More Important Than Good Generals

The Union’s forgotten mid-level officers and their commitment to the cause

More Important Than Good Generals is an in-depth study of the Army of the Tennessee’s junior officers––the company and field grade lieutenants, captains, majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels. While many studies have examined generals and common soldiers, Civil War armies’ “middle management” has been largely ignored. Officers had a substantially different array of duties than the soldiers they commanded and the generals above them, resulting in a drastically different wartime experience. Moreover, it is not only Civil War officers who have been overlooked but also the army Grant and Sherman commanded––the Army of the Tennessee––despite the fact that it was one of the most victorious armies of the war.

Pushing back against the commonly accepted narrative of disillusionment among officers, Engel concludes that the Army of the Tennessee’s company and field grade officers endured the war’s trials with their moral and political ideology intact. Further, rather than becoming indifferent to the Union cause, Engel argues that the reverse was often true: officers who started off racist or disinterested in the issue of enslavement became advocates of emancipation.

Jonathan Engel is an independent Civil War historian. His work has been published in the Journal of East Tennessee History, Civil War History, and Journal of Military History, among other publications.