Army of the Heartland: The Army of Tennessee, 1861–1862

The Army of Tennessee #1

by Thomas Lawrence Connelly

A companion volume to Autumn of Glory

Most of the Civil War was fought on Southern soil. The responsibility for defending the Confederacy rested with two great military forces. One of these armies defended the “heartland” of the Confederacy―a vital area which embraced the state of Tennessee and large portions of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Kentucky.

This is the story of that army―the first detailed study to be based upon research in manuscript collections and the first to explore the military significance of the heartland.

The Army of Tennessee faced problems and obstacles far more staggering than any encountered by the other great Confederate force. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Lee’s army was charged with the defense of an area considerably smaller in size. And while Lee’s line of defense extended only about 125 miles, the front defended by the Army of Tennessee stretched for some 400 miles.

Yet the Army of the Heartland has heretofore been given relatively slight attention by historians. With this volume Thomas Lawrence Connelly, a native Tennessean, has brought Confederate military history more nearly into balance.

Throughout the war the Army of Tennessee was plagued by ineffective leadership. There were personality conflicts between commanding generals and corps commanders and breakdowns in communications with the Confederate government at Richmond. Lacking the leadership of a Lee, the Army of Tennessee failed to attain a real esprit at the corps level. Instead, the common soldiers, sensing the quarrelsome nature of their leaders, developed at regimental and brigade levels their own peculiar brand of morale which sustained them through continuous defeats.

Connelly analyzes the influence and impact of each successive commander of the Army. His conclusions regarding Confederate command and leadership are not the conventional ones.

Genres: Civil War, History, American Civil War, Civil War Western Theater, Army Of Tennessee, War

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Born in 1938, Thomas Lawrence Connolly earned his Ph.D. from Rice in 1963. He taught at Presbyterian College and Mississippi State University before joining the Department of History at the University of South Carolina in 1969, where he taught until his death in 1991.

Reviews

[Sean Chick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A much touted classic, I have considerable problems with the book. Connelly's prose is stilted and he is long on analysis, much of it negative. As such the narrative of events is bumpy. The common soldier never comes to the fore, as he does in Catton. Instead we get vague assertions about regimental elan. The section on the Kentucky campaign is long. The siege of Corinth is but a blurb.

I give it four stars for Connelly's discussion of the army's origins, his mostly fair analysis, and for tackling this subject back when it was a side-note for the average scholar and buff. Cozzens, Daniel, Noe, and others have built upon his work, improved it, and that is a fine monument.

[John Lomnicki, · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy book to read, but to get a full picture had to refer to additional maps of 1860's. Topography was detailed descriptions, but had to again refer to maps. Constant problems with supplies for the army, but no real specifics.

The book was about the strategy of the army and the decision making as well as information sources and motivation for the courses of action- or lack of information as well as motivation. A very good discussion based on written communications at the time. Real time insight into the decision makers- truly an outstanding look into the past.

[WKOCH · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent work. Other reviewers have criticized the prose style, but I found it highly readable. Connelly's focus here is on the period of the Army of Tennessee from the formation of the Tennessee state army under Gov. Isham Harris to the retreat from Kentucky after Perryville (although title notwithstanding, the Army of Tennessee did not go by that name until after all of the events of this first volume). Connelly chooses to focus on the (barely-functioning) high command structure of the army, rather than on its common soldiers. Pretty much all of the relevant generals come under criticism from the author (Pillow, Polk, A. S. Johnston, Beauregard, Kirby Smith, Bragg + Gov. Harris). Bragg comes off slightly better in this work than in others, with a lot of the faults of the Kentucky campaign laid at the failings of Kirby Smith, Polk, and the Confederate War Department, although Bragg does take some blame for poor planning and lack of strength of character.

The main issue here is the paucity of maps - there's a partial theater map at the beginning, a couple for the Kentucky campaign, and one for the initial dispositions at Shiloh, but on the whole there are too few maps for a work covering such a vast geographic area as the Confederate 2nd Department.

[Silver · Rating 2 out of 5]

Connelly attributes the failure of the Army of Tennessee to repel the Union advances in the heartland entirely to inept Confederate leadership. He seems to ignore every other factor. His criticisms of the generals are overstated and often unsupported by the evidence. It's a pity because the book does contain much valuable information about the Army of the Heartland and the environment it operated it. Read with a grain of salt.

[William Olenick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent first volume for covering the Confederacy's Western army.

[Gwelup Man · Rating 2 out of 5]

The research is admirable but Connelly appears to dislike all the Rebel generals. I think he is too biased.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to put my finger on exactly what makes this book a little different, I guess it's mostly the writing style. Really liked the discussion of the dysfunctional organizational and command structure of Confederate War departments in the West. Most other books I've read, written largely from the perspective of the invading Union troops it seems to me now, though they identified this state of affairs, they tend to assess fault primarily to AS Johnson. This book goes further back and into details, and though AS Johnston is faulted, not singly and primarily. This book definitely benefits from the "softer" viewpoints towards the CSA than was the case back in the early to mid 1900's when many other accounts were written. This series of books on Army of Tennessee completes the "foursome" accounts of the major armies I'm reading in parallel: Union Army of Potomac and Army of Mississippi, as well as CSA Army of Northern Virginia.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Connelly is, as always, thorough and incisive. His prose is good, for an academic text, but not exceptional, which means that some parts of the book are slow going, as is to be expected. Still, this (and the companion volume, Autumn of Glory) are indispensable for anyone who wants to genuinely understand the Civil War, as the action in the Western Theater was arguably more important to the ultimate outcome of the conflict, and Connelly's work represents the most widely-informed and level-headed analysis of those events. Though Connelly is more well-known for his historiographical analysis of the beatification of Robert E. Lee, "The Marble Man," his work on the Army of Tennessee reminds the reader that he was, first and foremost, a gifted and erudite scholar of the war itself, rather than just what has been written about the war. A must-read for serious students of the conflict.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although published in 1967 this is the best "macro" presentation of the Civil War in the west I have read. The sequel, Autumn of Glory, completes this history of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. These books offer not only a clear and detailed chronology of the War in the west but weave a clear understanding of the relationships between personalities of the principals who impacted the Army of Tennessee throughout the War from President Davis down to command at the Division level.

I recommend these two books to anyone interested in an overall understanding of the War in the west and how it shaped the face of the nation today.

[4d · Rating 3 out of 5]

Up until now I had little knowledge of how politics and limited general management skills impacted how the Army of Tennessee performed. This book reflects how this area was lost by the South instead of won by the North

[Avis Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the earliest books to specialize in the Army of the Tennessee, a rather neglected area of Civil War history. Dry, but readable.