The alleged absence of negative evidence in the linguistic input has played a major role both in linguistic theorizing and in discussions about linguistic methodology. I argue that, given a sufficiently sophisticated understanding of frequency, negative evidence can be inferred from the positive evidence in the linguistic input. Using an extension of collostructional analysis, I show how the corpus linguist, and, by analogy, the language learner, can discriminate between combinations of linguistic items that are accidentally absent from a given corpus and combinations whose absence is statistically significant. I also show that this kind of negative corpus evidence correlates with degrees of acceptability in judgment tasks. I propose a conceptualization of such negative evidence as negative entrenchment in a usage-based model.

Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails: How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War By Tom Wheeler

This looks like a great read. Author Tom Wheeler, an accomplished man by any measure, has a terrific website here with more about his book and research. This has moved to the top of my list of reading for between terms.

Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War: The Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864 By Earl J. Hess

Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign By Earl J. Hess

I have DISCOVERED Dr. Hess and the growing list of terrific titles he has published on the Civil War. No doubt his other books will show up in my library before long. Dr. Hess, who has impressive academic credentials, has a website here. His book, Pickett's Charge: The Last Attack at Gettysburg, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865 By Mark Grimsley

I've been intending to pick this up. Authored by military history professor and fellow blogger Mark Grimsley, it too is at the top of my reading list. Dr. Grimsley's OSU webpage is here. His blog is here.

Retreat to Victory?: Confederate Strategy Reconsidered (American Crisis Series) By Robert G. Tanner

My post, "Fabian Strategy and the American Civil War" here, lead me to this book. One of my readers recommended it and suggests that it proves that the Confederacy could not have used the Fabian strategy effectively. I'm looking forward to this one.

The Military Legacy of theCivil War: The European Inheritance By Jay Luvaas

Jav Luvaas is another prolific writer of military history and my collection of his books is growing. I first discovered his work while taking the course, Great Military Philosopers (see "The Courses" page here for details. I picked up his titles: Napoleon on the Art of War and Frederick the Great on the Art of War.

I'll be adding these authors to my "The Historians" page shortly.

Note that I've added two new category pages to my vitural bookshelves here. These include:

• Civil War Communications and
• Civil War Fortifications

Military History

I've added serveral recommended military history reference books.

 Encyclopedia of American Military History (3 beautiful volumes!)

The War Companions Set: Consisting of The Oxford Companion to American Military History and The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern War 2-Volume Set
From Oxford University Press, USA

The Reader's Companion to Military History
By Society for Military History

An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 B.C. to the Present
By David Eggenberger

War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today
By Max Boot

The Savage Wars Of Peace: Small Wars And The Rise Of American Power

 By Max Boot

But there's a conversation of local interest that's been happening. I can report the discussion going on in Concord, NH. On Sunday (May 18), the Concord Monitor ran an article about Bishop Gene Robinson's new book, In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God.

The article, The Bishop Who Doesn't Back Down, is a balanced one. It teases out Bishop Robinson's dilemma within the Anglican Communion but also criticizes the book as not broadening the conversation enough.

The very next day (May 19) the Monitor ran this letter from Gary Cote, pastor of Merrimack Valley Church (Assembly of God). A few days later (May 22) the Monitor ran this letter from David Parry.

While the original article offered a balanced critique of the Bishop's book, Cote and Parry rush in to condemn and repeat the Bible's well-known "clobber verses." Here is our sign of an entrenched conversation: there is no recognition that thoughtful Christian folk have offered responses to those verses or that others have responded to those responses and so on. Quite simply, the conversations remains locked in the Somme, soldiers never advancing and content to fire mortar across a wide distance.

There will always be people willing to fight in the trenches. This warfare seems to degrade the soul and isn't much for me, but it seems it will always be with us. My greater concern is that the Concord Monitor prints and re-prints these letters, re-inforcing the trenches. As a newspaper the Monitor ought to be invested in facilitating and furthering public conversation. They should be helping factions find reconciliation rather than set up barbed wire and widen the no-man's land.

Edward Hagerman covers in detail the practices of the Federal and Confederate armies as it relates to entrenchment. McClellan and his successors employed it masterfully. Lee and his generals came to the practice slowly. Hagerman suggests that the reason may have been that, unlike McClellan, Lee lacked a peer group from the Corps of Engineers in the Army of Northern Virginia. ^[ii] Lee also graduated from West Point before Dennis Mahan (see post here) arrived to instruct cadets on the benefits and "how to" of entrenchment.

An example, despite having the time and equipment to entrench at Antietam (see photo below), Lee did not. According to Hagerman, "his failure to do so suggests that he may have identified with an extreme tendency in American tactical thought opposing all fortifications on the open field of battle, on the grounds that they made green volunteer troops overcautious and destroyed discipline and the will to fight." ^[iii]

Burnside Bridge (below) taken from the Confederate viewpoint on the
west side of Antietam Creek looking east.

Likewise at the Battle of Fredericksburg, where Lee assumed "a tactical defense where doctrine called for fortification of his front," Lee again failed to entrench. "He had his troops construct only a few minor earthworks at scattered positions. This despite Antietam and despite the fact that the rifled musket, with its greatly increased range and accuracy, was now in general use in the eastern theater." ^[iv]

Longstreet (above) finally broke the tactical pattern, not Lee.

"Although he occupied one of the strongest natural positions in the Confederate line, Longstreet ordered ditches, stone walls, and railroad cuts occupied and strengthened with rifle tranches and abatis. The Federal assaults against his positions on Marye's Heights never got within a hundred yards of the stone wall. Behind the wall were four lines of infantry armed with rifled muskets, supported by sharpshooters in rifle trench, and entrenched artillery that directly covered and enfiladed the wall from the two terraces that rose behind it. Their fire cost the Union troops 3,500 dead to their own loses of 800 men." ^[v]

Watching the battle with Longstreet, Lee (finally) ordered fatigue parties to entrench the heights as soon as the fighting stopped. ^[vi]

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[i, ii] Edward Hagerman, The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare: Ideas, Organization, and Field Command (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 123.
[iii] Ibid., 116.
[iv, v, vi] Ibid., 122

Supply and logistics were a huge challenge for the Army of the Potomac and this was certainly true as General Joseph Hooker (above, 1814 - 1879) contemplated moving his massive 163,000 man army offensively against Lee near the Rappahannock in the Spring of 1863. Breaking the logistical chain was the challenge.

According to author Edward Hagerman, Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs (below) had circulated a sketch created by Alexis Godillot of the logistical organization of a "flying column" in the French army on January 2, 1862.[i]

It was based on a concept developed in 1840 when "the French, particularly Thomas Robert Bugeaud (below, 1784-1849, Marquis de la Piconnerie, Duc d'Isly), recognized that because the Arab insurgents in North Africa had a tremendous mobility advantage over the French colonial forces, the classic style of logistics would not be effective there. To increase the mobility of his forces, Bugeaud created highly mobile independent detachments called "flying columns" by lightening greatly the logistical structure of his force. Around 1860 a study of Bugeaud's (painting below) logistical methods was written by Alexis Godillot."[ii]

The idea was this. Soldiers in a flying column carried eight days of compressed rations, including desiccated vegetables along with a blanket (no overcoat allowed). "Men were divided into squads of eight, one of whom was to carry a covered cooking kettle, another a large mess tin, another an axe, another a pick, and one a shovel. One man in each company carried the hospital knapsack. Each man carried his share of a shelter tent." [iii]

"On march 7, 1863, general headquarters of the Army of the Potomac passed down Special Order no. 85, establishing a board to make recommendations on 'the practicality and means of carrying an increased amount of rations...over the three days usually carried,' having in view 'the marching of troops without encumbrance of extra clothing or shelter tents, the use of desiccated vegetables or flour, and the carrying of fresh beef on the hoof, and the omission, in consequence, of beef or pork from the rations.'" [iv]

After some experimentation, the board recommended a workable configuration and these were "immediately implemented in preparation for an eight-day march designed to turn Lee out of his positions on the Rappahannock. Each corps, including the cavalry, was made into a flying column on the French model, with some modifications. In addition to the knapsack and haversack with blanket, the soldier carried his should arms, sixty rounds of ammunition, accouterments, and a piece of shelter tent. An extra pair of socks was allowed." Unlike the French, entrenchment tools were brought up as required by the reserve train. "The soldier carried an average load of forty-five points." [v]

According to James J. Schneider, "by 1864 Bugeaud's method of flying columns formed the core of Federal Army logistical doctrine. This triumph over the old classical system was demonstrated decisively in Grant's invasions of the South." [vi]
---------------------
[i, iii, iv, v] Edward Hagerman, The American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare: Ideas, Organization, and Field Command (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 71-72.
[ii, vi] James J. Schneider, "VULCAN'S ANVIL: The American Civil War and the Foundations of Operational Art," June 16, 1992, online, http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/p4013coll11&CISOPTR=9&filename=10.pdf , accessed May 13, 2008, 44.
Photo source: Montgomery C. Meigs, Library of Congress, Rep #: LC-DIG-cwpbh-03111.
Painting of Thomas Robert Bugeaud, Wiki Commons.

I was very pleased to find online Mahan's Elementary Treatise on Advance-Guard, Out-Post, and Detachment Service of Troops (1847) which Hagerman references in detail. This text was developed by Mahan for West Point and is considered the first tactics and strategy text created for the United States. I'll add this to my primary sources links on Wig-Wags.

I can tell already that I'll have many terms to add to the terms  page. More to come of the French connection.