Blog assignment #2

I want to preface this blog in stating that as a criminal justice major, I have not had to read many outside articles in relationship to my major. That is why I choose to analyze an article from my minor, military science.
The article I have chosen was that about the Civil War Battle of Chancellorsville. This article, which discusses the effective and sometimes ineffective principles of war that were used by both Confederate and Union generals, was written for the West Point Military History Series: The American Civil War. The fact that this article was written for and accepted by the professors at the United States Military Academy, also known as West Point, speaks volumes for this article. West Point has strived to be one of the top universities in the country and I believe that it has succeeded in its mission. I believe the author or authors who published this article have a near expert level of knowledge in the main topic of this article, which is outlining the use of the principles of war in a single battle. I believe that the author(s) had to do extensive research to find a single battle, Chancellorsville, which demonstrated all the principles of war.
I believe that the author(s) call to write was that of proving how essential it is to obey the principles of war during all battles. The author is writing this article, not as an opinion piece, but out of the need to educate the young officers in training at West Point and at other ROTC programs across the country. When reading the article I saw that there was no sense of urgency or a need to rush through the article because this article needed to be precisely written. The author does nothing in particular to identify the importance of the matter at hand because the actions of the battle spoke. I believe that the only way in which the writer could express the importance of the principles of war is by showing what happens when they are not applied. The Union generals, who lost thousands of troops during the Battle of Chancellorsville, clearly ignored the principles of war during the battle. This was a fact that the author(s) clearly point out. The author(s) know that the greatest way to impact the future leaders of this nation’s soldiers is by showing them the price in which others pay when mistakes are made. I believe that this also ties into the reason in which the author(s) wrote this article. The reason for the article being written is to put into the lessons learned into a real world context. The author(s) shows what happens when a leader fails to take into account the principles of war.
The intended audience for this article is for members of the United States Military Academy and all members that are in advanced Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs. This is where I encountered the article. The article was featured in the ROTC textbook which is passed out to every cadet in the country.
This article, in my opinion, successfully completed the task for which it was designed. The author(s) should not change a thing about their article because they are able to demonstrate effectively the principles of war by only telling the facts. The point of the article is to give only the facts and not be skewed by an author’s opinion. I believe that if the article had been written in any other fashion, the article would have suffered.