Buff Facings and Gilt Buttons : Staff and Headquarters Operations in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865

Buff Facings and Gilt Buttons approaches topics familiar to Civil War readers from a unique perspective-that of the staff. J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr., examines how the staff officers of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and its subordinate corps, divisions, and brigades were selected, trained, and organized and explores what staff officers did, how they did it, and how effective they were. Bartholomees surveys the entire scope of Army of Northern Virginia staff operations from quartermaster and commissary duties to medical and routine administrative functions to intelligence, command and control, and combat operations. He assesses the major problems faced in each functional area and the degree of success achieved armywide and at subordinate headquarters. Bartholomees concludes that, although the Army of Northern Virginia's staff system reflected more the traditional personal style of staff operations than the modern system that was emerging in Europe at the time, the staff nonetheless managed to keep a large army in the field for four years under difficult conditions. The staff system of the Army of Northern Virginia demonstrates one of the peculiar traits of the Civil War. That war occurred on a cusp of military history - it had elements both ancient and modern, and it reflected the struggle of soldiers trying to reconcile the two. Civil War military institutions had their roots firmly planted in the traditions and doctrine of the past while they confronted modern problems. The story of the disconnection between linear tactics that would have been recognizable to either Alexander or Frederick the Great and deadly rifled muskets is familiar. The story of ill-trained and ill-prepared staffs trying to coordinate all the intricate details of a vast, semimodern army operating in a huge theater of war with doctrine and procedures that would soon be if they were not already outmoded is less familiar. That is the story of staff work in the Army of Northern Virginia. In performing the tasks associated with organizing, training, equipping, moving, and fighting large armies, military commanders require the assistance of staff officers. This book examines how the staff officers of Robert E. Lee's army were selected, trained and organized.