Category: 19th century

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William Glenn Robertson has a PhD in History and has written books and numerous articles on the US Civil War. He became a faculty member of the Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1981. There he revived the educational technique known as the Staff Ride and wrote the Army’s manual on the subject. He retired as the Director, Combat Studies Institute in 2011. We spoke about his latest US Civil War book on the Chickamauga campaign.

0:47 – William talks about how he got into studying military history. He grew up around it.

4:24 – William talks about the book itself. He talks about the motivation to write it.

7:27 – William talks about how his study differs from previous studies of the Chickamagua campaign. William talks about the personalities of the military leaders and also how they moved through and mapped the terrain they were fighting in.

16:05 – William talks about feeding and supplying large Civil War armies.

18:41 – William talks about the staffs of these armies.

23:49 – William talks about a southern family that had a son in the Union Army and who fed false information to the Confederate Army.

25:34 – William talks about the role of technology in the campaign.

32:04 – William talks about how no one had ever managed armies the size of those in the US Civil War.

34:43 – William talks about what documents he used for his research.

50:43 – William talks about some of the Civil War stories that saddened him.

59:26 – William talks about a serious problem he sees in the study of US Civil War history.

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: William Glenn Robertson

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, US history, US military history, US Civil War, Georgia, Chickamauga, Union, Confederacy

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Dr. John Selby is a professor of history at Roanoke College. His concentrations are American 19^th century history, the US Civil War, and he Vietnam War as well as American history in general. We discussed his latest book on General Meade.

0:50 – John talks about how he got into writing about the US Civil War. His first study was on the lives of seven Confederate soldiers. He then co-edited a volume on Confederate papers.

4:16 – John talks about the theme of this book.

8:01 – John talks about the Meade memorial in Washington, D.C.

12:34 – John mentions Meade’s work on lighthouses.

22:33 – John talks about the two people who caused Meade the most problems.

23:04 – John talks about general Sickles and his problems with General Meade.

30:38 – John talks more about why Meade doesn’t get credit for the victory at Gettysburg.

36:57 – John talks about the resources he used for his research. It included Meade’s voluminous number of letters.

45:55 – John talks about two questions he grappled with while doing his research.

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: John Selby

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, US Civil War, George Meade, Robert E. Lee, Army of the Northern Virginia, Army of the Potomac, leadership, Union, Confederate