In The American Military Tradition historians John M. Carroll and Colin F. Baxter gather an esteemed group of military historians to explore the pivotal issues and themes in American warfare from the Colonial era to the present conflict in Iraq. From the reliance on militia and the Minutemen of the American Revolution to the all-volunteer specialized troops of today, these twelve essays analyze the continuities and changes in the conduct of war over the past three centuries. In this completely revised second edition, new essays explore Napoleonic warfare, the American Civil War, the Plains Wars in the West, the War against Japan, the nuclear arms race, and the War on Terror. The book, while not avoiding the nature of battle, goes beyond tactics and strategy to include the enormous social and political impact of America's wars.

In The American Military Tradition historians John M. Carroll and Colin F. Baxter gather an esteemed group of military historians to explore the pivotal issues and themes in American warfare from the Colonial era to the present conflict in Iraq. From the reliance on militia and the Minutemen of the American Revolution to the all-volunteer specialized troops of today, these twelve essays analyze the continuities and changes in the conduct of war over the past three centuries. In this completely revised second edition, new essays explore Napoleonic warfare, the American Civil War, the Plains Wars in the West, the War against Japan, the nuclear arms race, and the War on Terror. The book, while not avoiding the nature of battle, goes beyond tactics and strategy to include the enormous social and political impact of America's wars.

In the South, one can find any number of bronze monuments to the Confederacy featuring heroic images of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, J. E. B. Stuart, and many lesser commanders. But while the tarnish on such statues has done nothing to color the reputation of those great leaders, there remains one Confederate commander whose tarnished image has nothing to do with bronze monuments. Nowhere in the South does a memorial stand to Lee's intimate friend and second-in-command James Longstreet.

In "Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant," William Garrett Piston examines the life of James Longstreet and explains how a man so revered during the course of the war could fall from grace so swiftly and completely. Unlike other generals in gray whose deeds are familiar to southerners and northerners alike, Longstreet has the image not of a hero but of an incompetent who lost the Battle of Gettysburg and, by extension, the war itself. Piston's reappraisal of the general's military record establishes Longstreet as an energetic corps commander with an unsurpassed ability to direct troops in combat, as a trustworthy subordinate willing to place the war effort above personal ambition. He made mistakes, but Piston shows that he did not commit the grave errors at Gettysburg and elsewhere of which he was so often accused after the war.

In discussing Longstreet's postwar fate, Piston analyzes the literature and public events of the time to show how the southern people, in reaction to defeat, evolved an image of themselves which bore little resemblance to reality. As a product of the Georgia backwoods, Longstreet failed to meet the popular cavalier image embodied by Lee, Stuart, and other Confederate heroes. When he joined the Republican party during Reconstruction, Longstreet forfeited his wartime reputation and quickly became a convenient target for those anxious to explain how a "superior people" could have lost the war. His new role as the villain of the Lost Cause was solidified by his own postwar writings. Embittered by years of social ostracism resulting from his Republican affiliation, resentful of the orchestrated deification of Lee and Stonewall Jackson, Longstreet exaggerated his own accomplishments and displayed a vanity that further alienated an already offended southern populace.

Beneath the layers of invective and vilification remains a general whose military record has been badly maligned. "Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant" explains how this reputation developed--how James Longstreet became, in the years after Appomattox, the scapegoat for the South's defeat, a Judas for the new religion of the Lost Cause.

A standard source for more than three generations of Civil War scholars, Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy remains the authoritative study of the Confederate draft. In this landmark book, Albert Burton Moore uses conscription to illustrate a central paradox of the Confederacy: in order to protect its commitment to states' rights, the Confederacy was forced to adopt tactics of centralized government. Charting the strength of Confederate forces before and after conscription's implementation in 1862, Moore examines the system's daily operations, troublesome procedures for substitutions and exemptions, and ultimate collapse. He conveys the controversy surrounding conscription by quoting from acerbic and sometimes eloquent arguments for and against conscription put forth by governors, congressmen, newspaper editors, and soldiers. Although Moore credits Confederate conscription with a high degree of success, he blames it for causing friction between state governors and President Jefferson Davis, dissension between state and national judicial systems, and bureaucratic problems of colossal proportions. William Garrett Piston's new introduction places the volume in its historical context and underscores one of the most remarkable features of the study - Moore's forthright admission that a large number of Southerners did not support the Confederacy.

Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, and Prairie Grove were three of the most important battles fought west of the Mississippi River during the Civil War. They influenced the course of the first half of the war in that region by shaping Union military efforts while significantly contributing to Confederate defeat. "Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, and Prairie Grove," the first book to provide a detailed guide to these battlefields, takes the visitor step-by-step through the major sites of each engagement. With numerous maps and illustrations that enhance the authors' descriptions of what happened at each stop, the book also includes analytical accounts explaining tactical problems associated with each battle as well as vignettes evoking for readers the personal experience of those who fought there. An indispensable companion for the battlefield visitor, this guide offers not only touring information and driving tours of sites associated with the campaigns that led to the battles, but also a brief history of each battle and an overview of the larger strategy and tactics of the military action in which these battles figured.