Beyond the Chessboard of War: Contingency, Command, and Generalship in Civil War Military History

This essay encourages historians of the Civil War era to reimagine and reintegrate traditional military history into their scholarship by deepening their understanding of the role, importance, and consequences of Civil War command and general-ship and their essential connection to historical contingency. It urges historians to adopt a holistic approach, considering the political, cultural, personal, and military contexts of command, generalship, and the decisions that shape contingency in war. This essay also suggests a practical interpretive framework for both specialists and nonspecialists in Civil War military history to help them integrate command and generalship into a broad spectrum of other histories in thoughtful ways.