2009, ISBN: 9781429779357

Hardcover

Harrisburg, PA: The Archive Society, 1992. Facsimile Reprint Edition. Hardcover. Very good. vii, [5], 204, pages. Maps. Occasional Footnotes. Decorative endpapers. Gilt-edged. Ind… More...

Harrisburg, PA: The Archive Society, 1992. Facsimile Reprint Edition. Hardcover. Very good. vii, [5], 204, pages. Maps. Occasional Footnotes. Decorative endpapers. Gilt-edged. Index. Manning Ferguson Force (December 17, 1824 - May 8, 1899) was a lawyer, judge and soldier from Ohio. He became known as the commander of the 20th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and was a recipient of the Medal of Honor for gallantry. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Force joined the Union forces as major of the 20th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, serving in the Western Theater as part of General James B. McPherson's 17th Corps. Colonel Force's 20th Ohio bore the brunt of the Battle of Raymond, in the Vicksburg Campaign. Following the Siege of Vicksburg, Force fought in the Atlanta Campaign. He was severely wounded during the Battle of Atlanta and was disfigured for life. For his valor, Force was promoted to major general of volunteers in March 1865. In 1892, he received the Medal of Honor. The citation read, "Charged upon the enemy's works, and after their capture defended his position against assaults of the enemy until he was severely wounded." In his memoirs printed after the war, Force stated: "When lying there (in the trenches outside Vicksburg) it sometimes occurred to me, what a transformation it was for these men, full of individuality and self-reliance, accustomed always to act upon their own will, to so completely subordinate their wills to the wills of other men...Their practical sense had told them an army differs from a mob only in discipline, and discipline was necessary for self-preservation." M.F. Force's Campaigns of the Civil War: From Fort Henry to Corinth offer a detailed look at the earliest campaigns in the West during 1862. Fort Henry was Ulysses S. Grant's first critical strategic victory, and the siege of Corinth followed the climactic Battle of Shiloh. These were all critical to the Union's ability to seize the advantage in the West, and that year also helped bring about the rising fortunes of the Union's most important general during the Civil War. The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, was a major battle in the Western Theater of the American Civil War, fought April 6-7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee. A Union force known as the Army of the Tennessee under Major General Ulysses S. Grant had moved via the Tennessee River deep into Tennessee and was encamped principally at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee on the west bank of that river, where the Confederate Army of Mississippi, under General Albert Sidney Johnston and second-in-command Pierre G. T. Beauregard, launched a surprise attack on Grant's army from its base in Corinth, Mississippi. Johnston was killed in action during the fighting; Beauregard, who thus succeeded to command of the army, decided against pressing the attack late in the evening. Overnight Grant was reinforced by one of his own divisions stationed further north and was joined by three divisions from another Union army under Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell. This allowed them to launch an unexpected counterattack the next morning which completely reversed the Confederate gains of the previous day. On April 6, the first day of the battle, the Confederates struck with the intention of driving the Union defenders away from the river and into the swamps of Owl Creek to the west. Johnston hoped to defeat Grant's army before the anticipated arrival of General Buell's Army of the Ohio. The Confederate battle lines became confused during the fierce fighting, and Grant's men instead fell back to the northeast, in the direction of Pittsburg Landing. A Union position on a slightly sunken road, nicknamed the "Hornet's Nest," defended by the men of Brig. Gens. Benjamin Prentiss's and William H. L. Wallace's divisions, provided critical time for the remainder of the Union line to stabilize under the protection of numerous artillery batteries. Wallace was mortally wounded when the position collapsed, while several regiments from the two divisions were eventually surrounded and surrendered. General Johnston was shot in the leg and bled to death while personally leading an attack. Beauregard, his second in command, acknowledged how tired the army was from the day's exertions and decided against assaulting the final Union position that night. Tired but unfought and well-organized men from Buell's army and a division of Grant's army arrived in the evening of April 6 and helped turn the tide the next morning, when the Union commanders launched a counterattack along the entire line. Confederate forces were forced to retreat from the area, ending their hopes of blocking the Union advance into northern Mississippi. The Battle of Shiloh was the bloodiest battle in American history up to that time, although it was superseded the next year by the Battle of Chancellorsville and, soon after, the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, which would prove to be the bloodiest of the war., The Archive Society, 1992, 3, Cornell University Library, 2009-05-01. Paperback. Good., Cornell University Library, 2009-05-01, 2.5<