What inspired you to write Commanding Lincoln’s Navy: Union Naval Leadership During the Civil War?
Commanding Lincoln’s Navy is my fourth book. The first two were over campaigns, which meant that I had to research and write about lots of different aspects of warfare – strategy, tactics, logistics, intelligence, personnel, morale, etc. I liked some of these things, but found others tedious. There may be people out there who are really fascinated by logistics, but I’m not one of them. A few years later I had an epiphany that I should write about what interests me the most: command structures. Years of reading military history and working in academia led me to ask why some people were appointed to important and responsible positions even when they were sometimes manifestly unsuited for such posts. In my third book, Commanding the Army of the Potomac, I analyzed who was assigned to corps command and why. I found the material interesting and enlightening, so I figured I would continue the line of thought by looking at the Navy’s command structure during the Civil War. In this case, I wan
