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The battle of Shiloh, fought in April 1862 in the wilderness of south central Tennessee, marked a savage turning point in the Civil War. In this masterful book, Larry Daniel re-creates the drama and the horror of the battle and discusses in authoritative detail the political and military policies that led to Shiloh, the personalities of those who formulated and executed the battle plans, the fateful misjudgments made on both sides, and the heroism of the small-unit leaders and ordinary soldiers who manned the battlefield.
Three days of savage and bloody fighting between Confederate and
Union troops at Stones River in Middle Tennessee ended with nearly
25,000 casualties but no clear victor. The staggering number of
killed or wounded equaled the losses suffered in the well-known
Battle of Shiloh. Using previously neglected sources, Larry J.
Daniel rescues this important campaign from obscurity. The Battle
of Stones River, fought between December 31, 1862, and January 2,
1863, was a tactical draw but proved to be a strategic northern
victory. According to Daniel, Union defeats in late 1862 -- both at
Chickasaw Bayou in Mississippi and at Fredericksburg, Virginia --
transformed the clash in Tennessee into a much-needed morale
booster for the North. Daniel's study of the battle's two
antagonists, William S. Rosecrans for the Union Army of the
Cumberland and Braxton Bragg for the Confederate Army of Tennessee,
presents contrasts in leadership and a series of missteps. Union
soldiers liked Rosecrans's personable nature, whereas Bragg
acquired a reputation as antisocial and suspicious. Rosecrans had
won his previous battle at Corinth, and Bragg had failed at the
recent Kentucky Campaign. But despite Rosecrans's apparent
advantage, both commanders made serious mistakes. With only a few
hundred yards separating the lines, Rosecrans allowed Confederates
to surprise and route his right ring. Eventually, Union pressure
forced Bragg to launch a division-size attack, a disastrous move.
Neither side could claim victory on the battlefield. In the
aftermath of the bloody conflict, Union commanders and northern
newspapers portrayed the stalemate as a victory, bolstering
confidence in the Lincoln administration and dimming the prospects
for the "peace wing" of the northern Democratic Party. In the
South, the deadlock led to continued bickering in the Confederate
western high command and scorn for Braxton Bragg.
In Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee Larry Daniel offers a view
from the trenches of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. his book is
not the story of the commanders, but rather shows in intimate
detail what the war in the western theater was like for the
enlisted men. Daniel argues that the unity of the Army of
Tennessee--unlike that of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern
Virginia--can be understood only by viewing the army from the
bottom up rather than the top down. The western army had neither
strong leadership nor battlefield victories to sustain it, yet it
maintained its cohesiveness. The ""glue"" that kept the men in the
ranks included fear of punishment, a well-timed religious revival
that stressed commitment and sacrifice, and a sense of comradeship
developed through the common experience of serving under losing
generals. The soldiers here tell the story in their own rich words,
for Daniel quotes from an impressive variety of sources, drawing
upon his reading of the letters and diaries of more than 350
soldiers as well as scores of postwar memoirs. They write about
rations, ordnance, medical care, punishments, the hardships of
extensive campaigning, morale, and battle. While eastern and
western soldiers were more alike than different, Daniel says, there
were certain subtle variances. Western troops were less
disciplined, a bit rougher, and less troubled by class divisions
than their eastern counterparts. Daniel concludes that shared
suffering and a belief in the ability to overcome adversity bonded
the soldiers of the Army of Tennessee into a resilient fighting
force.
While engineers played a critical role in the performance of both
the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War, few
historians have examined their experiences or impact. Larry J.
Daniel's Engineering in the Confederate Heartland fills a gap in
that historiography by analyzing the accomplishments of these
individuals working for the Confederacy in the vast region between
the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, commonly
referred to as the Western Theater. Though few in number, the
members of the western engineer corps were vital in implementing
Confederate strategy and tactics. Most Confederate engineers
possessed little to no military training, transitioning from the
civilian tasks of water drainage, railroad construction, and land
surveys to overseeing highly technical war-related projects. Their
goal was simple in mission but complex in implementation: utilize
their specialized skills to defeat, or at least slow, the Union
juggernaut. The geographical diversity of the Heartland further
complicated their charge. The expansive area featured elevations
reaching over six thousand feet, sandstone bluffs cut by running
valleys on the Cumberland Plateau, the Nashville basin's thick
cedar glades and rolling farmland, and the wind-blown silt soil of
the Loess Plains of the Mississippi Valley. Regardless of the
topography, engineers encountered persistent flooding in all
sectors. Daniel's study challenges the long-held thesis that the
area lacked adept professionals. Engineers' expertise and labor,
especially in the construction of small bridges and the laying of
pontoons, often proved pivotal. Lacking sophisticated equipment and
technical instruments, they nonetheless achieved numerous
successes: the Union army never breached the defenses at Vicksburg
or Atlanta, and by late 1864, the Army of Tennessee boasted a
pontoon train sufficient to span the Tennessee River. Daniel
uncovers these and other essential contributions to the war effort
made by the Confederacy's western engineers.
This enlarged edition of Cannoneers in Gray provides new detail
concerning the activities of various military units operating in
key campaigns of the western theater of the Civil War - at Stones
River, Missionary Ridge, Kennesaw Mountain, Shiloh, Peachtree
Creek. Larry Daniel traces the four-year history of the artillery
branch of the Army of Tennessee from its organization through its
scattered demise at the war's end. He provides evidence to show
that Civil War canons were of little consequence when used as
offensive weapons but could be highly effective as weapons of
defense. Daniel includes five new detailed maps of campaigns and
battles that are central to his discussion of larger issues, such
as command and strategy on the western front. He has consulted and
incorporated many new primary sources that more fully document his
original work, first published in 1984.
Operating in the vast and varied trans-Appalachian west, the Army
of Tennessee was crucially important to the military fate of the
Confederacy. But under the principal leadership of generals such as
Braxton Bragg, Joseph E. Johnston, and John Bell Hood, it won few
major battles and many regard its inability to halt steady Union
advances into the Confederate heartland as a matter of failed
leadership. Here, esteemed military historian Larry J. Daniel
offers a far richer interpretation. Surpassing previous work that
has focused on questions of command structure and the force's fate
on the fields of battle, Daniel provides the clearest view to date
of the army's inner workings, from top-level command and unit
cohesion to the varied experiences of common soldiers and their
connections to the home front. Drawing from his mastery of the
relevant sources, Daniel's book is a thought-provoking reassessment
of an army's fate, with important implications for Civil War
history and military history writ large.
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