Paid Advertisement

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Quantitative study of Overland Campaign

I'm a big enthusiast of military numbers studies and what they can tell us. Unfortunately, these emerge in published book form only rarely in our Civil War universe. The latest addition will be Lee's Army During the Overland Campaign: A Numerical Study by Alfred C. Young III (LSUP, 2013).  Quantitative studies are most widely useful when campaign numbers and losses comparisons over time figure largely in the accepted historical narrative, and one can argue that the 1864 Overland Campaign is the best example of this.

2 comments:

  1. Drew,

    Great point about the Overland Campaign. It struck home because I've been browsing through the Southern Historical Society Papers looking for Petersburg content, and speeches as early as 1885 were already creating the myth of an unstoppable horde of Union soldiers in 1864. I'm looking forward to this one with great interest, and I hope a follow-up volume is done on Petersburg and Appomattox.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A book I should get around to revisiting someday is Steve Newton's numbers and OB book for the Confederate army in 1864.

      Delete

***PLEASE READ BEFORE COMMENTING***: You must SIGN YOUR NAME when submitting your comment. In order to maintain civil discourse and ease moderating duties, anonymous comments will be deleted. Comments containing outside promotions and/or product links will also be removed. Thank you for your cooperation.