In The Training Ground, Martin Dugard examines the involvement of several important Civil War generals and leaders in the Mexican War, which gave them training in actual warfare.

Focusing on U.S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, and somewhat on Robert E. Lee (William T. Sherman, Braxton Bragg, James Longstreet and others are also included), Dugard presents the history of actual battles beginning with General Zachary Taylor in Texas and northern Mexico; then it switches to General Winfield Scott in central Mexico and the end of the war.

The chapters are short and lively, not at all a dry, academic telling of the Mexican War. Highly recommended to those interested in the Mexican War and the Civil War.