TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Category: Strategy & Tactics

  • Review: One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, July 4-14, 1863

    Eric J. Wittenberg, J. David Petruzzi, and Michael F. Nugent. One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, July 4-14, 1863. New York: Savas Beatie LLC (June 2008). 576 pages, notes, bibliography, index, 16 maps. ISBN: 978-1932714432 $34.95 (Hardcover w/DJ). Who knows anything about Lee’s retreat from […]

  • War and Landscape

    I’ve been reading Matthew Spring’s new book on the British Army in the Revolutionary War, With Zeal and Bayonets Only. It’s an excellent look at how the British actually fought during that conflict, and I may do a full review in the future. One thing that Spring does very well is to analyze how the […]

  • Short Takes

    In the mail today was a copy of James W. Parrish’s Wiregrass to Appomattox, a history of the 50th Georgia. I blurbed the book after looking at a draft and will see how it all comes together, then write a review. It’s published by Angle Valley Press, which also did a very well-received history of […]

  • History in Motion

    A very cool site using flash animation to illustrate Civil War battles and campaigns, such as Stonewall Jackson’s ’62 Valley campaign. I’ve always thought that the static battle maps that we see in books do not really tell the story. Battles are interactive processes—moves are met by counter-moves in real time. You really need an […]

  • Review: The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat

    Update: Welcome to TOCWOC for those of you who have found this page through a Google Search!  If you enjoy what you’re about to read below, feel free to Subscribe to TOCWOC’s RSS feed.  Be sure to check out the Civil War Book Reviews which have been posted here and browse through TOCWOC founder Brett […]

  • Rifles against artillery

    Bill Adams sent me an interesting graphic he scanned from a period book and has agreed to let me post it. Widely published and commented on the time, it shows the results of a test conducted at the British musketry school at Hythe in the mid-1850s. Thirty riflemen who did not know the distances involved […]

  • Who Killed Uncle John (and John Reynolds)?

    A popular activity for the Civil War buff is trying to figure out who killed certain generals. To help I have posted my article “The Killing of Uncle John” that originally in Civil War Times in June 2006. In it I look at the contemporary and eyewitness accounts of the death of Major General John […]