Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.
Review the assigments listed for last week. You may find it useful to
look at the USMA maps of Chancellorsville, 1800 hours, 2 May 1863 and the
USMA maps of Gettysburg for
1800 hours, 1 July,
1530 hours, 2 July,
and
1430 hours, 3 July,
Blood and Iron in Summer 1863.
Study the USMA maps of Grant's army crossing the Mississippi and Advancing on
Jackson, the advance on Vicksburg, and Rosecrans' Army's advance on Tullahoma and his army's
Advance on Chattanooga. For each map, consider the
role of supply lines and terrain as each army advanced or retreated.
Draft Riots and Remembering Gettysburg.
Read Burton, Age of Lincoln, chapter 9. Explore the City
University of New York's N.Y. Draft Riots website.
Explore the Library of Congress's Gettysburg Address Exhibit, giving special attention to the drafts and their differences.
Implications of Cotton Diplomacy.
Examine this chart
of British Cotton Imports, paying close attention to the changes over
time in the relative share supplied by the various countries. Read the short
discussion of the Bombay cotton
boom on the Mumbai History website. Read the final paragraphs of the Dynasty of Mohammed Ali
Pasha web page on Arabnet, describing the impact of the American war on
Egyptian politics.
Chickamauga: Death Without Meaning?
Read Stephen Woodworth, Six Armies in Tennessee, preface through
chapter five. Look over the USMA Atlas map of the Chickamauga Battlefield, paying particular attention to
the role of hilly terrain in the west and access to the city of Chattanooga,
to the North. Read Sam Watkins' account of
Chickamauga, from Company Aytch, Chapter IX. Read the report of William Grose regarding unburied U.S.
dead on the Chickamauga battlefield.
Some possible study questions: (a) What does Woodworth think of Bragg and his subordinates? Of Rosecrans and his subordinates? What explains their limitations and command failures? (b) How successfully does Woodworth meet Keegan's tests for a realistic battle narrative? (c) Pick one of the five chapters. As with the Ayers book, skim a page or two of the footnotes. (Feel free to use the Ayers classification of statistics, letters and diaries, soldiers individual records, official military records and correspondence , maps and images, church records, census and tax records, or newspapers.) Assess the backgrounds and viewpoints of the people who created the sources he uses (and does not use). Are the voices predominantly old, young, or middle-aged? White, black, or other ethnic? Male or Female? Slave or free? Wealthy, middling, or poor? Literate or illiterate? Officer or enlisted? What seem to be their political orientations? Are they predominantly from the country, from the towns, or from cities? Are there any international sources or context, and should there be? (d)The vast majority of the soldiers in Rosecrans' Army of the Cumberland were from the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. These states were all predominantly agricultural, had strongly competitive Democratic parties, and were committed to segregation, exclusion, or colonization in their racial attitudes. How, if at all, did that affect the Tullahoma and Chickamauga campaigns? (e) Why did both sides decide to start the fight at Chickamauga? Why did they continue it? Who won?
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Note: The instructor reserves the right to change any provisions, due dates, grading percentages, or any other items without prior notice. All assignments on this schedule are covered under the university's policy on plagiarism and academic integrity. See the syllabus statement for further details. This page was last updated on 4/16/2008.
