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| The Bloody Crucible of Courage: Fighting Methods and Combat Experience of the Civil War | 
 enlarge | Author: Brent Nosworthy
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $7.59
You Save: $14.36 (65%)
Buy New/Used from $2.51
Avg. Customer Rating:  (17 reviews)
Sales Rank: 124748
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 752
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0786715634
Dewey Decimal Number: 973
EAN: 9780786715633
ASIN: 0786715634
Publication Date: March 10, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In this groundbreaking achievement in Civil War scholarship, acclaimed military historian Brent Nosworthy leads an all-out attack on the many myths and misunderstandings about how the North and South fought, and covers for the first time in any book the variety of Civil War combat methods in their entirety. Now everything from grand tactics to hand-to-hand combat during our nation's costliest war is given its proper due in the development of warfare. Nosworthy weaves together the story of newly emerging weapons, the resulting changes in military doctrine, and the combatants' experiences as these innovations were applied to the battlefield. Detailing methods of warfare from General Irvin McDowell's first tentative efforts at Bull Run to Lee's and Grant's final exertions at Petersburg and Appomattox, the author examines tactical variations due to regional differences and the distinctive circumstances of each campaign. Along with maps, diagrams, and illustrations throughout, The Bloody Crucible of Courage recognizes the primacy of the war's most compelling voices, and contains hundreds of firsthand accounts from the front lines.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
Encyclopedic perspective on "fighting methods and combat experience" June 23, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a book that is ambitious--to provide in one volume a comprehensive picture of Civil War combat, including (page x) ". . .the full spectrum of both the fighting methods and the combat experience during the entire Civil War." The volume also explores tactics across the various arms of the military (e.g., artillery, cavalry, and infantry) as well as developing military technology (torpedoes, ironclad war ships, rifled small arms and artillery, early "machine guns," breechloaders, repeating rifles, and so on). In the end, Nosworthy says of the book (page xiii): ". . .not only must it examine how troops prepared and trained for combat, but it also has to take a detailed, structured look at the techniques, practices, and tactics that were actually used during the bloody crucible of battle."
The early part of the book examines developments before the outbreak of the Civil War, such as rifled small arms (and the debate over what the consequences would be for battle tactics), the move to rifled artillery (and the possible implications for combat), origins of ironclad vessels (and, again, the implications for naval tactics). Much of this unfolded on the European continent; Nosworthy does a nice job of relating how military figures debated what the implications of these developments might be for actual combat situations.
Part II outlines the early Civil War, including discussion of the daunting challenge of training a host of raw recruits (on both sides of the conflict), the crazy quilt assemblage of artillery and muskets available to units, and the evidence of poor preparedness of troops and officers exemplified by First Manassas/Bull Run.
Part III focuses on infantry and cavalry, including tactical doctrines developed by European and American military leaders (e.g., the work of Jomini who tried to derive lessons from Napoleon's military exploits). Chapter 12 is interesting, as it depicts the reality of battle from the perspective of the troops involved. The following chapter relates in detail the learning curve of soldiers as they campaigned. Chapter 15 is especially fascinating, as it outlines various perspectives (originating in European military views) on infantry tactics.
And so on.
The concluding Part (Part VII) assesses lessons learned, from the impact of the rifled musket to the bayonet (myth and usefulness) to the effect of repeating rifles and military doctrine in Europe up until the Franco-Prussian War.
The book is not written in a felicitous fashion and there are some questions one might raise. As another reviewer notes, the author continually misuses the term "nonplussed." The author spends time speaking of the mounted arm of the military, including the development of mounted infantry. However, he does not mention Wilder's brigade until the very end, even though his command was one of the best exemplars of this. Despite difficulties, this work provides one of the best discussions of (as the subtitle of the book reads) "fighting methods and combat experience of the Civil War."
 The Bloody Crucible March 21, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Brent Nosworthy has written a long overdue presentation of what many students
of the Civil War have been trying to do in their own minds is:How and Why did
the military operations happen the way they did.Much has been written on the
Men who fought the War but here we can better see what they had to work with
and how theory turned into practice.I think this book will be one of the most
important studies ever written on Civil War Combat.
I liked it...for the most part August 1, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
As the title of this review says, I thought the book was generally pretty informative. The author certainly used some primary source material from obscure encounters in several different theaters of operations to bring home to the reader information not generally read by, I would hazard, even most avid Civil War buffs. I think the review that "Epops" wrote on February 12, 2006, sums up this work as well as any that I read on this forum.
If I had to add a comment though, I would say Nosworthy's incorporation of more obscure engagements adds quite a bit to his thesis by demonstrating the trends in Civil War combat down to even the least significant of encounters. However, unless one is well read in the very battle studies that Nosworthy cites in the conclusion as being fine additions to the academic body of research concerning his topic of battle tactics in the Civil War, I think there is much more he could have added to his narrative, from the more well-known battles alone, that could have gone a long way to bolstering his thesis for not only the avid historian but also the novice.
It is all true July 28, 2006
As advertised above through significant flowery prose, the book is great. This book filled a void for me in providing details about the the 'Nuts and Bolts' of the conflict that I have not seen before or since. It makes the machine of battle the main character and places you in the center of the web to see how it all comes togther.
Top Notch.
Refreshing View from a Civil War Outsider February 13, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Most Civil War historians devote themselves entirely to the late unpleasantness and completely lack a larger tactical context for the war. As a result, most works parrot the same tired old ideas - "Napoleonic tactics used beyond their time" and "the first modern war". Brent Nosworthy has studied tactics of the entire gunpowder era, producing unmatched works on the18th Century and the Napoleonic era showing the complex inter-relations of combat arms and highlighting the importance of the psychology and motivation of individual soldiers. Now, he has given the same sort of treatment to the Civil War. He discusses the European developments in weapons and tactics in the first half of 19th Century. He shows the underappreciated increased lethality of the new combination gun-howitzers with longer range and exploding shells. Discussing the debate on infantry tactics, he shows not only the increased accuracy of rifled muskets - but also the less well publicized negative effects of their slower muzzle velocity - in addition to the constants constraints of battle, fear and smoke. He shows that some visionaries in Europe foresaw - too early - the effects of new infantry weapons, but he also shows that skeptics, particularly in Britain, did exist. He shows that "Napoleonic tactics", when written by participants in the Civil War, actually meant tactics developed by Napoleon III, an innovator in artillery technology and infantry tactics, including the use of a gymnastic pace to minimize time under enemy fire. In discussing cavalry, Nosworthy shows that cavalry attacks in the 1859 Italian War had been disrupted by long range artillery fire the likes of which had not possible in Napoleon's time. Nevertheless, he shows that cavalry could and did successfully attack infantry during the Civil War. By 1864, however, when cavalry had the training and experience to do so, there were earthworks and other factors preventing it. In his excellent chapter on grand tactics, Nosworthy shows that imitation of Jomini's reactionary line-heavy formations made Civil War combat less decisive than Napoleonic combat, in which columns allowed greater maneuverability and co-operation with cavalry. Despite some flaws (see other reviews), overall this is the best book on Civil War tactics yet written, and will make you think of Civil War combat in a whole new way.
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