Staff Ride Guide for the Battle of First Bull Run
Staff Ride Guide for the Battle of First Bull Run

Author: Ted Ballard

Publisher:

Published: 2003-10-30

Total Pages: 92

ISBN-13: 9781453799208

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The U.S. Army has long used the staff ride as a tool for professional development, conveying the lessons of the past to contemporary soldiers. A First Bull Run staff ride can offer significant military lessons. Revisiting this battle through the "eyes" of the men who were there, both leaders and rank-and-file soldiers, allows one insights into decision making under pressure and the human condition during battle. The campaign contains many lessons in command and control, communications, intelligence, logistics, the accommodation of advances in weapon technology, and mobilization in the absence of universal military training. Ted Ballard has been a historian with the U.S. Army Center of Military History since 1980 and a part of the Center's staff ride program since 1986. Battle of First Bull Run joins his other battlefield guides to Ball's Bluff, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Wilderness/Spotsylvania. Originally published in color by the Center of Military History. Maps and photos included.

Staff Ride Guide - The Battle Of First Bull Run [Illustrated Edition]
Staff Ride Guide - The Battle Of First Bull Run [Illustrated Edition]

Author: Ted Ballard

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2014-08-15

Total Pages: 121

ISBN-13: 1782894594

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Illustrated with 12 maps and 15 Illustrations. On 16 July 1861, the largest army ever assembled on the North American continent up to that time marched from the vicinity of Washington, D.C., toward Manassas Junction, thirty miles to the southwest. Commanded by newly promoted Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell, the Union force consisted of partly trained militia with ninety-day enlistments (almost untrained volunteers) and three newly organized battalions of Regulars. Many soldiers, unaccustomed to military discipline or road marches, left the ranks to obtain water, gather blackberries, or simply to rest as the march progressed. Near Manassas, along a meandering stream known as Bull Run, waited the similarly untrained Confederate army commanded by Brig. Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard. This army would soon be joined by another Confederate force, commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston. After a minor clash of arms on 18 July, McDowell launched the first major land battle of the Civil War by attempting to turn the Confederate left flank on 21 July. A series of uncoordinated and sometimes confusing attacks and counterattacks by both sides finally ended in a defeat for the Union Army and its withdrawal to Washington. The Battle of First Bull Run highlighted many of the problems and deficiencies that were typical of the first year of the war. Units were committed piecemeal, attacks were frontal, infantry failed to protect exposed artillery, tactical intelligence was nil, and neither commander was able to employ his whole force effectively. McDowell, with 35,000 men, was only able to commit about 18,000, and the combined Confederate forces, with about 32,000 men, committed only 18,000.

The Staff Ride
The Staff Ride

Author: William Glenn Robertson

Publisher: Government Printing Office

Published: 2014-12-11

Total Pages: 44

ISBN-13: 9780160925436

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Discusses how to plan a staff ride of a battlefield, such as a Civil War battlefield, as part of military training. This brochure demonstrates how a staff ride can be made available to military leaders throughout the Army, not just those in the formal education system.

Staff Ride Handbook For The Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863 [Illustrated Edition]
Staff Ride Handbook For The Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863 [Illustrated Edition]

Author: Dr. Christopher Gabel

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2015-11-06

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1782899359

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Includes over 30 maps and Illustrations The Staff Ride Handbook for the Vicksburg Campaign, December 1862-July 1863, provides a systematic approach to the analysis of this key Civil War campaign. Part I describes the organization of the Union and Confederate Armies, detailing their weapons, tactics, and logistical, engineer, communications, and medical support. It also includes a description of the U.S. Navy elements that featured so prominently in the campaign. Part II consists of a campaign overview that establishes the context for the individual actions to be studied in the field. Part III consists of a suggested itinerary of sites to visit in order to obtain a concrete view of the campaign in its several phases. For each site, or “stand,” there is a set of travel directions, a discussion of the action that occurred there, and vignettes by participants in the campaign that further explain the action and which also allow the student to sense the human “face of battle.” Part IV provides practical information on conducting a Staff Ride in the Vicksburg area, including sources of assistance and logistical considerations. Appendix A outlines the order of battle for the significant actions in the campaign. Appendix B provides biographical sketches of key participants. Appendix C provides an overview of Medal of Honor conferral in the campaign. An annotated bibliography suggests sources for preliminary study.

Battle of First Bull Run
Battle of First Bull Run

Author: Ted Ballard

Publisher:

Published: 2019-06-13

Total Pages: 91

ISBN-13: 9781073606078

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The U.S. Army has long used the staff ride as a tool for professional development, conveying the lessons of the past to contemporary soldiers. In 1906 Maj. Eben Swift took twelve officer-students from Fort Leavenworth's General Service and Staff School to the Chickamauga battlefield on the Army's first official staff ride. Since that time Army educators have employed staff rides to provide officers a better understanding of past military operations, of the vagaries of war, and of military planning. A staff ride to an appropriate battlefield can also enliven a unit's esprit de corps--a constant objective in peacetime or war. To support such Army initiatives, the Center of Military History publishes staff ride guides, such as this one on the Battle of First Bull Run. This account is drawn principally from contemporary after action reports and from the sworn testimony of participants before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, a congressional entity created to investigate the Union defeats at First Bull Run and Ball's Bluff. A First Bull Run staff ride can offer significant military lessons. Revisiting this battle through the "eyes" of the men who were there, both leaders and rank-and-file soldiers, allows one insights into decision making under pressure and the human condition during battle. The campaign contains many lessons in command and control, communications, intelligence, logistics, the accommodation of advances in weapon technology, and mobilization in the absence of universal military training. First Bull Run was a first battle--a major engagement after a prolonged period of peace. For some it constitutes a metaphor of the price paid for military unpreparedness. Hopefully, this volume will prove a useful tool for those conducting a staff ride to First Bull Run

First Battle of Bull Run
First Battle of Bull Run

Author: Ted Ballard

Publisher:

Published: 2004-06-01

Total Pages: 83

ISBN-13: 9780756741310

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Since 1906 the U.S. Army has used the staff ride as a tool for professional development, conveying the lessons of the past to contemporary soldiers. Provides officers a better understanding of past military operations, of the vagaries of war, and of military planning. A staff ride to an appropriate battlefield can also enliven a unit's esprit de corps -- a constant objective in peacetime or war. This staff guide on the Battle of First Bull Run, which the Union Army lost, includes an account drawn principally from contemporary after-action reports and from the sworn testimony of participants. A First Bull Run staff ride can provide many lessons in command and control, commun., intelligence, and weapons technology vs. tactics. Color maps and photos.

Battle Of Antietam, Staff Ride Guide [Illustrated Edition]
Battle Of Antietam, Staff Ride Guide [Illustrated Edition]

Author: Ted Ballard

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2014-08-15

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1782898603

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Contains more than 20 maps, diagrams and illustrations The Battle of Antietam has been called the bloodiest single day in American History. By the end of the evening, 17 September 1862, an estimated 4,000 American soldiers had been killed and over 18,000 wounded in and around the small farming community of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Emory Upton, then a captain with the Union artillery battery, later wrote, "I have heard of 'the dead lying in heaps,' but never saw it till this battle. Whole ranks fell together." The battle had been a day of confusion, tactical blunders, individual heroics, and the effects of just plain luck. It brought to an end a Confederate campaign to "liberate" the border state of Maryland and possibly take the war into Pennsylvania. A little more than one hundred and forty years later, the Antietam battlefield is one of the best-preserved Civil War battlefields in the National Park System. Antietam is ideal for a staff ride, since a continuing goal of the National Park Service is to maintain the site in the condition in which it was on the day of the battle. The purpose of any staff ride is to learn from the past by analyzing the battle through the eyes of the men who were there, both leaders and rank-and-file soldiers. Antietam offers many lessons in command and control, communications, intelligence, weapons technology versus tactics, and the ever-present confusion, or "fog" of battle. We hope that these lessons will allow us to gain insights into decision-making and the human condition during combat.

Battle of Antietam Staff Ride Guide
Battle of Antietam Staff Ride Guide

Author: Ted Ballard

Publisher: U.S. Government Printing Office

Published: 2009-01-09

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13:

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Describes the battle on 17 September 1862 when nearly 70,000 Federal troops actually engaged in the battle, nearly 13,000 were killed, wounded, or missing; the approximately 35,000 Confederates engaged lost almost as many. General McClellan's indecision allowed General Lee to withdraw to the safety of the Virginia shore.

Battle Of Ball’s Bluff, Staff Ride Guide [Illustrated Edition]
Battle Of Ball’s Bluff, Staff Ride Guide [Illustrated Edition]

Author: Ted Ballard

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2014-08-15

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13: 1782898611

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Contains more than 20 maps, diagrams and illustrations On the night of 20 October 1861, Union Brig. Gen. Charles P. Stone put into action a plan to attack what had been reported as a small, unguarded Confederate camp between the Potomac River at Ball's Bluff and Leesburg, Virginia. Later, after Stone learned there was no camp, he allowed the operation to continue, now modified to capture Leesburg itself. But a lack of adequate communication between commanders, problems with logistics, and violations of the principles of war hampered the operation. What originally was to be a small raid instead turned into a military disaster. The action resulted in the death of a popular U.S. senator and long-time friend of President Abraham Lincoln, the arrest and imprisonment of General Stone, and the creation of a congressional oversight committee that would keep senior Union commanders looking over their shoulders for the remainder of the war. For such a small and relatively insignificant military action, Ball's Bluff would cast a long shadow. The purpose of a Ball's Bluff staff ride is to learn from the past by analyzing the battle through the eyes of the men who were there, both leaders and rank-and-file soldiers. The battle contains many lessons in command and control, communications, intelligence, weapons technology versus tactics, and the ever-present confusion, or "fog," of battle. Hopefully, these lessons will allow us to gain insights into decision making and the human condition during combat. Today, the battlefield is enclosed in the 225-acre Ball's Bluff Regional Park, managed by the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority. A short trail includes interpretive markers and a small national cemetery containing the remains of fifty-four soldiers.