Book Review: Retreat from Gettysburg

About six months ago, my father loaned me his copy of Retreat from Gettysburg. He had recently read it, and knew that I had recently read Stephen Sears' excellent account of the battle, and we traded - I loaned him Sears and he loaned me Brown. And then a whole long time passed, during which I read other stuff, and during a good chunk of which I wasn't reading books about the Civil War. But knowing that I was going to be visiting him in mid-March, it seemed like the ideal moment to read through the book and then return it to him.

Book Review
Brown, Kent Masterson. Retreat From Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics and the Pennsylvania Campaign. University of North Carolina Press. 2011. 552p. Photographs, bibliography, maps, index. ISBN: 9780807872093.

The general perception of the Gettysburg Campaign when viewed from modern times is one of colossal failure - the "high water" mark of the Confederacy, the turning point after which it became inevitable that the South would lose the war. The usual narrative is that Confederate general Robert E. Lee decided to make a grand gesture and last-ditch effort to secure foreign recognition by invading the North and wrecking havoc, and that only bungling by Union leader George Gordon Meade in the week after the battle prevented the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia from being completely decimated. Brown (attorney of law) challenges this conventional interpretation on all counts, arguing instead that the Pennsylvania campaign was a massive raiding trip, and that despite the loss of the battle, the provisions secured during the incursion into Pennsylvania and Maryland were essential to the war effort, and without them the Confederate war machine would have ground to a halt due to a lack of food and other necessary commodities. Furthermore, Brown argues that Meade's inability to prevent the Confederate retreat across the Potomac was not so much as a result of his failings as a general but instead were caused by the masterful way that Lee organized and executed the withdrawal of his forces. To demonstrate this case, Brown examines returns from foraging missions, quartermasters records, medical information, and many other sources frequently ignored during the relating of the events surrounding a battle. He makes the case very effectively, and the reader is left with a much deeper understanding of both the successes and failures of the Campaign from the Southern point of view.

Unfortunately, the book did have a weakness. Often, as a reader, it was easy to get lost in a forest of details - returns on bushels of corn and sheaves of hay broken down on a regiment-by-regiment level, detailed descriptions of the location and number of wounded and wagons needed at every field hospital, detailed lists of exactly which injured men were where, to name a few. Amidst all this information and the dozens of mentioned letter-writers and diary-keepers, keeping track of the overall narrative and maintaining an understanding of which elements and figures were significant and which weren't was very challenging. This bewildering specificity unfortunately made it difficult to maintain interest in a book that, in other respects, was a fascinating investigation of the often over-looked aspects of just goes in to executing a tactical retreat.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Book Review: War Like the Thunderbolt

I have a distinct interest in the Civil War in the West, as opposed to the better known Eastern Theater battles. Despite this, though, I've read surprisingly little about the battles that took place in the West. Recently, I've been taking steps to remedy this deficiency, I started (but didn't finish) Cozzen's book This Terrible Sound, about the Battle of Chickamauga (I'm going to re-start it soon, since it's been long enough that I'll have mixed up all the important names by the time I get back to it). More recently, I read the Vicksburg book. So, along those lines, I finally got around to reading about Atlanta, though I had picked up the book some time ago.

Review
Bonds, Russell S. War Like the Thunderbolt: The Battle and Burning of Atlanta. Westholme Publishing. 2009. 522p. Photographs, bibliography, maps, index. ISBN: 9781594161278


It's unusual to read a book about the Civil War that starts by giving a detailed historical account of an event in the 20th century. When the book is about the Battle of Atlanta, though, and the event described is the filming of the movie Gone With the Wind, it begins to make more sense. Bonds (attorney, author) paints a vivid scene of how Atlanta "burned" in that movie, and describes how the popular vision of the Battle and burning of Atlanta were created in large part by the movie and the book. His decision to take this approach is an excellent example of his approach throughout this book. His writing is accessible, simple, exceedingly clear, and yet very detailed. Throughout the book, he grabs the readers attention with pertinent details and excellent descriptions that leave the reader feeling acquainted with the places and the people and the battles described. Through his extensive research, Bonds seeks to evaluate the generalship and actions of Union General William T. Sherman, and of Confederate Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John B. Hood. In so doing, he clears away many myths, especially about the Hood, who has often been perceived as incompetent, stupid, and fixated on attacking. He also tackles difficult questions of responsibility for the atrocities committed against civilians during the campaign, handling these complex and still-sensitive issues with delicacy and honesty. Bonds doesn't always give the answers - for example, in the end we'll never know if, despite written orders that residences in Atlanta not be burned, there was a wink-and-a-nod verbal order to the contrary - but he does use an impressive array of sources to leave the reader with a clear idea of Sherman's march to Atlanta, and the battles of Peachtree Creek, Atlanta, Ezra Church and Jonesboro, as well as the two times the city burned, and the political and social ramifications for all of these events, both during the war and afterwards.

This excellently written books is one of the clearest battle accounts I've ever read, and at the same time is a cogent social, psychological and political profile of the events and personalities involved in the battle. Before I read this book, I couldn't have said I remembered that there WAS a Battle of Ezra Church, and now I could tell you who was involved, what went wrong, and how it influenced the campaign. To so clearly and successfully describe so many different aspects of a major campaign is quite an achievement, and Bonds succeeds while making it look easy.

Rating: 5 out of 5.