Robert J. Sweetman

My fascination with the Civil War began in the summer of 1961 when my father loaded my older brother and me into the family Oldsmobile station wagon and headed south on US-15 from Central New York towards Gettysburg. I can still vividly remember the clacking of the relays as the colored lights on the museum battle map switched on and off, marking the changing troop positions. The jumble of rocks at Devil’s Den was of special interest to a ten year old!

All around my boyhood hometown were subtle signs of the Civil War. I remember a centenarian recounting, as a young boy, that he watched the Union troops march back into town at the end of the war. An aged veteran living in the town died when I was a boy—the last of his generation. Tombstones

My fascination with the Civil War began in the summer of 1961 when my father loaded my older brother and me into the family Oldsmobile station wagon and headed south on US-15 from Central New York towards Gettysburg. I can still vividly remember the clacking of the relays as the colored lights on the museum battle map switched on and off, marking the changing troop positions. The jumble of rocks at Devil’s Den was of special interest to a ten year old!

All around my boyhood hometown were subtle signs of the Civil War. I remember a centenarian recounting, as a young boy, that he watched the Union troops march back into town at the end of the war. An aged veteran living in the town died when I was a boy—the last of his generation. Tombstones in the town cemetery listed the rank and unit of those who had served in the war. While this did not mean much to me at the time, it became more important as I grew older.

When I entered West Point, I became immersed in the same culture which produced the leaders of the Civil War. Summer training taught me what it was like to be a soldier living in the outdoors away from the barracks. Courses on tactics and military history provided me with the same grounding which these earlier leaders received. We studied the same leaders and battles as Lee and Grant: Alexander the Great and Hannibal to Frederick the Great and Napoleon. While some of the tactics have changed, the principles of war and the lessons from history have not. Service in the Army after graduation provided the opportunity to apply these tactical principles in training exercises. In the Army, I served in various positions from Tank Platoon Leader to Infantry Rifle Company Commander. During this time, I continued my study of the Civil War.

After leaving the Army to pursue a career as an Engineer, I found that the demands of a career, grad school, and raising a family limited the time available for Civil War studies, but I did manage to continue my passion. For over 40 years, I lived just an hour’s drive from the Gettysburg battlefield, so I was able to make numerous trips to actually walk over the ground I was reading about.

History is boring for most people! Historical novels which concentrate on just what happened and neglect why it happened leave out much of the picture. My objective is to tell a story which recounts both the “what” and the “why” of a particular segment of American military history. I hope that this dual approach will provide a deeper understanding for both the enthusiast as well as the future leaders in our military.