Battle of Ball’s Bluff (English Edition)

In 1906 Maj. Eben Swift took twelve officer-students from Fort Leavenworth's General Service and Staff School to the Chickamauga battlefield on the Army's first official staff ride. Since that time Army educators have employed the staff ride to provide Army officers a better understanding of a past military operation, of the vagaries of war, and of military planning. It can also serve to enliven a unit's esprit de corps-a constant objective in peacetime or war. This account is drawn principally from contemporary after action reports and from the sworn testimony of participants before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, a congressional entity created to investigate the Union defeats at First Bull Run and Ball's Bluff.