How to Lose the Civil War: Military Mistakes of the War Between the States

by Fawcett, Bill

• ISBN13: 9780061807275
• ISBN10: 0061807273
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-03-22
• Publisher: Harpercollins

Summary

Few events in American history loom as large or changed the country as profoundly as the conflict between the Union and Confederacy. No war could be said to have had higher stakes or such a colorful cast of characters whose decisions endangered the continued existence of the American Experiment. With a tounge-in-cheek style How to Lose the Civil War chronicles the thrilling history of the many disastrous decisions made by both sides. Among the catastrophic missteps: bull;Lee Looks Smart Beating a Stupid General: Second Battle of Bull Run bull;Colonel James Ripley And The Union buy inferior rifles bull;Lincoln's long roller coaster search for aggressive, competent Generals bull;General's Lee's failure to exploit the Union at its most desperate and capture Washington, DC bull;The many many many Confederate command failures of Gettysburg bull;The errors of Lincoln's contentious draft policy

Table of Contents

No Rebels in D.C.	p. 1
King Cotton's Tarnished Crown	p. 7
We Don't Need No Stinkin' Feds!	p. 15
The Imperfect Art of the Ironclad	p. 23
Buy American: Colonel Ripley and the English Enfield Rifles	p. 31
Christmas in April	p. 37
Grant's Rouch River Road to the South	p. 45
Lee Looks Smart Beating a Stupid General	p. 57
When Not Losing Is Victory	p. 67
The Campaign for the Big Muddy	p. 77
We Don't Need No Stinkin' Habeas Corpus!	p. 83
Against a Rock and a Hard Place	p. 91
When Second-Best Generals Fight	p. 101
Fighting Joe Hooker Does Everything Except, UM, Fight	p. 109
Take Nothing for Granted	p. 119
Five Generals in Two Years	p. 129
Lee Gambles at the Right Time, in the Wrong Place	p. 137
Two Brigades Wasted	p. 147
Confederate Command Failure	p. 155
General Dan Sickles Proves to Be an Independent Thinker	p. 163
The Amazing Mystery	p. 173
Where in the World is	p. 181
Futile Gallantry on Cemetery Ridge	p. 189
Vainglory: Kilpatrick Orders Farnsworth's Charge	p. 197
Meade Goes Nowhere	p. 205
The Roof Is on Fire!	p. 213
Fight to the Finish at the River of Death	p. 219
Götterdämmerung in Tennessee	p. 227
Jural Early's Pile of Mistakes	p. 237
Throwing a Mule Shoe	p. 245
Grant Smashes Against the New Era of War	p. 251
Butler Gets Lost in the Bermuda Hundred	p. 259
Throw Courage into a Hole	p. 265
The South's Last Stand on the Gulf	p. 273
Horsing Around: The (F)utility of the Cavalry Raid	p. 281
ôUseless, Uselessö	p. 287
Four Great Mistakes and Their Matrices	p. 295
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