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Title: The Politics of Command: Factions and Ideas in Confederate Strategy by Thomas Lawrence Connelly, Archer Jones, Thomas Connell ISBN: 0-8071-2349-8 Publisher: Louisiana State University Press Pub. Date: November, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Fabulous Book on the Inside Details of Politics and Command
Comment: This a truely great work on the politcal behind the scenes aspects of how the Confederate command structure worked under Davis and the military and political opposition groups that festered within. Davis has incredulous feuds with Johnson and particularly Beauraguard to the point of destruction while maintaining an unbending loyalty to Braxton Bragg even when he loses the support of all the generals in the Army of the Tennesee. What developes is a political block of generals that maintain a loose alliance such as Johnson, Beauraguard, Longstreet and Senator Wigfall from Texas. Certianly astonishing about the effect personal dislikes and favoritism had on militarty assignments and strategy. It is interesting that Johnson had significant support from many fields except Davis. One of the great failings of the Confederacy is that they did not have a competent Secretary of the War that was strong enough to work with Davis until Breckenridge took the job too late.

Rating: 5
Summary: When Politics Overtakes Strategy
Comment: One of the most fascinating aspects of the Civil War is the way in which strategy was determined not so much by military necessity as by the interplay of politics and personalities. While this is true of the Union, it seems to be more so of the South. In this slim volume, the authors take the reader through a study of the prevailing strategic thought (Napoleonic/Jominian) and then discuss how this thinking was applied by the major Southern Commanders. Their conclusions: Lee contributed little to the overall strategic thinking of the South; the commanders in the Western theater (Bragg, A.S. Johnston, Joseph Johnston, Beauregard, et al.) may have had a greater conception of the South's stategic requirements; and, Jefferson Davis was caught between the two. The result? Neither Virginia nor the Western theaters got the military treatment that was required for successful war.

Naturally, it is easy to oversimplify these conditions. Yet, the authors demonstrate that Lee, concentrating on the Virginia front, seemed unaware of the Western theater, resisted efforts to strengthen the West through transfers from the Army of Northern Virginia, and continually requested that the Western theater support his operations with either movements of their own or transfers of troops to Virginia. This criticism of Lee is always a touchy issue (see, Joseph Harsh, Confederate Tide Rising for a contrary position).To his credit, Davis resisted all of these requests and, on one occasion, overruled Lee to have Longstreet's corps sent to the West prior to the late 1863 battle of Chicamauga.

Davis, a Westerner himself (Mississippi) faced a formidible group in what the authors call the Western Concentration Bloc, a group united by family or geographical ties and a mutual hatred of Bragg. Among them, Connelly and Jones seem to think of P.G.T. Beauregard as the best of the strategic thinkers. Davis himself added to his own problems with the departmental system, a possibly unnecessary complication added to already complicated command problems.

The authors, having emphasized strategic thought in Chapter 1, do not demonstrate how those strategic theories were applied by the Southerners. Perhaps this is because these theories, in the purest sense, were never applied, except in the desire to concentrate forces, which may in fact have been a function more of theater jealousy rather than application of Jominian doctrine. The student of strategy, academic or armchair, might find a better discussion of this topic in Jones' Civil War Command and Strategy (1992). Even so, this is a well-written study with valuable insights, and certianly rates 5 stars.