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289 Preface 1. Among the best and most recent unit histories include: Coffin, Nine Months to Gettysburg; Daniel, Days of Glory; Dreese, The 151st Pennsylvania Volunteers at Gettysburg; Gaff, On Many a Bloody Field; Gibbs, Three Years in the Bloody Eleventh; Glatthaar, The March to the Sea and Beyond; Hagerty, Collis’ Zouaves ; Herdegen, The Men Stood Like Iron; Jones, Giants in the Cornfield; Overmyer, A Stupendous Effort; Wert, The Sword of Lincoln; and Woodworth, Nothing but Victory. A standard history of the Iron Brigade remains Nolan, The Iron Brigade. For a comparative work, see Wert, A Brotherhood of Valor. Unit histories on the Second Corps are cited in the text. 2. Union veterans authored six corps histories: Stevens, Three Years in the Sixth Corps; Woodbury, Major General Ambrose Burnside and the Ninth Army Corps; Irwin, History of the Nineteenth Army Corps; Hyde, Following the Greek Cross; and Powell, The Fifth Army Corps (Army of the Potomac); Walker, History of the Second Army Corps in the Army of the Potomac. For a recent study of the Union Sixth Corps during the Chancellorsville Campaign , see Parsons, The Union Sixth Army Corps in the Chancellorsville Campaign. 3. For a brief history of each Union corps, see Welcher, The Union Army. 4. Walker, History of the Second Army Corps in the Army of the Potomac, 1–2; Fox, Regimental Losses, 67; Rhea, The Battle of the Wilderness, 38. Also see Wert, The Sword of Lincoln, 412. 5. Walker, History of the Second Army Corps, iv; Fox, Regimental Losses, 69. 6. The literature on why Civil War soldiers fought is extensive. Two of the more influential, and controversial, early works are: Wiley, The Life of Billy Yank; and Linderman , Embattled Courage. Wiley argues that soldiers had little idea why they were fighting, other than for their comrades. Linderman argues that a cluster of values, centering around the concept of courage, initially motivated soldiers. By the last full year of the war, however, courage had lost its meaning. Linderman asserts that the war “regularly betrayed the confidence with which Union and Confederate soldiers sought to fight it; much that they encountered was at odds with their expectations. As they wrestled with the unforeseen, they were changed. The experience of combat frustrated their attempts to fight the war as an expression of their values and generated in them a harsh disillusionment .” Two books by nationally recognized scholars that refute Wiley and Linderman are: Hess, The Union Soldier in Battle, and McPherson, For Cause and Comrades. Hess and McPherson both Not e s 290 Notes to pages xi–6 argue that ideology played the major role in motivating soldiers throughout the war. The exception that McPherson makes is with combat motivation, where unit pride and comrades played as important a role as ideology. Other important works that deal with soldiers’ motivations are: Mitchell, The Vacant Chair and Civil War Soldiers; Robertson, Soldiers Blue and Gray. For a historiographical essay on the wartime experiences of the common soldiers of both armies, see Mitchell, “‘Not the General but the Soldier,’” 81–95. 7. Cowley, ed., With My Face to the Enemy, 61. The standard work on the mobilization of the Union army is the now dated Shannon, The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861– 1865. An excellent study on the creation of military force at the start of the war in the western theater is Prokopowicz, All for the Regiment. Mobilization during the Civil War is placed in an international context in Hattaway, “The Civil War Armies.” For an overview of manpower mobilization in other American wars, Kreidberg and Henry, History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army. 8. Major General Winfield Scott Hancock , General Orders, No. 44, Headquarters Second Army Corps, November 26, 1864, in O.R., vol. 42, pt. 3, 713–14. 1. Beginnings 1. George McClellan to Edwin Stanton, January 31, 1862, in The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan, 163. McClellan added that when he arrived in Washington, the Union soldiers present were “undisciplined, undrilled & dispirited .” The best biography of McClellan is Sears, George B. McClellan. Also see Rafuse, McClellan’s War. For a sympathetic treatment of the Union general, see Hassler, General George B. McClellan. The perspective of McClellan is found in his McClellan’s Own Story. 2. For a description of McClellan in western Virginia, see Sears, George B. McClellan, 89–93. Also see Cox, “McClellan in West Virginia.” 3. Report of Major General George McClellan, July 27, 1861–November...