Bret Devereaux

*the exception being “presidential historians” (I still have yet to understand what that is exactly) who tend to fall victim to the same problems of understanding leadership without the context of institutions.

And the same might be said of other social institutions, whether religious/churches or social/reform, etc. We see leaders and their decisions as products of the institutions they lead, down to the ideologies and factionalism. But so rarely with military leaders.

The relative institutional weakness of the antebellum army, along with the peculiar contingencies of command, means there is a rationale for "battles and leaders" history, but even the academic literature is unbalanced. 1/2

And a lot of social/cultural history of Civil War soldiers doesn't help, because it ignores the institutional contexts of their actual military experience. This is why the up and coming work of @xv40rds is so important. 2/2

Grant was also one of the most incompetent tactical commanders of the war. Had he not been catapulted into an operational-level position as fast as he had, it would have been the end of his career. Give him ample geographic space and he's a genius. Box him in, and it's over.

Ironically much of that was because of the extraordinarily toxic command climate that existed within his HQ. He was probably the most cliquish of all Western commanders, and that behavior was imparted to Cump. We deify the guy, and for some good reason, but he was very flawed.

We also tend to ascribe "military genius" to commanders based on success, even though success in military operations usually has as much, if not more, to do with completely exogenous factors (especially the enemy) than with any decisions, good or bad, that a senior leader makes.

But of course, if your hold on your property is contingent upon proving you upheld your feudal obligations to a monarch, then it's pretty important that society award you full responsibility for the actions of the incredibly complex human system underneath you. ... just saying.