West Pointers And The Civil War

West Pointers And The Civil War

Whether they were fighting for the North or the South, most Civil War generals were graduates of the same elite military institution—West Point—and brought the same “old army” point of view about how to conduct warfare to each side. Now in West Pointers and the Civil War (part of the University of North Carolina Press’ Civil War America series), historian and Naval Academy Professor Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh offers an detailed, insightful account of the transformation of the U.S. Army in the first half of the 19th century, and how that transformation affected the conduct and eventual outcome of the Civil War. Hsieh begins by explaining how during the War of 1812 the U.S. Army had often performed little better than a poorly armed mob. Yet, as Hsieh explains, those reformers who sought to give America a more professional army had to overcome longtime American idealization of citizen militias and distrust of professional soldiers. But with West Point as the training ground, American military leaders professionalized the military in the first half of the 19th century, creating a highly disciplined standing army composed of three distinct infantry, cavalry and artillery branches with standardized weapons and tactics. By the time of the Mexican War in 1846, the U.S. Army was a more-than-competent fighting force that won a decisive victory, vindicating the virtues of military professionalism and giving the old army the institutional strength and monopoly of expertise it would carry into the Civil War. In the Civil War, high command in both the Union army and the nascent army of the Confederacy was filled with West Point graduates who had served in the Mexican War. Hsieh examines how West Point training in tactics and organization determined the sorts of campaigns both sides waged, the rules of those engagements and even the notions by which they judged victory and defeat. He also explores how the dominance of both armies by West Point–trained generals actually prevented either side from gaining a marked superiority in military competence, thus prolonging the war. And he explains how because of their professional military backgrounds, generals on both sides were deeply suspicious of irregular warfare, and the military leaders of the South—including most importantly Robert E. Lee—refused to consider resorting to guerrilla warfare. Making extensive use of military manuals, reports and letters housed at West Point as well as newspapers, diaries and other secondary sources, West Pointers and the Civil War is the first book to comprehensively examine how the antebellum U.S. Army affected the course of the Civil War, making it a unique addition to the history of America’s bloodiest conflict.

Hardcover: 304 pages

Publisher: University Of North Carolina Press ( November 15, 2009 )

Item #: 26-7519

ISBN: 9780807832783

Product Dimensions: 6.125 x 9.25 x 0.73 inches

Product Weight: 16.0 ounces