Description: This book is about the way battles were fought in the American Civil War – the way soldiers squared up to each other, used their weapons and reacted to dangers. In looking at battles from the viewpoint of the lowest level of tactics – from that of the infantryman, the author has cleared away many of the misconceptions which have surrounded this subject. He shows that in many respects battles in the Civil War were fought along lines and weapons more familiar to Napoleonic generals than to their counterparts in World War One. He also shows that the reasons which lay behind the indecisive nature of so many engagements had less to do with increased firepower of infantry weapons, or any deep change in the nature of warfare generally, but lay rather in the individual personalities of the generals themselves.  This book is an original and provocative book which challenges many of our established ideas of a war whose harvest of almost three-quarters of a million American dead was twice that of any other war in which Americans have fought.