Podcasts

 In this second installment of our series on the campaigns of the Eastern Theater with significant strategic impact, we’ll take a close look at Robert E. Lee’s surprising victory at Chancellorsville. How did an operation with great potential for the Union morph into one of the Confederacy’s greatest triumphs? What, exactly, did the loss of Stonewall Jackson mean for the fate of the rebellion?

This is the first in a series of episodes concentrating on the most strategically significant campaigns of the Eastern Theater of the war.

In this podcast, we take a close look at the Union and Confederate ends, ways, and means in the climactic campaign of summer 1863 that culminated at Gettysburg. We will learn that sometimes strong strategies are undercut by weak execution and the intrusion of fog and friction.

This is the third in a series of three episodes concentrating on the strategic-level characteristics, geography, and personalities of the three major theaters of war.

In this podcast, we examine the Trans-Mississippi Theater in light of these considerations and briefly discuss its most important campaigns, with a focus on Missouri, Arkansas, and the Indian Territory, where some of the most decisive events in the theater occurred.

This is the second in a series of three episodes concentrating on the strategic-level characteristics, geography, and personalities of the three major theaters of war. In this podcast, we examine the Western Theater in light of these considerations and briefly discuss its most important campaigns, with a focus on Tennessee, Georgia, and Vicksburg, where some of the most decisive events in the entire conflict occurred.

This is the first in a series of three episodes concentrating on the strategic-level characteristics, geography, and personalities of the three major theaters of war.

In this podcast, we examine the Eastern Theater in light of these considerations and briefly discuss its most important campaigns, with a focus on Virginia—termed “the cockpit of the war.”

Why the American Civil War occurred has been the subject of much debate and thousands of books since the guns fell silent in 1865.

In this episode, we will decomplicate the complex political, social, and economic background behind the coming of the war, discuss these factors in common-sense terms, and offer a few thoughts about the phenomenon of war causation.

Truth in disclosure: this is necessarily a longer discussion, so sit back, relax, and enjoy!

In this episode, we set the theoretical foundations for understanding what strategy and operations are and how to think about them in context of the American Civil War. 

We cover the ends-ways-means-risk paradigm, the DIME construct, and the levels of war and strategy and their corresponding leadership responsibilities. 

We also discuss the initial strategies of both the Union and the Confederacy and briefly trace how they evolved as the war progressed.