Civil War Command and Strategy

Jones analyzes the conduct of the American Civil War. He argues that Presidents Lincoln and Davis, and their Generals, showed a firm grasp of established military strategy as well as an ability to innovate. He believes the war was decided by strategic skill rather than industrial might. Jones argues that the industrial dominance of the North was offset by the territorial vastness of the South, the difficulties in supplying a distant army, and by the fact that the man with the rifle was the basic and decisive unit of combat rather than large military machinery. He analyzes a variety of strategic manoeuvres - turns, concentration of forces and raids - and relates them to the outcome of the war.