I assumed the monument to the 121st NY had no story to tell.
It didn’t take long for the story to emerge. It’s a rather sad story of one of the Union Army’s best tacticians who tried over and over to reform the army and how it fought.
Yet, Upton met failure after failure.
One of his friends said after Upton’s unfortunate death:
Emory Upton was incontestably the best tactician of either army, and this is true whether tested by battle or by the evolutions of the drill field and parade. In view of his success of all arms of the service . . . No one can read the story of his brilliant career without concluding that he had a real genius for war, together with all the theoretical and practical knowledge which anyone could acquire in regard to it. Up to the time when he was disabled by the disease which caused his death he was, all things considered, the most accomplished soldier in our service. His life was pure and upright, his bearing chivalric and commanding, his conduct modest and unassuming, and his character absolutely without blemish. History cannot furnish a brighter example of unselfish patriotism, or ambition unsullied by an ignoble thought or an unworthy deed.
His death demanded an explanation.
On March 14, 1881, Upton wrote to his sister from a remote Army post in California–sent there by senior leadership to silence his voice. He complained about the frustration he felt trying to lead change in his beloved army. He concluded his letter saying “I hope that God would lead me to sacrifice myself, rather than to perpetuate a method which might in the future cost a single man his life.”
The next day, Upton wrote out a single line resigning his commission. He went outside, picked up his gun and took his life
He was just 41 years old.
Here’s his story behind the suicide.
Bureaucracies are like cement–and they are deadly.
Changing entrenched thinking is hard. Military bureaucracies, like all bureaucracies, are cement. You can’t break them up quickly and to do so creates a lot of dust and debris.
Methods perpetuate themselves. Leaders on both sides had been schooled in Napoleonic tactics. But a few young Turks, like Upton, realized that advances in musketry had made obsolete the centuries-old infantry tactic of having troops attack in a long line, firing—and being slaughtered—as they went.
He’d seen the results of such tactics at Gettysburg. He and other creative thinkers in the Army began after Gettysburg to argue for a different approach. But the military thinking was in cement.
Very few generals (leaders) in either army were willing to question what they had been taught or how they’d practiced “the military arts.”
After all, there was a war to win.
They believed that there were ways of doing things.
Beside the armies are already trained.
And to change is too risky.
Let’s not even ask “if” we should do it differently.
Let’s stick with what we know—and batter away.
But Upton liked to ask “what if.”
He felt a leader’s responsibility mandated fresh thinking. Fresh thinking only came when you questioned current methods. A leader needs to constantly evaluate the past, gather lessons learned and implement those lessons.
You don’t just keep battering away—repeating the past. An organization or team needs to lean positively into the future by learning from the past.
Leading change, after the battle, required that leaders have the imagination to ask “what if we did it differently.” And then, to have the guts, to experiment.
And Upton certainly wasn’t impressed with those generals who had no imagination. As Grant’s 1864 Overland Campaign ground on, Upton wrote a friend, “I have seen but little generalship during this campaign. Some of our Corps commanders are not fit to be corporals. I must confess that, so long as I see such incompetency, there is no grade in the army to which I do not aspire.”
Yet Upton’s ambition, his natural abilities and mostly his concern for the massive loss of life led him to try a risky tactic at a place called the Mule Shoe near Spotsylvania, VA.
Upton believed a brigade in a column-like formation could rush enemy fortifications while not slowing to stop and fire. Instead of the linear formations of the Civil War armies, he advocated an attack built around fighting as a stacked column.
Upton got the chance to put his new tactic to the test on May 14, 1864.
Charging out of the Wilderness and across 200 yards of open ground, he led twelve regiments into the teeth of the best entrenched, most fiercely defended segment of the Confederate line. Upton was the only one on horseback.
His idea of a stack column worked.
Upton’s men pierced the Confederate position at its heart, driving the Rebels from their fortifications and back through two rows of trenches.
It was a breakthrough that might have defeated Lee’s army and all but ended the war then and there.
But the planned support units inexplicably failed to show up. Communication broke down. Lacking the imagination to understand Upton’s new approach, the supporting Union commanders failed to follow up on Upton’s break thru.
As Confederate forces had time to reinforce their lines, Upton’s men fell back at a terrible cost.
Grant, who recognized genius when he saw it, immediately promoted Upton to brigadier general “for gallant and distinguished services that day.”
I don’t think Upton was particularly thrilled. Here’s why.
Grant’s Failure
Grant only learned one of the lessons from Upton’s attack—the most visible one and the easiest one to understand.
Grant saw how the tactic of massing men at a single point and having them charge without stopping to fire had worked even better than expected. Grant then took that one lesson to heart and independently decided that what 12 regiments could do an entire corps could do even better.
Grant, unfortunately, did not fully understand Upton’s approach, nor did he conduct a thorough evaluation of why Upton’s approach had initially succeeded but ultimately failed.
Had he done so, he would have learned that communications and coordination were absolutely essential for such an attack.
Grant’s failure to grasp the meaning and method of Upton’s attack led to another charge on the Mule Shoe two days later. It failed with an even more horrendous cost in lives and blood.
Rather than being a harbinger of success, Upton’s innovative assault on the Mule Shoe was merely the prelude to an even greater slaughter at the “Bloody Angle.” All because Grant and the other Union generals never took the time to learn how to lead change — after the battle.
Upton’s Post-War Career
For Upton, it was the first of many frustrations to bring change — after the battle. You can read of some of his tireless work here and how the entrenched governmental and military bureaucracies thwarted his effort at reform.
By 1881, assigned to that remote post in California, Emory Upton had given up on bringing change. He’d worked tirelessly to reform the army and was about to publish a significant work on Military Policy, that would posthumously lead to some change. Some reform would come, but not soon enough for Emory Upton.
After he took his life, doctors admitted that they had been experimenting with some new techniques to help Upton’s severe headaches.
The doctors placed a coiled electrical wire against the mucous membrane of his nasal passages and sent a spark through it. Such a technique certainly hadn’t had the review process of today’s experimental trials.
Doctors later speculated that Upton might have been suffering from a tumor in his face or brain. One wonders whether a tumor or the pain of his “treatment” was to blame. Regardless, the headaches did not abate and apparently the pain was severe. Friends, not wanting to accept his suicide, argued that his suicide was an accident.
His letter to his sister suggests, however, that Upton died of being unable to change things that needed changing.
Today’s Military and the After Action Review
Over the years, the US Military has learned its lesson. You can’t let your methods hardened into cement. All the services practice in some form the After Action Review.
Although the military services are some of the world’s largest hierarchical and bureaucratic organizations, they implement the AAR to help them change and learn and grow. The AAR helps the serviced become more horizontal or flat organizations—which means they can become learning organizations.
For organizations to change, they must become teachable, able to change.
I wish I could travel in a time machine back to May 15th 1864. All I’d do is take this chart and convince Grant and his generals to sit down with Upton and let him walk thru the questions below.
I can’t do that but I can implement After Action Reviews wherever I lead.
And I’d encourage you to do the same.
Make the AAR process a habit in your leadership.
The Navy Seal’s Adapted AAR — The Power of Vulnerability in the Leader
I like how the Navy Seals have adapted the AAR process and made it even simpler. They’ve also added the critical component of leadership vulnerability.
Tellingly, central to the SEALS’ effectiveness is this probing After Action Review.
But their AARs are not led by commanders but by the enlisted men within a unit.
These reviews are similarly structured around the five core questions, asked by the enlisted leader:
- “What were our intended results?*
- “What were our actual results?*
- “What caused our results?*
- “What would we do the same next time?*
- “What will we do differently?”*
Dave Cooper of the Navy Seals elite Team Six claims that the success of the Seals lies in this culture of vulnerability. “It all begins with the leader’s willingness to say the four most important words any leader can say: I screwed that up.”
The Seals have a culture rich in ways to challenge each other, to ask the right questions, and (surprisingly) to never defer to authority.
Such a culture only arises when there is vulnerability in the leader.
We’re not interested, Cooper says, in excavating truth for truth’s sake, or to assign credit or blame. We are building a shared mental model for the future. Successful missions in the future depend upon it.
Great teams come together to ask a simple question over and over: What’s really going on here?
As the leader is vulnerable, the rest of the team becomes vulnerable.
I like what Dave Cooper said about courage.
“When we talk about courage, we think it’s going against an enemy with a machine gun. The real courage is seeing the truth and speaking the truth to each other. People never want to be the person who says, ‘Wait a second, what’s really going on there?’ But inside the team, that is the culture, and that’s why we’re successful.”
My Personal Thoughts on How to Apply the AAR
Help your team see the truth and speak the truth. You’ll need to be vulnerable so assign the process below to someone on your team.
First, have everyone walk thru the questions above.
Second, after a rigorous truth-telling session, move toward capturing the critical lessons by doing the following;
Go around the horn and have everyone answer 2 questions.
“What 3 things went well?”
and
“What 3 things did not go well?”.
If someone covers one of a person’s planned answer – that person needs to add a new thought. Don’t allow repeats.
Third, based on the answers to those two questions, brainstorm recommendations for change. Keep the pace quick, write them down, and make sure everyone understands the recommendations.
Fourth, list the recommendations and have everyone vote (1-10, but no one can use 7) for their top three recommendations. Total up the votes and list highlight the three recommendations with the highest total number.
Five, implement those changes.
That’s it.
Simple.
Powerful.
It’s a great way to lead change — after the battle.
Be an Upton.
