Strategy & Tactics

Field

The American Civil War

The war fought between the United States and the seceding southern states from 1861 to 1865 — and one of the first wars in which railways, the telegraph and mass production shifted the decision away from battles and towards industry and transport.

1 casePeriod: 1863

The American Civil War is among the first in which the outcome was decided less by battles than by transport and supply. The case in this field sits on that turning point: what fell was not a town but the line the town was corking.

Patterns found in this field

  1. 08
    A design of supply

    The decision comes not from what he holds but from whether things keep reaching him.

    Vicksburg — what fell was not a town but a line →

A pattern is not a template to apply but a tool for checking conditions. The conditions under which each one fails are set out on the patterns page. The thirteen patterns

A colour lithograph of infantry storming a parapet under regimental colours while gunboats fire from the river
Vicksburg — what fell was not a town but a line

A design of supply: replace the town with the line the town is corking as your object, and give up your own supply line for a while to reach it.

Pattern: a design of supply
Decisive Union victory (the Confederate garrison surrendered) Read →

Other fields

Napoleonic Wars Second Punic War The Pacific War The Eastern Front The Hundred Years War Japan's Warring States period The Western Front, 1940–45 The Vietnam War The Western Front, 1914–18