The Warfare During The American Civil War - 904 Words

The conduct of warfare during the American Civil War best exemplified one characteristic of the Western way of war, which without its incorporation could have drastically changed the outcome of the war and the existence of the United States as we know it. This characteristic demonstrated is innovation. Innovation as a characteristic of the Western way of war best exemplifies the American Civil War based on the telegraph, the rifled musket and the railroad. Had the Union and United States government not leveraged the above mentioned technologies the outcome of the war could have resulted in the division of this country. From the onset of the Civil War the South possessed two advantages. One was geography and the other was that it did not have to â€Å"win† the war. The vastness of the United State presented command and control challenges and logistical challenge for both Union and Confederal forces. This before mentioned challenge played into the Confederate forces other advantage which was they could simple keep the Union forces to a draw during the war and thus ensuring their future as an independent country. For the Union forces to overcome the challenge of geography and to not result in a draw they used innovations such as the telegraph to communicate orders to Soldiers over vast distances and thus making geography and the tyranny of distance a less of an advantage for the Confederate forces. The ability for leadership to convey timely orders to their militaryShow MoreRelatedThe Guerrilla Warfare And The American Civil War1518 Words   |  7 PagesThe guerrilla warfare along the Kansas-Missouri border has generally been considered an outlier of the American Civil War. While interesting to read about, its impact on the war and on Union policies were not always important to historians. Early in the study of this conflict historians chose to focus on the leaders and actions of the guerrillas. More recently, scholars have endeavored to understan d how guerrilla war in the Civil War affected the society in which it took place. This shift in historiographicalRead MoreThe Unions Ability to Conduct Total Warfare and Confederate Defeat931 Words   |  4 Pagesto Conduct Total Warfare and Confederate Defeat The American War for Independence was a successful struggle of a smaller nation fighting a larger, more powerful force. However, in the case of the American Civil War, the larger more powerful Union defeated the southern Confederacy. The Union won the Civil War because the Confederacy could not sustain a war of attrition in the Napoleonic style that evolved into Total War. This paper will briefly explain what Napoleonic warfare is and examine theRead MoreEssay on DEVELOPMENT OF THE U S ARMY929 Words   |  4 Pagesvital role in the growth and development of the American nation. It won the new Republics independence in an arduous eight-year struggle against Great Britain, at times providing the lone symbol of nationhood around which patriots could rally. During the Civil War it preserved the Union through four years of biter conflict that turned brother against brother. It has repeatedly defended United States against external threats, from the quot;second war of independencequot ; with Great Britain in 1812Read MoreThe Battle Of The American Civil War1335 Words   |  6 PagesLooking back with hindsight and the knowledge of warfare of the 21st century it is easy to say that the American Civil War was simply put, a very traditional war. 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Trench warfare was no doubt a horrifying and awful type of warfare that caused countless non-battle deaths, yet it was necessary at the time. Without trench warfare, the war would have been a short but extremely bloody war because there was no way to combat the ferocity of the new weapons used in the war and there was no way to advance on theRead MoreThe World War I Ended1256 Words   |  6 Pagesof World War I, which pitted Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire (the so-called Central Powers) against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Japan (the Allied Powers). The Allies were joined after 1917 by the United States. The four years of the Great War–as it was then known–saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction, thanks to grueling trench warfare and the introduction of modern weaponry such as machine guns, tanks and chemical weapons. By the time World War I ended inRead MoreAmerica s Paradoxical Love Hate Relationship With War1374 Words   |  6 Pageswith war and how this relationship influences American warfare through the research and study of the interpretation and analyzation of American military models, policy and goal changes, the use of military technology, â€Å"American way of war,† and the relationship with, preparation for, and application of war. In the two hundred years since 1775, there has been thirty-five years of fighting in what we consider major conflicts or wars. This averages out to about one year of war to every