Americas First Battles, 1776-1965 by
Charles E. Heller
First Battles
This volume, a collection of eleven original essays by many of the foremost
U.S. military historians, focuses on the transition of the Army from parade
ground to battleground in each of nine wars the United States has fought.
Through careful analysis of organization, training, and tactical doctrine,
each essay seeks to explain the strengths and weaknesses evidenced by
the outcome of the first significant engagement or campaign of the war.
The concluding essay sets out to synthesize the findings and to discover
whether or not American first battles manifest a characteristic rhythm.
Americas First Battles provides a novel and intellectually challenging view
of how America has prepared for war and how operations and tactics have
changed over time. The thrust of the book--the emphasis on operational
history--is at the forefront of scholarly activity in military history. This
book is part of the Modern War Studies series.
Personal Review: Americas First Battles, 1776-1965 by Charles
E. Heller

Each first battle of each war where the US fought is described in terms of
training, equipment, doctrine, and political factors. The analysis of the
performance of US troops is critical and focused to describe both the
successes and failures, especially the failures.
The common theme is that US troops faired poorly in the majority of their
first battles, but the leaders were able to adapt and learn from the failures,
except for Vietnam where the first battle had mixed results that were
incorrectly perceived that a war of attrition and casualty ratios would bring
success.
Another common theme is that by reducing the military to a garrison army
relying on conscription to fight wars, resulted in severe losses in those
units who fought the first battle, but also it took over one year or more to
fully prepare and successfully deploy combat effective units above the
regimental level.
Learning how to use new military innovations also had an influence
on how US forces fared and the amount of casualties suffered, but not
preparing and analyzing the destructive power of new weapons (rifled
musket in the Civil War, machine guns in World War I), US forces took
thousands of casualties until the training doctrine was revised to account
for the increased lethality on the battlefield.
Overall, am personally very glad to have purchased this book and
add it into the collection. Once started reading this book, quickly went
though each chapter as they flowed very well. The diagrams/ maps of
each battle are also informative and helps the reader understand the
battles and locations of the units engaged.
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