Army of the heartland : the Army of Tennessee, 1861-1862 / Thomas Lawrence Connelly.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Connelly, Thomas Lawrence.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Confederate States of America. Army. Department of Tennessee.

Confederate States of America.

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Regimental histories.

United States.

History.

Regimental histories.

Physical Description:

xiv, 305 pages : illustrations, maps. ; 24 cm

Edition:

Louisiana paperback edition.

Place of Publication:

Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 2001.

Summary:

A companion volume to Autumn of Glory -- Most of the Civil War was fought on Southern soil. The responsibility for defending the Confederacy rested with two great military forces. One of these armies defended the "heartland" of the Confederacy--a vital area which embraced the state of Tennessee and large portions of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Kentucky. This is the story of that army--the first detailed study to be based upon research in manuscript collections and the first to explore the military significance of the heartland. The Army of Tennessee faced problems and obstacles far more staggering than any encountered by the other great Confederate force. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Lee's army was charged with the defense of an area considerably smaller in size. And while Lee's line of defense extended only about 125 miles, the front defended by the Army of Tennessee stretched for some 400 miles. Yet the Army of the Heartland has heretofore been given relatively slight attention by historians. With this volume Thomas Lawrence Connelly, a native Tennessean, has brought Confederate military history more nearly into balance. Throughout the war the Army of Tennessee was plagued by ineffective leadership. There were personality conflicts between commanding generals and corps commanders and breakdowns in communications with the Confederate government at Richmond. Lacking the leadership of a Lee, the Army of Tennessee failed to attain a real esprit at the corps level. Instead, the common soldiers, sensing the quarrelsome nature of their leaders, developed at regimental and brigade levels their own peculiar brand of morale which sustained them through continuous defeats. Connelly analyzes the influence and impact of each successive commander of the Army. His conclusions regarding Confederate command and leadership are not the conventional ones.

Contents:

Introduction: The Legacy of the Heartland 3

Part I The Legacy of the Summer

1 The Legacy of Isham Harris 25

2 A Season of Neglect 46

Part II The Tempering of the Johnston Influence

3 An Uncertain Hand 59

4 The Land Between the Rivers 78

5 Tragedy in the Cumberlands 86

Part III The Decline of the Johnston Influence

6 A Season of Blunders 103

7 The Death of an Image 126

Part IV The Beauregard Interlude

8 In Need of a Napoleon 145

9 Another Storm, Another Helmsman 158

Part V The Bragg-Kirby Smith Influence

10 "All Well in Dixie" 187

11 "I Am Not Ambitious" 205

12 A Strange Brand of Cooperation 221

13 "Your Powerful Chief Magistrate" 243

14 Some Truths Become Evident 262.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

080712737X

OCLC:

48783607