Adding Value to Your Civil War Battle/Campaign History, Final Postscript

           One more way has occurred to me to make it easier to attain the standard of research set by Dr. Sommers, though on a smaller scale  This way does not involve the history of a battle or a campaign.  What I mean is, write a unit history.  Focusing on a single unit reduces the amount of material you must master.  As a general rule, the bigger the unit, the more the material one must master.   On the other hand, some units generated more material than others—a lot more.  A particularly literate infantry regiment might have penned more diaries, letters and memoirs than relatively less literate brigades.  Some units authored so little as not to afford worthwhile subjects for a unit history.  I currently have a manuscript at SavasBeatie on the 12^th Regiment Virginia Infantry, in which a couple of my wife’s ancestors served.  The 12^th Virginia’s soldiers generated volumes of material.  Two future governors of the Old Dominion served in the 12^th.  At least four volumes were published by the 12^th’s soldiers, and other volumes remain in manuscript.  When I chose a unit to write about, also I considered the 12^th Regiment Mississippi Infantry, in which another of my wife’s ancestors served.  Very few letters, diaries or memoirs existed from that regiment.  There were individual writers from the 12^th Virginia who have left more surviving material than the entire 12^th Mississippi.  I also considered the 29^th United States Colored Troops, an infantry regiment raised in Illinois.   Practically no literature survives from that regiment.  One could probably write an interesting article about how African Americans were recruited in a state that banned free blacks, practiced de facto slavery (calling it indentured servitude), and had almost declared itself a slave state (in 1829), but without the particulars afforded by diaries, letters and memoirs, it would be a pretty dry and indeed speculative tome. 

ADDING VALUE TO YOUR CIVIL WAR CAMPAIGN/BATTLE HISTORY, GENERAL POSTSCRIPT

               There is another way to add value to your Civil War battle/campaign history that I have not yet mentioned because I did not employ it in my book.  It would be to restrict the subject to the point where you could research it exhaustively.  For example, it would have been possible to write a book about Second Deep Bottom, or Globe Tavern, or Second Reams Station alone.  It would have been possible to focus even more narrowly and write about the action of August 14, 1864, or August 16, 1864, or even August 18, 1864, at Second Deep Bottom; the action of August 18, 1864, or August 19, 1864, or August 21, 1864, at Globe Tavern; or the fight by moonlight of August 23, 1864.  David Faris Cross employed this tactic when he wrote A Melancholy Affair at the Weldon Railroad: The Vermont Brigade, June 23, 1864.  Dr. Cross did an in-depth study of the background to, events of, and aftermath of the Vermont Brigade’s fight near Globe Tavern on June 23, 1864.  Author A. Wilson Greene, then of Pamplin Historical Park, called Dr. Cross’s book “among the ten best books ever written about the Petersburg Campaign.”

Adding Value to Your Civil War Battle/Campaign History: Part V, Crunch Those Numbers!

     Finally, to add value to the revised edition of my book, I tried crunching numbers and doing a statistical analysis of the fighting.  This also drew on my previous readings in military history over the years.  Reasonably reliable figures were available for numbers and losses on the Union side.  Figuring out Confederate numbers and losses ordinarily requires more work.   Once I had the numbers, I drew generally upon the work of Beninger, Hattaway, Jones and Still in Why The South Lost The Civil War and Dupuy in The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare.  The model I employed came from Dupuy's A Genius for War: The German Army and General Staff, 1807-1945.  The results put Grant's modest achievement in his Fourth Offensive at Petersburg in a very positive light.  To have made any progress against the Confederates with his relatively inferior troops despite his three to two numerical superiority testifies to Grant's talent and skill as a commander. 

  
 

Adding Value to Your Civil War Battle/Campaign History, Part IV: Put the Action in Perspective

ADDING VALUE TO YOUR CIVIL WAR BATTLE/CAMPAIGN HISTORY

Part IV: Put the Action in Perspective

                Another way to add value to your battle/campaign history is to put the action you are writing about in perspective.  You have probably been reading about battles and campaigns since you were a child.  Make the most of your reading!  The Civil War was neither the first war to occur nor the last, and it had aspects in common with others.  Discussing the respective merits of reinforcing old units (a Confederate preference)  as opposed to forming new ones (a Union tendency), I was able to draw upon Field Marshal von Manstein’s views on the subject as it played out in World War II.  Commenting on the failure of the Secessionists to prevent the Federals from digging in on August 20, 1864, I could shed some light on the problem by quoting Major General von Mellinthin on the perils of allowing Soviets to dig in on the Eastern Front.  Major General J.F.C. Fuller, a British military theoretician, has written several books on Grant and Lee that provide a great many thought-provoking comments.  Robert E. Lee’s narrow turning maneuver at Chancellorsville reminded me of Frederick the Great’s similar movement at Leuthen.  Grant’s wider enveloping movements reminded me of Napoleon’s at Ulm and Jena/Auerstadt.

                Compare, liken, contrast.  Put things in perspective.

ADDING VALUE TO YOUR CIVIL WAR BATTLE/CAMPAIGN HISTORY, Part III: Draw Those Maps!

ADDING VALUE TO YOUR CIVIL WAR BATTLE/CAMPAIGN HISTORY

Part III: Draw Those Maps!

                Yet another way to add value to The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864, was to add more maps, particularly of the first day of Second Deep Bottom, the most critical day of the whole Fourth Offensive.  I had a much clearer idea of troop movements on that day than when I wrote the first edition of my book (The Destruction of the Weldon Railroad: Deep Bottom, Globe Tavern and Reams Station, August 14-25, 1864) more than twenty years ago.  Chris Calkins’ maps for that book were fine—I just did not ask him to draw enough of them.  Hampton Newsome drew six new maps of the first day alone.  We used a combination of the U. S. Geological Service Map and the map drawn by U. S. Army engineers after the War.  The new maps help put Second Deep Bottom into a rightfully more prominent place in the narrative.  As a general principle, the more maps the better.  A lack of maps has always been the main criticism of my Petersburg Campaign.  One day I hope to revise that book, adding a map for every major fight around the Cockade City.  That will involve around thirty maps. 

ADDING VALUE TO YOUR CIVIL WAR BATTLE/CAMPAIGN HISTORY

Part II: Add Human Interest!

Another way to add value to your history of a Civil War battle or campaign is to add more human interest.  Give the reader more details about the men who fought.  Researching online facilitates this. 

Some of the officers and men who participated in the Fourth Offensive at Petersburg struck me as extraordinary.  Colonel John Pulford of the 5^th Michigan Veteran Volunteer Infantry had already suffered multiple wounds when he endured a broken back in the battle of the Wilderness resulting in partially disabled arms.  Nonetheless, Col. Pulford led his regiment at Fussell’s Mill on August 16, 1864, and took command of his brigade when his brigadier, Colonel Calvin A. Craig of the 105^th Pennsylvania, the Wildcat Regiment, was mortally wounded.  Every man of the 5^th Michigan Veteran Volunteers qualified as a hero because they had all reenlisted—the equivalent of soldiers voluntarily serving multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

A Confederate officer who comes to mind immediately was Brig. Gen. John R. Cooke of Heth’s Division, A.P. Hill’s Corps.  By 1864, General Cooke had endured seven wounds and the pain from them made sleep difficult for him, yet he qualified as one of the outstanding brigadiers in the Army of Northern Virginia.

Men just as remarkable stood in the ranks.  Orderly Sergeant Howard Aston of Company F, 13th Ohio Cavalry (dismounted) in Hartranft’s brigade had joined up three times.  Discharged from the 97th Ohio Infantry for heart disease, Aston had reenlisted in the 5th Independent Battalion Ohio Cavalry, and when that term of enlistment expired, in the 13th Ohio Cavalry (dismounted) in Willcox’s division of IX Corps, which helped save the day for the Federals at Globe Tavern on August 19, 1864.

Opposite Aston stood Private George S. Bernard of the Petersburg Riflemen, Company E, 12^th Virginia Infantry—the Petersburg Regiment—in Weisiger’s Brigade of Mahone’s Division, A.P. Hill’s Corps.  Discharged from the 12^th Virginia in 1861 because of illness, Bernard in 1862 reenlisted in the Meherrin Grays, which was assigned to the 12^th Virginia that year.  Wounded and captured at Crampton’s Gap on September 14, 1862, Bernard was exchanged and assigned to recruiting duty.  He rejoined his regiment and transferred back to the Petersburg Riflemen in time for the Chancellorsville Campaign and remained in the ranks until February 6, 1865, when he earned a furlough with another wound. 

Such officers and men would do any army proud.

Postscript to ADDING VALUE TO YOUR CIVIL WAR BATTLE/CAMPAIGN HISTORY, Part I

Another website I drew upon for the revised version of my book on the August 1864 fighting around Petersburg is mainly for Petersburg aficionados--Petropolitans.  The website is www.beyondthecrater.com.  It allows access to official records, maps, letters, diaries, MOLLUS Papers, National Tribune, Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, Southern Historical Society Papers, ConfederateVeterans, other postwar publications, unpublished archival materials and more.