I need to visit Virginia, Maryland and Gettysburg.
I thought this year was the best excuse with the 150th anniversary in July, but I can’t with work.
I will come when I am an old man.
I have visited Pea Ridge Battle Field, it’s a great park. The area is still very isolated and is considered one of the best undisturbed Civil War Battle Fields.
I have often wondered how a Southern Victory at Pea Ridge would effect the War in the West.
By all accounts it should have been.
Van Dorn’s numerical superiority was an advantage few Southern armies ever had. Half his troops were above average quality too. The fault lies with the commander. His plan based on speed did not count on Curtis’ subordinates’ improvisation. Excepting Sigel they all performed well and as we know the South lost the most influential and revered one early on, then his replacement. Not knowing one of his staff had sent his spare ammo and supplies back is inexcusable. On the second day the Union artillery bettered the Southern one, because of this.
Van Dorn’s holding back the final assault with fresh troops saved Curtis’ Army of the Southwest; it still mystifies today as it was so out of character for the ever impetuous former Cavalry Captain.
A victory would have been a precursor to a Northern incursion into now enemy Missouri.
The administration would have still wanted Van Dorn’s army over the Mississippi, but it would have been hard to argue with a victorious one. I suspect Lee would have suggested to Davis rhat the army be used in such an agressive manner as it could have caused the recall of tens of thousands of Nortgern troops to counter a possible assault on St Louis or Cairo.
In the early days of the war the fear of the unknown was always on politicians’ minds.
@wittmann:
I need to visit Virginia, Maryland and Gettysburg.
I thought this year was the best excuse with the 150th anniversary in July, but I can’t with work.
I will come when I am an old man.
You’re ALREADY an old man! So you might as well come now! LOL…
I omitted: rich(old man).
I was born old. Have never been reckless with money and always saved, so it really is because I expect to be unemployed(thanks Al!)and I cannot justify blowing 3k off savings on a week long holiday.
Oh, and I am scared of loving it so much that I do not want to come back: I would sign up for yearly reenactments of Civil War battles and stop playing A&A!
I cannot justify blowing 3k off savings on a week long holiday.
So two weeks it is……
Just DO IT.
Surely someone at A&A.org lives near there locally, and could house you for the period.
I would not come without trying to meet a few of you and have many sites to see that I would not regret coming.
One day. I mean it.
@wittmann:
Thank you both. US Civil War is my favourite history subject. I only wish I had read more about Napoleon’s campaigns. I know next to nothing about them.
As a Civil War enthusiast, you may know more about the Napoleonic Wars than you realize. One of the factors which produced such large battlefield casualties during the Civil War was that the two sides (at least initially) used formations and tactics which resembled those of the Napoleonic era: massed infantry moving across open terrain. This was fine at Waterloo, in the days of short-range smoothbore muskets which had a range of about 200 yards: advancing men could cross that distance in a minute or two, and thus would only face a couple of volleys before being reaching the other side’s lines. In the Civil War, however, the primary firearm was the rifled musket, which had an aimed-fire range of about half a mile. It took a while for both sides to realize that Napoleonic formations and offensive tactics could be suicidal when used to attack a defender armed with a long-range rifle which gave him the opportunity to fire multiple volleys against such concentrated targets – especially when the defender is able to fire from good cover, as was the case at Antietam where the Confederates made good use of a sunken road for this purpose.
True. Well said.
I meant smaller details of the battles and the senior commanders, rather than just a few names.
They were colossal affairs and so much was decided on one battle.
In the US Civil War both sides would lick their wounds and go again!
