Networks of Command: The Battle of the Wilderness, 5 May 1864 As the 150th anniversary of the Civil War moves into its fifth year, we have available increasingly vast amounts of personal testimony and official reports, both on line and elegantly catalogued in state and local archives. Analyzing this body of evidence, however, is only just beginning to be influenced by new methods of social network analysis, particularly as regards the exercise of command and control in the war’s numerous battles. To investigate the potential of network analysis in Civil War battles, I am currently running a project that focuses on the major engagements fought by General Ulysses S. Grant. The first project I am completing is a study of command networks in the Overland Campaign in 1864; later this spring, I will be exploring the Vicksburg Campaign of 1863, in particular the Battle of Champion Hill and the Siege of Vicksburg, with the assistance of Cadets Matthew Schoenberger and Zachary Thompson.
Networks and Incomplete Data To send and receive intelligence in a Civil War engagement, commanders could rely on a small cadre of staff officers to write, send, and receive messages, and aides and messengers to deliver them. Locating these exchanges is a complex matter, as on the one hand the Official Records preserve only a small fraction of the exchanges between commanders, and these do not always possess time stamps as researchers could wish. Against this official data is the copious information contained in the memoirs and correspondence of the participants, such as Colonel Theodore Lyman’s letters from his time on General Meade’s staff, or John Smith’s memoir of the 19th Maine Volunteers. It has the advantage of recording exchanges of information that the official records lack, but, especially with regimental histories published some years after the war, comes with the caveat that memory might be fragile. Read More
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