Following the course of Civil War campaigns can be taxing for even the most well-read military scholar. The operations at major sites such as Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and Petersburg were complicated matters, with generals on each side commanding infantry and cavalry brigades from different positions and making simultaneous movements along complex geographic routes; the battles were less climactic moments than prolonged struggles marked by continual flux. But Theodore Ayrault Dodge makes it easy. With his well-drawn maps, his positioning of each movement with its date and, where important, time,...

The clash at Chancellorsville in 1863 was an enormously complex ten-day campaign. At its conclusion, General Joseph Hooker, the confident commander of the Army of the Potomac, was in disgrace, while Confederate General Robert E. Lee had won a decisive victory but at the loss of the irreplaceable "Stonewall" Jackson, killed by friendly fire.At age nineteen Theodore Ayrault Dodge volunteered for the Union cause. As part of the Eleventh Corps--surprised and routed by "Stonewall" Jackson's celebrated flank attack--he participated in the battle's fiercest and costliest fighting. (Dodge would later...

The Gallic campaigns firmly established Julius Caesar (100 B.C.-44 B.C.) as one of the greatest commanders of all time. After success there, Caesar turned his loyal army back toward Rome. Crossing the Rubicon, he initiated a civil war, marched triumphally to the capital, besieged Pompey at Brundisium, and pacified Spain. With a tiny army he routed Pompey's far larger forces at Pharsalus, pursued him to his death in Egypt, and established Cleopatra on her throne.Though Caesar's Commentaries are among the most exact and picturesque of historical writings, it is only through knowledge of...