February 2011 Entry #14 Failue in the Saddle

Title: Failure in the Saddle
Author: David A. Powell
Trailer Creator: David Van Dusen



Blurb:
The Confederate cavalry has a storied and generally favorable relationship with the history of the Civil War. Despite the brutal nature of the larger conflict, tales of raids and daring exploits all create a whiff of romance that lingers about the horse-soldiers of the Lost Cause. Sometimes, however, romance obscures history. Failure in the Saddle: Nathan Bedford Forrest, Joe Wheeler, and the Confederate Cavalry in the Chickamauga Campaign is the first study of its kind to examine the impact of the Confederate Cavalry on the larger Chickamauga campaign.

David A. Powell, author of the bestselling The Maps of Chickamauga, draws upon a massive array of primary accounts, many previously unpublished, to offer the first detailed examination of the Southern cavalry

The September 1863 battle of Chickamauga was one of the largest and bloodiest combats of the war. The culmination of a month of maneuvering in the knife-ridged mountains and narrow valleys of North Georgia, the intricate and confusing engagement between the Union Army of the Cumberland and the Confederate Army of Tennessee ended with a sweeping Southern breakthrough of Union lines with the ultimate prize in sight: Chattanooga, the giant road, river, and railroad transportation hub in Tennessee.

The Army of Tennessee knew little of victory. The generals quarreled and the men bled. Constant defeats and bickering plagued this hard-luck army. Despite the Southern Army

Failure in the Saddle is a judiciously reasoned and carefully crafted study and an essential book for readers of Civil War battle and campaign histories.