Signal Corps Enhances American Civil War Essay

Life during the Civil War was not a pleasant time. There was basically utter chaos

The name Civil War is misleading because the war was not a class struggle, but a sectional combat, having its roots in political, economic, social, and psychological elements. It has been characterized, in the words of William H. Seward, as the “irrepressible conflict.” In another judgment the Civil War was viewed as criminally stupid, an unnecessary bloodletting brought on by arrogant extremists and blundering politicians. Both views accept the fact that in 1861 there existed a situation that, rightly or wrongly, had come to be regarded as insoluble by peaceful means.

No other war seems to hold our focus like the Civil War. Scholars have chosen to make it their life's work, authors have written reams about it, and we all feel some kind of connection to the Civil War. This paper was created to highlight some of the major battles that took place during that conflict. Major battles usually marked a drastic change in the momentum from one side to the other or led to massive losses of troops. These battles and their results all played a huge part in the outcome of the war.

This paper will examine the Battle of Fredericksburg through the research of analytical papers, historical articles and technical reports by conducting the four steps of battle analysis. It will analyze the effects of the use and dismissal of intelligence assets and disciplines when applied to the planning of a territorial battle campaign. Using terrain analysis it will discuss how the choice of advantageous terrain can sway the outcome of a battle. It will also discuss how timing and momentum can be critical to our overall military planning. Finally, it will present an alternative outcome to the battle by establishing the utilization of intelligence assets available to both commanding generals and how altering critical decision points would have presented a significantly different result.

Technology has not only significantly improved daily life, but it has also changed warfare. In the 1860’s, controversies of the practice of slavery, westward expansion, and political authorities caused high tensions between the Northern Union and the Southern Confederacy. As the tensions built up, the Civil War began on April 12th, 1861 after the secession of the Southern states. Determining the independence of the Confederacy and the fate of the Union, the Civil War was a period of major technological transformation. In 1865, the Union officially won the Civil War with advantages such as industrialization, a larger population, and most importantly, technological innovations. Advancement in technology, such as the telegraph, railroads, and rifles, effectively changed the Northern military strategies by establishing a rapid network of communication, providing an efficient and safe system of transportation, and improving the performance of the weapons.

The war, however, was not won on attitude and preparedness alone. Military leadership played a large role in winning the war. The land advantage went to the Confederacy at the beginning of the war as it did not need to conquer the North. It could win the war simply by defending its territory and by waiting for the North to become discouraged. Fighting in the South also provided an advantage to the Confederacy as the men were fighting on their own land and had a better knowledge of it than the Yankees as well as a better incentive to defend it against invasion (Perman, 235). Confederate General Robert E. Lee managed to outmatch almost every Union general with the exception of Ulysses S. Grant, who eventually overcame Lee by force of numbers and determination of will. The fatal flaw of Lee was that he held on to the belief that his army would win the war in a single,

Civil War historians view the Battle of Chancellorsville as General Robert E. Lee’s “greatest and most remarkable” victory (Sears 1). Lee, facing an army twice his size, defies all military doctrine and divides his army multiple times in order to out-maneuver and surprise the Union forces. The daring maneuver succeeds and ultimately forces the Union’s Army of the Potomac to retreat. The victory was another major blow to Union troops, but it came at a huge cost to the Confederacy: the loss of General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. By evaluating the battle through the lens of the mission command activities, one can see how Lee’s daring maneuver was actually very calculated and his only option for victory. Throughout the rest of this paper, I will describe the timeline of the battle and how General Lee used the mission command activities of understand, visualize, assess, and lead to ultimately achieve victory at Chancellorsville.

The famous Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1 to July 3 of 1863 in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle proved to show the most casualties of the entire war and resulted in a crushing defeat of the Confederates. The Battle of Gettysburg is generally considered to be the turning point of the American Civil War. This paper will demonstrate the various reasons as to why the Confederates, led by General Robert E. Lee, were unsuccessful in the Battle of Gettysburg during their invasion of the north. General Lee’s over-confidence, the confederate army’s disorganization and failed coordination, and the shift of intelligence all contributed to the crushing defeat of the confederates at Gettysburg. Following his

Here, as well, the Confederate army was at a disadvantage: They lacked the technological and industrial ability to conduct such a large-scale communication campaign” (Civil War Technology 2). Though these types of innovations changed the way wars are fought they also changed daily life. “Even more important were the technologies that did not specifically have to do with the war, like the railroad and the telegraph. Innovations like these did not just change the way people fought wars–they also changed the way people lived” (1). One other thing, the Union Army had established an entire government office dealing with the telegraph system and had trained many operators. “In 1861, the Union Army established the U.S. Military Telegraph Corps, led by a young railroad man named Andrew Carnegie. The next year alone, the U.S.M.T.C. trained 1,200 operators, strung 4,000 miles of telegraph wire and sent more than a million messages to and from the battlefield” (3). The telegraph was “the way” to communicate before the later invention of the telephone. “Also, there was a telegraph service for people to communicate before the invention of the telephone around 1900” (Dorr 2). It is clear that, the telegraph really helped the North get an edge on the South.

The Battle of Antietam could have been a devastating and fatal blow to the Confederate Army if Gen. McClellan acted decisively, took calculated risks, and veered away from his cautious approach to war. There are many instances leading up to the battle and during the battle in which he lacks the necessary offensive initiative to effectively cripple and ultimately win the war. This paper is intended to articulate the failure of Mission Command by GEN McClellan by pointing out how he failed to understand, visualize, describe and direct the battlefield to his benefit.

The Civil War of America has been discussed as the first modern war of the new industrial age. Army’s of such a large size had yet to meet head on, face to face in the battle field with weapons of such mass destruction and deadly force. America had not yet seen casualties of this magnitude to

As commanders understand the operational environment and the problem, they can begin visualizing the desired end state and solutions to solving the problem.6 After noticing that Confederate artillery fire had slackened, COL Chamberlain’s experience told him that Confederate troops were coming and quickly began to envision an operational approach that would achieve his desired end state to hold his position on the far left of Little Round Top. Through his critical and creative thinking, COL Chamberlain showed a skill common within good tactical leaders. He mentally visualized possible countermoves against imagined threats to his unit. While analyzing the terrain he could see that the 83rd Pennsylvania was forming on his right but there was nothing at all on his left. COL Chamberlain could see a dark bulk of a larger hill to the left of his men and determined that if the Confederates got an artillery battery on its crest the Confederates could take Little Round Top and subsequently drive off the Union Army. Visualizing how this could affect his desired end state, COL Chamberlain decided that he would send a company to the 20th Maine’s

Wayne Wei-Siang Hsieh is a professor of history at the United States Naval Academy, his work, West Pointers and the Civil War, attempts to explain the development of both Union and Confederate armies during the American Civil War. He begins with examining the development of the U.S. Army between the War of 1812 and the Mexican War. Citing the need and development of a, albeit small, professional Army following the tactical embarrassments of the war with Britain. Hsieh explains how, after the reforms that followed the War of 1812, the U.S. Army was able to attain a decisive victory against Mexico in 1846. In the post Mexican War there were changes, if not straight creation, of infantry, artillery, and cavalry doctrine. This doctrine developed

In 1861, the American Civil War commenced after many years of tension building between the Northern and Southern states. The main reason of the tension was said to be the debate of slavery between the North and South, and although some documents support this claim, it is false. The war had been brewing since 1607, before slavery was even introduced to the colonies that would become the United States of America. The debate of slavery did play a major part in the civil war; however it did so in supporting the true cause of the civil war. The main cause of the American Civil War was not the debate of slavery, but rather Europe’s role in the American economy.

Examining the battle form a Principles of War standpoint, we can examine how a few principles became decisive factors in the battle, or how their lack of use prevented success in some cases. An important principle was Mass, in so far as the Confederacy was better able to employ this principle than the Army of the Potomac. On the first day of fighting, the confederacy was successfully able to employ their units against Union defenses, forcing the Union forces to retreat (Vossler 53).