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Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology
Engineering Victory: How Technology Won the Civil War
Superior engineering skills among Union soldiers helped ensure victory in the Civil War. Engineering Victory brings a fresh approach to the question of why the North prevailed in the Civil War. Historian Thomas F. Army, Jr., identifies strength in engineering―not superior military strategy or industrial advantage―as the critical determining factor in the war’s outcome. Army finds that Union soldiers were able to apply scientific ingenuity and innovation to complex problems in a way that Confederate soldiers simply could not match. Skilled Free State engineers who were trained during the antebellum period benefited from basic educational reforms, the spread of informal educational practices, and a culture that encouraged learning and innovation. During the war, their rapid construction and repair of roads, railways, and bridges allowed Northern troops to pass quickly through the forbidding terrain of the South as retreating and maneuvering Confederates struggled to cut supply lines and stop the Yankees from pressing any advantage. By presenting detailed case studies from both theaters of the war, Army clearly demonstrates how the soldiers’ education, training, and talents spelled the difference between success and failure, victory and defeat. He also reveals massive logistical operations as critical in determining the war’s outcome.
392 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2016
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75 people want to read
About the author
Thomas F. Army
1 book1 followerThomas F. Army, Jr., is an adjunct assistant professor of history at Quinebaug Valley Community College.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 23, 2020
"Engineering Victory" takes an interesting approach to the American Civil War by arguing that Northern engineering is what allowed the Union to triumph over the Confederacy. Specifically the ability to rapidly and effectively build, repair, and maintain transportation infrastructure allowing for the movement of men and supplies.
About 50 pages are spent contrasting the antebellum North and South with an emphasis on three key ideas: the North had a better public school system and placed greater emphasis on education than their Southern counterparts; the North was a better meritocracy than the south, allowing the creative and talented to advance both themselves and their society's technology, and also had an economy that placed greater emphasis on trade skills; the North's well-known advantage in railroads meant they also had far more people with engineering, mechanical, and trade skills than their Southern counterparts. The less obvious advantages of railroads on society really intrigued me as these were new ideas to me. The economic/meritocracy advantages were fairly unsurprising. The difference in educational systems felt a little dense and is probably something that could be an entire topic in its own right.
The rest of the book is essentially an engineering history of the war through case studies. Many of the obvious topics are covered like the creativity in dealing with Island Number Ten, the extensive engineering during the Vicksburg campaign, the dams that saved Porter's flotilla on the Red River, the Army of the Potomac bridging the James River, the mine at Petersburg that led to the Battle of the Crater, and Sherman's bridge-building during his 1864-1865 campaigns. There is an entire chapter on the formation and training of volunteer engineer regiments in the Union Army, and another about the development of the US Military Railroad under Herman Haupt.
This book emphasizes Union accomplishments. The coverage of Confederates emphasizes instances of bungling. The poor placement of Fort Henry and the mismanagement of Southern railroads are prime examples. Even Confederate successes are shown as demonstrating Confederate weaknesses. For example, consider the improvised pontoon bridge at Williamsport at the tail end of the Gettysburg Campaign? The whole thing was mismanaged and slow; their Union counterparts could have done the same thing faster and better.
Disappointingly, this is very much a series of case studies and not a complete history. Because of the thesis, the important of West Point engineers at times feels a bit peripheral. Other than Vicksburg and Forts Henry and Donelson, fortifications and siegecraft are largely skipped over. Fieldworks during the Overland Campaign and the creation of the Confederate earthworks around Vicksburg, Petersburg, and Atlanta are pretty much skipped except a short mention of how the Atlanta fortifications were placed too close to the city. Even the impressive defensive works erected by the Union at Knoxville in late 1863 go unmentioned. The Confederates poorly placed defensive works atop Missionary Ridge (on the true crest instead of the military crest), one of the most infamous Confederate engineering blunders of the war (perhaps second only to the placement of Fort Henry), go unmentioned. To some degree this may be an effort to avoid covering ground that may have already been well-turned (pun intended) in some of the books by Earl Hess. Mostly though it seems the result of dedication to thesis. I find that Thomas Army's writing about engineering is pretty good so the selective coverage feels unfortunate. Considering this book started as a doctoral dissertation and is both from a university press that does not usually publish Civil War works, I can't say the decision make a tightly focused book is surprising.
This is a pretty interesting book that I strongly recommend to anyone interested in the Civil War. It provides an interesting perspective on the war. The more I learn about military history the more I understand logistics are critical. Just be aware of what the book is and isn't. For other readers, I think it is worthwhile for those interested in engineering and technology, even if you're only an amateur. My growing interest in the subject of engineering is one of the reasons I read this book. I wouldn't recommend it to a general audience.
About 50 pages are spent contrasting the antebellum North and South with an emphasis on three key ideas: the North had a better public school system and placed greater emphasis on education than their Southern counterparts; the North was a better meritocracy than the south, allowing the creative and talented to advance both themselves and their society's technology, and also had an economy that placed greater emphasis on trade skills; the North's well-known advantage in railroads meant they also had far more people with engineering, mechanical, and trade skills than their Southern counterparts. The less obvious advantages of railroads on society really intrigued me as these were new ideas to me. The economic/meritocracy advantages were fairly unsurprising. The difference in educational systems felt a little dense and is probably something that could be an entire topic in its own right.
The rest of the book is essentially an engineering history of the war through case studies. Many of the obvious topics are covered like the creativity in dealing with Island Number Ten, the extensive engineering during the Vicksburg campaign, the dams that saved Porter's flotilla on the Red River, the Army of the Potomac bridging the James River, the mine at Petersburg that led to the Battle of the Crater, and Sherman's bridge-building during his 1864-1865 campaigns. There is an entire chapter on the formation and training of volunteer engineer regiments in the Union Army, and another about the development of the US Military Railroad under Herman Haupt.
This book emphasizes Union accomplishments. The coverage of Confederates emphasizes instances of bungling. The poor placement of Fort Henry and the mismanagement of Southern railroads are prime examples. Even Confederate successes are shown as demonstrating Confederate weaknesses. For example, consider the improvised pontoon bridge at Williamsport at the tail end of the Gettysburg Campaign? The whole thing was mismanaged and slow; their Union counterparts could have done the same thing faster and better.
Disappointingly, this is very much a series of case studies and not a complete history. Because of the thesis, the important of West Point engineers at times feels a bit peripheral. Other than Vicksburg and Forts Henry and Donelson, fortifications and siegecraft are largely skipped over. Fieldworks during the Overland Campaign and the creation of the Confederate earthworks around Vicksburg, Petersburg, and Atlanta are pretty much skipped except a short mention of how the Atlanta fortifications were placed too close to the city. Even the impressive defensive works erected by the Union at Knoxville in late 1863 go unmentioned. The Confederates poorly placed defensive works atop Missionary Ridge (on the true crest instead of the military crest), one of the most infamous Confederate engineering blunders of the war (perhaps second only to the placement of Fort Henry), go unmentioned. To some degree this may be an effort to avoid covering ground that may have already been well-turned (pun intended) in some of the books by Earl Hess. Mostly though it seems the result of dedication to thesis. I find that Thomas Army's writing about engineering is pretty good so the selective coverage feels unfortunate. Considering this book started as a doctoral dissertation and is both from a university press that does not usually publish Civil War works, I can't say the decision make a tightly focused book is surprising.
This is a pretty interesting book that I strongly recommend to anyone interested in the Civil War. It provides an interesting perspective on the war. The more I learn about military history the more I understand logistics are critical. Just be aware of what the book is and isn't. For other readers, I think it is worthwhile for those interested in engineering and technology, even if you're only an amateur. My growing interest in the subject of engineering is one of the reasons I read this book. I wouldn't recommend it to a general audience.
December 13, 2024
Although the author Thomas Army might bemoan the relative lack of studies of the American Civil War as a technological and managerial enterprise, what this synthesis demonstrates is that there has been a lot of relevant material out in the published world; it was mostly a question of pulling it all together. While this means that if you've done enough reading about the late unpleasantness of the 1860s, very little of this is going to seem that unfamiliar, though the relatively new student of the war is going to get a shock to the system. To put it another way, though the realization that time was against them was a major reason why the leadership of secession made the choice they did, they may not have realized that the moment had already come too late, as Union technological superiority guaranteed that they could deny the Confederate cause the time it needed to solidify. This is assuming the will was there; and it was. If nothing else one gets a comparative examination of the evolving engineering capabilities of the two field forces.
April 25, 2019
As is often the case in books like this, I think that the author is overselling his point a little bit, but only slightly. In stark contrast to the many writers who look at tactics and strategy as a way of explaining the Union's victory in the Civil War, the author uses the importance of logistics as a way of showing technology and innovation/creativity as an important element in the Union victory, and then explores some of the hidden advantages that the Union had that the Confederacy did not in this regard. In general, I believe that both the Union and Confederacy had very creative people fighting on their behalf, and both sides were able to develop creative innovations in their attempts to wrest victory from the other--the Union's use of the telegraph and railroad was in many cases matched by that of the Confederacy, at least until the end of the war when logistics made a difference, and if the North had its ironclads, so did the South, albeit in fewer numbers, and if the North had the Gatling gun the south had the submarine and torpedo, even if the industrial society of the North was better able to exploit those technological advantages.
This sizable book of about 300 pages is divided into three parts and thirteen chapters. After an introduction into the somewhat exaggerated contrast of North and South as contrasting societies of mechanics and masters, respectively, the author discusses in the first part of the book the gap in education and management between the two regions (I) in looking at school reform and science education (1), the transmission of knowledge in mechanics' institutes and agricultural fairs (2), and the development of modern management in the railroad system (3). After that the author looks at how Civil War soldiers took their skills to war (II) with a look at the popularity of volunteer enegineers (4), early successes in the Western front that resulted from engineering know-how (5), McClellan's test of his engineers in the East (6), the birth of the US Military Railroad (7), and events in the summer and fall of 1862 (8) that showed the limitations of Southern engineering efforts. The author then closes the book with a look at the applied engineering of the second half of the war (III), with discussions of Grant's efforts at Vicksburg (9), Lee's failures at Gettysburg (10), Union efforts at Chattanooga (11), the Red River and Petersburg campaigns (12), and the Atlanta and Carolina campaigns (13), with a conclusion that Northern know-how was triumphant.
In reading this book I was struck by the reality of a rather implicit set of obvious agendas that the author had in not only celebrating the Union's win in large part through industrial and logistical strength (a characteristic of America's approach to warfare) but also a public school-based education system that is heavy on STEM education and support. Even as someone who (as noted above) considers the creativity of Union and Confederacy to be far closer to even than the author does, it is clear that the Union was able to profit from the fact that the North's culture gave an honored place to innovative and creative people in a way that the South did not, and that the educational and industrial infrastructure that could turn a successful creation into a widely used technology was far greater in the North than in the South, with very serious consequences. Creative people can indeed be found everywhere, but creativity does flourish best within a context that allows information to be shared and for honors and rewards to flow to those who have the good ideas, who ask the right questions and come up with the best solutions. Societies as intent on preserving the rule of reactionary elites as the South was are not societies that will encourage a great deal of change and innovation that may be threatening to the existing social order, and to the extent that a society feels threatened by creative types, the ability of those creative people and their creations to gain honor and respect and profit greatly diminishes.
This sizable book of about 300 pages is divided into three parts and thirteen chapters. After an introduction into the somewhat exaggerated contrast of North and South as contrasting societies of mechanics and masters, respectively, the author discusses in the first part of the book the gap in education and management between the two regions (I) in looking at school reform and science education (1), the transmission of knowledge in mechanics' institutes and agricultural fairs (2), and the development of modern management in the railroad system (3). After that the author looks at how Civil War soldiers took their skills to war (II) with a look at the popularity of volunteer enegineers (4), early successes in the Western front that resulted from engineering know-how (5), McClellan's test of his engineers in the East (6), the birth of the US Military Railroad (7), and events in the summer and fall of 1862 (8) that showed the limitations of Southern engineering efforts. The author then closes the book with a look at the applied engineering of the second half of the war (III), with discussions of Grant's efforts at Vicksburg (9), Lee's failures at Gettysburg (10), Union efforts at Chattanooga (11), the Red River and Petersburg campaigns (12), and the Atlanta and Carolina campaigns (13), with a conclusion that Northern know-how was triumphant.
In reading this book I was struck by the reality of a rather implicit set of obvious agendas that the author had in not only celebrating the Union's win in large part through industrial and logistical strength (a characteristic of America's approach to warfare) but also a public school-based education system that is heavy on STEM education and support. Even as someone who (as noted above) considers the creativity of Union and Confederacy to be far closer to even than the author does, it is clear that the Union was able to profit from the fact that the North's culture gave an honored place to innovative and creative people in a way that the South did not, and that the educational and industrial infrastructure that could turn a successful creation into a widely used technology was far greater in the North than in the South, with very serious consequences. Creative people can indeed be found everywhere, but creativity does flourish best within a context that allows information to be shared and for honors and rewards to flow to those who have the good ideas, who ask the right questions and come up with the best solutions. Societies as intent on preserving the rule of reactionary elites as the South was are not societies that will encourage a great deal of change and innovation that may be threatening to the existing social order, and to the extent that a society feels threatened by creative types, the ability of those creative people and their creations to gain honor and respect and profit greatly diminishes.
July 17, 2021
A good book, providing a focused thesis on the importance of education and engineering skills in the outcome of the US Civil War. The author, Thomas Army, developed this book from his doctoral thesis. The book lacks some of the color of a more popular history, but it presents a solid and detailed analysis. Army’s basic thesis argues that the North’s pre-war emphasis on education for the masses and industrial innovation contrasted sharply with the Southern state’s provision of limited educational opportunities and emphasis on industrial efforts that demanded little innovation or bottom-up initiative. The result was a US military able to achieve critical engineering feats while supported by a Northern industry which smoothly expanded to meet increased wartime demand. Concurrently, the South suffered from an inefficient industrial base and transportation network, as well as a military that lacked a large pool of mechanics and low-level engineers. Army argues that it was this disparity, rather than a larger population or larger industry, which made the war a forgone conclusion. One quote particularly outlines the South’s dilemma: Southern leaders believed that “fighting, not logistics, would determine the outcome of the war.” Army’s thesis is strongly made. His description of pre-war education in the US and his study of engineering unit composition during the war are in-depth and solidly presented. I do think, however, that his findings are still part of the “larger battalions” rationale for the US victory rather than a separate argument. No amount of better generalship or higher individual soldier quality (and I don’t think the South possessed an advantage in either category) can make up for a significant resource disadvantage, all other aspects of time and politics being equal. Overall, a great book for any serious student of the Civil War. Highly recommended for those wanting to better understand the relationship between a nation’s peacetime initiatives and its wartime results.
November 25, 2017
Engineering Victory offers a specific view on the deciding factor that led the Union to win the Civil War. Drawing from the feats of volunteer engineer and pioneer regiments, it is shown how the Northern military essentially took the war to the South and in some cases had to escape certain disaster on the field. The building and repairing of bridges, roads, railroads, canals, and dams were critical to the logistical success of Union Army campaigns. This book gave me an interesting new perspective on the Civil War as experienced through the viewpoints of thousands of engineer soldiers. I now have a knowledge on part of the war that is not commonly discussed.
June 7, 2023
This is one of the best books I have read on the American Civil War. Professor Army marshalls his facts and information to support his contention that technology, public schools, and free society were all instrumental in bringing about the Union victory. It puts the lie to the whole Southern 'lost cause' schmear and shows the paucity of the system of government based on slavery. It is truly a 'must read' in our troublesome current period. It is the antidote to the anti-scientific, anti-thought, anti-public schools and anti-progress positions of so many Americans today. This is an excellent look at and for troubled times.
September 29, 2021
The author does a fine job presenting and supporting his thesis that the educational system supported the innovative, ingenious mindset needed for the Union to advance through the backwaters of the South and ultimately win the Civil War. After a dozen or so descriptions of a bridge being built it begins to drag however.
April 11, 2020
Full of information that only requires basic understanding of the civil war to understand
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews