"Best books for Organisation/quallity" Topic

Hi folks,

I am an ACW rookie and I am after some books on the organisation and troop quality of the armies involved. Any suggestions?

Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.

It's difficult to get hold of these days, though. Try a library.

Is that by Robert Underwood Johnson?

Johnson was the editor. Four volumns,articles written for The Century Magazine by participants (generally high ranking).

"Is that by Robert Underwood Johnson?"

Yup. Johnson & Buell.

There are some cheap battle worn copies on Amazon.co.uk and some new ones from about £45; I may have to treat myself.

Any other suggestions?

Ah; looks like volume one of 4.

Echoes of Glory is a three vol set put out by (I believe) Time Life books. It has a lot of info and color photos that should be of interest to the new ACW gamer.

Organization is pretty easy. Basic units are regiments. Paper strength of 1000 each but usually on the field at 300-400. Brigades made up of 3-5 regiments, divisions of 3-5 brigades.

As for troop quality, you'll need to be more specific about which theater and army you're interested in.

Much better is Arms and Equipment of the Civil War by Coggins.

Dan--

I was trying to think of the title but couldn't. It is indeed a good work.

At the risk of raising some blood-pressures, I would reccommend Paddy Griffith's "Battle in the Civil War: Generalship and Tactics in America 1861-65." It's a short paperback picture book. It has all kinds of tactical and organizational data. There is no tactical primer better for the period. Cheers!

-BY

By 'organization', Weisenwolf may mean OBs for specific armies at particular battles. _Battles and Leaders_ has it. But. Beware that there's a single volume abridgement of _Battle and Leaders_ that lacks all the OB information. Avoid it.

The four volume set Battles & Leaders of the Civil War is great for Orders of Battle, and loads of history, written by the participants. This set is ALSO available on a CD (or possibly DVD). Check ebay (or google the title). As mentioned, skip the one-volume condensed version. Here is one such product on CD:
auction

The above is in PDF format and the full set is $17 USD with free shipping. Not sure of the quality of the transfer, or the search ability of these PDF volumes, and I'm not recommending them (and not NOT recommending them). Just pointing them out. I own the books, not a cd.

For unit organizations, my preference is a two-book series called Officers and Soldiers of the American Civil War. Volume 1 Infantry, Volume 2 Cavalry and Artillery. They are about $23 USD now. They are 82 pages, filled with text explaining organization and tactics, and hundreds of full color illustrations showing soldiers in uniforms (with year and unit identified), flags, even maps showing unit deployments and sample tactics.

I bought mine from Mark at Scale Creep.
link

They are the top two books in the list above.

For a single volume, I would highly recommend Arms & Equipment of the American Civil War by Jack Coggins. It covers troop organizations to a degree, but ALSO covers arms and equipment (well, yes, you probably figured that out from the title). Loads of sketches, nothing in color.

link

My suggestion is that while you are contemplating tracking down the Battles & Leaders set, and wondering if you should get the 2-volume set from Scale Creep (and yes, you should) … order Arms & Equipment right now. It will be the best $10 USD plus shipping you spend on your ACW book collection.

Steve

For OB info, if you don't mind digging, you can go straight to the source – the Official Records.

link

Thanks all,

I have ordered Arms & Equipment from Amazon and good old Caliver books have the officers and soldiers books. I think the other volumes may take some time in the UK……..

It looks like I can cobble together the 4 Johnson titles in hardback 'used – like new' for around £20.00 GBP a volume; is that a reasonable price?

"Organization is pretty easy. Basic units are regiments. Paper strength of 1000 each but usually on the field at 300-400. Brigades made up of 3-5 regiments, divisions of 3-5 brigades."

That's a very broad brushed generalisation. Individual regiments may have started out at near paper strength, but as the war progressed losses were not replaced so that regiments gradually shrank in number until some regiments were no more than a couple of hundred or so. For this reason (amongst others) the basic battlefield unit of the ACW was the brigade. A brigade could number anywhere between 1500 and 2500 men. Confederate brigades tended to be larger than Union brigades.

And all of that is also a generalisation.

"It looks like I can cobble together the 4 Johnson titles in hardback 'used – like new' for around £20.00 GBP GBP a volume; is that a reasonable price?"

I paid £10.00 GBP a volume for mine, new, about 20 years ago so, probably yes.

Sounds very reasonable to me.

Paddy Griffith is a good introduction. I do, however, had my doubts about Battles & Leaders. I has had various imprints over the last 120 years, but it is not the best place to start, even if it is where I began. With the benefit of hindsight there are better introductions.

Once you are established with a firm interest then get B&L

Didn't say B&L is a good introduction or the best place to start. Said it has detailed OBs, down to regimental level, for all the major battles and lots of little ones. Strengths are usually given grouped at brigade or division level, not broken out by regiment. I don't know of any comparable popular source for OBs for the whole war, though you can find particular OBs in many battle and campaign monographs.

If you ONLY want Orders of Battle, it's probably best to skip Battles & Leaders and just get comfortable surfing the net. There are plenty of sites, some general, some specific to certain battles, where OBs are probided.

Some sites have even uploaded OBs taken from various games. These are often pretty cool, since they sometimes give you the regimental strengths AND weapons that regiment was armed with (so if your rules differentiate, you can get some added chrome in your game sby having a variety of weapons).

Battles & Leaders is good for getting personal points of view. The articles, mostly written by participants, can get you "in the mood" while they describe what is happening. There are some very good Orders of Battle for many of the actions, and maps too.

But it's not "the best place to start" if you have an interest in the American Civil War.

I think your triple-purchases of Arms & Equipment, and those two other books on organizations & uniforms will set you well on your way.

I'd be interested if you would come back to this thread when your books arrive, and you've had a chance to check them out yourself, and post YOUR comments on them.

Steve

When they arrive I will come back and let you know what I think of them all!

I did get myself a copy of 'A Short History of the Civil War' by Fletcher Pratt. Very interesting so far, can't believe that with the increasingly murderous firepower post-Napoleon that this bizzare collection of half baked generals insist on massed frontal assaults! Very interesting though & Mr P does write rather well, good sense of humour for a 50's author too (particualrly an ethnically German one:))

Well that's the Johnson titles ordered, £80!! still who needs to eat, I was planning on a diet anyway :)

The Coggins book has arrived and I have read the bulk of it.

My initial thoughts are that it is a decent overview with some very fine educational feature (I like the siege drawing for example) but it is not very concise: it rambles and repeats on occasion and it does not provide a thorough picture allowing comparisons to be made (i.e. the information on smoothbores such as the make up ammunition is not provided in a comparative manner for the rifles; it as if they had two different authors). It also has several errors: even I with my 2 weeks of casual ACW study have noted that a 3" rifle is NOT a rodman gun.

So useful as an introduction but this will certainly not be the last word on the subject.

Well, the Coggins book may not be the best overall book for the ACW, but it is the best primer money can buy. In that one volume you learn about: formations (TOE), uniforms and equipment, most common small arms, most common artillery, and a bunch of other topics (including the signal corps, engineers & fortifications, railroads and the navies).

You learn plenty of details too: the artillery section is especially useful, with specific distances given from the original manual on placement of all the various pieces. You get a step-by-step guide to firing a piece as well.

Are there mistakes? Sure. Haven't found a book yet that doesn't have them. But for the price, I still say this is the best single volume for ACW beginning enthusiasts.

There may be better books that focus on single aspects (like only artillery, or only small arms). but you have a great foundation upon which to build your knowledge with Coggins.

I also have Cannons (by Dean Thomas) which is 72 pages devoted to artillery. And I have An Introduction to Civil War Small Arms (also by Thomas) which is 96 pages devoted to – you guessed it – small arms. There's a nice bunch of pages in the back listing regiments (from both sides) and the weapons they were armed with which I find handy.

But the small arms book says nothing about ranges. You get a nice piccy of each one, a few technical specs, a rundown of who made them and how many, and a brief bit more about the weapons. But no ranges.

The artillery book shows how cannons were made, gives you a piccy of each type discussed (sometimes several), covers the ammo types used, etc. And does mention ranges.

Both were inexpensive when I purchased mine ($10 or less). Both build upon the Coggins book, but neither one replaces Coggins.

It will be interesting to see what you think of the other volumes.

I agree it is a good primer: I now have a solid framework to hang the next wave of information onto and in some respects I would be disappointed if it was perfect; nothing left for me to do/read where would the fun in that be?

I will add those two Thomas books to my wish list although I have a couple of others to finish first and Mr Foote's 4 huge volumes arrived this week just looking at them is giving me a headache!

typo: 3 volumes; I must be seeing things……..

Very interesting so far, can't believe that with the increasingly murderous firepower post-Napoleon that this bizzare collection of half baked generals insist on massed frontal assaults!

Yeah, those silly Americans! Took them three years to figure that out.

Then it took those clever European generals another 50 years and a few million dead to figure out the same thing.

?

Clearly Weisenwolf … an occurence of the rare but dreaded errant post. Where someone thinks they are posting in another thread, and yet it ends up elsewhere.

I'm thinking this post had to do with the effectiveness of various weapons during the ACW.

Ah well.

Weisenwolf

So you are showing the 1st symptoms ACW fever! If you insist on continuing down this road you will spend countless hours and lots of money and never get enough of this nearly limitless wargame period! Of course you will likely love it all! So welcome to the ACW Obsession Society, probably only a couple of million of us active!!

You could be right there, just had to clear a large section of my number 1 bookcase to make room for the first few feet of reading material.

Also finding myself pouring over 'Fire and Fury'& deep fried's figure comparisons while mentally calculating the logistics of raising a few brigades of true blues and butternutters myself – just half a dozen brigades a side, maybe 8, certainly no more than a dozen…………

More books on order, can't read fast enough AHhhhhhhh