Known as one of the most aggressive Confederate officers in the Western Theater, Brigadier General Alfred Jefferson Vaughan Jr. is legendary for having had eight horses shot out from under him in battle—more than any other infantry commander, Union or Confederate. Yet despite the exceptional bravery demonstrated by his dubious feat, Vaughan remains a largely overlooked Civil War leader.
    In Confederate Combat Commander, Lawrence K. Peterson explores the life of this unheralded yet important rebel officer before, during, and after his military service. A graduate of Virginia Military Institute, Vaughan initially commanded the Thirteenth Tennessee Infantry Regiment, and later Vaughan’s Brigade.  He served in the hard-fought battles of the western area of operations in such key confrontations as Shiloh, Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and the Atlanta Campaign.
    Tracing Vaughan’s progress through the war and describing his promotion to general after his commanding officer was mortally wounded, Peterson describes the rise and development of an exemplary military career, and a devoted fighting leader. Although Vaughan was beloved by his troops and roundly praised at the time—in fact, negative criticism of his orders, battlefield decisions, or personality cannot be found in official records, newspaper articles, or the diaries of his men—Vaughan nevertheless served in the much-maligned Army of Tennessee. This book thus assesses what responsibility—if any—Vaughan bore for Confederate failures in the West.
    While biographies of top-ranking Civil War generals are common, the stories of lower-level senior officers such as Vaughan are seldom told. This volume provides rare insight into the regimental and brigade-level activities of Civil War commanders and their units, drawing on a rich array of privately held family histories, including two written by the general himself.

Lawrence K. Peterson, a retired airline pilot, worked as a National Park Service ranger and USAF officer. He is the great-great grandson of Brigadier General Alfred Jefferson Vaughan Jr.

Following the defeat of Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland at the Battle of Chickamauga, Gen. Braxton Bragg and the Army of Tennessee retreated to Chattanooga and surrounded Rosecrans and his men by occupying Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. The Battle of Chattanooga would prove the final defeat of the Confederacy in East Tennessee and open the door for Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign.

Decisions at Chattanooga introduces readers to critical decisions made by Confederate and Union commanders. Larry Peterson examines the decisions that shaped the way both campaign and battle unfolded. Rather than offering a history of the Battle of Chattanooga, Peterson focuses on the critical decisions, presenting the reader with a coherent and manageable blueprint of the battle’s development. Exploring and studying the critical decisions allows the reader to progress from an understanding of what happened to why events happened as they did.

Complete with maps and a guided tour, Decisions at Chattanooga is an indispensable primer, and readers looking for a digestible introduction to the Battle of Chattanooga can tour this sacred ground—or read about it at their leisure—with key insights into the campaign and a deeper understanding of the Civil War itself.

Decisions at Chattanooga is the fourth in a series of books that will explore the critical decisions of major campaigns and battles of the Civil War.
 

 

By early 1862, Union forces had won successive victories in the emerging Western Theater of the American Civil War. Forts Henry and Donelson had fallen, handing control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers to the US Navy; the siege of Corinth had ceded rail lines to Union control; and New Orleans, the Confederacy’s prized port, had been captured by Admiral Farragut. The Kentucky Campaign was meant to reverse Confederate fortunes and recapture the Bluegrass State for the Confederacy. Though the Rebels won a tactical victory at Perryville and successfully drew Union forces away from northern Alabama and middle Tennessee, their ultimate retreat would leave Kentucky in the hands of the Union Army for the remainder of the war.

Decisions of the 1862 Kentucky Campaign introduces readers to critical decisions made by Confederate and Union commanders throughout the heartland contest. Rather than offering a history of the Kentucky Campaign, Larry Peterson hones in on a sequence of critical decisions confronting commanders on both sides of the clash to provide a blueprint of the campaign at its tactical core. Identifying and exploring the critical decisions in this way allows students of history to go from a rudimentary sense of the what of warfare, to a mature grasp of why.
 
Complete with maps and a guided tour, Decisions of the 1862 Kentucky Campaign is an indispensable primer, and readers looking for a digestible introduction to the campaign’s battles can tour this sacred ground—or read about it at their leisure—with key insights into the campaign and a deeper understanding of the Civil War itself.
 
Decisions of the 1862 Kentucky Campaign is the sixth in a series of books that will explore the critical decisions of major campaigns and battles of the Civil War.
 
LARRY PETERSON retired from United Airlines as a Boeing 757/767 Standard Captain. He is the author of Confederate Combat Commander: The Remarkable Life of Brigadier General Alfred Jefferson Vaughn Jr. and Decisions at Chattanooga.