Lee— in general made wise strategic decisions. That being the case, Gallagher needs to develop fully his explanation in regard to the book's title. Reid Mitchell maintains that Union soldiers displayed a stronger ideology and morale than did their opponents. Rebel morale, meanwhile, suffered from "ideological and structural weaknesses, and they were the key to Confederate defeat.
Joseph T. Glatthaar points to the "critical contribution of blacks to the defeat of the Confederacy" —both as Union soldiers and in undermining the Rebel homefront. Blacks who escaped to Federal lines, for example, weakened the labor force supporting the Confederate armies. The essays by McPherson, Jones, Gallagher, and Mitchell would all have been enhanced if the authors had focused on the basic questions: Who?
Could the constant defeats the Rebels suffered in the west have weakened their commitment to the Confederate cause more than did any contradiction between fighting for the freedom to keep slaves? Slavery, as McPherson points out, did not weaken the American cause in the war for independence. The Confederate strategy of defending territory failed in the west, not in the east.
Was it appropriate for the west? If not, why not? If so, why did it fail? Which Confederate generals commanding which armies in which battles lost the war? The answers to these questions—adumbrated by both McPherson and Gallagher—is that the war was lost by the Confederacy in the west. The war in Virginia produced a stalemate. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Why the Confederacy Lost. Gabor Borritt has a knack for gathering the papers of leading Civil War scholars and bundling them into short, interesting books that are good gateways towards deeper reading on this topic.
Each has a different answer. McPherson, well known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning "Battle Cry of Freedom," ascrib Gabor Borritt has a knack for gathering the papers of leading Civil War scholars and bundling them into short, interesting books that are good gateways towards deeper reading on this topic. So much of the war see-sawed as either side enjoyed "winning streaks.
Either side could have won, McPherson contends, but it depended on generals and armies doing the right thing at the right time, over and over again.
He considers North and South roughly equal to the task. Both sides eventually had to discard their interpretations of Napoleonic strategy, with the North executing its raiding strategy on a massive scale Sherman's march , eventually producing victory.
Gary Gallagher sees the war through the prism of leadership, only rating Lee, Grant and Sherman as the only generals as "excellent. It was his only viable option given the situation and the means at hand. But Grant could picture the war as the interplay of multiple theaters and serial battles, not as a decision obtained by a single battle. He could bring force to bear on that basis. Sherman understood the political dimension of the war better than his commander, his march to the sea bringing the war home to southerners, demoralizing their war effort.
Reid Mitchell sees morale as the ultimate factor deciding the conflict. The soldier saw his army as an extension of his family, fighting for his country on that basis.
But in the end, the safety of the actual family outweighed duty in the mind of the average Confederate soldier, many of whom deserted to protect hearth and home.
In explaining southern defeat, Joseph Glaathaar places greater weight on the slaves deserting the South to serve in the Union Army.
Slavery allowed the South to enroll more white soldiers, knowing the home front would remain productive. But advancing northern armies acted like a magnet on slaves, pulling them away from plantations, thus depriving the South of its productive labor.
Upon enlisting in the Union Army, ex-slaves then added their decisive number in manpower to the northern war effort--some ,thus obtaining victory. Many readers well-versed in the ACW can come up with their own mix of reasons why the outcome was so. Dec 04, Gill rated it it was amazing Shelves: history-civil-war. I'm Gill, and I'm a Civil War buff.
Aug 22, Jerel Wilmore rated it really liked it. This book of essays is an excellent introduction to some of the historical theories why the South lost the American Civil War. I enjoyed James M. He says why best: the Union had better leadership. Hang on Dixie fans: sure, the South had St. The North provided the leadership—Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan—which won the war.
The Union also provided superior leadership and management of logistics. And, at the very top, there was one Abraham Lincoln. To tell the truth, I found it a little hard to follow. Glatthaar The March to the Sea and Beyond , credits black soldiers, in great numbers with helping to achieve victory, something which is often overlooked or unknown.
Regardless, a good read. Shelves: anthology , civil-war. Different perspectives by five historians on why the Confederacy lost. Obviously I recall the last one the best, and he indicated in his thesis that it was the of black soldiers that put the Union over the top much like the American doughboy in WWI did not win the war for the Allies per se, but gave that extra push that put them over the top.
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Request Examination Copy. After the Civil War, someone asked General Pickett why the Battle of Gettysburg had been lost: Was it Lee's error in taking the offensive, the tardiness of Ewell and Early, or Longstreet's hesitation in attacking? Pickett scratched his head and replied, "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.
These were all factors, he writes, but the Civil War was still a war--won by the Union army through key victories at key moments. With this brilliant review of how historians have explained the Southern defeat, McPherson opens a fascinating account by several leading historians of how the Union broke the Confederate rebellion. In every chapter, the military struggle takes center stage, as the authors reveal how battlefield decisions shaped the very forces that many scholars putting the cart before the horse claim determined the outcome of the war.
Archer Jones examines the strategy of the two sides, showing how each had to match its military planning to political necessity. Lee raided north of the Potomac with one eye on European recognition and the other on Northern public opinion--but his inevitable retreats looked like failure to the Southern public. The North, however, developed a strategy of deep raids that was extremely effective because it served a valuable political as well as military purpose, shattering Southern morale by tearing up the interior.
Gary Gallagher takes a hard look at the role of generals, narrowing his focus to the crucial triumvirate of Lee, Grant, and Sherman, who towered above the others. Lee's aggressiveness may have been costly, but he well knew the political impact of his spectacular victories; Grant and Sherman, meanwhile, were the first Union generals to fully harness Northern resources and carry out coordinated campaigns.
Reid Mitchell shows how the Union's advantage in numbers was enhanced by a dedication and perseverance of federal troops that was not matched by the Confederates after their home front began to collapse. And Joseph Glatthaar examines black troops, whose role is entering the realm of national myth.
In , there appeared a collection of essays by major historians, entitled Why the North Won the Civil War , edited by David Donald; it is now in its twenty-sixth printing, having sold well over , copies. Why the Confederacy Lost provides a parallel volume, written by today's leading authorities.
Provocatively argued and engagingly written, this work reminds us that the hard-won triumph of the North was far from inevitable.
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