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Civil War Generalship: The Art Of Command

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This is an interesting work on, as per the subtitle, "The Art of Command." The Civil War had armies and corps of a magnitude that had not previously existed in the United States. General officers had to learn how to handle such large masses--with no prior experience in this art. As the author notes (page 6): ". . .the generals that we have observed, like their officers and soldiers, had to learn their trade in the hard school of war."

Three case studies follow, in which the commanding generals on each side competed with one another. Based on the outcomes, lessons can be learned, according to Wood. The pairings: Stonewall Jackson and Nathaniel Banks at Cedar Mountain (prelude to Second Manassas), William Rosecrans and the irascible Braxton Bragg at Chickamauga, and John Bell Hood against George Thomas at Nashville. In each instance, we can see failures and successes by each general and how well they exercised their art of command.

Cedar Mountain: This was part of the run up to Second Manassas. Jackson was ordered by Robert E. Lee to "suppress" John Pope's Union forces. At an early stage in the pr4ocess, Jackson faced off against Banks, an amateur political general, with lots of bravery and doubtful skills in military command.

Chickamauga: The unpleasant Bragg, who never quite mastered the art of war despite his undisputed bravery and training (e.g., not his performance at Stone's River), against the clever and masterful, but excitable, William Rosecrans.

Nashville: The rash Hood against the stolid, capable Thomas, who slowly learned the art of command to become one of the best general officers on either side by the end of the Civil War. One-sided to begin with at the level of the two commanders; this was followed up by one of the most complete victories by one side over the other during the course of the war.

At the conclusion of the book, Wood draws a number of lessons from his three case studies of command in the Civil War. Inevitable questions come up: How could a Hood or Banks (later on in the war) have been entrusted with full armies under their command? What sets a Thomas apart from others, in that he continued to learn and grow as an officer throughout the war?

This is not a great book, by any means, but it is a nice study in leadership during the Civil War.

This is not your usual Civil War History book. W.J. Wood is uninterested, here, in discussing the course of the Civil War itself, or its battles and capaigns. Instead, Wood wants to examine how Generals controlled their armies, or didn't, and the decision-making process that led to the battles came out.

The result is a book where the author studies three battles from the Civil War: Cedar Mountain in 1862, Chickamauga in 1863, and Nashville in 1864. The author spends much of his time laying out the military situation that confronted the opposing generals, and then briefly recounts the course of the battle, the decisions made, and the outcomes. The three battles involved some interesting personalities in command of the armies, and so the results are rather interesting, also.

Cedar Mountain involved Stonewall Jackson and Nathaniel Banks. The interesting thing here is that Banks doesn't come out as badly as you might imagine, nor Jackson as favorably. Chickamauga saw Braxton Bragg and William Rosecrans face off: both were unsuited for high command at some level, and are duly criticized. Nashville of course was the last hurrah of John Bell Hood, opposite the rocklike George Thomas. This one's not unexpected: Thomas comes out brilliant, while Hood turns out to be an idiot.

All three of these battles are interesting, and Wood advocates an analytical approach that favors what I call ruthless pragmatism. This works well, and I enjoyed the book, finding it worthwhile and the observations inside to be very interesting.

Expecting to find another book on strategy and tactics, I was surprised that the major theme of this well-written book involved the personal characteristics that make a successful general.

At some point in the book, Wood emphasizes to the reader that the general is not a "manager." However, the graduates of business school programs will be quick to point out that the qualities surveyed in the book are also essentials in successful business leaders.

The generals are rated on such points as subordinate selection, ability to delegate but yet remain in control, clearly - defined missions but flexibility in attaining them, ability to view the situation within a "big-picture" context, efficient use of resources, clarity of orders and other communications, ability to work within the existing political environment, a firm but positive leadership style, and creative decisions within the constraints imposed by reality. All of the 6 generals come off with mixed reviews with respect to these criteria, although George Thomas receives a well-deserved favorable evaluation and some of Stonewall's flaws are pointed out. One thing that ran through my mind as I was reading this book was that all of the favorable traits exhibited by a great leader seem to be a composite of a man little-mentioned by the author - General Grant.

This book provides much insight into the human aspect of military leadership and is useful to the reader in better understanding any generals and their level of success.

Wood uses an interesting concept to compare six generals in three battles of the American Civil War. The first, Cedar Mountain involving Banks and Jackson, is very good, comparing a politician general to a West Pointer, and is not unkind to Banks, although Jackson's talents prevail. The second study, of Stones River, is also good, depicting both Bragg and Rosecrans as excellent strategist, but leaving a lot to be desired as field generals. The final study of the Battle of Franklin is somewhat anticlimatic, but does offer some insight on Hood's strategy that lead to the destruction of the Army of Tennessee.

CIVIL WAR GENERALSHIP is a treatise on the nature of military command leadership written for the popular market. To make his case, author W.J. Wood, an ex-Army war gamer for weapons system analysis, focuses on three battles: Cedar Mountain in August 1862 between commanders Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson and Nathaniel Banks, Chickamauga in September 1863 between commanders Braxton Bragg and William "Old Rosy" Rosecrans, and Nashville in December 1864 between commanders John Hood ("The Gallant Hood") and George Thomas ("The Rock of Chickamauga").

In a prefatory Part One of the book, Wood pretty much establishes the lack of any formalized pre-Civil War military thought in the U.S. Army as to how battles should be fought and won. West Point, attended by all the aforementioned commanders except Banks, focused mainly on engineering; during the four-year curriculum, only nine hours were devoted to battlefield tactics. Thus, the army commander had to learn his skills through on-the-job combat experience during his ascent through the command structure.

As a reader possessing a casual interest in the Civil War history, I can find only minimal fault with this brief (245 paperbacked pages) treatment of the topic. Indeed, the concise and lucid summaries of the three selected battles, each one supplemented by more than adequate maps, were, for me, even more valuable than Wood's dissection of the leadership skills displayed by each of the six protagonists. After all, a century and a half after the War Between the States, the battles of Cedar Mountain, Chickamauga, and Nashville are sometimes lost against the backdrop of confrontations considered more pivotal to the final outcome, e.g. Vicksburg, Gettysburg, or Appomattox, or simply more high profile, e.g. Shiloh, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, or Cold Harbor.

At no point does the author explain why he chose these three particular battles and their opposing generals for his book. By definition, each commander had to be exercising independent field command of an army at the time. And perhaps his choice of battles was unconsciously limited to those not including Grant, McClellan, Lee, and Sherman, whose names pop up with consistent regularity in popular Civil War history and whose careers have been fields well-plowed by historians.

Wood's examination of the characters and personality traits of Jackson, Banks, Bragg, Rosecrans, Hood, and Thomas adds an endearing human element to the work as a whole. It also leads to my only minor criticism of the book, which is that no epilogue describing the post-battle careers of the six is included. Jackson, of course, was mortally wounded by friendly fire at Chancellorsville, but the remaining five, as far as I know, survived the Civil War, and it would be nice to know what happened to them without having to resort to further research.