Crossing the Deadly Ground

United States Army Tactics, 1865-1899

Perry D. Jamieson

Narrated by Roger Wood

Available from Audible

Book published by The University of Alabama Press

Weapons improved rapidly after the Civil War, raising difficult questions about the battle tactics employed by the United States Army. The most fundamental problem was the dominance of the tactical defensive, when defenders protected by fieldworks could deliver deadly fire from rifles and artillery against attackers advancing in close-ordered lines. The vulnerability of these offensive forces as they crossed the so-called "deadly ground" in front of defensive positions was even greater with the improvement of armaments after the Civil War.

Perry D. Jamieson is a historian for the United States Air Force. He is the coauthor, with Grady McWhiney, of Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage.

REVIEWS:

“No other study approaches this subject so expertly.”

—Journal of Southern History

“Jamieson fills a gap in the tactical history of the U.S. Army from the end of the Civil War through the Spanish-American War. He unfolds how an army spread out on frontier posts, [and] largely preoccupied with warfare against the native peoples, Reconstruction, and daily routine, nevertheless made progress toward a system of tactics to take it into the twentieth century.”

—Civil War History

“An excellent history of the period, one frequently neglected in the literature of the military history field.”

—Academic Library Book Review

“An informative and stimulating work that should serve as the definitive word on this subject for some time to come.”

—Journal of Military History