Thomas B. Allen

Today, high-tech means instant Internet communication, electronic gadgets, and remote-control weapons. In 1861, there was a different list of wonders: printed telegraph messages, longhaul railroads, and rifles that could shoot three rounds a minute. Neither side understood how much these new inventions would change things, and both North and South marched off to the Civil War ready for the sort of fiighting Napoleon had done. Instead, they discovered themselve in the middle what has come to be known as the first modern war. How did the new overcome the old?

Much of the credit belongs to one man: Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln knew that winning the war would take more than the same old strategies and maneuvers. It would require using technology to create new ways of waging war. Lincoln worked to make sure his soldiers and sailors had the best and latest hardware. He witnessed high-powered weapons testing at the Navy Yard, used the telegraph to keep in constant contact with his generals, approved plans for ironclad warships and the launch of surveillance balloons, and ordered railroads to transport troops and supplies. By combining these new tools of war with time-tested tactics, he helped revolutionize warfare.

In Mr. Lincoln’s High-Tech War the father-son team of Thomas B. Allen and Roger MacBride Allen combine their knowledge of military history and technology with archival illustrations and diagrams to introduce readers to this new warfare and to reveal a seldom-seen portrait of Lincoln as the driving force behind the innovative technology that helped the North win the Civil War.

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