Several weeks ago, I watched Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War, and noticed that many prominent officers on both sideshad attended west point, and had known many of their enemies during the war. During the time leading up to the Civil war, as well as the Mexican American war, which many officers were educated before, what works of military theory would they have read and been familiar with at West Point? Were there any differences in preferred influences in terms of theorists for officers that would go on to either the north or the south? What would potentially be some examples of readings that would be accessible today that would have been read at the time?
Jomini was widely read around the world at the time. His influence in the US would not be usurped by Clausewitz until the Vietnam era. All the drawings you see of civil war battlefields are textbook Jomini. The advantage that Jomini has over Clausewitz is that he is easy to understand. While both focus on Napoleon as the source of their theory, Jomini is really the most distilled “for dummies” version. Clausewitz at the time of the American civil war was still most widely read in Prussia. While Jomini dominated elsewhere. I’m in a class about strategy right now and we read Clausewitz, but only briefly discussed Jomini. Now, he’s seen as outdated while some of Clausewitz’s theories are very strong still.