At 9:00 A.M. on October 22, I'll address in person the Dupuy Institute's Fourth Historical Analysis Conference on fighting effectiveness in Grant's Second Petersburg Offensive, which I covered in my most recent book, Lee Besieged: Grant's Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18-July 1, 1864 (Savas Beatie, 2025). The conference will take place from October 21 through October 23 at 1934 Old Gallows Road in Tysons Corner, Virginia.
I am going to compare Dupuy's method for measuring combat effectiveness set forth in his book, A Genius for War: The German Army and General Staff, 1807-1945 (London: MacDonald and Jane's, 1977), with the standard work on combat effectiveness in our Civil War, Thomas L. Livermore's Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America, 1861-1865 (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1901).
The results of both methods of measuring fighting effectiveness, on page 368 of Lee Besieged, turn out to be very similar. For a copy of Lee Besieged, please click on this link and then what appears afterward.
I will also explain my modifications to the two methods to measure the fighting effectiveness of the combatants during Grant's Second Petersburg Offensive. I include include prisoners as if they were dead. Prisoners were as good as dead during the critical campaign of 1864 because the Union and Confederacy were not exchanging them during that period as they had before and would afterward.
