Page 93 - 1992 - XVIII Congresso Internazionale di Storia Militare

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missary Deparrmenrs losr virai food and anima] producing cerritories. Parcs ofTen-
nessee and Kcnrucky were importane for horse supplies. for grain and vegecable
producdon, and florida as well as Texas had the mai o reserves of caule. As Fcder·
al amues cuc the Mississippi and incruded i neo the Deep South, Confederate resources
dwindled. lmerruprions occurred, roo, during large Union cavalry raids inco Mis·
sissippi and Al3bama. Genenl Sherman aimed bis 1864 campaign noc jusr ac At·
lanta but also at che ordnance and supply cenrers partly concenrrared in Georgia.
He knew that disruption of that supply area would do mosr damage co che Rebel
war effon - and evencs proved him righe.
By the end of che Civil War, fìghring around Ricbmond focused along some
thircy-fìve miles of crenches- rccnches much like onestO be fo~tnd fifty years later
in Europe. Looked at in long perspective, che Civil War srands a precursor of the
First World War - bue ic is more than thar.
As the fìrst of the modero wars. it remains a model of warfare in our rime.
lr boasred che firsr really new wenpons in more than a cenrury and chey broughc
ractical adJUStmenc . . le raged over vasr disrances rhar forced reliance nor only on
railroads, bue also on che relegrnph, on banlefìeld scmaphore signnls and on ncw
command arrangcmcncs. Mnssed casualdcs induccd ncw merhods of medicai cren.t·
mem in the fìeld and in hospicals. As che war persisred, le builr an anger of irs
own that broughc changcs unlnrended llt firsc. War againsr civilians chara.crerited
Shcrman's 1864 campaign, some ofGrant's operations a~ound Vicksburg, and Con-
federare Generai Early's operarions in Pennsylvania in 1864. The mere exiscence
o( large acmies changed boch Norrh and Souch. GeneraJJy the United Sraccs werc
rural and loosely knit in 1861: when numbers of mc:n from a cross both sections
gathered togethcr. che fìrst real nntional experiences began for mosr of rhem. So
armies constiruted change in themselves.
What of othcr changes? Economie warfare became pau of che North's pian
for vicrory, as exemplifìed by Sherman's activiries and rhe blockading of the South's
imernaJ and exrernal borders. AU of rhese initiacives show the essemially modero
natltfe of the war. Even in such recenr encoumers as Iraq, rraces of the Ci vii War
could be gJimpsed.
America's conflicc of the 1860s srands as a rransirional conflicc becween old
and new ideas, methods and means, a bridge becween ancique and modern ways
of warring.