7. Military and Diplomatic Strategies, 1861-1862

Questions:
1. What kind of war did Unionists and Confederates expect at the outset?
2. Why were they both so confident of the outcome?
3. What difficulties did the two sides face in raising, organising and sustaining mass armies?
4. Why, and with what consequences, did foreign powers remain neutral?
5. Did the Confederacy play its diplomatic cards less effectively than did the Union administration?

Joseph L. Harsh, “‘He Who Makes the Assault’: Confederate Strategy from Sumter to Seven Pines,” from Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861-1862 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1998)
Paddy Griffiths, “Introduction: The Alleged Origins of Modern Battle” from Battle Tactics of the Civil War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992)
Emory M. Thomas, Robert E. Lee: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997)
Howard M. Jones, Union in Peril: The Crisis over British Intervention in the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992)
T. Harry Williams, “Two Men of Destiny,” from Lincoln and his Generals, (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1952)