Joseph L. Harsh

n this reexamination of Confederate war aims, Joseph L. Harsh analyzes the military policy and grand strategy adopted by Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis in the first two years of the Civil War. Recent critics of Lee have depicted him as a general of tactical brilliance, but one who lacked strategic vision. He has been accused of squandering meager military resources in vain pursuit of decisive victories during his first year in field command. Critics of Davis claim he went too far in adopting a “perimeter” policy which attempted to defend every square mile of Southern territory, scattering Confederate resources too thinly. Harsh argues, to the contrary, that Davis and Lee’s policies allowed the Confederacy to survive longer than it otherwise could have and were the policies best designed to win Southern independence.

"Complementing Confederate Tide Rising, which covers the origins of the Maryland campaign, Taken at the Flood is a detailed account of the military campaign itself. It focuses on military policy and strategy and the context necessary to understand that strategy. A fair appraisal of the campaign requires a full appraisal of the circumstances under which the two commanders, Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan, labored. Harsh attempts to discover what they believed their responsibilities were and what they tried to accomplish; to evaluate the human and logistical resources at their disposal; and to determine what they knew and when they learned it."--BOOK JACKET.