The Battle of McDowell

Paper Summary:

This paper examines in depth the American Civil War battle of McDowell, which is said to be the first victory in General Stonewall Jackson's Shenandoah Valley campaign beginning in 1862. It describes one of the most studied campaigns in military history, because it demonstrates how a numerically inferior force defeated larger forces by surprise attacks, fast movement and intelligent use of terrain. The author states that the Civil War was the first modern war, in that it was the first a total war, the North used its strength to destroy the economic and industrial basis of the Confederacy. The paper illustrates how the war also introduced methods of warfare rarely used before, such mines, rifled weapons and telecommunications.

From the Paper:

"The Civil War is called many names: the War Between the States, the War of the Rebellion, the War of the Secession, or the War for Southern Independence. It began on April 12,1861when Southern artillery shelled Fort Sumter, North Carolina in the Charleston harbor and ended four years later on April 9, 1865, when Confederate Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. The war left a heritage of grief and bitterness that can still be felt today. However, the Civil War was a great turning point in American history. It abolished slavery, but it also destroyed the Southern economy that depended on slave labor for its tobacco and cotton fields. It settled the question of whether states could secede and it cemented the Union of the states. The Civil War also produced some of the most colorful figures of American history, such as Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Philip H. Sheridan, and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson."

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