Wayne Hsieh

Associate Professor

19th Century U.S. Military History; American Civil War

Education

• Ph.D. - August 2004 - University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.  History.
  • Dissertation: “The Old Army in War and Peace: West Pointers and the Civil War Era, 1814-1865,” directed by Gary W. Gallagher and Edward L. Ayers.
• M.A. - January 2002 - University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.  History.
• B. A. - 2000 - magna cum laude - Yale University, New Haven, CT.  History.

Non-Academic Work Experience

Detailed to the Department of State during the 2008/9 academic year to serve as the Tuz Satellite (FOB Bernstein) Lead for the Salah ad Din Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq.  Served as the senior civilian US Government official assigned to the Tuz district (approximately 150,000 inhabitants), and worked primarily on ethnic political issues.

Publications (Peer-Reviewed)

West Pointers and the Civil War: The Old Army in War and Peace. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
      - Winner of 2009 New York Military Affairs Symposium Civil War Book Award

A Savage War: A Military History of the Civil War. Co-authored with Williamson Murray. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.

“‘Lucky Inspiration’: Philip Sheridan’s Uncertain Road to Triumph with the Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac.” Caroline E. Janney, ed., Petersburg to Appomattox: The End of War in Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, forthcoming. [I have already submitted this essay to the volume editor, and the whole volume is currently in the peer review process]

“‘Go to Your Gawd Like a Soldier’: Transnational Reflections on Veteranhood.” Journal of the Civil War Era 5 (December 2015): 551-77.

“The Strategy of Lincoln and Grant.” In Successful Strategies: Triumphing in War and Peace from Antiquity to the Present, edited by Williamson Murray and Richard Hart Sinnreich, 189-213.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

“Total War and the American Civil War Reconsidered: The End of an Outdated ‘Master Narrative.’” Journal of the Civil War Era 1 (Sept., 2011): 394-408.

“Being Feared and Not Being Hated Can Go Together Very Well”: The Problem of Population Control and Legitimacy in Stability Operations.  Small Wars Journal 6 (Feb., 2010): 1-6.
      - Grand Prize Winner for Small Wars Journal Writing Competition (Topic 1)

“The Civil War Era: Redeemer President and Warrior Prophet; Abraham Lincoln, William T. Sherman, and Evangelical Protestantism.” In Prophesies of Godlessness: Predictions of America’s Imminent Secularization, from the Puritans to Postmodernity, edited by Charles T. Mathewes and Christopher McKnight Nichols, 75-94. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

“‘I Owe Virginia Little, My Country Much”: Robert E. Lee, the United States Regular Army, and Unconditional Unionism.” In Crucible of the Civil War: Virginia from Secession to Commemoration, edited by Gary Gallagher, Edward L Ayers, and Andrew W. Torget, 35-57. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006.

 "Christian Love and Martial Violence: Baptists and War--Danger and Opportunity." In Virginia's Civil War, edited by Peter Wallenstein and Bertram Wyatt-Brown, 87-100.  Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005.

Honors and Awards

Commander's Award for Civilian Service, 3 BSTB, Department of the Army, June 10, 2009

Meritorious Honor Award, U.S. Department of State, Embassy Baghdad, June 2009

Grand Prize Winner, Question 1, Small Wars Journal Writing Competition, Feb. 2010

New York Military Affairs Symposium Civil War Book Award for West Pointers and the Civil War, 2009.

Henry Chauncey Jr. '57 Fellow, Brady-Johnson Grand Strategy Program, International Security Studies, Yale University, 2011 Calendar Year

Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Yale University’s Whitney Humanities Center, 2004/5 academic year.

Naval Academy Research Council Senior Grant (Summer 2016)

Minerva Initiative Research Grant, Department of Defense, Summer 2013, Summer 2012

Naval Academy Research Council Seed Grant (Summer 2006, Summer 2007, Summer 2010).

Jacob K. Javits Fellowship for the 2000/1, 2001/2, 2002/3, and 2003/4 academic years.

Honorary 2000 Mellon Fellow in Humanistic Studies.

E. Francis Riggs Memorial Prize for “demonstrating the best knowledge of general culture by means of the distinction of your performance" (Yale, May 1998).

David C. DeForest Prize and Townsend Premiums, 2nd Place.  To a Senior “who shall write and pronounce an English oration in the best manner” (Yale, May 2000).

Bristed Scholarship for “the sophomore standing highest in a competitive examination in Greek” (Yale, May 1999).

Robert C. Byrd Scholar for California (Yale, 1997 – 2000)

Publications (Non-Peer Reviewed)

 “Civil War Conjunct Operations, 1861-1865,” in America, Sea Power, and the World, ed. James C. Bradford (Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2016), 101-15. Contributor to American Naval History survey text.

 “United States Generals,” in A Companion to the U.S. Civil War, ed. Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Vol. 2, 673-91 (Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2014).  A 7,000 word (excluding bibliography) analytical summary of a vast and almost unmanageable literature.

 “Changing Interpretations” sub-entry under “Civil War,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History, edited by Timothy J. Lynch (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).  A 1946 word (excluding bibliography) analytical summary of a vast and almost unmanageable literature.

 “George B. McClellan,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History, edited by Timothy J. Lynch (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

 Contributor (wrote text for Ch. 2) to DK Smithsonian, The Civil War: A Visual History. New York: DK Publishing, 2011.

 “Looking Beyond West Point: Life in the Old Army as Education for War.” In Historical Perspectives: The Proceedings of the Combat Studies Institute 2010 Military History Symposium, edited by Kendall D. Gott, 23-34. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010.