents, he [End Page 427] had compiled a fairly impressive record of service prior to 1861. Although he missed the major campaigns of the Mexican War, Heintzelman performed important duties in southern California afterward and provided notable leadership to U.S. operations during the Cortina War of 1859–60. Utilizing the general’s journals, as well as an impressive range of other primary and secondary sources, Thompson effectively chronicles these activities, as well as Heintzelman’s ambition for an independent command and his resentment of McClellan during the Civil War, the ways Radical Republicans tried to use him in their efforts to undermine “Little Mac,” and the emergence of divisions within the Army of the Potomac that would plague its history. After being imposed on McClellan as commander of the Third Corps, Heintzelman led that unit through the Peninsula campaign, turning in solid performances at Yorktown, Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, and in the Seven Days Battles while doing little to hinder the emergence of his corps as a bastion of anti-McClellan sentiment within the Army of the Potomac. After his corps took a severe beating during the Second Manassas campaign, it was retained within the Washington defenses during the Maryland campaign, at which point Heintzelman faded from center stage. As he does with Heintzelman’s active military career, Thompson provides exceptionally informative accounts of the general’s activities after he was kicked upstairs to command the Department of Washington and of his later service as commander of the Northern Department, where his duties mainly consisted of keeping watch over prison camps and monitoring Copperhead activity in the Midwest. Thompson then follows Heintzelman through his postwar military career, in which his most notable service came in Texas, where he had the opportunity to see and deal firsthand with the problems of Reconstruction. Given the range and importance of his experiences before, during, and after the Civil War, and the fact that his journals provide plenty of material to work with, it is a bit surprising that it has taken so long for Heintzelman to be the subject of a full-scale biography. Thompson, however, has made it worth the wait. His research is thorough and careful, his arguments are persuasive, his prose is clear and compelling, and the text is effectively supplemented with maps, photos, and other images that are clear and useful. The past decade has been an enjoyable one for anyone with an interest in the officer corps of the Army of the Potomac. Long...

Meade's Army: The Private Notebooks of Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman (review)

Reviewed by: Meade's Army: The Private Notebooks of Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman David J. Fitzpatrick Meade's Army: The Private Notebooks of Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman. Edited by David W. Lowe. Foreword by John Y. Simon. Kent, O.: Kent State University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-87338-901-3. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvii, 518. $45.00. In 1922 George R. Agassiz published a volume of selected letters that his uncle, Theodore Lyman, had written to his wife while serving in the Army of the Potomac's headquarters from late 1863 until the end of the Civil War. Meade's Headquarters, 1863-1865 provided historians and buffs alike, this author included, with invaluable and intimate details of the personalities and politics within that at times troubled organization. Now David Lowe has published an updated volume that includes not only the letters previously identified by Agassiz, but also the near-daily entries Lyman had made in notebooks he kept during those critical years. The result is a resource of nearly unsurpassed value. Meade's Army begins with a lengthy introduction that serves both as a brief biography of Lyman and as an explanation of how and why he secured his position on Meade's staff as a volunteer aide-de-camp. The "how" is simply explained: as a student in natural science at Harvard, Lyman went to Florida in 1856 to collect specimens. There he befriended 1LT George Meade. In December of 1862, with Meade still a division commander, Lyman contacted his friend and asked if he might serve with him. Meade warned Lyman of the dangers involved but told him how to proceed. By the time Lyman was able to make the necessary arrangements, Meade had taken command of the Army of the Potomac. The "why" appears more complicated. Shortly after the war began Lyman and his young family departed for a sojourn in Europe, and it is apparent that he could have ridden out the war there had he so desired. Moreover, it is clear that he had little sympathy for abolitionist "radicals". But as the war raged and friends fell, Lyman felt pangs of guilt. One death, that of Henry How, appears to have struck him deeply. "He entered college the year I graduated," Lyman wrote. "Such notices stick fires in me. I feel my life is going along and I [am] doing nothing. Not that I want to be killed, only here is a young man who risked himself with the rest, and a bullet was a bullet" (p. 10). As his letters and notebooks make clear, Lyman's duty in Meade's headquarters offered ample opportunity for both service and "a bullet". The volume provides insights both about Lyman and about those with whom he worked. His evolving evaluation of Gouverneur K. Warren sheds light on Warren's eventual removal from command. On his arrival at the Army of the Potomac, Lyman wrote, "Oh, dear, dear. Geniuses do not grow on every bush; and I do not know when I have been so struck with it as here in the army. . . . Gen. Warren is the only man of inborn originality, and even he is perhaps at his maximum with a Corps" (p. 41). By May 1864, however, Lyman's opinion had changed. Warren, he wrote, "is not up to a corps command. As in the Mine Run move, so here [at Spotsylvania], he cannot spread himself over three divisions . . . . and the result is partial and ill-concerted and dilatory movements" (p. 151). The war did not abate [End Page 280] Lyman's prejudices toward African-Americans nor did it appear to change his understanding of the conflict's causes. Lyman believed that slaves lived longer and procreated faster than did free blacks, thus implying blacks were better off as slaves (p. 102). Of black soldiers' capabilities he wrote that "The Negro cannot change his nature; thus hath God made him. As a rule he cannot fight against the White. This is leaning on a broken reed. There is no general historical precedent for their being efficient troops" (p. 80). The course of the war, including the death of his friend, Robert Gould Shaw, appears not...

In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat (review)

Reviewed by: In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat Stephen A. Bourque In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat. By Rick Atkinson. New York: Henry Holt, 2004. ISBN 0-8050-7561-5. Maps. Photographs. Glossary. Index. Pp. 319. $25.00. Washington Post reporter Rick Atkinson has emerged as one of the best military history writers of this generation. Pulled from his research on the U.S. Army in World War II, Atkinson found himself "embedded" with the 101st Airborne Division's command group in the 2003 American invasion of Iraq. This book is far more than the subtitle, A Chronicle of Combat, would suggest. Atkinson's previous books (The Long Gray Line, Crusade, and an Army at Dawn), and his familiarity with Army leaders, qualified him more than any other journalist in Iraq to understand the dynamics of division command. The soldiers that the author accompanied were generals and field grade officers, those who are responsible for planning and directing operations with such competence that enlisted soldiers and junior officers do not die in vain. For over two months, the author shadowed the division commander, Major General David H. Petraeus, from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to Baghdad. He was privy to almost all of his meetings and conferences and was present [End Page 1266] when battle reports, good and bad, arrived at headquarters. He interviewed officers in the division and brigade staffs and made it a practice to wander around and listen to soldiers' gossip and complaining. Atkinson routinely accompanied Petraeus around the battle area and was able to gain understanding as to what motivated this incredibly dedicated and professional commander. He sat in on all of the command's daily briefings and had access to V Corps situation reports and many other official documents. He enlarged this account by consulting a wide array of journal, newspaper, and scholarly articles. What emerges is a superb account of the difficult nature of command in an increasingly digital, sophisticated, political, and public environment. Technological superiority over the enemy counted for very little during sand storms, when the opponent behaved differently than expected, or if the commander did not even know whom he was fighting. In addition, one becomes acutely aware of the disparity between events on the battlefield and commentary by the political leadership for public consumption. Finally, the author clearly presents a picture of the competence and dedication of the Army's leaders. Atkinson's thesis is that these were professionals of whom the nation should be proud. His bias towards his "Screaming Eagles," however, does not make him a fan of the Bush administration. Mirroring the officers he interviewed, Atkinson is critical of decisions that sent the Army into war under dubious circumstances without sufficient combat power or logistical support. His most profound comment is that "They [the soldiers] were better than the cause they served"(p. 294). This is an excellent read, as one would expect from a Pulitzer-Prize winner. This book is a must for anyone interested in the problems of command in the post–Cold War era. It will remain an essential source for anyone researching this conflict. I highly recommend it to readers of this journal. Stephen A. Bourque U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Copyright © 2005 Society for Military History

Meuse-Argonne Diary: A Division Commander in World War I (review)

Meuse-Argonne Diary: A Division Commander in World War I (review)

Panzer Operations: The Eastern Front Memoir of General Raus, 1941-1945 (review)

Reviewed by: Panzer Operations: The Eastern Front Memoir of General Raus, 1941–1945 David R. Snyder Panzer Operations: The Eastern Front Memoir of General Raus, 1941–1945. By Erhard Raus. Compiled and translated by Steven H. Newton. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2003. ISBN 0-306-81247-9. Maps. Appendix. Pp. xv, 368. $35.00. Reconstructed from various sources, Erhard Raus's memoirs provide a fascinating look into mechanized warfare in an unforgiving environment. Edited and translated by Steven H. Newton, Raus's narrative concentrates on tactics and small unit action. A brigade commander with the 6th Panzer Division in June 1941, the Austrian-born Raus steadily rose through the ranks, ultimately commanding panzer armies after 1943 until unceremoniously sacked by Hitler in March 1945. The German effort in the east became a war of "gigantic improvisation" forced upon the Wehrmacht as a result of the political and military leadership's "improper" conclusions regarding "strategy and military policy" (p. 1). In short, Raus attributes defeat in the east to insufficient knowledge regarding climate, terrain, and the general socioeconomic and political conditions in the east. Preparations for Barbarossa were therefore completely inadequate. Hence, commanders at every level had to improvise solutions to awesome problems from day one. Whether combating crippling summer dust or paralyzing subzero winter temperatures, German soldiers in the east accomplished what they did only through inspired improvisation. Raus learned combat tactics under fire, yet he had an innate grasp of combined-arms warfare. As the 6th Panzer Division's commander, he decimated Soviet armor formations in the unsuccessful effort to relieve the Sixth Army at Stalingrad in late 1942. He was also a crafty officer, as his February 1942 "snail offensive" demonstrates. In that campaign, with meager assets Raus launched judicious surgical strikes against key villages to secure the Ninth Army's line of communication during the furious Soviet winter counter-offensive of 1941-42. As the German military situation deteriorated, he performed brilliantly on the strategic defensive. His dogged defense of Belgorod and Kharkov stabilized the front in 1943 at critical moments. Raus, however, should best be remembered for his creation of the "zone defense," with which he stymied Soviet attacks with minimal losses in 1944 at Lvov and then in East Prussia. Static but flexible, the zone defense greatly contrasts with his more famous contemporaries' mobile defense, which required yielding territory. Although indeed satisfyingly "less self-serving" (p. xv) than the personal accounts of better-known generals, such as Heinz Guderian, Raus nevertheless takes a subtle stab at exonerating himself from complicity in Hitler's war of annihilation in the east. The German Landser, according to Raus, conducted himself impeccably on the battlefield, often honoring the vanquished Soviet enemy with prayers and military honors. The Red Army, of course, acted treacherously, mutilating the bodies of dead German troops and slaughtering civilians. He nevertheless praises his stealthy and adept opponents for their tenacity, endurance, and iron discipline, and denies that Red [End Page 265] Army commissars imposed a fanatic will to fight through fear. Instead, the commissars, by their "personal exemplification of the soldier and fighter" (p. 6), inspired their troops to fight to the bitter end. Despite a liberal sprinkling of typographical errors and poor maps, this remains an informative and compelling account. It contains some jargon, but Raus provides sufficient whiffs of gunpowder to engross even the nonspecialist. David R. Snyder Austin Peay State University Clarksville, Tennessee Copyright © 2005 Society for Military History

The Fighting First: The Untold Story of the Big Red One on D-Day (review)

Reviewed by: The Fighting First: The Untold Story of the Big Red One on D-Day John McManus The Fighting First: The Untold Story of the Big Red One on D-Day. By Flint Whitlock. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8133-4218-X. Maps. Photographs. Illustrations. Notes. Selected bibliography. Index. Pp. xv, 384. $27.50. In this well written and researched volume, Flint Whitlock attempts to shed light on the role of the 1st Infantry Division in the Normandy Invasion. He does so from the premise that the Big Red One's role in the invasion has been downplayed in favor of other participating units, such as the 29th Infantry Division, the rangers, and the airborne divisions. His assumptions are valid, although one could argue that historians have suitably covered the contributions of the 1st Division in the Mediterranean and Northwest Europe. Using a nice mixture of personal narratives and official sources, Whitlock follows the men of the 1st from their preinvasion training to the "sausage" holding areas in the days leading up to the invasion and then on D-day itself. Whitlock is a gifted writer and he does a fine job of drawing the reader into the story. He paints a vivid picture of the desperate, vicious fighting that took place in the 1st Division's sector on D-day. The use of numerous dramatic, well placed photographs only adds to the overall portrait. In describing the bloody American victory, he gives due credit to fine officers like Colonel George Taylor, commander of the 16th Infantry Regiment, and Brigadier General Willard Wyman, assistant division commander, but ultimately he gives appropriate laurels to those most responsible for victory—individual soldiers who battled for survival and, on their own initiative, fought their way off the beach. Whitlock made extensive use of the 1st Division archive at the McCormick Research Center in Chicago, in addition to the personal papers of many Big Red One soldiers at the United States Army Military History Institute. These sources give his D-day chapters a rich blend of narrative description, and the reader comes away with an excellent sense of the realities of combat that day, while never losing sight of the tactical situation. Whitlock has, in my view, provided us with the best combat account of the 1st Division on D-day. There is only one problem with this book—its uneven scope. While the title indicates that Whitlock focuses exclusively on D-day, the book nonetheless attempts to cover the rest of the 1st Division's history in the post-D-day campaign in Northwest Europe. This is a real mistake because the considerable quality of the book suffers. For instance, the preinvasion and D-day chapters total some 214 pages and nine chapters of deftly researched, well [End Page 1298] crafted, in-depth text. In contrast, there are only four post-D-day chapters spanning some 134 pages. Considering that Whitlock is trying to cover nearly a year of intense combat with such inappropriate brevity, this is a poor balance. Accordingly the narrative suffers as does the historical quality of these latter chapters. The final four chapters are mostly a regurgitation of the official histories, sprinkled with some Medal of Honor citations, and a few first hand accounts. They do not have the depth or drama of the D-day passages. This is a real shame because it distracts the reader from what is, in general, a fine book. Whitlock might have been better served to limit The Fighting First to D-day alone (as the title erroneously indicates). He could then have devoted a follow up volume to the 1st Division's experiences from June 7 to VE-day. In spite of this problem of scope, The Fighting First is an excellent book that significantly enhances our understanding of the D-day fighting at Omaha Beach. The book will be of serious interest to professional historians and general readers alike. John McManus St. Louis, Missouri Copyright © 2004 Society for Military History

Hard Jobs and Good Ambition: U.S. Army Generals and the Rhetoric of Modesty

This article examines the accounts given by U.S. Army general officers explaining their success. Based on interviews with sixty‐two generals, I describe the ways in which these officers—whose profession renounces careerism and self‐aggrandizement—fashion explanations of their success (and the success of their colleagues) as being due to selfless service. Even as they have reached the zenith of success in their field, these men and women are not free to admit to personal ambition or to a desire for promotion. Their accounts of their success emphasize their good fortune, hard work, and love of the service. Eschewing personal ambition, they cite as their primary responsibility the well‐being of the soldiers under their command. When asked directly about their extraordinarily successful careers, they almost uniformly acknowledge their willingness to accept the “hard jobs” the organization has asked them to assume. When asked about ambition, they routinely distinguish between good and bad ambition, a distinction that aligns almost perfectly with that between unit and self. Although they are warriors, specialists in the art of war, this is a group that is also practiced in modesty.I think I've had good ambition.(Division Commander, Interview #53)

Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West (review)

book reviews157 'bedrock' of the army" (401) and that "Longstreet, not Jackson, was the finest corps commander in the Army of Northern Virginia" (402). Wert's cogent analysis of Longstreet's generalship suffers from a significant contradiction. He writes that "Williamsburg marked Longstreet's first real combat as a division commander, and his method of command—demonstrated on this field and future fields—was to issue orders and then leave the fighting to his subordinates" (103). But Wert's own descriptions of Longstreet at Second Manassas (173-74), Sharpsburg (192-93), Fredericksburg (217), Gettysburg (265fr"), Chickamauga (312, 318), and the Wilderness (380-81) depict Longstreet as very much a "hands-on" commander who kept in close touch with his subordinates and appeared at the front lines whenever necessary. Wert observes that a recognition of Longstreet's contributions to the war "requires a reexamination of Southern icons" (403). This is unquestionably occurring. Perhaps the best evidence is the fact that the Sons of Confederate Veterans recently established a memorial committee to place a statue of Longstreet at Gettysburg. It is long overdue. William Garrett Piston Southwest Missouri State University Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West. By William L. Shea and Earl J. Hess. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Pp. xiii, 417. $2995) In the spring of 1 862 the Union Army of the Southwest, commanded by Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, and the Confederate Army of the West, under the command of Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn, fought in northwest Arkansas not only the largest and bloodiest Civil War battle west of the Mississippi River but one of the war's most decisive as well. Under orders from Jefferson Davis to seize the offensive in the trans-Mississippi, Van Dorn attempted to weld together two previously antagonistic Rebel forces in the area—Ben McCuIloch 's small Confederate army of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas troops and Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard—and "liberate" Missouri. In what promised to be a brilliant turning maneuver, Van Dorn flanked Curtis out of an almost impregnable defensive position along Little Sugar Creek and occupied a line solidly athwart the Union line of communications. Curtis responded , however, with a masterful change of front and boldly launched his outnumbered army into the advancing Confederates. For reasons still controversial after 130 years, the battle of Pea Ridge became two simultaneous but distinct engagements. On March 7, McCulloch's division encountered the Union divisions of Peter J. Osterhaus and Jefferson C. Davis at Leetown, while Price's division engaged that of Eugene A. Carr at Elkhorn Tavern, two miles to the east. Both battles were Confederate disasters. The deaths of McCulloch and his senior subordinate, James 158civil war history McQueen Mcintosh, the capture of his next in command, and the failure of the next ranking officer to learn that command had devolved upon him resulted in the disintegration of McCulloch's wing. On March 8 the Federals at Elkhorn Tavern, reinforced by the remainder of Osterhaus's and Davis's divisions plus the fresh division ofAlexander S. Asboth, drove Van Dorn and Price from the field and ultimately from the theater. The debacle on Pea Ridge resulted not only in the consolidation of Union control of Missouri but also the loss of Arkansas to the South. Curtis's triumph shattered Van Dorn's ambitious plan for capturing the vital river port of St. Louis and threatening Illinois and the Union heartland from the west, thus allowing Federal forces in Tennessee—forces that had just won the North's first significant victory at Fort Donelson—to continue their string of victories at Shiloh and Corinth without fear of an enemy at their backs. Despite its tremendous importance, Pea Ridge—in common with every other Civil War campaign in the trans-Mississippi—has until now received shamefully slight scholarly or popular attention. William L. Shea's and Earl J. Hess's altogether admirable study of this campaign goes far toward rectifying that neglect. It stands tall among a group ofrecent books—T. Michael Parrish's Richard Taylor, Douglas Hale's Third Texas Cavalry, and Alvin M. Josephy's The Civil War in the American West, among...

A Quest for Glory: Major General Robert Howe and the American Revolution.

Born into a wealthy and prominent Cape Fear River plantation family, Howe became a militia officer, justice of the peace, and legislator. In 1775 he was appointed colonel of the Second North Carolina Regiment and became commanding general of the Southern Department and the highest ranking officer in the states south of Virginia. He also served as a division commander with General Washington's main army in the New York Highlands, commanded the crucial West Point post, and put down mutinies in the American army. Originally published in 1991. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Conflict in East Tennessee: Generals Law, Jenkins, and Longstreet

CONFLICT IN EAST TENNESSEE: GENERALS LAW, JENKINS, AND LONGSTREET Guy R. Swanson Timothy D. Johnson WARTIME RIVALRIES AMONG American military commanders are familiar. During the Revolutionary War Generals George Washington and Horatio Gates had their differences, while during World War II cliques surrounded Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur. The Civil War is no exception. Officers on both sides were often at odds, and this circumstance was especially unfortunate for the Confederate army. Throughout the war the Confederacy faced an enemy of superior numbers and strength, and internal disunity in its military forces undoubtedly contributed to defeat. The career of General Evander Mclvor Law, a capable and vigorous brigade commander, illustrates these difficulties faced by the Southern army. Law was born on August 7, 1836, in Darlington, South Carolina, attended public schools, and graduated from the South Carolina Military Academy in 1856. During the next five years Law was a teacher and helped found a military high school in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1860. After hostilities between North and South began in spring 1861, Law raised troops and served as colonel of the Fourth Alabama Regiment. He was wounded at First Manassas, but recovered to fight in the major battles through Sharpsburg. Promoted to brigadier general on October 3, 1862, Law served with Lieutenant General John Bell Hood's division (in General James Longstreet's corps) at Gettysburg. In late summer 1863 Longstreet's corps was detached from the Army of Northern Virginia for service with General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee. Longstreet's corps participated in the September victory at Chickamauga and remained in and near East Tennessee until spring 1864. Strangely, the Army of Tennessee failed to capitalize on the Chickamauga victory and, as military advantages shifted to the Union army, tension developed between Bragg and Longstreet. In December 1863 the command disrupThe authors thank Professor Grady McWhiney of Texas Christian University and Pamela Franklin of The University of Alabama for their assistance during the preparation of this article. 102CIVIL WAR HISTORY tion, coupled with military setbacks, prompted Longstreet to bring charges against Law and two other subordinates.1 The dissention in East Tennessee began to take root in July 1863 during the Battle of Gettysburg. Early on July 2, General Robert E. Lee and his officers were discussing a battle plan with emphasis on the two Round Tops. The plan called for an oblique assault north of the Round Tops to ensure access to Cemetery Ridge from its lowest point, with the Confederates hoping to drive the Federals off the slope. Longstreet interrupted and suggested an alternative action. Lee tactfully dismissed the idea. Longstreet became angry and later that morning was slow in coordinating the troops he used in the attack. Lee chided Longstreet for the delay but knew that his subordinate was always well prepared for battle. Longstreet had also requested additional troop support and was waiting for General Law's brigade to arrive from the Pennsylvania countryside . Law received his marching orders at three o'clock that morning and his troops traveled twenty-eight miles before reaching the battlefield just after noon.2 As the battle raged, Law temporarily became division commander when Hood received a severe arm wound and was taken from the field. During the remainder of the Gettysburg campaign Law gained valuable command experience, and Hood's division fought superbly. Longstreet, however, criticized Law's efforts and remarked that Hood's "wellseasoned troops were not in need of a close guiding hand."3 After the Gettysburg defeat Confederate leaders reorganized their armies, sending Longstreet's corps to support Bragg's army in Tennessee. Longstreet wartted additional and capable troops to accompany him and arranged to transfer General Micah Jenkins's brigade, which had a reputation for aggressive fighting. As Longstreet conferred with President Jefferson Davis and Lee, the convalescing John Bell Hood volunteered to assume active division command and avert a potential struggle between Law and Jenkins. Law had commanded Hood's division at Get- 'For biographical sketches of Evander Mclvor Law and James Longstreet, see Ezra J. Warner, ed., Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1959), 174-75, 192-93; Jon L...

Corporate Viewpoints—Interviews With Top Managers: Interview With General James M. Gavin

Interview with General James M. Gavin. General James M. Gavin joined Arthur D. Little, Inc. in 1958 following thirty-three years of service in the U. S. Army where he became the youngest American division commander since the Civil War. General Gavin was named United States Ambassador to France by President Kennedy early in 1961 and served in that capacity until the fall of 1962. He is a former commander of the 82nd Airborne Division and, at the time of his retirement from the Army, was chief of Research and Development of the Department of the Army. General Gavin is the author of four books.

The Iron Brigade (review)

216CIVIL WA R HISTORY pendence, and poverty of great masses of fellow whites. Both men, in short, had spotted weaknesses in the American dream; both were aware of a rising plutocracy and a declining agriculture fully a generation before these became major nationalproblems. Yet their solutions were fantastic. Fitzhugh believed that the North's answer to the conflict between labor and capital would have to be the adoption of slavery, which alone could identify the interests of the two. And Helper held that all the woes of the farming South would vanish with the immediate abolition of slavery, which lay "at the root of all the shame, poverty, ignorance, tyranny and imbecility of the South." Both writers, otherwise shrewd, defended these gross oversimplifications with angry energy . Their intelligence failed to show them the infinite subdety, complexity, tragedy, and paradox of man's struggle to create just institutions. Mavericks though they were, in a sense, Fitzhugh and Helper shared these absolutes with thousands of their fellow nineteenth-century Americans. Thereby , civil war was brought closer. The crisis of the fifties became the war of the sixties, and this book will help readers to understand how the one grew inexorably into the other. Bernard A. Weisberger University of Chicago The Iron Brigade. By Alan Nolan. (New York: Macmillan Co., 1961. Pp. xvi, 412. $6.95.) With the opening guns of Sumter, the cry of "On to Richmond!" rang through the North and sent the Army of the Potomac on an ordeal of bloody heartbreak and frustration. One of the brigades in the Union army which vainly tried to break through the lines of Robert E. Lee was composed of four regiments which came from the old Northwest Territory. The 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin Volunteers, together with the 19th Indiana, first made up what came to be known as "Iron Brigade." With the addition of Battery B of the 4th U.S. Artillery, the Westerners became part of the Federal forces which headed into northern Virginia. John Gibbon took over the brigadewhen its first brigadier, Rufus King, was moved up to division commander. A professional army officer whose North Carolina origins almost lost him his promotion, Gibbon worked hard to instill a hearty spirit and a rigorous discipline into his brigade. As part of his program he outfitted his men with the tall black hats which soon became a well-known mark of the Western troops. After its baptism of fire at Brawner Farm on August 28, 1862, where it successfully fought off a surprise attack by Stonewall Jackson's troops, the brigade was involved in every major engagement between Washington and Richmond. At Second Bull Run Gibbon's men were assigned to cover the retreat of the Union forces. When Lee struck across the Potomac, it was the Western Brigade which was sent slashing across Turner's Gap to strike at Lee's exposed position. Despite the fact that a powerful Confederate force Book Reviews217 had set up almost impregnable defenses along both sides of the National Road, Gibbon's troops smashed their way through and here won themselves the title of the "Iron Brigade." At Antietam, at Fredericksburg, and then at Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863, the Iron Brigade, now commanded by Solomon Meredith, played a prominent role. At Antietam they suffered such heavy losses that their thin ranks had to be filled out with the men of the 24th Michigan, which now became part of the Iron Brigade. When Lee once again broke loose and sent his forces swinging northward into Pennsylvania, it was the Iron Brigade which helped to plug the gap. Moving up the Emmitsburg Road, the Westerners heard the sounds of battle and moved off to their left toward Seminary Ridge, where they ran head on into Archer's Tennessee and Alabama regiments. Against overwhelming odds the Iron Brigade held its position as the Confederate force grew larger every hour and threatened at any moment to completely envelope their dwindling lines. When the main Union force had taken up defensive positions along Cemetery Ridge the Iron Brigade was at last ordered to withdraw, after having suffered casualties of from 65 to 80 per centi For...