Of the thousands of books written about the conduct of the American Civil War, precious few have devoted any space explaining how each side sought to achieve its political objectives: the strategy employed to win the conflict. Donald Stoker devotes this study to fill that gap.
When a war breaks out, leaders of the belligerent powers must identify the political objective they desire: the why of the conflict. Once this is done, the stage is set to develop a grand strategy for success: a formula for achieving that political objective. This is followed by the identification of the specific military tactics needed to achieve that victory.
Early in his work, Stoker points out that the leaders in the American Civil War did identify their overall political objective for going to war; and did so very quickly. The majority of the people living in seven of the slave-holding states wanted to leave the United States in order to from a new political entity; they were joined by four additional slave states after Lincoln called for troops to suppress the 'rebellion'. Once Fort Sumter was fired upon, the majority of the people living in the non-slave holding United States opposed secession and supported Lincoln's desire to restore the anti-bellum union.
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