Since the early 20th century the US Army has used Civil War and other battlefields as "outdoor classrooms" in which to educate and train its officers. Employing a methodology developed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1906, both the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and US Army War College conducted numerous battlefield staff rides to prepare officers for duties in both war and peace. Often interrupted by the exigencies of the nation's wars, the tradition was renewed and reinvigorated at Fort Leavenworth in the early 1980s. Since 1983 the Leavenworth Staff Ride Team has guided military students on battlefields around the world.For those unable to avail themselves directly of the team's services the Combat Studies Institute has begun to produce a series of staff ride guides to serve in lieu of a Fort Leavenworth instructor. The newest volume in that series, Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Gudmens' Staff Ride Handbook for the Battle of Shiloh, 6-7 April 1862 is a valuable study that examines the key considerations in planning and executing the campaign and battle. Modern tacticians and operational planners will find themes that still resonate. Gudmens demonstrates that leaders in Blue and Gray, in facing the daunting tasks of this, the bloodiest battle to this point on the continent, rose to the challenge. They were able to meet this challenge through planning, discipline, ingenuity, leadership, and persistence-themes worthy of reflection by today's leaders.

A staff ride to a major battle?eld is an excellent tool for the historical education of members of the Armed Forces. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has been conducting staff rides since the 1900s. Captain Arthur L. Wagner was an instructor at Fort Leavenworth in the 1890s, and he believed an of?cer's education had become too far removed from the reality of war. He pondered how to get the experience of combat to of?cers who had only experienced peace. His answer was the staff ride, a program in which stu-dents studied a major battle and then went to the actual ?eld to complete the study. Wagner did not live to see staff rides added to the curriculum at Fort Leavenworth, but in 1906, the ?rst staff ride was added to the Fort Leavenworth “experience.” Major Eben Swift led 12 students on a study of the Atlanta Campaign of 1864. On and off, staff rides have been a part of the curriculum ever since.Staff rides are not just limited to schoolhouse education. For years, unit commanders have conducted numerous staff rides to varied battle-?elds as part of their of?cers' and soldiers' professional development. In support of these ?eld commanders, the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth published staff ride guides to assist personnel planning and conducting staff rides worldwide.In 2002, General John Abrams, US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) commanding general, recognized the impact and importance of staff rides and revamped the Staff Ride Team. TRADOC assigned personnel full time to Fort Leavenworth to lead staff rides for the Army. As part of this initiative, the Staff Ride Team is also dedicated to publishing staff ride handbooks in support of the Army.The Staff Ride Handbook for the Battle of Shiloh, 6-7 April 1862 pro-vides a systematic approach to the analysis of this early battle in the west-ern theater of the American Civil War. Part I describes the organization of both armies, detailing their weapons, tactics, logistics, engineering, com-munications, and medical support. Part II consists of a campaign overview that allows students to understand how the armies met on the battle?eld. Part III is a suggested route for conducting a staff ride at Shiloh. For each stop, or “stand,” there is a set of travel directions, a description of the ac-tion that occurred there, vignettes by battle participants, a list of discussion or teaching points that a staff ride leader can explore at the stand, and a map of the battle actions.

Since the early 20th century the US Army has used Civil War and other battlefields as "outdoor classrooms" in which to educate and train its officers. Employing a methodology developed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1906, both the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and US Army War College conducted numerous battlefield staff rides to prepare officers for duties in both war and peace. Often interrupted by the exigencies of the nation's wars, the tradition was renewed and reinvigorated at Fort Leavenworth in the early 1980s. Since 1983 the Leavenworth Staff Ride Team has guided military students on battlefields around the world. For those unable to avail themselves directly of the team's services the Combat Studies Institute has begun to produce a series of staff ride guides to serve in lieu of a Fort Leavenworth instructor. The newest volume in that series, Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Gudmens' "Staff Ride Handbook for the Battle of Shiloh, 6-7 April 1862" is a valuable study that examines the key considerations in planning and executing the campaign and battle. Modern tacticians and operational planners will find themes that still resonate. Gudmens demonstrates that leaders in Blue and Gray, in facing the daunting tasks of this, the bloodiest battle to this point on the continent, rose to the challenge. They were able to meet this challenge through planning, discipline, ingenuity, leadership, and persistence-themes worthy of reflection by today's leaders. Combat Studies Institute.

A main selection in History Book-of-the-Month Club and alternate selection in Military Book-of-the-Month Club. In the spring of 1862, many Americans still believed that the Civil War, "would be over by Christmas." The previous summer in Virginia, Bull Run, with nearly 5,000 casualties, had been shocking, but suddenly came word from a far away place in the wildernesses of Southwest Tennessee of an appalling battle costing 23,000 casualties, most of them during a single day. It was more than had resulted from the entire American Revolution. As author Winston Groom reveals in this dramatic, heart-rending account, the Battle of Shiloh would singlehandedly change the psyche of the military, politicians, and American people--North and South--about what they had unleashed by creating a Civil War. In this gripping telling of the first "great and terrible" battle of the Civil War, Groom describes the dramatic events of April 6 and 7, 1862, when a bold surprise attack on Ulysses S. Grant's encamped troops and the bloody battle that ensued would alter the timbre of the war. The Southerners struck at dawn on April 6th, and Groom vividly recounts the battle that raged for two days over the densely wooded and poorly mapped terrain. Driven back on the first day, Grant regrouped and mounted a fierce attack the second, and aided by the timely arrival of reinforcements managed to salvage an encouraging victory for the Federals. Groom's deft prose reveals how the bitter fighting would test the mettle of the motley soldiers assembled on both sides, and offer a rehabilitation of sorts for Union General William Sherman, who would go on from the victory at Shiloh to become one of the great generals of the war. But perhaps the most alarming outcome, Groom poignantly reveals, was the realization that for all its horror, the Battle of Shiloh had solved nothing, gained nothing, proved nothing, and the thousands of maimed and slain were merely wretched symbols of things to come.

A critical moment in the Civil War, the Battle of Shiloh has been the subject of many books. However, none has told the story of Shiloh as Timothy Smith does in this volume, the first comprehensive history of the two-day battle in April 1862—a battle so fluid and confusing that its true nature has eluded a clear narrative telling until now. Unfolding over April 6th and 7th, the Battle of Shiloh produced the most sprawling and bloody field of combat since the Napoleonic wars, with an outcome that set the Confederacy on the road to defeat. Contrary to previous histories, Smith tells us, the battle was not won or lost on the first day, but rather in the decision-making of the night that followed and in the next day’s fighting. Devoting unprecedented attention to the details of that second day, his book shows how the Union’s triumph was far less assured, and much harder to achieve, than has been acknowledged. Smith also employs a new organization strategy to clarify the action. By breaking his analysis of both days’ fighting into separate phases and sectors, he makes it much easier to grasp what was happening in each combat zone, why it unfolded as it did, and how it related to the broader tactical and operational context of the entire battle. The battlefield’s diverse and challenging terrain also comes in for new scrutiny. Through detailed attention to the terrain’s major features—most still visible at the Shiloh National Military Park—Smith is able to track their specific and considerable influence on the actions, and their consequences, over those forty-eight hours. The experience of the soldiers finally finds its place here too, as Smith lets us hear, as never before, the voices of the common man, whether combatant or local civilian, caught up in a historic battle for their lives, their land, their honor, and their homes. “We must this day conquer or perish,” Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston declared on the morning of April 6, 1862. His words proved prophetic, and might serve as an epitaph for the larger war, as we see fully for the first time in this unparalleled and surely definitive history of the Battle of Shiloh.

The germ of this document began with two questions: how much does it take to supply aCivil War army(the Army of the Potomac has the best records so it is used as the exemplar) and since we are dealing with the 19th century man, the numbers for other armies; Northern Virginia, Cumberland, Tennessee, should be pretty much the same; and how does it work? The results of the study are more or less complete, but there is a host of unanswered questions. Are wagons designated by regiment, brigade, division, corps?(photographic evidence suggests that some wagons had some sort of designation painted on their white tops) Does the same wagon always carry the same supply? Forage( the single most common supply unit) rations, administrative furniture (desks, cooking equipment, files)ammunition (are wagons specifically designated by battery, are there general artillery ammunition wagons? Are wagons carrying mixed loads; 3” rifles 12 pound Napoleons, Parrot guns) I did no find the answers, and these questions are left for other writers to research and answer.

Since the early 20th century the US Army has used Civil War and other battlefields as "outdoor classrooms" in which to educate and train its officers. Employing a methodology developed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1906, both the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and US Army War College conducted numerous battlefield staff rides to prepare officers for duties in both war and peace. Often interrupted by the exigencies of the nation's wars, the tradition was renewed and reinvigorated at Fort Leavenworth in the early 1980s. Since 1983 the Leavenworth Staff Ride Team has guided military students on battlefields around the world. For those unable to avail themselves directly of the team's services the Combat Studies Institute has begun to produce a series of staff ride guides to serve in lieu of a Fort Leavenworth instructor. The newest volume in that series, Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Gudmens' Staff Ride Handbook for the Battle of Shiloh, 6-7 April 1862 is a valuable study that examines the key considerations in planning and executing the campaign and battle. Modern tacticians and operational planners will find themes that still resonate. Gudmens demonstrates that leaders in Blue and Gray, in facing the daunting tasks of this, the bloodiest battle to this point on the continent, rose to the challenge. They were able to meet this challenge through planning, discipline, ingenuity, leadership, and persistence-themes worthy of reflection by today's leaders. The Staff Ride Handbook for the Battle of Shiloh, 6-7 April 1862 provides a systematic approach to the analysis of this early battle in the western theater of the American Civil War. It describes the organization of both armies, detailing their weapons, tactics, logistics, engineering, communications, and medical support as well as campaign overview that allows students to understand how the armies met on the battlefield.

In the most detailed history ever of Union warships on the western waters of the Civil War, the author recounts the exploits of the timberclad ships Lexington, Tyler, and Conestoga. Converted to warships from commercial steamboats at the beginning of the conflict, the three formed the core of the North's Western Flotilla, later the Mississippi Squadron. The book focuses on the activities of these wooden warriors while providing context for the greater war, including accounts of their famous commanders, their roles in both large and small battles, ship-to-ship combat, and support for the armies of Gen. U.S. Grant and Gen. William T. Sherman.

The definitive military history of the Civil War, featuring the same exclusive images, tactical maps, and expert analysis commissioned by The United States Military Academy to teach the history of the art of war to West Point cadets. The United States Military Academy at West Point is the gold standard for military history and the operational art of war. West Point has created military history texts for its cadets since 1836. For the first time in over forty years, the United States Military Academy has authorized a new military history series that will bear the name West Point. That text has been updated repeatedly, but now it has been completely rewritten and The West Point History of the Civil War is the first volume to result in a new series of military histories authorized by West Point. The West Point History of the Civil War combines the expertise of preeminent historians commissioned by West Point, hundreds of maps uniquely created by cartographers under West Point’s direction, and hundreds of images, many created for this volume or selected from West Point archives. Offering careful analysis of the political context of military decisions, The West Point History of the Civil War is singularly brilliant at introducing the generals and officer corps of both Union and Confederacy, while explaining the tactics, decisions, and consequences of individual battles and the ebb and flow of the war. For two years it has been beta-tested, vetted, and polished by cadets, West Point faculty, and West Point graduates and the results are clear: This is the best military history of its kind available anywhere. This is the standard ebook edition. It is a reproduction of the hardcover edition. It does not include any enhanced or interactive features.