Staff Ride Handbook for the Battle of Shiloh, 6-7 April 1862

Since the early 20th century, the US Army has used Civil War and other battlefields as “outdoor classrooms” in which to educate and train its officers. Employing a methodology developed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1906, both the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and US Army War College conducted numerous battlefield staff rides to prepare officers for duties in both war and peace. Often interrupted by the exigencies of the nation’s wars, the tradition was renewed and reinvigorated at Fort Leavenworth in the early 1980s. Since 1983 the Leavenworth Staff Ride Team has guided military students on battlefields around the world. For those unable to avail themselves directly of the team’s services the Combat Studies Institute has begun to produce a series of staff ride guides to serve in lieu of a Fort Leavenworth instructor. The newest volume in that series, Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Gudmens’ “Staff Ride Handbook for the Battle of Shiloh, 6-7 April 1862” is a valuable study that examines the key considerations in planning and executing the campaign and battle. Modern tacticians and operational planners will find themes that still resonate. Gudmens demonstrates that leaders in Blue and Gray, in facing the daunting tasks of this, the bloodiest battle to this point on the continent, rose to the challenge. They were able to meet this challenge through planning, discipline, ingenuity, leadership, and persistence—themes worthy of reflection by today’s leaders.