Review - "Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson: The Twenty-One Critical Decisions that Defined the Battles" by Hank Koopman

[Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson: The Twenty-One Critical Decisions that Defined the Battles by Hank Koopman (Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series - University of Tennessee Press, 2025). Paperback, 15 maps, photographs, touring guide, orders of battle, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages:xiv,281. ISBN:978-1-62190-847-0. $24.95].

When the Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series, the brainchild of retired U.S. Army colonel Matt Spruill, began its official run with 2018's Decisions at Stones River^*, no one could have predicted how prolific it would become. With contributions from respected subject matter experts and avocational first-timers alike, the series, now approaching two dozen volumes, has in a very short time proved a resounding success. The latest volume, from series newcomer Hank Koopman, is Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson: The Twenty-One Critical Decisions that Defined the Battles.

For those new to this series, it should be mentioned that these books do not examine Civil War campaigns and battles through the traditional narrative lens. Instead, analysis is through a series of "critical decisions," which are defined as those command choices that had profound consequences in their immediate aftermath and that meaningfully shaped the course of ensuing events. As outlined in previous reviews, analysis of each critical decision follows a structural format to which every volume closely adheres. Discussion progresses through five linked stages—Situation, Options, Decision, Result(s)/Impact, and Alternate Decision/Scenario. The first and typically lengthiest section, Situation describes the state of affairs at a crossroads moment in the campaign or battle. It provides readers with the background information necessary to recognize and evaluate the range of reasonable Options (most frequently two or three in number) available for addressing the situation. The historical Decision is then outlined very briefly before the Result(s)/Impact section recounts what happened and how those results shaped subsequent events. A degree of emphasis is placed on tracing lasting effects of critical decisions made earlier. Finally, an optional Alternate Decision/Scenario section delves into alternative history discussion based on choices not made.

In the series, critical decisions are categorized as being either strategic, operational, tactical, organizational, logistical, or personnel-related. One key message from the series as a whole is that the side that seizes the initiative and holds it longest will typically author the majority of critical decisions. That is certainly the case here for the Henry and Donelson Campaign's twenty-one critical decisions, with the Union side making thirteen decisions and the Confederates eight. Those totals breakdown further into ten operational and three tactical decisions for generals Henry Halleck, U.S. Grant, and their subordinates. On the Confederate side, there are three operational, three tactical, and two personnel-related decisions.

A chief takeaway from Koopman's analysis is the critical importance of unity of command and the firm wielding of it from above. Everyone recognizes how central those intertwined concepts are to successful military operations, but history is replete with examples of officers that failed to heed their lessons. Along the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers in early 1862, federal forces used command unity to good effect throughout most of the campaign while the Confederates signally failed to achieve anything close to it. As Koopman keenly observes, Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston, in his capacity as theater commander, made the two personnel-related decisions but, from faraway Bowling Green, left all of the critical operational decisions to a dysfunctional three-headed monster of his own creation in the form of generals John Floyd (the senior officer), Gideon Pillow, and Simon Bolivar Buckner, who together failed to carry out any semblance of united command and purpose.

If any one stage of the campaign could be considered the 'day of decision' it was February 15, that distinction reflected by all six of the volume's tactical-level critical decisions taking place on that day. Even though Grant gifted the Confederates with his greatest blunder of the campaign, his decision to leave his command headless and rudderless during a six-hour period that happened to coincide with the Confederate breakout attempt. Koopman's examination of those six decisions reveals a stark study in contrasts, with Grant's subordinate division commanders admirably filling the void while their Confederate counterparts, who started their assault without any concrete plan for extricating the army, operated at cross purposes. Though Pillow and his men earned just credit for hard fighting that dislocated the Union right and placed the absent Grant's entire command in some jeopardy, all of the critical decisions made by the Confederate high command at Donelson on that day (one each by Floyd, Pillow, and Buckner) proved calamitous to their small army and the overall Confederate position in the West. Grant, when he did finally arrive back on the field, is duly credited with calmly reasserting control of the situation and finishing the job of turning the tables on the haplessly indecisive Confederates, who incredibly decided to retreat back within their own lines rather than attempt to extricate themselves through the hard-won gap their morning attack had opened in the federal ring.

Though the avowed purpose of the series is not to provide a full narrative of events but rather to focus on key decision-making as a way "to progress from an understanding of 'what happened' to 'why events happened' as they did," Koopman arguably comes closer than most to providing readers with both. His Situation assessments are more developed than those typically presented by series authors, and his Result(s)/Impact discussions go much deeper than most in exploring tactical events and small-unit descriptive detail. In this volume, argumentation in regard to why each decision is determined to have been critical in nature is strong, and linkage and transition between decision analyses are exceptionally smooth. Like other volumes in the series, there is a collection of maps that help orient the reader as well as a driving tour guide (twelve stops in this case) tied to the critical decisions examined in the main text.

Hank Koopman's Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson is another fine entry in University of Tennessee Press's Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series. As to the future of the series as a whole, there have been some interesting developments of late. It has been recently revealed that the series is branching out from its prior focus on single campaigns and battles. For example, last year's Decisions of the Galveston Campaigns examined multiple operations conducted at various times around a particular geographical point of strategic significance, and the upcoming Decisions on Western Waters will be a themed volume of a type not seen before. It will be worth keeping an eye out for more of those.

* - Spruill's Decisions at Gettysburg was first published in 2011, providing proof of concept, and it was later incorporated into the series as a formal installment with a 2019 second edition.

Review of Spruill & Spruill - "DECISIONS AT STONES RIVER: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle"

[Decisions at Stones River: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle by Matt Spruill & Lee Spruill (University of Tennessee Press, 2018). Softcover, 26 maps, photos, diagrams, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:214/270. ISBN:978-1-62190-378-9. $29.95]

New approaches to framing the study of Civil War campaigns and battles are always welcome. In this vein, University of Tennessee Press has recently launched a new series that will focus on the most "critical" high command decisions made by both sides and how those choices shaped the course of events before, during, and after major battles. With Decisions at Stones River: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle and Decisions at Second Manassas: The Fourteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle, the first two volumes of the Command Decisions of America's Civil War series have now been released. Others covering both eastern and western theater battles are already in the works.

In a necessary first step, Decisions at Stones River co-authors Matt and Lee Spruill firmly establish a hierarchy of decision-making and define for readers exactly what they mean by the term "critical decision." In the hierarchy, there are decisions, important decisions, and critical decisions. Only the last group is "of such magnitude that it shape(s) not only the events immediately following, but also the campaign or battle thereafter" (pg. xii). Several excellent narrative accounts of the Stones River battle exist in the literature so the differentiating emphasis in this book and the others in the series will be on why things occurred as they did, and to a more limited extent how things might have occurred differently if other choices had been made. Because the consequences of each decision must be "so great as to change the sequence and course of events" (pg. xiv), the authors wisely limit (with few exceptions) their examination to high-level decisions, those made by corps commanders and above in each army's leadership and command structure. In addition to being most sensible, this parameter should place a check on the popular temptation to blow out of all proportion the impact of more micro-scale tactical decisions. Because the unpredictable fortunes of war can render seemingly smart decisions disastrous (and vice versa), the authors also do well to avoid referring to particular choices as intrinsically "good" or "bad" ones.

For Stones River and many other Civil War battles, one might reasonably question the existence of sixteen truly critical decisions, but the series will approach decision-making from a very broad perspective. In any given series volume, critical choices in the areas of strategy, operations, tactics, organization, logistics, and personnel might be addressed. In the case of Stones River, the sixteen critical decisions are slotted within three of those categories: organizational (2), operational (4), and tactical (10). At nine Confederate decisions versus seven Union, side balance is fairly even.

In Decisions at Stones River, analysis of each critical decision follows a standard organizational format developed for the series. Discussion proceeds through five subheadings—Situation, Options, Decision, Result/Impact, and Alternate Decision/Scenario. The first and typically the lengthiest section, Situation describes the state of affairs at a crossroads moment in the campaign or battle. It provides readers with the background information necessary to recognize and evaluate the decision Options (two or three in number) that immediately follow. The historical Decision is then outlined very briefly before the Result/Impact section recounts what happened and how those events shaped the rest of the battle and perhaps beyond. The Situation and Result/Impact sections quite often reference other decisions in a meaningful way, further reminding readers of their interconnectedness and the cascading consequences of critical decisions made earlier. Not present for every decision, the optional Alternate Decision/Scenario section delves into alternative history conjecture based on choices not made.

Three examples, one for each of the decision categories referenced above, should suffice to illustrate how the book works. The first is an organizational decision. With the problems caused by divided command structure during the 1862 Kentucky Campaign in mind, two options were available to President Davis for organizing Confederate forces in Middle Tennessee: (1) keep the Braxton Bragg and E.K. Smith commands separate or (2) consolidate their forces under the senior general. This particular decision points to a potential pitfall of the series, wherein one option is a clear no-brainer with the rest having little or no reasonable justification. On the face of it, this might preclude interesting and meaningful discussion. However, in this case the Spruills effectively use the consolidation decision (in conjunction with another high-level organizational decision to strip the army of one of its divisions) as a springboard for analyzing the reorganization of Bragg's army and demonstrating to readers the "far-reaching consequences" organizational decisions would have on the Stones River "plan of attack, scheme of maneuver, and allocation of combat power." As the book goes on to show, other critical choices would flow from and be limited by these very early ones.

The second example is a three-option operational-level decision involving General Bragg's disposition and use of his available cavalry force of six brigades. The first option was for Bragg to send his two raiding brigades (under Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Hunt Morgan) immediately behind enemy lines to harass the the enemy and provide early warning of a federal advance. The second option would direct Forrest and Morgan to conduct deep raids against enemy supply lines in Kentucky and Tennessee. The third choice would involve keeping all the cavalry nearby for close tactical support. All options could be justified militarily, but Bragg selected the second one. Both deep raids caused significant material damage, but while Forrest played a role in forcing General Grant to pull back in northern Mississippi Morgan's actions had no inhibiting affect on General Rosecrans's ability to sustain his own advance in Middle Tennessee. Additionally, the impact and result of Bragg's critical decision left the Confederate army without the services of Forrest and Morgan's 5,600 horsemen at Stones River. This particular decision is also one of those with an attached "Alternate Decision and Scenario." It posits the benefits at that Bragg would surely have gained from keeping Forrest and Morgan nearby in close support, with any of several different tactical options having the potential to significantly alter the course of the Stones River battle.

A critical tactical-level decision that confronted Union army commander William S. Rosecrans comprises our third and final example. Similar to First Bull Run, both armies at Stones River planned to attack the flank of the other. In this case, Bragg beat Rosecrans to the punch, leaving the federal commander to either continue with his original offensive plan (and hope to steal the initiative from the enemy) or go on the defensive to free up troops to confront any enemy breakthroughs that might occur (with different options related to how many men would be sent to shore up the Union center and right). Rosecrans chose the safest course, his defensive measures enabling the Army of the Cumberland to stabilize its position. Just as important, this early critical decision also made possible other critical choices down the line that would eventually lead to victory.

The book also has a lengthy appendix section. In addition to army orders of battle, there's an extensive Stones River tour that focuses on the ten critical decisions made on the immediate battlefield. Similar to their treatment in the classic U.S. Army War College series of guidebooks, the tour stops in Decisions combine driving and walking orientation with author narrative and lengthy excerpts from firsthand accounts. Even if skipping the tour section, readers would be well advised to consult the tactical maps in the appendix, which are generally more detailed than those found in the main text. As the maps are directly tied to both critical decision situations and tour stops, the book's cartography is one of its great strengths.

With Decisions at Stones River, the Command Decisions in America's Civil War series has gotten off to a very promising start. Civil War students, even those intimately familiar with the topic at hand, will appreciate the volume's fresh approach to thinking about Civil War campaigns and battles.

Review - "Decisions of the Galveston Campaigns: The Twenty-One Critical Decisions That Defined the Operations" by Edward Cotham

[Decisions of the Galveston Campaigns: The Twenty-One Critical Decisions That Defined the Operations by Edward T. Cotham, Jr. (University of Tennessee Press, 2024). Softcover, maps, photos, illustrations, appendix, orders of battle, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages:xiii,170. ISBN:978-1-62190-913-2. $24.95]

It's easy to see why Galveston, Texas was considered a strategic point of interest for both sides during the Civil War. Galveston was Texas's most populous city, its most important commercial center, and it possessed the state's finest deep water port. Its rail connection with the interior also made it a prime base for a Union campaign to seize Houston. The occupation of both places would make Union forces masters of the heart of Texas and its limited modern transportation network. Initially determined to be indefensible with the meager resources available at the time, Galveston was reluctantly abandoned by its Confederate Army defenders. It was quickly occupied in turn by a small Union garrison supported by a naval squadron that easily outgunned anything the Confederates could muster against it. Before the Union foothold on Texas soil could be exploited, however, the port city was recaptured during a dramatic and improbably successful New Year's Day 1863 land and sea assault. Compounding the US Navy's embarrassment, just ten days later the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama lured out to sea and sank the Galveston blockader USS Hatteras. City and island remained in Confederate hands for the duration of the war.

The hits to US naval pride only continued. Approximately sixty miles up the coast, another Confederate naval attack surprised and defeated a US blockading force at Sabine Pass in 1862, and on September 8 of the following year a tiny earthwork battery turned back a massive combined operation that outnumbered the defenders roughly 100 to 1. In the fall of 1863, a two-pronged grand campaign, which consisted of a large overland expedition through western Louisiana and a substantial amphibious landing at the mouth of the Rio Grande that was accompanied by a follow-up movement up the coast, also failed (through a variety of reasons) to knock Texas out of the war. The decision-making involved in all of these events, many of which had military and political repercussions felt far and wide, is examined in Edward Cotham's Decisions of the Galveston Campaigns: The Twenty-One Critical Decisions That Defined the Operations.

Fast approaching two-dozen volumes, University of Tennessee Press's Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series possesses a unique analytical framework that has proven its value over time. Rather than repeat background material that has already been covered numerous times here on this site, please refer to previous CWBA reviews (such as this one here) for the series definition of a "critical decision" and brief explanation of the flow and structure of the steps involved in the decision analysis.

With published expertise [see Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galveston (1998) and Sabine Pass: The Confederacy's Thermopylae (2004), both gold standard histories of their topics] and over thirty years of ongoing research at his disposal, Cotham is the ideal author for this particular series installment. Calling upon that unique body of knowledge and using it to identify key moments of contingency, Cotham's approach to critical decision selection along with his situational summaries, option formulations, result(s)/impact discussions, and visions of alternate scenarios all display levels of nuance that a less robustly informed contributor tasked with the matter at hand would find very difficult to match. At first glance, it might appear unlikely that one could come up with this high a number of critical decisions (21) for a series of mostly small-scale events that unfolded in the war's tertiary theater (and this reviewer still struggled with one or two), but Cotham's keenly developed arguments and analysis consistently remove most lingering doubts.

The typical book in the series addresses a campaign and/or battle fought between major eastern or western theater field armies, making tactical-level critical decision analysis a common feature. However, Cotham notes that in his own area of study it was faraway decisions that most often and most deeply impacted the course of events. Also, an unusually high number (for the series as a whole) of his volume's critical decisions are personnel related. As Cotham amply demonstrates, leadership selection alone went a long way toward explaining why the underdog Confederates were so successful and how it was that Union forces failed in such disastrous fashion. President Davis's selection of John B. Magruder, that general's reputation under a dark cloud from allegations related to underperformance during the Seven Days, matched man and moment with results few could have foreseen, and the officers Magruder chose as his own principal subordinates no less so. On the other side, US naval hero David Glasgow Farragut, commander of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, made leadership appointments on the Texas coast that he would come to bitterly regret. As Cotham outlines, key officers at Galveston and Sabine Pass served their faraway superior poorly, delivering some of the few black marks against Farragut's otherwise sterling Civil War record.

Magruder proved to be a particularly interesting case to examine. So many Confederate generals thrust into unenviable coastal command situations similar to what Magruder faced wallowed in pessimistic passivity when tasked with pitting their own meager manpower and resources against Union combined operations having the overpowering capability of concentrating superior land and naval forces at nearly any point of their choosing. Magruder broke the mold, confidently seizing the initiative and making his own luck with boldness, creative planning, and decisive leadership. During this shining moment of his Civil War career, all of his decisions struck gold. Like Robert E. Lee did at Chancellorsville, Magruder employed against a dangerously superior enemy at Galveston a complicated battle plan with a lot of moving parts. Such high-risk plans often produced disaster, but, as Cotham effectively reminds us, it could also be an important factor in achieving success against long odds. Unfortunately for the rest of Magruder's Civil War career, his signal success along the Texas coast in 1863 did little to restore his profile as general worthy of being entrusted with coveted commands on major fronts.

Much like historian Donald Frazier has recently done in his Texas and Louisiana series of military history books, Cotham insightfully outlines significant connections (through decisions made and their results) between events in the Trans-Missisippi theater and future plans for the war on the other side of the river. Most notable among them are those involved in delaying the targeting of the key Gulf blockade-running port of Mobile, Alabama.

A mixture of modern maps and others borrowed from the atlas to the O.R. accompany Cotham's text. In the other series titles, the featured tour appendix is designed to be closely tied to the critical decisions presented before it. With his own subject matter more geographically dispersed than the others and with so many of its critical decisions produced from great distances, Cotham elected instead to include a walking tour of Galveston Civil War sites and some brief recommendations for hardy souls willing to take the 133-mile roundabout drive to Sabine Pass.

Joining the top rank of the Command Decisions in America’s Civil War collection of titles, Edward Cotham's Decisions of the Galveston Campaigns, in addition to its atypical features recited above, carries some notable series firsts. The author points out that his book is the first to have a major focus on ship vs. ship and ship vs. shore movements and encounters, and one can also add that it is the first Trans-Missisippi theater volume in the series. Another one, an 1864 Red River Campaign book, is soon to follow, with hopefully even more in the works.

Review - "Decisions at Chancellorsville: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle" by Sarah Bierle

[Decisions at Chancellorsville: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle by Sarah Kay Bierle (Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series - University of Tennessee Press, 2025). Paperback, 17 maps, photographs, battlefield touring guide, orders of battle, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xx,142,277. ISBN:978-1-62190-956-9. $24.95]

Decisions at Chancellorsville is the latest installment of University of Tennessee Press's Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series, which has published multiple titles each year since 2018. In addition to the prolific release schedule that the series continues to maintain, fresh blood is infused into its stable of authors on a fairly regular basis, too, and this is Sarah Kay Bierle's first contribution. And a fine one it is.

Now for the obligatory background summary for those unfamiliar with the series and its structure. First, it should be noted that these books do not examine Civil War campaigns and battles through the traditional narrative perspective and format. Instead, the main content is presented through a chronological sequence of "critical decision" analyses. In the hierarchy of decision-making, critical decisions are defined as being those command choices that produce profound consequences in their immediate aftermath and that meaningfully shape the course of ensuing events.

As outlined in previous reviews, analysis of each critical decision follows a standardized format to which every volume strictly adheres. Discussion progresses through five linked stages—Situation, Options, Decision, Result(s)/Impact, and Alternate Decision/Scenario. The first and typically lengthiest section, Situation describes the state of affairs at a crossroads moment in the campaign or battle. It provides readers with the background information necessary to recognize and evaluate the range of reasonable Options (most frequently two or three in number) available for addressing the situation. The historical Decision is then outlined before the Result(s)/Impact section recounts what happened and how those results shaped subsequent events. A degree of emphasis is placed on tracing lasting effects of critical decisions made earlier. Finally, an optional Alternate Decision/Scenario section delves into alternative history conjecture based on choices not made. In this case, Bierle elected not to engage with the optional alternate history component, which is perfectly fine.

In the series, critical decisions are categorized as being either strategic, operational, tactical, organizational, logistical, or personnel-related. Bierle organizes the sixteen decisions of her study into six groupings: the pre-battle January-April 1863 interval and the May 1, May 2, May 3 (in two parts), and May 4-6. Those six sub-sections contain three critical decisions each, the exception being the last, which includes a single one involving Army of the Potomac commander Joseph Hooker's retreat decision. There are a preponderance of tactical-level critical decisions. In the author's view, the total numbers disparity (nine for the Union side and six for the Confederates) represents Hooker's persistent struggle to reassert control of events after the strong start to his campaign quickly fizzled. Although he had many opportunities during those first days in May to impose (or reimpose) his will upon Robert E. Lee's vastly outnumbered army, Hooker's choices instead led him to "give up his military advantages and initiative, handing opportunity to Lee to react" (pg. xvi), with decisive reaction on the part of Lee forming several of the Confederate side's half-dozen critical decisions. Supporting the volume's decision analysis are 17 maps, a 12-stop driving tour, an appendix examining the campaign's historical memory (that is not a regular series feature), and orders of battle for both sides.

Beirle's selection of critical decisions and their available option formulations together exhibit a very strong grasp of both big picture and more nuanced elements of the military history literature associated with the Chancellorsville Campaign. Each option is effectively framed for the reader through thoughtful weighing of the benefits and risks attached to it (some of which have a fresh ring to them).

For the series as a whole, nearly all critical decisions are made by individuals, mostly high-ranking military officers and top government officials. Collective critical decisions are thus highly unusual, but Bierle has two of them. In her assessment, the final Union assault on Marye's Heights was a group decision among frontline small-unit commanders. Another decision involving multiple parties was the possibility of medical and military officers deciding as a group that Hooker was too incapacitated (presumably by concussion) to remain in command after the pillar he was leaning against was struck by cannon fire. Another interesting matter related to the Fredericksburg sector of the battlefield is Bierle's willingness to take up the truce flag controversy, a matter recently addressed at some length in Erik Nelson's 2024 study of the eastern half of the expansive Chancellorsville battlefield, as a critical decision impacting the final Fredericksburg assaults. Though not related to any particular critical decision (and thus not explored further), the author's criticism of Jeb Stuart's infantry tactics (characterizing them as overly wasteful frontal assaults) on May 3 after the cavalryman took over leadership of wounded Stonewall Jackson's Second Corps forms a dissenting opinion perhaps worthy of mention. Most modern writers, including the general's most recent biographer, have not adopted that same view, instead arguing that Stuart performed well after being abruptly thrust into infantry corps command in the middle of a major battle.

In terms of arguable 'misses,' Bierle's set lacks a standalone decision related to how George Stoneman's cavalry corps would be used during the campaign. Incorporating it into the discussion as just a part of Hooker's overall planning options lends an element of inevitability to how Stoneman's role in the campaign would unfold that is perhaps not warranted. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that Hooker, even if he had eschewed the deep raid option in favor of keeping his cavalry nearby, would have deployed his cavalry as close tactical support in ways that might have kept him better informed as to Lee's movements and protected the open right of his army from getting crushed by Jackson's massive flank attack.

As mentioned before, one of the conceptual qualities of the critical decision is that its impact extends beyond the immediate period in ways that meaningfully shape downstream campaign and battlefield events. Interestingly, Bierle goes beyond that, showing how critical decisions during the Chancellorsville Campaign affected the Gettysburg Campaign that followed it. For example, Bierle suggests that Third Corps commander Dan Sickles's dismay at Hooker's critical decision ordering him to abandon the Hazel Grove high ground (leaving it to the Confederates for use as a devastating artillery platform that transformed the fighting around the Chancellorsville crossroads) might very well have been a bitter learning experience that directly informed his determination, misguided or not, to press forward to occupy the higher ground fronting his assigned position as the left flank of the Union army at Gettysburg. As another example, contemporary observers and present day writers alike have praised Hooker's winter reforms that restored Army of the Potomac morale after Fredericksburg and placed it on a strong footing for the spring, but Chancellorsville exposed the flaws in Hooker's artillery arm reorganization. Hooker's belated, mid-battle decision cited by Bierle that restored Hunt's authority over the army's artillery had a positive short-term impact (albeit limited by circumstances), and it led to Hunt being given authority to reorganize the artillery after the battle in ways that improved its performance at Gettysburg. Bierle also suggests that Fifth Corps commander George Meade's experience with Hooker's mismanaged Chancellorsville council of war, which resulted in the commanding general going against majority opinion of his principal subordinates and ordering a retreat, shaped how Meade would conduct his own critical decision during a similarly key moment at Gettysburg on the night of July 2-3.

Consistency is a hallmark of the Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series, which is pretty remarkable given the hectic release schedule and multitude of contributors involved, and Sarah Bierle's Decisions at Chancellorsville strongly upholds that reputation while also adding some unique elements of its own. Hopefully, we'll see more of her quality input in the future.

Booknotes: Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson

New Arrival:

• Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson: The Twenty One Critical Decisions that Defined the Battles by Hank Koopman [(Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series) U Tenn Press, 2025].

From the description: "The Battles of Forts Henry and Donelson took place in February of 1862 and were early indicators of the success the US would have in the Civil War’s Western Theater. Due to Kentucky’s neutrality at the time, Brig. Gen. Daniel S. Donelson was instructed to find suitable sites for fortification along the Tennessee River but just inside the state boundaries of Tennessee. Forts Henry and Donelson were constructed in the summer of 1861 and were quickly identified by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant as strategic fortifications that, if conquered, would open the Federal Army’s path to Alabama and Mississippi. Fort Henry fell to Federal control on February 6, 1862, and Fort Donelson fell six days later. With the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers now open to Federal gunboats, Grant and his army would head southwest to Memphis and on to Vicksburg."

This was one of those Civil War campaigns in which the actions of smaller forces produced enormous strategic consequences. While it may not have been, as Kendall Gott maintains, "Where the South Lost the War," there is no denying that the twin Union victories at Henry and Donelson were unmitigated disasters for Confederate fortunes. It also firmly placed the careers of two key generals of the war, Confederate western department commander Albert Sidney Johnston and Union army commander U.S. Grant, on opposite trajectories that were cemented conclusively at Shiloh. That things might have turned out differently at key moments during the campaign makes Henry-Donelson a strong candidate for an interesting addition to University of Tennessee Press's Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series.

More from the description: Hank Koopman's Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson: The Twenty One Critical Decisions that Defined the Battles "explores the critical decisions made by Confederate and Federal commanders during the battle and how these decisions shaped its outcome. Rather than offering a history of the battle, Hank Koopman hones in on a sequence of critical decisions made by commanders on both sides of the conflict to provide a blueprint of the Battles of Forts Henry and Donelson at their tactical core. Identifying and exploring the critical decisions in this way allows students of the battles to progress from a knowledge of what happened to a mature grasp of why events happened."

Of added interest is the presence of a new voice in the series, this being Koopman's first contribution. I look forward to delving into his interpretation of the campaign's key moments and how well he works within the well-established structure of the series.

Review - "Decisions of the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Operation" by Robert Tanner

[Decisions of the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Operation by Robert G. Tanner (University of Tennessee Press, 2023). Softcover, 17 maps, photos, illustrations, appendix section, notes, bibliography, index. Pages:xviii,200. ISBN:978-1-62190-769-5. $29.95]

University of Tennessee Press's Command Decisions in America's Civil War continues to provide a fresh and unique methodology through which to rethink Civil War campaigns and battles that already have extensive narrative history coverage. Published last year, Robert Tanner's Decisions of the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Operation tackles one of the war's most dynamic military operations.

For those new to the series, a critical decision is defined as "a choice of such magnitude that it shaped not only the events immediately following it, but also the campaign from that point forward" (xiii). Analytical discussion proceeds through five stages—"Situation," "Options," "Decision," "Result(s)/Impact," and "Alternate Decision/Scenario." "Situation" describes the state of affairs at a crossroads moment in the course of the campaign or battle. It provides readers with the background information necessary to recognize and evaluate the decision "Options" (most frequently two or three in number) that immediately follow. The historical "Decision" is then outlined, usually very briefly, before the "Result(s)/Impact" section recounts what happened historically and how those events shaped the rest of the battle/campaign and beyond. The best "Situation" and "Result(s)/Impact" sections reference earlier decisions in meaningful ways, making clear the cascading consequences of critical decisions made earlier. Not present for every decision, the optional "Alternate Decision/Scenario" section delves into alternative history conjecture based on choices not made.

An active campaign that involved a great many troops in aggregate (especially on the Union side) but only resulted in relatively small battles at any given moment, the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign was rife with drastic order of battle changes (as major formations on either side regularly entered and exited the Shenandoah) and momentous strategic and operational pauses and resets of both geographical positioning and initiative. All of that is well represented in Tanner's critical decision selection and characterization, which has very few (two) tactical-level decisions and a great many others involving strategy, operations, and (re)organization.

The sixteen decisions compiled in the book are organized into six chapters with a time scale stretching from February 1862 to mid-June of that year. Together, they "examine decisions made at the campaign's outset, the Battle of Kernstown and a subsequent major reorganization of Union forces, Confederate plans and marches during April and early May 1862, Federal concentration outside the valley while Confederates concentrated and attacked in the Shenandoah during the pivotal second half of May, the Union's counterstrike against the Confederate offensive, and decisions to end the campaign" (xiv). Option numbers are typically in the two or three range (mostly the former), consistent with the rest of the series. There is a five-option decision, perhaps unprecedented in the series, that really illustrates well the sheer number of critical concerns, of both dangerous and opportunistic varieties, that confronted Jackson at a key moment. Modern armchair observers frequently dispute the brilliance of the Valley Campaign's result as being a function of B and C-team leadership opposition, but the author's critical decision analysis staunchly reinforces the book's argument that deliberative Confederate agency at numerous watershed moments was just as significant as Union bungling when it came to determining victory or defeat in the valley.

That there are eight critical decisions for each side supports the notion that both opposing leaderships possessed ample opportunities for seizing overall initiative. That a great many of the decisions were made by Abraham Lincoln also clearly demonstrates the degree to which the frustrated U.S. president personally seized the directing reins of the Union war effort in Virginia during the time of this campaign, to frequently poor result. Excepting Chapter Three, in which all three critical decisions are Confederate-sourced, Lincoln figures in all the remaining five chapters (by direct decision-making in four of those and in heavily shaping the George McClellan decision made in the remaining one). Throughout all six chapters, Tanner appropriately stresses interconnectivity when it comes to assessing decisions and events in the Shenandoah, Allegheny mountains, north and central Virginia, and Virginia Peninsula fronts. Showing how and why what happened in the Shenandoah Valley during the spring months of 1862 had a tremendous impact on military fortunes across Virginia is a strong element of Tanner's campaign analysis.

The series has always stressed to its readers that decision options are selected for their capacity to set or change the course of a campaign, and thus should not be seen as necessarily good or bad (or right or wrong). Indeed, in order for a choice to represent a real option it must have some strong basis for consideration, and Tanner does an exceptionally fine job of articulating the opportunities, feasibility, risk-levels, and potential pitfalls involved with each decision-making process. Properly eschewing the no-brainer approach, every option is assigned one or more supportable reasons for it to exist in the mind of the decision maker. Not all of the books in the series achieve this process as strongly as Tanner's does here. One of the best examples of that quality can be found in Tanner's dispassionate and keenly analyzed assessment of John C. Fremont's much-pilloried decision not to move on Harrisonburg during the late May-early June Union offensive aimed at trapping and destroying Jackson's army in the valley. In addition to the president himself, subsequent writers and historians have often been dismayed by Fremont's failure to fulfill Lincoln's directive, but Tanner pretty convincingly shows that the wording of the order was more ambiguous than Lincoln apparently intended. That factor, combined with pressing issues of time, distance, supply and logistical constraints, lack of information regarding an overall plan (including the positions of other friendly columns), and other considerations, rendered Fremont's ultimate decision far from being a cut and dried example of egregious blunder or a direct disobeying of orders (though Tanner justly condemns Fremont for not seeking clarification).

The series defines critical decisions very narrowly, but the reality is that no two individuals, no matter how well informed in regard to the topic at hand, would come up with the exact same list of options and scenarios. As one example here, in Chapter Two, one might be justified in deeming the higher-level operational decision to regain lost contact with federal forces in the Lower Shenandoah, the bulk of which were understood to be leaving, to be a more 'critical' decision than the tactical-level one presented in the book in which Jackson must decide to either attack immediately or on the following day.

Some analyses offer tidbits not often appreciated in the literature's extensive discussions of those events. A good example is Tanner's coverage of Edwin Stanton's assignment of General William S. Rosecrans to find Louis Blenker's "lost" division and expedite the effort in getting the recently formed Mountain Department shipshape. Also mentioned is the Secretary of War's brusque rejection of Rosecrans's unsolicited suggestions regarding coordinated operations in the East and the absence of a single guiding force with a military background. It's a small part in the play to be sure, but something worthy of consideration in assessing the larger matter of Lincoln declining to assign another general to oversee affairs in the theater, instead taking on that momentous responsibility himself.

With their ample illustration of city and town locations, rail and road networks, rivers, and other key terrain features, ten maps assist the reader in visualizing the situations at hand and the options available. Seven additional maps are attached to the extensive driving tour. The tour, which is focused upon visiting sites directly related to the critical decisions explored earlier, is an important facet of all series volumes.

Seeing this series installment come from Robert Tanner was a pleasant surprise given the amount of time that has elapsed since his last book-length publication. His Stonewall in the Valley, a major work mostly examining the campaign from the Confederate perspective, was first published way back in 1976 and was re-released in a revised edition in 1996. That was followed in 2001 by the conversation-inspiring analytical study Retreat to Victory?: Confederate Strategy Reconsidered. In the Acknowledgments section of this book, Tanner notes that he cold-called Command Decisions in America's Civil War series creator Matt Spruill with a proposal for a 1862 Valley Campaign volume, so it's nice to see the series having the prestige and capability of getting a subject matter expert who had been away from publishing for quite some time to 'get back in the game' (so to speak). The result of that is one of the very best volumes the series has to offer.

Decisions at Chickamauga

Last year, I mentioned a new series from University of Tennessee Press called Command Decisions in America's Civil War. Here is what the publisher currently has to say about it:

"Each book in the Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series introduces a major engagement in the Civil War—focusing not on the what of warfare, but on the why. As the drama unfolds, readers discover how decisions made by Union and Confederate officers create the battle’s outcome. Forthcoming books in the series will investigate decisions made at Perryville, Tullahoma, Shiloh, and other notable battles both in the Eastern and Western theaters of the Civil War."

The first volume, Decisions at Stones River, is just coming out now, and the press has already announced two more titles in their new Spring '18 catalog! One of these is Dave Powell's Decisions at Chickamauga: The Twenty-four Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle (Summer 2018). A mere mortal might be burned out after just completing an exhaustive trilogy, but Powell's interest in Chickamauga has apparently not lost steam. The catalog also reports a Fall '18 release for Lawrence Peterson's Decisions at Chattanooga: Nineteen Decisions That Defined the Battle, but I would be very surprised to see it this year given the current logjam of series titles.

Review of Spruill & Spruill - "DECISIONS AT SECOND MANASSAS: The Fourteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle"

[Decisions at Second Manassas: The Fourteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle by Matt Spruill III & Matt Spruill IV (University of Tennessee Press, 2018). Softcover, 41 maps, photos, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. 277 Pages. ISBN:978-1-62190-380-2. $29.95]

Matt Spruill III and Matt Spruill IV's Decisions at Second Manassas: The Fourteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle is the second volume from UT Press's Command Decisions in America's Civil War series. The first book clearly laid out the novel format's underlying assumptions and definitions (see the Decisions at Stones River review published a short time ago here on CWBA). In summary, 'critical' decisions are distinguished from merely important decisions by their fundamental altering of the "sequence and course of events" of campaigns and battles.

As seen before with Stones River, the basic critical decision analysis structure of Decisions at Second Manassas proceeds through five subheadings—Situation, Options, Decision, Result/Impact, and Alternate Decision/Scenario. The first and typically the lengthiest section, Situation describes the state of affairs at a crossroads moment in the campaign or battle. It provides readers with the background information necessary to recognize and evaluate the decision Options (in this case, two to four in number) that immediately follow. The historical Decision is then outlined very briefly before the Result/Impact section recounts what happened and how those events shaped the rest of the battle and perhaps beyond. The Situation and Result/Impact sections quite often reference other decisions in a meaningful way, further reminding readers of their fundamental interconnectedness and the cascading consequences of critical decisions made earlier. Not present for every decision, the optional Alternate Decision/Scenario section delves into reasonable alternative history conjecture based on choices not made.

Distinct from most narrative battle histories, the books in this series use this critical decision system of analysis as a more focused mechanism for readers "to progress from an understanding of “what happened” to “why events happened” as they did." The professional military background of the co-authors undoubtedly informs this new approach. For the series as a whole, critical choices will span areas of strategy, operations, tactics, organization, logistics, and personnel. The fourteen critical Second Manassas decisions are slotted within three of those categories: organizational (1), operational (5), and tactical (8). There are nine Union decisions versus five Confederate. In comparison to the first volume, the number of critical decisions is fewer but the number of maps (41) is significantly greater.

Three examples, one for each decision type, will offer a glimpse at the offerings inside. With the Peninsula operation not going as planned, the book's lone organizational critical decision involves the Lincoln's administration's dilemma over what to do with the collectively very large but geographically scattered Union commands located in central and western Virginia. As the authors see it, the options available to the Union high command were either leave things be, combine two of the larger forces into a single army, or consolidate the three largest commands into a single army. Of course, the third decision (which created General John Pope's theoretically powerful Army of Virginia) was the historical choice, and it alone among the other options made possible the epic clash between the armies on the old battlefield at Manassas. Only a command of that size would have been able to operate independently in the field and risk full-scale battle against whatever forces the Confederates might redeploy from the Peninsula to central Virginia.

One of the study's more interesting operational-level critical decision discussions involves Army of the Potomac Fifth Corps commander Fitz John Porter's reaction to General Pope's order to launch an attack in the direction of Gainesville on August 29 in conjunction with Irvin McDowell's Third Corps of the Army of Virginia. This fateful order was issued under the greatly mistaken assumption that Stonewall Jackson's Confederate corps was in the process of retreating. As the authors see it, Porter's options were to (1) attack as Pope ordered against an enemy force of unknown size and location, or use the discretion often accorded to high-ranking commanders on the ground to either (2) remain in place and recon his front or (3) move north to establish solid contact with the rest of the army. Contrary to Pope's wishes, Porter elected to stay put and his weak recon effort failed to develop the enemy's position. This meant there would be no attack on Longstreet's front on the 29th, and Pope would continue to believe that there were no sizable Confederate forces present to the west and south of Jackson. The alternative scenario of a strong Porter-McDowell attack up the Gainesville Road possessed the great potential of drastically changing the historical course of the battle. The presence of James Longstreet's arriving Confederate corps would have been definitively discovered by the attack, and a heavy Union assault on Longstreet's right could very well have derailed Robert E. Lee's own best offensive options on the battlefield. This move would have made outright Union victory distinctly possible. Though the book doesn't go into it, this is also the critical decision that placed Porter in very hot water with his military superiors and the administration. Only lightly touched upon, this kind of ancillary discussion is perhaps outside the scope and purposes of the book, but it might have made for an engaging appendix. Perhaps more than any other, Porter's critical decision set the stage for how the second day of the Manassas battle would play out.

The final example is a brigade-level tactical critical decision made by Colonel Nathaniel McLean, who was positioned atop Chinn Ridge on the vulnerable Union left when Longstreet's Corps approached during late afternoon on the 30th. When Union general John Reynolds's division moved north across the Warrenton Turnpike earlier, McLean was isolated. Left to his own devices, he could either follow in Reynolds's wake, fall back east to Henry Hill to join other federals units assembling there, or remain on Chinn Ridge. McLean chose to hold his position, a fortuitous event that sucked in an inordinate number of Confederate brigades that might otherwise have raced past and behind the Union left. McLean's decision bought time for reinforcements to arrive and together the Union defenders delayed and disrupted Longstreet's offensive enough to buttress the even more significant federal military position atop Henry Hill. Without McLean's stand, a swift Confederate capture of Henry Hill was entirely possible, a move which had the potential of cutting off significant parts of Pope's increasingly less cohesive army and subjecting them to destruction. The books in the series intend to limit profiling tactical decisions made by lower-ranking officers as their battlefield actions were truly 'critical' only on rare occasions, but this one seemed appropriate for inclusion.

The first two volumes (author Matt Spruill III is the connecting thread between the pair) do a uniformly good job of judiciously identifying "critical" decisions that are in keeping with the original working definition. There is similar consistency present in the formulation of reasonable option sets, with available choices assessed most helpfully in terms of potential advantages and disadvantages rather than being labeled inherently good or bad.

Using the approach that military decisions are always better understood when the reader is standing on the actual ground where events occurred, the book enhances the value of the decision analysis section with an extensive battlefield tour feature. Organized and presented along similar lines to the classic U.S. Army War College series, the tour stops combine detailed situational orientation with author narrative and lengthy participant account excerpts. While limited to those decisions made on the current grounds of the battlefield park, the two sections of the book complement each other very well. As was also the case for Stones River, the tactical maps in the tour section are generally more detailed than those found in the main text and should not be overlooked by the reader. Army orders of battle are also included in the appendix area.

With two excellent titles under its belt, the Command Decisions in America's Civil War series is off to a strong start. An ambitious course has been set, with Decisions at Chattanooga from Larry Peterson and David Powell's Decisions at Chickamauga already currently under development. More planned volumes address Perryville, Tullahoma, Shiloh, and "other notable battles both in the Eastern and Western theaters of the Civil War." The success of the series thus far makes these future installments highly anticipated.

Review - "Decisions on Western Waters: The Twenty-Seven Critical Decisions That Defined the Battles" by Michael Becker

[Decisions on Western Waters: The Twenty-Seven Critical Decisions That Defined the Battles by Michael D. Becker (University of Tennessee Press, 2026). Softcover, 10 maps, photos, illustrations, driving tour, orders of battle, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xv,142/290. ISBN:979-8-89527-045-5. $24.95]

Naturally enough, the major land campaigns and battles fought in the eastern and western theaters have been the primary focus of University of Tennessee Press's prolific Campaign Decisions in America's Civil War series. However, there has been some shift in direction over the past year and a half or so, with the subject matter of two volumes [Decisions of the Galveston Campaigns (2024) and Decisions of the Red River Campaign (2025)] finally crossing into the Trans-Mississippi theater of operations. Naval orientation is also on the rise, another welcome development. As was the case with Edward Cotham's Galveston book, Michael Becker's Decisions on Western Waters: The Twenty-Seven Critical Decisions That Defined the Battles centers naval and combined operations in its analysis while also departing significantly from the established structural format of addressing only a single, sharply defined campaign. Indeed, Becker's book covers a series of interconnected land and naval operations played out over an extended period of time (1861-64), the unifying theme of which was the bitterly contested strategic struggle for control over the mighty Mississippi River and its major tributaries. Both Cotham and Becker's contributions demonstrate that the format of the series can be adaptable without losing the core elements of its character and identity.

Many readers of this review will already be familiar with the series and its structure, at the center of which is the concept of the "critical decision." For those new to the series, critical decisions, as distinct from mere important decisions, not only have major consequences in their own right but possess the key added feature of substantially shaping those decisions and events that follow it over the course of the rest of the campaign and beyond. For each critical decision, identification and analysis unfolds in the following sequence: Situation, Options, Decision, and Result(s)/Impact. Situation describes a particular state of politico-military affairs (categorized as strategic, operational, tactical, organizational, personnel related, or logistical in nature) at a moment pivotal enough to prompt a critical decision. That decision framework provides readers with the background context necessary to recognize and evaluate the Options (two or more in number) available to the decision-maker. The historical Decision selected from those options by a critical decision-maker is then briefly described. The ensuing Result(s)/Impact section recounts what happened and outlines the ways in which the decision's outcome shaped the historical events that followed. An Alternative Decision/Scenario section is optional for contributors (some go deep into alternate history conjecture while others omit it altogether). In this case, Becker ventures into that territory selectively.

Each of the six categories of critical decisions are represented at least twice in Becker's analysis. While operational and tactical decisions comprise the majority, their sources (both military and civilian leaders) and categorical diversity are emblematic of the range of key actors and factors involved with the initial conception, support, and conduct of Civil War military campaigns. The expansive time interval and geographical space involved with the events of this particular volume are uniquely broad, but the author is up to the challenge when it comes to connecting the decisions in coherent fashion.

The twenty-seven critical decisions involved in securing control over the key waterways of the inland West are organized into four chapters by year: 1861 (9 decisions), 1862 (14), 1863 (2), and 1864 (2). That the great majority are concentrated in the first two years of the war really highlights the exemplary foresight, urgency, determination, and flexibility of Union planners, who built a vast squadron of river gunboats of various types from scratch and quickly put them to highly effective use without any prior experience in the areas of design and tactics from earlier wars. The great rapidity with which that process occurred denied their much more resource-strapped and disorganized Confederate opponents the breathing space needed to coordinate an effective response. The result was that squadron-scale Confederate naval resistance on the western rivers was effectively destroyed by mid-1862. In terms of assessing the campaign to control the western waterways, it might be argued that there were no more critical decisions to had after Vicksburg and Port Hudson were both secured by Union forces in July 1863, but the Red River Campaign of the following spring placed a large proportion of Mississippi River Squadron capital ships at great risk, making Becker's two 1864 decisions (both related to that campaign) worthy of consideration. Nevertheless, even if the entire Union naval contingent was lost it is difficult to imagine the Confederates gaining the capacity to seriously threaten Union control of Mississippi River navigation at that late stage of the war.

Becker's discussion demonstrates strong awareness and appreciation of recent contributions to the literature. His presentation and analysis of critical 1861-62 Confederate decision-making aligns closely with the mistakes and challenges so astutely identified and examined in Neil Chatelain's insightful 2020 study Defending the Arteries of Rebellion: Confederate Naval Operations in the Mississippi River Valley, 1861-1865. Among these were inefficient resource allocation, dispersal of effort through debilitating competition over scarce resources, strategic indecision, and lack of unified command. Becker usefully reminds us that, at one point, five different civilian and governmental entities had jurisdiction over fighting vessels in the region, and the single professional naval officer given the most authority, George Hollins, was relieved of command at the worst possible moment. As the author outlines in the book, all of those factors impacted critical decision-making in ways that directly contributed to epic disaster for the Confederate defense of the Upper and Lower Mississippi River Valley during the early war period. In similar vein, the critical decision involving staff officer Lewis B. Parsons's reorganization of theater transportation resources demonstrates keen appreciation of the recent literature's assessment of Union rail and river logistics.

Books of this type are always going to have a subjective element to them. Some readers will point toward possible omissions or differ with the author in identifying certain decisions as being truly critical. One of the latter might be the decision surrounding Union construction of a mortar boat flotilla for shore bombardment. While these vessels were deployed during a number of important ship vs. shore actions fought along the Mississippi River Valley, it would be difficult to maintain that they had a critical impact on any of them. In the area of possible omissions, Becker makes strong cases for designating a number of naval administration matters as critical decisions, but one might also suggest that promoting David Dixon Porter to command the new Mississippi River Squadron was a critical personnel related decision. Compatible personalities mattered a very great deal when any and all naval assistance provided to army operations had to be framed as an interservice request. The personal and professional harmony that existed between Porter's navy and Grant and Sherman's army was instrumental to Union victory on a multitude of occasions, not least of which during the very difficult Vicksburg Campaign. In terms of actual complaints, the Decision and Results/Impact sections of some situations draw significant elements from more than one Option choice, which is a practice not typical of the series. Given that that pops up most often in situations with option numbers as high as four and five, option consolidation would have been one way to address that occasional source of confusion.

A major feature of every book in the series is the driving tour appendix tied to the main text's critical decision analysis. This is achieved through a combination of additional support text from the author and focused excerpts from official reports and military communications. As one might imagine, Becker's task was an especially challenging one given the vast size of the Mississippi River Valley area of operations. Even with careful organization, the twelve tour stops between Cairo, Illinois and Bailey's Dam on the Red River in Louisiana take the user on a journey of 1,300 miles! The appendix section also contains vessel orders of battle for each of the major actions discussed in the text.

A novel variation on the typical subject matter of the Campaign Decisions in America's Civil War series, Michael Becker's Decisions on Western Waters successfully applies the critical decision analysis structure to one of the war's longest running and most geographically extensive military contests, effectively framing the opening of the Mississippi as a single campaign of critical significance. With available land campaigns of major status dwindling in number, it will be interesting to see what other unusual pathways the series might take.

Booknotes: Decisions at Gettysburg, Second Edition

New Arrival:
• Decisions at Gettysburg: The Twenty Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle, Second Edition by Matt Spruill (UT Press, 2019).

Published in 2011, Matt Spruill's Decisions at Gettysburg was the progenitor of University of Tennessee Press's Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series, which did not formally launch until 2018. That original volume has now been revised and republished as Decisions at Gettysburg: The Twenty Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle, Second Edition. The new version, which is now the seventh installment in the series, "updates the nineteen critical decisions, adding a twentieth decision, and aligns the book with others in the Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series."

From the description: "Decisions at Gettysburg, second edition, further defines the critical decisions made by Confederate and Union commanders throughout the battle. Matt Spruill examines the decisions that prefigured the action and shaped the course of battle as it unfolded. Rather than a linear history of the battles, Spruill’s discussion of the critical decisions presents readers with a vivid blueprint of the battle’s development. Exploring the critical decisions in this way allows the reader to progress from a sense of what happened in these battles to why they happened as they did." I don't have a copy of the first edition for comparison, but the second edition clearly possesses the series's standardized format of critical decision analysis.

There are ten maps in total, which is a number considerably less than that found inside the typical series volume (I am thinking these are first edition carryovers), but Decisions at Gettysburg does have the modern photographic views of the battlefield that are characteristic of Spruill's books but absent from the works of other contributors. In addition to dozens of officer images, there are three order of battle diagrams in the main text and a pair of more extensive, formal OBs for both armies in the appendix section. Of the twenty critical decisions examined, one is strategic, three operational, fourteen tactical, and two organizational. Balance is eight Union vs. twelve Confederate, with eight being army-level decisions, six corps level, three division level, and three brigade level.

Review - "Decisions of the Atlanta Campaign: The Twenty-One Critical Decisions That Defined the Operation" by Larry Peterson

[Decisions of the Atlanta Campaign: The Twenty-One Critical Decisions That Defined the Operation by Larry Peterson (University of Tennessee Press, 2019). Softcover, 34 maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. Pages:xx,262. ISBN:978-1-62190-472-4. $29.95]

All Command Decisions in America's Civil War series titles have substantial campaign elements¹, but Larry Peterson's Decisions of the Atlanta Campaign: The Twenty-One Critical Decisions That Defined the Operation is the first to shift the focus from a single major battle to an extended campaign consisting of multiple large-scale clashes. In this case, the book follows the course of the Atlanta Campaign from December 1863 through September 1864. This higher level approach involves more decision-making at the national and departmental levels, but the structural format of the analysis remains the same.

For those unfamiliar with the series (the rest of you can skip this paragraph), the basic definition of a "critical" decision as established by creator Matt Spruill remains consistent among now several contributors. It can be articulated as an apex decision that shapes "not only the events immediately following it but also the events from that point on" (xii). Analysis of critical decisions progresses through five areas with the subheadings Situation, Options, Decision, Results/Impact, and Alternative Decisions and Scenarios. The initial and typically the lengthiest section, Situation describes the state of affairs at a key crossroads moment in the campaign. It provides readers with the background information necessary to recognize and evaluate the decision Options (two to four in number) that immediately follow. The historical Decision is then outlined very briefly before the Results/Impact section recounts what happened and shows readers how those events shaped the rest of the battle and beyond. The Situation and Results/Impact sections frequently reference earlier decisions in a meaningful way, providing further evidence and vivid reminder that truly critical decisions have cascading consequences over a long campaign. Optional in previous volumes, every critical decision has an Alternative Decisions and Scenarios section in this book and each delves into reasonable alternative history conjecture(s) based on interesting choices not made. Photographs and twenty original maps accompany the decision analysis.

As was the case with the earlier battle-oriented installments, a broad range of decision types are involved, classified here as "strategic, operational, tactical, organizational, personnel, and logistical" (xii). As mentioned above, lower level tactical decisions feature far less prominently in this campaign study. As seems appropriate, Atlanta Campaign critical decisions were made exclusively by army commanders and above (previous volumes frequently featured corps, division, and even brigade-level decision-making). Of the twenty-one critical decisions, ten are tactical, four personnel related, three strategic, two organizational, one operational, and one logistical in nature. Six were made at the national level by Lincoln (1), Davis (3), and Grant (2); ten by Sherman at the departmental level; and five at army command level by McPherson (1), Johnston (3), and Hood (1). One might interpret the 17:7 disparity between Union and Confederate critical decisions as indicative of a campaign dominated by bold Union initiative matched against a more passive Confederate reactive approach.

These kinds of books don't lend themselves to conventional reviews so just a few examples will be taken from the book's critical decision analysis for brief discussion. This should offer prospective readers at least some sense of what to expect. Collectively, the six national decisions serve as ample reminder that high-level decisions made during the planning process often go a long way toward deciding the outcome of military campaigns before the fighting even starts. President Davis's decision to place General Joseph E. Johnston at the head of the Army of Tennessee, an act celebrated by many within the army, created the command match-up perhaps least favorable to Confederate hopes: a passive, risk-averse general (Johnston) versus an aggressive commander wedded to the indirect approach and well equipped to carry it out (Sherman). In terms of options, Davis could have chosen (1) a replacement for Bragg from among the Confederacy's short list of full generals, or (2) promoted a capable corps or division commander. Though he briefly entertained giving the job to General Hardee (who declined it), Davis felt himself constrained to follow option 1 and choose either Johnston or Beauregard. Of course, the choice was Johnston, whom Davis considered the lesser of those two evils, and the result was a disastrous Fabian strategy that failed to even slow let alone arrest Sherman's progress. In his alternative scenario discussion, Peterson is somewhat sympathetic of Davis's narrow mindset in that the author also finds a dearth of Confederate lieutenant generals suitable for major army command. He does mention some promising candidates, among the very short list Richard Taylor, but for some reason maintains that their then current positions made transfer unfeasible. The whole decision process is a signal reminder of how unnecessarily inflexible Davis was in selecting candidates for army command. It also highlights the Confederate high command's utter failure to both identify and groom promising young officers for higher military office. This contrasts sharply with what the Union Army was able to do so successfully with Grant, Sherman, Thomas, and others.

Sherman's critical decision to order General McPherson to take the Army of the Tennessee on a wide flanking march around the Confederate left and seize the railroad at Resaca promised great results right off the bat, but McPherson's own critical decision to pull back into Snake Creek Gap after the lightly defended town was within his grasp remains the subject of enduring controversy. McPherson's orders from Sherman allowed for two options: (1) advance through the gap and seize Resaca, cutting Johnston off from Atlanta; or (2) pull back to the gap and await reinforcements if heavy resistance was encountered. McPherson's decision to return all the way back to Snake Creek Gap after achieving an insignificant break in the railroad line north of Resaca is commonly considered one of the great 'lost opportunities' of the war. In the alternative scenario in which McPherson recognizes the weakness of the Resaca defenders and captures the town, the author sees Johnston as having only three options in response: attack, retreat, or surrender. Only the middle option seems likely. Most later observers consider McPherson's occupation of Resaca as tantamount to forcing Johnston to surrender (or at the very least lose most of his army as an effective fighting force), but Peterson reminds those taken to such exaggeration that an eastern escape route, though more difficult to traverse, was indeed available. He even provides a map of a possible line of retreat. However, even if the Confederate army survived it would have been in a very tight place after having been forced to concede both the railroad and the inside track to Atlanta to Sherman's still very fresh army group.

The final example is also the last critical decision made during the campaign. After John Bell Hood was forced to evacuate Atlanta after his Jonesboro defeat, Sherman had two options: (1) pursue Hood's beaten army, or (2) withdraw back to captured Atlanta for well-earned rest and needed refit. Peterson sees Sherman's decision to rest as the most practical option. It resulted in Hood's army breaking contact and getting away without further harm, but one could argue that at this late stage of the campaign Atlanta itself (rather than the Army of Tennessee) had become the more pressing target. Atlanta and the weighty political rewards reaped by its conquest were already fairly won. At least for the moment, Hood could wait. Interestingly, Peterson does not figure Sherman's greatly weakened cavalry arm into the pursuit calculations. He also curiously did not incorporate how that came to be in any of his earlier critical decision discussions. As we know, Sherman sent his mounted forces off on long-range raiding operations that resulted in the destruction of a large proportion of his available cavalry.

Extensive driving tours are a main feature of series titles, and this one follows a 14-stop route between Chattanooga and Jonesboro. Each stop is usefully integrated into the main text's critical decision analysis. Detailed driving directions, 14 modern road maps, and numerous excerpts from historical accounts and official reports supplement the discussion. While the series overall does a fine job of maintaining format consistency, it should be mentioned that the rest of the volumes do not follow the Spruill titles (Stones River and Second Manassas) in offering additional detailed tactical maps in the tour section. Orders of battle, notes, bibliography, and index round out the volume.

The unique format of the Command Decisions in America's Civil War series continues to foster a disciplined approach to military decision analysis that promotes useful reflection and reconsideration of supposedly settled history and opinion². Decisions of the Atlanta Campaign also successfully demonstrates that the established series format can be readily adapted to focus on more extensive military operations encompassing a string of major engagements. Recommended.


Notes:
1 - The first four volumes in the series cover the Stones River, Second Manassas, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga battles. Similar to this one, another campaign installment has also been recently released for the 1862 Kentucky Campaign. As for whether the series format is better suited for battle vs. campaign topics, I would reserve judgment/opinion until there are more examples of the latter.
2 - The series is broadly effective in countering arguments that the critical decisions evaluated within are frequently self-evident in nature and their analysis conventional.

Review - " Decisions at Shiloh: The Twenty-Two Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle " by Dave Powell

[Decisions at Shiloh: The Twenty-Two Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle by Dave Powell (University of Tennessee Press, 2023). Softcover, 8 maps, 12 photographs, appendix section, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages:xiii,227. ISBN:978-1-62190-752-7. $29.95]

Many questions surrounding the April 6-7, 1862 Battle of Shiloh, which shocked the nation with its unprecedented casualties, linger to this day. In addition to condemning Army of the Tennessee commander U.S. Grant for lax security that enabled his encampment to be surprised on the 6th, critics of Union leadership, then and now, have often asked why the army was not entrenched (or at least systematically arranged for defense) and why Grant did not establish his headquarters with his army at Pittsburg Landing. Why the division of General Lew Wallace did not manage to reach the battlefield before the close of the first day's fighting and whether the arrival of General Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio "saved" Grant's army are other sources of vigorous, unending debate. On the other side, many Confederate partisans, along with some prominent later historians, have contended that the Confederate army would have triumphed on April 6 had its commander, General Albert Sidney Johnston, not been killed that day. It has also been argued that, even with Johnston's untimely death, the Confederates would still have won a complete victory had Johnston's replacement, P.G.T. Beauregard, not canceled the final attack of day, instead pulling back his army to rest overnight in full expectation that the killing blow would be landed on the morrow. These thorny issues and more are addressed in David Powell's Decisions at Shiloh: The Twenty-Two Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle.

With University of Tennessee Press's Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series already comprised of well over a dozen titles (and many more on the way), the format is well established. As series designer Matt Spruill defined the term in the first volume, a "critical decision" is one of "of such magnitude that it shapes not only the events immediately following, but also the campaign or battle thereafter." Such critical decisions can be related to strategy, operations, tactics, organization, logistics, and personnel selection. Powell's twenty-two critical decisions for Shiloh are grouped into five campaign and battle periods: "Before the Battle" (8 decisions); "Morning, April 6" (5 decisions); Afternoon, April 6" (3 decisions); "Afternoon and Evening, April 6" (3 decisions); and "April 7 and Beyond" (3 decisions). The front-weighted nature of the critical decision pool sagely selected by the author reveals much about how contingent it was (on several levels) that the battle would be fought at all. The critical impact of early decisions on the course of the battle is also insightfully revealed.

For each critical decision, analysis unfolds in the following sequence: Situation, Options, Decision, and Result/Impact. Situation describes the state of affairs at key crossroads moments before, during, and after the battle. That element provides readers with the background context necessary to recognize and evaluate the decision Options (in this volume, two to three in number) that immediately follow. The historical Decision made by the leader is then outlined before the ensuing Result/Impact section recounts what happened and how those events shaped the rest of the battle and beyond. In a minor departure, Powell integrates alternative history conjecture based on choices not made (material usually found in a separate Alternate Decision/Scenario section) into the other elements, and he does it in seamless fashion. Powell also strips down the tour section of the book without detriment, excising the series-standard official reports while still effectually employing the staff ride approach to analyzing terrain and leadership decision-making. The only real complaint is with the relative dearth of maps, of which there are only eight. This is not an issue that has arisen with this installment in particular but rather has been a declining trend (likely cost related) of the series as a whole, the first two volumes of which contained rich collections of 26 and 41 maps, respectively.

At one time Powell was actively exploring the possibility of writing a Shiloh campaign history of his own, and he incorporates a hefty amount of his primary source research (including extensive archival materials) into this volume. In terms of properly contextualizing each situation, selecting and articulating the options reasonably available to the decision-maker, and discussing the historical decision and its impact, Powell's deeply informed work in those areas unquestionably ranks among the very best in the series. In equally strong fashion, Powell, with clear attribution, folds into his own analytical process many of the most persuasive interpretive arguments found in the modern literature. For example, recent publications from Gail Stephens and Timothy Smith (one might also add similar conclusions from the book-length studies of Charles Beemer and Christopher Mortenson) regarding Lew Wallace's mindset and actions on both days, forcefully argue for a greater appreciation of how much that general's actions on the Union right on April 7 shaped and enhanced the successful Grant-Buell counteroffensive. On that day, Wallace's division, its advance alleged by some to have been timid (as evidenced by the light casualties suffered), repeatedly dislocated the Confederate left without resorting to costly frontal attacks. Smith, the author of the most recent and best overall treatment of the Shiloh battle, influences Powell's perspective in numerous other places, including the frequently underappreciated impact of the April 6 midday counterattack by Sherman and McClernand. Temporary as it was, that unexpected forward movement bought precious time for later, and more celebrated, federal defensive stands (such as the Sunken Road position and Grant's "Final Line") to be formed. Powell also closely agrees with Smith that Johnston's initiation of his army's grand wheel to the northwest, one of the Confederate commander's most critical battlefield decisions, was launched prematurely, well before the Union left was fully developed. Instead of beginning the planned hammer blow aimed at separating Grant's army from Pittsburg Landing, the movement only deepened the disruption of the Confederate army's already rapidly fragmenting battle line. In line with today's more sober assessments of what was possible for the Confederates to achieve by the late afternoon and evening of April 6, Powell finds fault with Beauregard not for calling off the attack at that time but rather for failing to prepare his army for the next day's fight. Of course, these are just a few of the topics explored among the nearly two-dozen leadership decisions examined in the book.

The ultimate goal of the series to which this book belongs is to direct attention toward the "decisions that prefigured the action and shaped the contest as it unfolded," leaving readers "with a vivid blueprint of the battle’s developments" and "why they happened as they did." Powell's efforts meet those requirements exceptionally well. The evenhanded manner in which he presents the strengths and weaknesses of the differing viewpoints attached to major contemporary controversies and subsequent historiographical focal points alike, inviting informed discussion rather than simply promoting a "correct" interpretation dismissive of the others, is refreshing. This volume is both an excellent addition to the Shiloh bookshelf and one of the very best entries in the Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series. Highly recommended.

Booknotes: Decisions at Perryville

New Arrival:
• Decisions at Perryville: The Twenty-Two Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle by Larry Peterson (UT Press, 2022).

Readers of Larry Peterson's Decisions of the 1862 Kentucky Campaign (2019) might recall the intentional omission of most Perryville coverage in anticipation of the author's planned standalone treatment of the state's largest Civil War battle. We now have that promised Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series volume in this year's Decisions at Perryville: The Twenty-Two Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle. Indeed, Peterson notes in the preface to this volume his preference going forward for devoting separate volumes to campaigns and their component battles.

From the description: Decisions at Perryville "explores the critical decisions made by Confederate and Union commanders during the battle and how these decisions shaped its outcome. Rather than offering a history of the battle, Larry Peterson hones in on a sequence of critical decisions made by commanders on both sides of the contest to provide a blueprint of the Battle of Perryville at its tactical core. Identifying and exploring the critical decisions in this way allows students of the battle to progress from a knowledge of what happened to a mature grasp of why events happened."

Readers of the campaign companion might also remember that Peterson is a bit more bullish than most when it comes to Confederate prospects for success in Kentucky. In this volume, the author sets the stage for his look at the battle itself with a brief introduction to the campaign that frames it within the context of the so-called "Confederate High Tide" of late-summer 1862. Addressing the week and a half period preceding Perryville are six critical decisions. Four more decisions are set during the morning phase of Perryville, ten during the heat of battle in the afternoon, and two are related to the aftermath of the campaign and battle.

The book's collection of 22 critical decisions is well balanced between the sides, and, as expected, the great majority (15) are tactical in nature. Filling in the rest are four strategic decisions and one personnel, logistical, and operational decision each. Reflective of their roles as primary decision-makers on multiple levels, Don Carlos Buell is the author of six decisions, Braxton Bragg five, and Leonidas Polk four.

Fourteen maps accompany the decision analysis. The sixty-page driving tour, itself supported by eleven maps, is tied to the main section's decision analysis and retains the same general format presented in the rest of the series. The tour text is generously supplemented by lengthy excerpts from official reports along with scattered modern battlefield photographs. Readers "looking for a concise introduction to the battle can tour this sacred ground—or read about it at their leisure—with key insights into the campaign and a deeper understanding of the Civil War itself." Orders of battle comprise the remaining two parts of the appendix section.