Product Description

WINNER OF THE 1998 PETER SEABORG AWARD

The first in the trilogy, this reexamination of Confederate war aims analyzes the military policy and strategy adopted by Lee. Harsh argues that these policies helped the Confederacy to survive longer than expected and were the policies best designed to win Southern independence.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #756689 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 296 pages

About the Author
Joseph L. Harsh is a professor and former chair of history at George Mason University in Virginia. He is founding president of the Northern Virginia Association of Historians.

Customer Reviews

A window on the mind of Robert E. Lee.
What a fine book. Dr. Harsh proceeds clearly and logically through Lee's early war service, using the general's letters and statements to reveal the development of his strategic thinking. Well written and intelligent, this really is scholarship at at its best. A welcome antidote to the slew of shallowly researched recent titles attacking Lee as overrated. Superb.

In Consideration of Lee and Davis
I had the pleasure of taking Dr. Harsh's Civil War History course at George Mason University. Much of his basis for lectures for that course was the same material used to write this book and its sequel - Taken at the Flood. Dr. Harsh is nothing if not a thorough researcher - with the help of his industrious graduate students of course, serving their terms of indenture in the tombs of the National Archives and the Center of Military History and other suitable manuscript repositories. He has truly wiped the slate clean and started from the point of "What did they know and when did they know it?" He often refers to Lincoln's standard wire to his generals in the field "How does it look now?" He applies that method to analyzing Civil War principals - how did the situation present itself, what information was known or guessed at and when and how did they react to it? You may not agree with all of his conclusions - I certainly do not agree with all of the high praise that he heaps on Jefferson Davis and George McClellan. However, you will have to take his statements under serious consideration, since they are based on solid, academic application of the historical method. He succeeds in stimulating the student to think. He has a special interest in historiography and he makes every effort to avoid preconceptions which are not supported by available facts. This book is certainly a key contribution to understanding the first year of the war from the Confederate strategic perspective. His Taken at the Flood will rapidly become the standard for future studies of the Maryland Campaign of '62. The goods news is that Dr. Harsh will next turn his attention to the Federal side and we will be offered his insight on Lincoln, McClellan et al.

Lee and Davis Making Southern Strategy
Joseph Harsh, the author, analyzes Confederate war strategy from Fort Sumter through the Battle of Second Manassas stating that it was not true that the all the South wanted was "to be left alone." Declaring independence did not guarantee independence, and the author states the South thus "pursued three closely related but distinct war aims: independence, territorial integrity and the union of all the slave states."

The text notes that statistically the South could not win. To overcome the odds, the Confederacy needed to conserve its resources while inflicting unacceptable casualties on the North. The text explains the doctrines of the Swiss military theorist Jomini, the probable basis for Jefferson Davis's doctrine of the "offensive-defense." Davis's doctrine provided a firm strategic framework within which Confederate generals in the field could work. By October 1861, pursuing the offensive-defense considerable progress toward achieving Confederate war aims was made; followed next by reversals of Southern fortunes resulting in part from the failure to continue the policies/strategies that yielded early successes.

On June 1, 1862 Robert E. Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia, when Joseph Johnson was wounded. The offensive-defensive policy was already in practice and was not initiated by Lee as some contend. By "late May 1862, the South had nearly lost the war. Lee knew that Jefferson Davis expected him to go on the offensive to save Richmond and to reclaim Virginia. Harsh also notes "Lee chose the offensive because he wanted to win the war, and he thought it offered the only chance. He believed the defensive was the sure path to defeat." His first response was the Seven Days Battle, whose strategy/execution contained errors, but nevertheless relieved the pressure on Richmond.

The author gives an excellent account of the strategic/tactical problems during the Seven Days Campaign and the events leading to the Battle of Second Manassas. Richmond was a major railroad center, banking center, manufacturing center, milling center and its lost would have been serious. It was important that the city is not captured and that Virginia is reclaimed. After the Seven Days Campaign Lee lost the initiative and was in a strategic stalemate that didn't end until Union General McClellan's Army of the Potomac was ordered back to Washington thereby ending the threat to Richmond.

The text gives an excellent account of the development of Lee's field strategies before and throughout the Battle of Second Manassas. The author notes as the battle neared its climax "Lee desperately wanted to finish the task at hand by destroying the army of.... Pope." However a frontal assault was the only option; and Lee couldn't afford the losses a frontal assault would incur. Nonetheless the author notes following the Second Manassas "Through chance, risk and much bloodshed, he and the Army of Northern Virginia were cobbling together the series of rapid victories that might lead to Northern demoralization and Confederate independence." The text ends with the Battle of Second Manassas and closes with six appendixes that discuss strategy questions.

While this an excellent work, my major criticism is an almost total lack of suitable maps. I read the chapters on the Battle of Second Manassas with a copy of Hennessy's book on Second Manassas at hand for its maps. While much can be gained from this book without prior study of the first eighteen months of the Civil War, prior reading of history about the period covered by this book will greatly aid the reader in comprehending Harsh's text.