[The importance of logistics – the movement of supplies or materiel – remains sadly under-appreciated. In my opinion, available studies paint in broad strokes, a wise decision as most readers/students do not care to get bogged down in excessive numbers. The books sell, the author is happy and the reader leaves with a basic sense…
In looking for a title for this series of posts, I selected words penned by Col. John Beardsley in mid-September 1862. Beardsley, commanding the cavalry brigade attached to Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel’s First Corps, Army of Virginia, prefaced his campaign report by stating, on August 10, “my cavalry was sent out to patrol the different…
General Robert E. Lee began moving his army out of the lines near the Rappahannock River on June 3. His counterpart, General Joseph Hooker, must have considered the necessity of moving his army shortly thereafter, though exactly when he did so remains a bit of a mystery. Rather than going after Lee and bringing him…
Montgomery Meigs is, arguably, the most under-appreciated general in the Union army. West Point, Class of 1836, and 44 years old when the Civil War erupted, Meigs had spent his pre-war career in the engineers, working on several projects in Washington, including the dome and wings of the Capitol and the Potomac Aqueduct, which brought…
In my last post I examined Lt. Col. William LeDuc’s efforts to keep the XI Corps supplied with food, forage and ammunition in mid-December 1862. With his teamsters struggling valiantly to keep their wagons and animals moving along the mud-choked roads through Fairfax and Prince William Counties, LeDuc sought an alternative avenue by which to…
On January 15, 1863, Lt. Col. Rufus Ingalls, Quartermaster General, Army of the Potomac, replied to an earlier letter from his superior, Brig. Gen. Montgomery Meigs, in which Meigs had asked about “securing the supplies that may be in the Peninsula between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers.” “The matter has frequently engaged my attention,” Ingalls…
Small But Important Riots 