The Civil War, as I’d seen on countless battlefields, also marked the transition from the chivalric combat of old to the anonymous and industrial slaughter of modern times. It was, Walker Percy wrote, “the last of the wars of individuals, when a single man’s ingenuity and pluck not only counted for something in itself but could conceivably affect the entire issue.” This was true not only of generals, but also of men like Jedediah Hotchkiss, a geologist and mapmaker who scaled mountains to survey enemy positions before plotting several of the South’s most triumphant maneuvers. Today, the same
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