{"title":"Books by Timothy B. Smith","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780809339877","title":"The Decision Was Always My Own","description":"The Vicksburg Campaign, argues Timothy B. Smith, is the showcase of Ulysses S. Grant’s military genius. From October 1862 to July 1863, Grant tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate river city. His final, daring move allowed him to land an army in Mississippi and fight his way to the gates of Vicksburg. He captured the city and Confederate garrison on July 4, 1863, opening the Mississippi River for the Union.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This volume presents a fast-paced reexamination of Grant’s decision-making process during the Vicksburg maneuvers, battles, and siege. Smith details the course of campaigning on military, political, administrative, and personal levels. The successful military campaign required Grant to handle President Lincoln’s impatience, as well as to deal with troublesome general John A. McClernand, all while juggling administrative work. In addition, Grant was more than a military genius—he was also a husband and a father, and Smith shows how Grant’s family played a role in every decision he made.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Grant’s nontraditional choices went against the accepted theories of war, supply, and operations, as well as against the chief thinkers of the day, such as Henry Halleck, Grant’s superior. Yet Grant pulled off the victory in compelling fashion. In the first in-depth examination in decades, Smith shows how Grant’s decisions created and won the Civil War’s most brilliant, complex, decisive, and lengthy campaign.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367799533941,"sku":"9780809339877","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780809339877_c752c44b-b189-4c00-8c30-37b7f2371970.jpg?v=1786015825"},{"product_id":"the-inland-campaign-for-vicksburg","title":"The Inland Campaign for Vicksburg","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner: Laney Prize\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn this fifth and final volume of his renowned series detailing the campaign for Vicksburg, Tim Smith sheds much-needed light to this often-misunderstood episode of the Union’s efforts to take Vicksburg. In the entire nine-month-long campaign, there was no more tension and drama than in these seventeen days when Grant’s Army of the Tennessee marched through the wilds of Mississippi, claiming victory after victory, tearing the heart out of the State of Mississippi and the Confederacy. By the end of the swift assault, Grant arrived victorious at the exact place he had worked to gain for months: the high ground east of Vicksburg where he had access to both the city and an open and unchallenged supply route via the Yazoo River to the north. He could finally begin the process of capturing Vicksburg.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCivil War historians have long disagreed about how to understand this moment of the Vicksburg Campaign as they analyze Union supply lines, the swiftness of the campaign, and other salient details of Grant’s success. Amid this debate, Tim Smith has written the first standalone investigation of the Inland Campaign, which boasts new insights, keen attention to primary sources, and a broad, clear-eyed look at Grant's brilliance as he led the Army of the Tennessee toward Vicksburg.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCompleting the Vicksburg series, this book lies between Smith’s \u003ci\u003eBayou Battles for Vicksburg\u003c\/i\u003e (January 1–April 30, 1863) and \u003ci\u003eThe Union Assaults at Vicksburg\u003c\/i\u003e (May 17–22, 1863).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57481684484469,"sku":"9780700641857","price":31.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780700641857.jpg?v=1786089973"},{"product_id":"napoleons-long-shadow","title":"Napoleon's Long Shadow","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis pioneering work is the first to examine Napoleon’s influence on the Civil War through direct, battle-by-battle comparison.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFor the generation that fought the American Civil War, the wars of the early nineteenth century were not distant history—they were a professional guide. Military education at West Point and elsewhere immersed American officers in the campaigns of Europe’s great commanders, and none cast a longer shadow than the Corsican general Napoleon Bonaparte.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDespite decades of casual analogy, until now, no comprehensive study has ever examined how Napoleon’s campaigns shaped Civil War operations on the battlefield. Through a series of clear, apples-to-apples comparisons, author Tim Smith places nine of Napoleon’ campaigns alongside their closest Civil War counterparts. The result is a fresh interpretation of how the Civil War was fought. Smith argues that the war’s early years were profoundly shaped by earlier models of warfare, while its final year marked a decisive break toward a more modern, industrial style of conflict.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBy placing these campaigns side by side, \u003ci\u003eNapoleon’s Long Shadow\u003c\/i\u003e not only clarifies how Civil War commanders operated, but also challenges long-held assumptions rooted more in legend than in reality.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57499396079989,"sku":"9780700643493","price":44.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780700643493.jpg?v=1786694700"},{"product_id":"the-operational-mind","title":"The Operational Mind","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhat separated the Civil War generals who merely fought the war from those who learned how to win it?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhy did some Civil War commanders consistently make better operational decisions than others? The answer, Tim Smith argues, lies not simply in courage, experience, or personality, but in how they thought about war itself.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAlthough historians have extensively documented the campaigns, battles, and leaders of the Civil War, they have devoted far less attention to the military ideas that shaped commanders’ operational decision-making. Both Union and Confederate officers inherited a common professional education rooted in the curriculum of the United States Military Academy at West Point, whose interpretations of the Napoleonic Wars profoundly influenced nineteenth-century military thought. Through a series of engaging case studies, each centered on a specific campaign, Smith analyzes how commanders translated military theory into decisions regarding movement, concentration, timing, and the employment of force.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBy uncovering the intellectual foundations of Civil War command, Smith provides a new interpretive framework for understanding leadership, decision-making, and military effectiveness in America’s defining conflict.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57555347964277,"sku":"9780700644438","price":40.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780700644438.jpg?v=1793050860"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-timothy-b-smith.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}