Historical Background
Lincoln and other Northern politicians wanted General George B. McClellan to follow up the narrow Union victory at Antietam with another, more substantial victory over General Robert E. Lee's army. When McClellan failed to set his army in motion, Lincoln replaced him with General Ambrose Burnside.
Burnside knew he had two choices: strike off for the fertile Shenandoah Valley, and disrupt Lee's food supplies and supply routes, or cross the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg, Virginia and set off towards Richmond. Because a move towards Fredericksburg would keep the bulk of the Union Army between Lee and Washington, D.C., Burnside chose to set off in that direction.
Results of the Battle
CSA- 78,000 troops available for battle
608 men killed in action or mortally wounded
4,116 men wounded
653 men captured or missing in action
5,377 casualties total (7% of total troops engaged)
USA- 117,000 troops available for battle
1,284 men killed in action or mortally wounded
9,600 men wounded
1,769 men captured or missing in action
12,653 casualties total (11% of total troops engaged)
The Battle of Fredericksburg was a clear statistical victory for the CSA, although General Lee regretted not being able to more greatly hinder his opponent's retreat across the Rappahannock River. It was also a clear strategic and tactical triumph for General Lee, whose placement of artillery and infantry made it well-nigh impossible for Burnside to actually take those positions. But it didn't end Union attempts to move towards Richmond- those would resume with a vengeance in the spring of 1863.
Abbreviations
HG—History, Geography, & Travel Room (Central Library)
ST—Stacks (Central Library)
Books about the Fredericksburg Campaign and Battle
Catton, Bruce. Glory Road: The Bloody Route from Fredericksburg to Gettysburg. London: White Lion Publishers, 1977. ST-973.74
Cullen, Joseph P. The Battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House, Where a Hundred Thousand Fell. Washington: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, 1966. ST-973.73
Fredericksburg. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1997. ST-973.733
Goolrick, William K. Rebels Resurgent: Fredericksburg to Chancellorsville. Alexandria, Va: Time-Life Books, 1985. ST-973.733
Henderson, G F. R. The Campaign of Fredericksburg, Nov-Dec., 1862: A Tactical Study for Officers. London: Chatham, Gale & Polden, 1891. ST-973.73
Mackowski, Chris, and Kristopher D. White. Simply Murder: The Battle of Fredericksburg. S.l.: s.n., 2012. HG-973.733
Stackpole, Edward J. Drama on the Rappahannock: the Fredericksburg Campaign. Harrisburg, Pa: Military Publishing Co., 1957. ST-973.73
Sutherland, Daniel E. Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville: The Dare Mark Campaign. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. ST-973.733
Whan, Vorin E. Fiasco at Fredericksburg. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1961. ST-973.73
Wren, James, and John M. Priest. From New Bern to Fredericksburg: Captain James Wren's Diary : B Company, 48th Pennsylvania Volunteers, February 20, 1862-December 17, 1862. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Pub. Co, 1990. ST-973.748
Showing posts with label Virginia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Virginia. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
READING LISTS--CIVIL WAR BATTLES, PT. 1
THE BATTLE OF 1st BULL RUN (aka FIRST MANASSAS)
PLACE: Manassas Junction, Virginia
DATE: July 21, 1861
COMMANDERS
CSA: Pierre G. T. Beauregard
Joseph Johnston
USA: Irvin McDowell
TROOPS INVOLVED
CSA: 32,500 troops available for battle (18, 053 actually involved in the fighting)
387 men killed in action or mortally wounded
1,582 men wounded
13 men captured or missing in action
1,982 casualties total
USA: 35,000 troops available for battle (18,572 actually involved in the fighting)
460 men killed in action or mortally wounded
1,124 men wounded
1,312 men captured or missing in action
2,996 casualties total
BOOKS OF INTEREST
Ballard, Ted. Battle of 1st Bull Run. Washington, DC: Center for Military History, 2007. DO- D114.12: B32/2.
Davis, William C. Battle at Bull Run: A History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1977. ST-973.731
Detzer, David. Donnybrook: The Battle of Bull Run, 1861. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2004. HG-973.731
First Manassas. Arlington, VA: Time-Life Books, 1997. ST,MA-973.731
Johnston, R. M. Bull Run: Its Strategy and Tactics. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913. ST-973.73
McDonald, JoAnna M. Give Them the Bayonet! A Guide to the Battle for Henry Hill, July 21, 1861. Shippensburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 1999. ST-973.731
McDonald, JoAnna M. “We Shall Meet Again”: the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run), July 18-21, 1861. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Books, 1999. ST-973.731
Nofi, Albert A. The Opening Guns: Fort Sumter to Bull Run, 1861. NY: Gallery Books, 1988. ST-973.731
Rafuse, Ethan S. A Single Grand Victory: The First Campaign and Battle of Manassas. Wilmington, Del: SR Books, 2002. HG-973.731
Roman, Alfred. The Military Operations of General Beauregard in the War Between the States, 1861 to 1865: Including a Brief Personal Sketch and a Narrative of His Services in the War with Mexico, 1846-8. NY: Harper, 1883. ST-973.73302
Wheeler, Richard. A Rising Thunder: From Lincoln's Election to the Battle of Bull Run : an Eyewitness History. NY: HarperCollins, 1994. ST-973.73
PLACE: Manassas Junction, Virginia
DATE: July 21, 1861
COMMANDERS
CSA: Pierre G. T. Beauregard
Joseph Johnston
USA: Irvin McDowell
TROOPS INVOLVED
CSA: 32,500 troops available for battle (18, 053 actually involved in the fighting)
387 men killed in action or mortally wounded
1,582 men wounded
13 men captured or missing in action
1,982 casualties total
USA: 35,000 troops available for battle (18,572 actually involved in the fighting)
460 men killed in action or mortally wounded
1,124 men wounded
1,312 men captured or missing in action
2,996 casualties total
BOOKS OF INTEREST
Ballard, Ted. Battle of 1st Bull Run. Washington, DC: Center for Military History, 2007. DO- D114.12: B32/2.
Davis, William C. Battle at Bull Run: A History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1977. ST-973.731
Detzer, David. Donnybrook: The Battle of Bull Run, 1861. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2004. HG-973.731
First Manassas. Arlington, VA: Time-Life Books, 1997. ST,MA-973.731
Johnston, R. M. Bull Run: Its Strategy and Tactics. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913. ST-973.73
McDonald, JoAnna M. Give Them the Bayonet! A Guide to the Battle for Henry Hill, July 21, 1861. Shippensburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 1999. ST-973.731
McDonald, JoAnna M. “We Shall Meet Again”: the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run), July 18-21, 1861. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Books, 1999. ST-973.731
Nofi, Albert A. The Opening Guns: Fort Sumter to Bull Run, 1861. NY: Gallery Books, 1988. ST-973.731
Rafuse, Ethan S. A Single Grand Victory: The First Campaign and Battle of Manassas. Wilmington, Del: SR Books, 2002. HG-973.731
Roman, Alfred. The Military Operations of General Beauregard in the War Between the States, 1861 to 1865: Including a Brief Personal Sketch and a Narrative of His Services in the War with Mexico, 1846-8. NY: Harper, 1883. ST-973.73302
Wheeler, Richard. A Rising Thunder: From Lincoln's Election to the Battle of Bull Run : an Eyewitness History. NY: HarperCollins, 1994. ST-973.73
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
READING LISTS-- CIVIL WAR GENERALS, PT. 12
Thomas Jonathan (“Stonewall”) Jackson was born in Clarksburg, Virginia (now West Virginia) in 1824. His father and older sister died of typhoid fever when Jackson was just two years old. His mother raised Jackson and two siblings by herself until she was able to remarry in 1830. His new stepfather did not like his stepchildren, however, and they were sent to live with an uncle when Jackson’s mother died in 1831. Jackson’s older brother, Warren, died of tuberculosis in 1841.
Jackson was mostly self-educated when he managed to secure admission to West Point in 1842. He began his schooling there in last place academically, but through sheer determination and hard work managed to graduate 17th in a class of 52. He participated in the Mexican-American War as an artillery officer, and received two brevet promotions for bravery, as well as a Regular Army promotion to 1st Lieutenant.
He left the army to teach at Virginia Military Institute in 1851. Jackson was not popular with his students, because he memorized his lectures and delivered them verbatim in class. If a student asked a question, he simply backed up and repeated that part of the lecture. He also taught Sunday School for black persons at the local Presbyterian Church, and was apparently very popular with those students. He owned six slaves, but was widely known as a “fair and humane” master.
Jackson supervised a contingent of VMI artillerists during the 1859 hanging of John Brown. When war broke out, Virginia Governor John Letcher appointed him a Colonel. Jackson organized the military unit that would later be named after him: the Stonewall Brigade. He was known as a rigid disciplinarian, but was nonetheless popular with most of his men because he was personally fearless, and because his methods seemed to work.
He earned his nickname at First Bull Run, where another general rallied his own troops by saying, “There stands Jackson like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians!” His direction of his troops on the battlefield had made him a legend by the time he was wounded in an accidental shooting by his own men on the Chancellorsville battlefield (2 May 1863). His left arm had to be amputated, and he died of complications from pneumonia on 10 May 1863. His wife, Mary Anna, moved to North Carolina but never remarried. She was known as the Widow of the Confederacy, and died in 1915.
Alexander, Bevin. Lost Victories: The Military Genius of Stonewall Jackson. New York: Holt, 1992. HG-973.73092
Cozzens, Peter. Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008. ST,BU-973.732
Davis, Don. Stonewall Jackson. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. HU-B JACKSON
Gallagher, Gary W. Lee and His Generals in War and Memory. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. ST-973.73013
Hamlin, Augustus C. The Battle of Chancellorsville: The Attack of Stonewall Jackson and His Army Upon the Right Flank of the Army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville, Virginia, on Saturday Afternoon, May 2, 1863. Bangor, Me: The author, 1896. ST-973.733
Johnson, Clint. In the Footsteps of Stonewall Jackson. Winston-Salem, N.C: John F. Blair, 2002. CB-917.540444
Krick, Robert K. Conquering the Valley: Stonewall Jackson at Port Republic. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002. ST-973.732
Krick, Robert K. The Smoothbore Volley That Doomed the Confederacy: The Death of Stonewall Jackson and Other Chapters on the Army of Northern Virginia. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002. ST-973.7455
Redwood, Allen C. Stonewall: Memories from the Ranks. Livermore, Maine: Signal Tree Publications, 1998. ST-B JACKSON
Robertson, James I. Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend. New York: Macmillan Pub. USA, 1997. ST-B JACKSON
Jackson was mostly self-educated when he managed to secure admission to West Point in 1842. He began his schooling there in last place academically, but through sheer determination and hard work managed to graduate 17th in a class of 52. He participated in the Mexican-American War as an artillery officer, and received two brevet promotions for bravery, as well as a Regular Army promotion to 1st Lieutenant.
He left the army to teach at Virginia Military Institute in 1851. Jackson was not popular with his students, because he memorized his lectures and delivered them verbatim in class. If a student asked a question, he simply backed up and repeated that part of the lecture. He also taught Sunday School for black persons at the local Presbyterian Church, and was apparently very popular with those students. He owned six slaves, but was widely known as a “fair and humane” master.
Jackson supervised a contingent of VMI artillerists during the 1859 hanging of John Brown. When war broke out, Virginia Governor John Letcher appointed him a Colonel. Jackson organized the military unit that would later be named after him: the Stonewall Brigade. He was known as a rigid disciplinarian, but was nonetheless popular with most of his men because he was personally fearless, and because his methods seemed to work.
He earned his nickname at First Bull Run, where another general rallied his own troops by saying, “There stands Jackson like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians!” His direction of his troops on the battlefield had made him a legend by the time he was wounded in an accidental shooting by his own men on the Chancellorsville battlefield (2 May 1863). His left arm had to be amputated, and he died of complications from pneumonia on 10 May 1863. His wife, Mary Anna, moved to North Carolina but never remarried. She was known as the Widow of the Confederacy, and died in 1915.
Alexander, Bevin. Lost Victories: The Military Genius of Stonewall Jackson. New York: Holt, 1992. HG-973.73092
Cozzens, Peter. Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008. ST,BU-973.732
Davis, Don. Stonewall Jackson. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. HU-B JACKSON
Gallagher, Gary W. Lee and His Generals in War and Memory. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. ST-973.73013
Hamlin, Augustus C. The Battle of Chancellorsville: The Attack of Stonewall Jackson and His Army Upon the Right Flank of the Army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville, Virginia, on Saturday Afternoon, May 2, 1863. Bangor, Me: The author, 1896. ST-973.733
Johnson, Clint. In the Footsteps of Stonewall Jackson. Winston-Salem, N.C: John F. Blair, 2002. CB-917.540444
Krick, Robert K. Conquering the Valley: Stonewall Jackson at Port Republic. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002. ST-973.732
Krick, Robert K. The Smoothbore Volley That Doomed the Confederacy: The Death of Stonewall Jackson and Other Chapters on the Army of Northern Virginia. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002. ST-973.7455
Redwood, Allen C. Stonewall: Memories from the Ranks. Livermore, Maine: Signal Tree Publications, 1998. ST-B JACKSON
Robertson, James I. Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend. New York: Macmillan Pub. USA, 1997. ST-B JACKSON
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
READING LISTS-- CIVIL WAR GENERALS, PT. 3
Irvin McDowell (1818-1885) was a Civil War general who commanded Union Army forces at the Battle of 1st Bull Run (July 21, 1861.
Davis, William C. Battle at Bull Run: A History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1977. [ST-973.731]
Detzer, David. Dissonance: The Turbulent Days between Fort Sumter and Bull Run. Orlando: Harcourt, 2006. [BU, HG-973.731]
Detzer, David. Donnybrook: The Battle of Bull Run, 1861. Orlando, Fla: Harcourt, 2004. [HG-973.731]
Hennessy, John J. Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. [BU, ST-973.732]
McDonald, JoAnna M. Give Them the Bayonet! A Guide to the Battle for Henry Hill, July 21, 1861 : a Walking Tour. Shippensburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 1999. [ST-973.731]
McDonald, JoAnna M. We Shall Meet Again: The First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run), July 18-21, 1861. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Books, 1999. [ST-973.731]
Nofi, Albert A. The Opening Guns: Fort Sumter to Bull Run, 1861. New York, N.Y: Gallery Books, 1988. [ST-973.731]
Rafuse, Ethan S. A Single Grand Victory: The First Campaign and Battle of Manassas. Wilmington, Del: SR Books, 2002. [ST-973.731]
Wert, Jeffry D. The Sword of Lincoln: The Army of the Potomac. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. [HG-973.7341]
Wheeler, Richard. A Rising Thunder: From Lincoln's Election to the Battle of Bull Run : an Eyewitness History. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1994. [ST-973.73]
Davis, William C. Battle at Bull Run: A History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1977. [ST-973.731]
Detzer, David. Dissonance: The Turbulent Days between Fort Sumter and Bull Run. Orlando: Harcourt, 2006. [BU, HG-973.731]
Detzer, David. Donnybrook: The Battle of Bull Run, 1861. Orlando, Fla: Harcourt, 2004. [HG-973.731]
Hennessy, John J. Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. [BU, ST-973.732]
McDonald, JoAnna M. Give Them the Bayonet! A Guide to the Battle for Henry Hill, July 21, 1861 : a Walking Tour. Shippensburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 1999. [ST-973.731]
McDonald, JoAnna M. We Shall Meet Again: The First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run), July 18-21, 1861. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Books, 1999. [ST-973.731]
Nofi, Albert A. The Opening Guns: Fort Sumter to Bull Run, 1861. New York, N.Y: Gallery Books, 1988. [ST-973.731]
Rafuse, Ethan S. A Single Grand Victory: The First Campaign and Battle of Manassas. Wilmington, Del: SR Books, 2002. [ST-973.731]
Wert, Jeffry D. The Sword of Lincoln: The Army of the Potomac. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. [HG-973.7341]
Wheeler, Richard. A Rising Thunder: From Lincoln's Election to the Battle of Bull Run : an Eyewitness History. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1994. [ST-973.73]
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