Horace Porter served as aide-de-camp to General Ulysses S. Grant during 1864 and 1865. He was a soldier and diplomat, and the son of David R. Porter, a wealthy ironmater who later served as Governor of Pennsylvania. He was educated at Harvard University. He graduated from West Point in 1860 and served in the Union army, reaching the rank of brigadier general. He received the Medal of Honor at the Battle of Chickamauga. In the last year of the war, he served on the staff of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, writing a lively memoir of the experience, Campaigning With Grant (1897).
But before then he wrote an interesting article that appeared in The Century, vol. 36, issue 2 (June 1888). I think you’ll find it of interest. His little essay is justifiably the foundation of the analysis that has continued today with McPherson, Mitchell, Linderman, and Hess (and others). All of these excellent historians quote from him or at least reference him in their own work.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF COURAGE:
http://www.soldierstudies.org/books/pdf/courage/page1.pdf
http://www.soldierstudies.org/books/pdf/courage/page2.pdf
http://www.soldierstudies.org/books/pdf/courage/page3.pdf
http://www.soldierstudies.org/books/pdf/courage/page4.pdf
http://www.soldierstudies.org/books/pdf/courage/page5.pdf
http://www.soldierstudies.org/books/pdf/courage/page6.pdf
http://www.soldierstudies.org/books/pdf/courage/page7.pdf
http://www.soldierstudies.org/books/pdf/courage/page8.pdf
http://www.soldierstudies.org/books/pdf/courage/page9.pdf
Much appreciate the link to this fascinating article. I’m reading Edmund Wilsons’ ‘Patriotic Gore’ and after reading Porters descriptions of battle am keen to read more of him.