Any examination of the high commands of the two Civil War armies must begin with raw numbers of officers involved. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point was fully operational in 1860, and when the war began, the U.S. Army included more than 1,100 officers. They served primarily on frontier duty, trying to keep peace between settlers heading west and the American Indian tribes whose land the settlers simply took.

When the war erupted in April 1861, there was a shuffling as these regular Army officers decided whether to serve in the Union Army, as did Virginia's Maj. George Thomas; or resign their U.S. Army commission and serve in the Army of the Confederate States of America, as did Col. Robert E. Lee.

In actual numbers, about one-third of the United States Army officers resigned their federal commissions to join the Confederacy.

An analysis of Civil War battles and their generals shows that this was a military academy's fight. Of the 60 largest battles, West Point professionals commanded both armies in 55 of them. In the other five, a West Point graduate commanded one of the opposing Armies.

It is fair to say that most of the Civil War commanders on both sides knew one another well. Most had served in the 1848 Mexican War. In fact, Lee had delivered orders commending Lt. Ulysses S. Grant when both were junior officers in that war. All who served in the Mexican War knew one another's tendencies as well as their strong and weak points. This was a huge advantage when, less than a generation later, they had risen to corps and army commanders in the Civil War.

In an early Civil War battle, Grant, West Point Class of 1843, demanded the surrender of Fort Donelson, whose commander was Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, West Point Class of 1844. Grant was also very familiar with Gen. James Longstreet, West Point Class of 1842, as well as Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson and Gen. George Pickett, both West Point Class of 1846.

First Manassas, in July 1861, was the first large land battle of the war. The Union commander was Gen. Irvin McDowell, a 1838 graduate of the military academy. Also graduating in 1838 was Gen. Pierre G.T. Beauregard, who ordered the shelling of Fort Sumter, which began the war. In the academy's Class of 1837 were Gens. Braxton Bragg, Jubal Early and John Pemberton.

But even as West Point graduates, the Confederate high command was at best average. In fact, the best cavalry tactician on either side in the war was not a West Point graduate. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest enlisted in the war as a private and by July 1862, he was a brigadier general. His grasp of mobile cavalry operations was such that he became the most dreaded Confederate cavalry commander of the war.

Probably the best-respected of the Confederate generals was Albert Sidney Johnston, West Point Class of 1826. He resigned his federal commission and joined the Confederate Army. The Western Department was his first command, and after he lost both Forts Henry and Donelson, President Jefferson Davis (West Point Class of 1828), said, "If Johnston is not a general, then I have none."

But Johnston was wounded in the April 1862 Battle of Shiloh. His subsequent death was a huge blow to the Confederacy.

It has been argued that the main trouble with the Confederate prosecution of the war was that it had no overarching strategy for winning. If Gen. George Washington's prime goal in the Revolutionary War was "Above all, don't lose the Continental Army," then the Confederate main concept of offensive/defensive warfare was a failure.

With the political pressure coming from all sides, the Confederate high command felt it had to defend all parts of the Confederate nation. This was militarily impossible. The Confederate land mass was too big, too spread out, too vulnerable to be completely defensible. The South little comprehended the fact that in order to win, the North would have to invade. The South's decision to defend, for political reasons, every inch of Southern territory was a recipe for disaster.

Ned Harrison is a Greensboro, N.C., writer who specializes in military history and writes a monthly Civil War column for The Macon Telegraph. He wants to hear about your ancestors who were part of the Civil War. Write him at News & Record / RT, P.O. Box 20848, Greensboro, NC 27420 or e-mail him at n-b-h@mindspring.com.