Strangling The Confederacy

A historian and Citadel tactical officer examines the Civil War’s naval conflicts to shed new light on the Union’s vital yet overlooked Anaconda campaign. A selection of the Military Book Club. While the Civil War is mainly remembered for epic land battles, the Union waged an equally important campaign at sea—dubbed “Anaconda”—to gradually deprive the South of industry, commerce, and resources. The Rebels responded with fast ships called blockade runners that tried to evade the Yankee fleets, while at the same time constructing fortifications that could protect the ports themselves. Ultimately, it was this coastal conflict that brought the Confederacy to its knees. In Strangling the Confederacy, historian and Citadel tactical officer Kevin Dougherty examines the Union’s naval actions from Virginia down the Atlantic Coast and through the Gulf of Mexico. The Union’s Navy Board leveraged superior technology, including steam power and rifled artillery, in ways that rendered the Confederate coastal defenses nearly obsolete. But when the Union encountered Confederate resistance at close quarters, the tables were turned—as in the failures at Fort Fisher, the debacle at Battery Wagner, the Battle of Olustee, and in other clashes. Offering a unique perspective, Dougherty concludes that, without knowing it, the Navy Board did an excellent job at following modern military doctrine. While the multitude of small battles that flared along the Rebel coast have been overshadowed by the more titanic inland battles, in a cumulative sense, Anaconda—the most prolonged of the Union campaigns—spelled doom for the Confederacy.

This study is a historical analysis of Confederate Major General John S. Bowen’s delaying action during the Battle of Port Gibson. This research looks at how a numerically inferior force can successfully delay a numerically superior force. This American Civil War battle during the Vicksburg Campaign pitted Bowen’s diminutive forces against the numerically superior Union forces under Major General Ulysses S. Grant. The resulting delaying action on 1 May 1863 is referred to as the Battle of Port Gibson. This successful Confederate delaying action has been overlooked in many historical contexts. Most historians emphasize Grant’s audacity in conducting an amphibious operation south of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Confederate perspective is often referred to as a gamble. Yet, against the odds, Bowen masterfully deployed his numerically inferior force to delay a Union force four times larger. Bowen’s forces effectively utilized the terrain to buy precious time for the arrival of additional reinforcements from the Vicksburg garrison. Bowen welded his composite division into a formidable fighting force. Confederate battle tactics were characterized by a strong sense of urgency and superb leadership. Bowen yielded to superior Union forces after a protracted day of bitter fighting.

Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History explores the events, policies, activities, institutions, groups, people, and movements that have created and shaped political life in the United States. With contributions from scholars in the fields of history and political science, this seven-volume set provides students, researchers, and scholars the opportunity to examine the political evolution of the United States from the 1500s to the present day. With greater coverage than any other resource, the Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History identifies and illuminates patterns and interrelations that will expand the reader’s understanding of American political institutions, culture, behavior, and change. Focusing on both government and history, the Encyclopedia brings exceptional breadth and depth to the topic with more than 100 essays for each of the critical time periods covered.

Malvern Hill, Run Up To Gettysburg is a history of the American Civil War, the battles, and the men who fought them. The book is distinguished by its effort to give equal attention to some of the lesser-known battles and unfamiliar actors, as well as some of the less publicized events that occurred off the battlefield. The book takes a critical look at the leaders on both sides and their decisions on the battlefield and the impact of those decisions on the lives of their men and the progress of war itself.

"In 1923, the Southern Historical Society (SHS) published 'Proceedings of the Confederate Congress' in its journal, Southern Historical Society Papers. It was the first of nine issues containing congressional minutes from the public sessions of the Confederate Congress that met in Richmond, Virginia from February 1862 to March 1865. Unlike the summary notations of the official US congressional journals, the 'Proceedings' were drawn primarily from the archives of two newspapers from Richmond, Virginia-the Examiner and the Dispatch-which served the Confederacy's capital city. These journalists['] reports preserved nearly verbatim transcripts of speeches, debates, and bills considered by the Confederate legislature, including details seldom available from other sources, and have proven to be invaluable sources for Confederate political history. 'Proceedings of the Confederate Congress' is not without problems, however, chief among them its lack of completeness. Owing to budgetary constraints and lack of resources, SHS president Douglas Southall Freeman was forced to focus exclusively on the sessions of the Regular Confederate Congress beginning in 1862. None of the proceedings of the Montgomery and Richmond Provisional Congresses of 1861 and 1862 were included in the series. With 'Congress of States,' David Carlson fills this void by compiling and editing the minutes of these early legislative sessions from daily press reports published in newspapers in Richmond, Virginia; Montgomery, Alabama; Charleston, South Carolina; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Savannah and Augusta, Georgia, in the process assembling a complete set of transcriptions documenting the creation of the Confederate government. When delegations from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and, later, Texas met in Montgomery, Alabama in February 1861 to discuss the creation of a southern national government, none had been authorized to do so by the conventions that sent them. Within weeks, however, they launched a de facto constitutional convention, formed a government, and selected Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens to serve as president and vice president of the new nation. This transpired at a critical juncture prior to Abraham Lincoln's first inauguration when eight other slave states had yet to act. The delegates understood their place on the public stage and newspapers' usefulness in espousing and galvanizing their cause. From its initial formation through the expansion of the Confederacy and the new government's official establishment in the capital city of Richmond, Virginia, the Provisional Congress provided a vehicle around which the new nation coalesced as members negotiated with states and foreign governments, mobilized a military, consulted with constituents, and forged a national culture. As the conflict deepened, sensitive business increasingly took place behind closed doors away from the public, reporters, and the risk of espionage (as would also be true in the Regular Confederate Congress), but even the public functions that remained and were reported on in open chambers provide valuable insights into the workings and mindset of the Confederate government. Intended as a primary source and reference for libraries, historians, and political scientists of the nineteenth century, 'Congress of States' provides an introduction explaining the Provisional Confederate Congress and the background and purpose of the book relative to the SHS and its 'Proceedings of the Confederate Congress'; a chronology outlining the major events surrounding the secession crisis which informed and influenced the Provisional Congress; annotated minutes for each of Provisional Confederate Congress's five sessions; and appendices featuring the leadership and committees of the Provisional Congress, primary source documents referenced but not included in the proceedings, and examples of the proposed emblem and flags debated as symbols of the Confederacy"--

In this account of the bloodiest war fought on American soil, Brooks Simpson recounts the events of the war from the opening salvo at Fort Sumter through the battlefields of Gettysburg and Shiloh to the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House. A History of the Civil War brings to life the realities of the war and the people who lived through it. It explains how the politics around slavery led to an unbridgeable divide between North and South and examines the strategies that led to the Union's eventual victory in 1865.