Upton and the Army - Service of Brevet Major General Emory Upton - US Artillery

Description

Upton and the Army
Military Career of Brevet Major General Emory Upton, USA
Written by
Stephen E. Ambrose
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Published LSU Press, in 1993
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Condition : Near Fine, unused condition.
May have a very slight wear to the very edges of the cover
from shipping / storage.  Book has never been opened.
Very slight bit of residue from an old price sticker on front cover -
virtually un-noticeable except in the right tilt / light.
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190 pages,  portraits, indexed
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From Wikipedia
Emory Upton
(August 27, 1839 – March 15, 1881) was a
United States Army
General
and
military strategist
, prominent for his role in leading infantry to attack entrenched positions successfully at the
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
during the
American Civil War
, but he also excelled at artillery and cavalry assignments.
His work,
The Military Policy of the United States
, which analyzed American military policies and practices and presented the first systematic examination of the nation's military history, had a tremendous effect on the U.S. Army when it was published posthumously in 1904.
Upton is considered one of the most influential young reformers of the United States Army in the 19th century, arguably in U.S. history. He has been called the U.S. Army's counterpart to
United States Navy
reformer and strategist
Alfred Thayer Mahan
. Although his books on tactics and on Asian and European armies were considered influential, his greatest impact was a work he called
The Military Policy of the United States from 1775
. He worked for years on the paper, but it was incomplete at the time of his death in 1881.
Military Policy
was a controversial work in which Upton outlined U.S. military history and argued that the armed forces were imprudent and weak and "that all the defects of the American military system rested upon a fundamental, underlying flaw, excessive civilian control of the military." He denigrated the influence of the Secretary of War and promoted the idea that all military decisions in the field should be made by professional officers, although the president should retain the role of commander-in-chief. He argued for a strong, standing regular army that would be supplemented by volunteers or conscripts in time of war, a general staff system based on the
Prussian model
, examinations to determine promotions, compulsory retirement of officers who reach a certain age, advanced military education, and combat maneuvering by groups of four three-battalion infantry regiments. Upton's work had a profound influence on discussions of military and civilian strategy for years.
After Upton's death, Henry A. DuPont, Upton's West Point classmate and a close friend, acquired a copy of the uncompleted manuscript. It circulated widely throughout the Army's officer corps and helped to foment much discussion. After the
Spanish–American War
,
Secretary of War
Elihu Root
read the manuscript and ordered that the War Department publish it under the title
The Military Policy of the United States
. Many of the Army's so-called Root Reforms of the early twentieth century were inspired by Upton and his works.
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