My last assignment in the Army was at the Combat Studies Institute at Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. Within our department, we had a staff ride team under the direction of Dr. William G. Robertson, one of the pre-eminent academics who began reviving the staff ride concept in the 1980s. (Dr. Jay Luvaas at the Army War College was another.) We did staff rides of Chickamauga (our "marquee" event, although far from my favorite), Shiloh, Vicksburg, Gettysburg, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and both battles of Bull Run/Manassas. Those were just the Civil War battles. We also did "Sioux Wars," which included the Fetterman Massacre, the Wagon Box Fight, the Battle of the Rosebud, and the Battle of Little Bighorn. We also did the Battle of Attu (Aleutians, 1943), which was the 2nd-bloodiest battle of the Pacific War in terms of casualty rates.
They were all hard work and most of them were also very enjoyable. Gettysburg was unique in that our staff-riders were foreign students attending C&GSC. The foreign officers had to take a course on the American Civil War (which American students could not take), and it culminated with the Gettysburg staff ride.
It was on McPherson's Ridge, where we were just breaking for lunch after discussing Lee's instructions to Longstreet on the morning of Day 2, that I had one of the more memorable experiences of my 20 years in the Army. A Ukrainian colonel with a Ph.D. told me as we were walking to the picnic area, that he was very glad that the Union had won our Civil War. I of course agreed, but I asked him what in particular prompted him to say that. He said words to this effect: if the Confederacy had won, the United States would not have been able to lead the fight for freedom in the 20th century. That was pretty impressive coming from a guy who had been on the opposite side during the Cold War.
Vicksburg ("the Gibraltar of the Confederacy") I think was the most interesting. We did that one for the students in the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) program that was an extra year for the top C&GSC graduates.
Grant tried several different approaches to get to the high ground on the Vicksburg (east) side of the Mississippi River. A failed attack north of Vicksburg at Chickasaw Bayou in Dec 1862. Two or three expeditions going up the Yazoo River north of Vicksburg. An attempt to dig a canal to bypass Vicksburg. An attempt to use Lake Providence as the start point for a canal. Finally, he ran past Vicksburg's artillery batteries at night and got most of his army, most of his gunboats, and most of his transport boats through. Then, a gunboat duel with shore batteries at Grand Gulf. Finally, a landing at Bruinsburg on the east bank on the night of 30 April and the inland advance beginning on 1 May. On that day, Grant seized Port Gibson, the "town too beautiful to burn." Then came an operational pause while Grant collected his forces and considered his options. Then, cutting himself off from his base of supplies, in quick succession, Grant defeated the Confederates at Raymond on the 12th, at the state capital of Jackson on the 14th, at Champion Hill on the 16th, at the Big Black River on the 17th, and began the siege of Vicksburg on the 18th. One of the best campaigns in American military history.
What was funny was that Dr. Robertson was a Virginian through and through, and he just wouldn't/couldn't give Grant his due. Despite the obvious results of the campaign, he had to find his ways to denigrate Grant at every opportunity, even to the point of claiming that Mark Twain wrote Grant's memoirs. Which, to be fair, is a theory. A widely debunked theory, but a theory.