TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Category: Controversies of a Campaign

  • Army of the Potomac Morale at the Siege of Petersburg

    Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared at The Siege of Petersburg Online: Beyond the Crater on Monday, January 17, 2011.  Bryce Suderow is an author, researcher, and Siege of Petersburg specialist. “The Troops Did Not Meet the Attack with Vigor and Courage and Determination”: Union Army Morale at the Siege of Petersburg by Bryce Suderow […]

  • Civil War Book Review: The Rashness of That Hour by Robert Wynstra

    The Rashness of That Hour: Politics, Gettysburg, and the Downfall of Confederate Brigadier General Alfred Iverson by Robert J. Wynstra 6×9, 360 pages, hardback, $32.95 32 photos, 6 maps ISBN 9781932714883 Savas Beatie, December 2010 The “banners and bugles” regimental history has fallen out of favor lately in favor of a more socially oriented narrative […]

  • What Did Mr. Lincoln Know? (Conclusion)

    I several previous posts I looked at President Lincoln’s relationship to the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid to get some idea of his culpability in the assassination attempt on Jefferson Davis and the Confederate leadership. In the first, I looked at the military and political situation in the winter of 1863-64, how Lincoln’s hopes of ending the war […]

  • Col. G. F. R. Henderson on the Civil War

    We have had a lively discussion of my observations of the Civil War and landscape (comments welcome, as always), so I thought I’d take the opportunity to post some of the thoughts of Col. G.F.R. Henderson of the British Army, who wrote and lectured prolifically on the American Civil War, and is best remembered for […]

  • Lincoln and Stanton

    Two men could not have been more different than Abraham Lincoln and Edwin Stanton. Lincoln had a broad vision, a humane disposition and a folksy way of expressing himself. He could be flexible, was not terribly good at particulars, and could ignore a personal insult if it advanced his cause. Stanton, OTOH was a master […]

  • Consequences of the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid

    What were the consequences of the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid? In operational terms, not much. Casualties were minimal and the raid accomplished little. The indirect consequences, however, were important. For one, it convinced the Confederates to strengthen Richmond’s defenses and move their POWs away from the capital, thus removing a tempting target for raids. The biggest fallout […]

  • Short Takes

    Following up on my post about the recent Dahlgren bio, an excellent dissection on HistoryNet about the authenticity of the papers found on that officer’s body: It can be accepted then that the authenticity of the Dahlgren papers is established beyond a doubt. There is not the least scrap of credible evidence for their forgery. […]