McWHINEY – JAMIESON : Attack and die (fülszöveg)
"In the first 27 months of combat 175,000 Confederate soldiers died. This number was more than the entire Confederate military force in the summer of 1861, and it far exceeded the strength of any army that Lee ever commanded. More than 80,000 Southerners fell in just five battles. At Gettysburg 3 out of every 10 Confederates were hit; one brigade lost 65% of its men and 70% of its field officers in a single charge. A North Carolina regiment started the action with 800 men; only 216 survived unhurt."
Why did the Confederacy lose so many men? The authors contend that the Confederates bled themselves nearly to death in the first three years of the war by undertaking costly attacks. Offensive tactics, which had been used successfully by Americans in the Mexican War, were much less effective in the 1860s because an improved weapon — the rifle — had given increased strength to defenders.
In examining the Civil War Attack and Die distinguishes Southern from Northern tactics and discusses Confederate military history in the context of Southern social history. Confederate warfare reveals the Southerners of the Civil War generation to have been prisoners of their social and cultural history; they attacked courageously and were killed on battlefields so totally defended by the Federals that "not even a squirrel could have gotten through."
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| KATALÓGUS | TARTALOM |
