Book Review: Shenandoah, 1862

In 2009, I went on a road trip to visit various Civil War battlefields. My route down to Tennessee (Shiloh and Chickamauga!) took me through the Shenandoah Valley. Driving down I-81, I passed easily dozens of Civil War Trails signs, and I even ended up stopping in Lexington, Winchester and New Market. And in that trip, I quickly realized...I didn't understand how the war unfolded in the Shenandoah AT ALL. It was a bewildering mystery of the Union advancing, the Confederates defeating and driving them back, possession of important points changing hands repeatedly, and all of the events of multiple campaigns were layered one on top of the other. I picked up a pamphlet that promised to clear up some of the mystery, but never got around to reading it, and have remained bemused ever since. More than that, I think I've actively turned a blind eye towards the Shenandoah campaigns, despite their importance, because that was easier than muddling through and trying to sort it all out. Yet I did want the veil lifted from my eyes, so when I spotted Shenandoah, 1862 by Peter Cozzens, I knew the time had come: this book would remove the fog of war and I'd have some better idea of what on earth had happened there in 1862. Cozzens' fine book didn't disappoint.

Book Review
Cozzens, Peter. Shenandoah, 1862: Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign. The University of North Carolina Press. 2008. 623p. Photographs, bibliography, maps, index. ISBN: 9780807832004.

In most works about the Shenandoah campaign of 1862, author's present a narrative of the brilliance of Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, and omit a detailed description of the point of view and activities of his Union adversaries. Peter Cozzens (independent scholar) seeks to overcome this deficiency by vividly and extensively describing both sides of the conflict in the Valley. Using exhaustive research, Cozzens helps the campaign to come alive in all of its elements - the marches and counter-marches, battles, maneuvers, and politics. The events in the Valley are set in context against the greater panoply of events at the time, especially the political atmosphere in Washington DC and the relationship between events in the Shenandoah and the advance of Union General George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign. The description of events on the Union side is particularly interesting and offers a point of view rarely encountered in other works on the topic. Union Generals Nathaniel P. Banks, John C. Fremont and James Shields are transformed from straw men set up simply for Jackson to knock down, and are fully described as actors in the drama that unfolds - given credit for their successes, acknowledged for the challenges they faced, and roundly condemned for their very real failings. The only negative of this fine book is just how dense and scholarly it is: it is so rich in details and replete with primary sources fleshing out the narrative that at times it is difficult to read.

For those who'd like a better understanding of the Shenandoah Campaign in 1862, with a fair and balanced description of both the Confederate and Union sides, one could not do better than Cozzens' work on the topic.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Book Review: Grant and Lee

At the beginning of the year, you may recall that I read and reviewed Ulysses S. Grant: A Victor, Not a Butcher. In that work, the author discussed some works that he had used as sources, and I read this descriptive bibliography assiduously and made notes of books that I would like to read that he mentioned. One of those books was Grant and Lee, by JFC Fuller. Thus, I was delighted when I saw this work on the shelves at Shiloh when I visited there earlier this month. I didn't even hesitate before picking it up, and I read it almost immediately (mostly because I started and then was hooked!) I'm currently reading another of his books, The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant.

Book Review
Fuller, J.F.C. Grant and Lee: A Study in Personality and Generalship. Indiana University Press. 1957. 2nd Edition. 323p. Bibliography, maps, index. ISBN: 9780253202888.

Major General J.F.C. Fuller (British Army) began writing about the Civil War in the years after the first World War. Grant and Lee (first edition published 1933) grew out of research that he had done for his previous work, the The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant. When he started these works, he held the view common to many people of them - and, despite almost a century of debunking, the views of many people now - that Confederate General Robert E. Lee was a brilliant strategist, tactician and general, and that Union General Ulysses S. Grant was a careless hack who would have failed to win the war if not for the North's vast wealth of resources and manpower. By the time he had finished his research, though, Fuller had done a complete 180 on his views of these two men. In Grant and Lee, Fuller uses extensive research - primarily using the Official Records of the War, various memoirs and biographies, and other sources commonly available at the time - to demonstrate how skillfully Grant managed his troops, and at the same time how often inept Lee was when times called for a forceful, decisive commander. The events are described chronologically, and the stories of both commanders are told simultaneously throughout the course of the war, alternating between each narrative when the two are in different theaters. Fuller's work is justly a classic of the field: his arguments are incisive, his research extensive, his historiography strong, and his own expertise as a general and theoretician help strengthen the validity of everything he says. What makes the book a delight to read, though, is his witty writing style and no-holds-barred willingness to state his opinion of his subjects. For example, when describing the Confederate plan for the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Fuller says flat out, "this was a thoroughly bad plan," and then goes on to explore the reasons why. In an age when much scholarly writing hems and haws at making value judgements, tip toes around directness, or provides "just the facts" and leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions, it is thoroughly refreshing to read Fuller's down-to-earth writing style. For that, and for the value of his insights, I found this book to be a page turner, and I read it in three days flat - and was reluctant every time I had to put it down.

A classic for all the right reasons, this is the book to hand any body who tries to tell you that Grant is a thoughtless butcher or that Lee is the greatest general in US History.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Book Review: Partners in Command

I consider the purchasing of this book one of my fortuitous discoveries in recent memory. See, I'm thinking about going back to graduate school to study 19th century US military history (ie, the Civil War!) and I've been looking at programs that specialize in that. As such, I've learned about some scholars in the field who I want to read more by, but money is limited just now. Last month, I sold some used DVDs to a place I go sometimes that specializes in media and Japanese used books. For kicks, while I was waiting for them to process my order, I looked through their small selection of US History books, and - low and behold - on the shelf was a book by one of the Professor's I wanted to learn more about! Used and cheap, no less! I was very excited, and promptly bought it, and almost as promptly read it!

Book Review Glatthaar, Joseph T. Partners in Command: The Relationships Between Leaders in the Civil War. The Free Press. 1994. 286p. Photographs, bibliography, maps, index. ISBN: 0029118174.

Without understanding the relationships between important figures in the Civil War, it is difficult to really grasp how events unfolded and why they unfolded as they did. There are a multitude of relationships that would be fascinating to scrutinize, and no way that any author could tackle them all in one book. Glatthaar doesn't attempt to draw broad generalizations or to analyze every important relationship in the war; instead, he isolates six specific interactions and writes essays on each one, linking them by drawing on common themes and pointing out which factors made the relationships successful or unsuccessful. These conclusions are supported by extensive research, and it's especially fascinating in each essay to see that there is always a turning point - when the relationship went from cordial to antagonistic, or from neutral to positive. Two of the essays focus on Confederate relationships: Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee; and Joseph Johnston and Jefferson Davis. The other four focus on Union relationships: Abraham Lincoln and George McClellan; Ulysses Grant and William Sherman; Grant, Sherman and David Porter; and Lincoln and Grant. All of the essays were interesting in their own ways, and which appealed to any given reader most would depend on their interests and focus of their studies. I was particularly fascinated by his analysis of Johnston and Davis' relationship, as I have an enduring fascination with Johnston. The essay on Grant, Sherman and Porter highlighted some very interesting inter-service issues and successes, and the psychological analysis of McClellan was very interesting to read and informative. The only significant downside to this book was all of the areas it didn't explore and cover, and the questions it left me with concerning other relationships - specifically, I wish there had been a discussion of the relationship between Henry Halleck and Grant, but there is fertile ground for essays on many other topics.

Not a book for someone looking for very in-depth analysis, Partners in Command assumes that the reader has a framework of knowledge about the war, and focuses immediately on the relationships in question with a loose, readable style that is almost conversational at points, while using extensive research to support the conclusions drawn about the relationships between the individuals discussed. The essays were thought-provoking, and left me wanting more - and what more can a book really hope for than that?

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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.

Google Maps: A Tool For Understanding a Battle

Without a good map, battles are nearly impossible to understand. There's just too much going on all at once, too many people moving in too many directions. Generally speaking, I define a book about a battle as successful or unsuccessful in large part by how well and how clearly the included maps help to clarify the description of the action taking place.

However, for those unfamiliar with battlefield maps, they can be very intimidating and unclear. Without a foundation of knowledge about the battle, this problem is exacerbated. For example, take a look at this map of the First Battle of Bull Run.


Plan of the First Battle of Bull Run, Virginia. July 21st 1861. Compiled from Union and Rebel Maps by R.K. Sneden, Topog. Engr. Heintzelman's Div. Accessed from the Library of Congress Maps Collection at this link.
What are we really looking at here? (if this is too small, access the original record at this link, or view the map here. There are some geographical features of the area - some water, some roads, some trees, kind of a funny looking thing up near the right hand top corner. There are some red lines and some blue lines, and a whole bunch of names. But what does all of this MEAN, and how does it help the viewer to understand the battle?

Not all maps are the same, of course, and while this one has a key, many do not, but there are a few things that are generally true. First, red is almost always Confederate Forces, and Blue is almost always Union Forces. Names given are generally of the brigade commander, but this is less universal and harder to rely on. Important places in general (such as the town of Centerville near the top right corner, or the Warrenton Turnpike, which runs diagonally across the map) are always shown, and places that are important in the battle (such as Blackburns Ford, in the lower center of the map) are also usually labeled. As with in any map, before even worrying about the details, it's worth examining it a few minutes and figuring out what it DOES tell you, such as - on this example - how the railroads are narked, what direction is north, and that the parallel lines along Bull Run denote the steepness of the banks, and that other hills such as the hill where Henry House is (on the left hand side just below center) is located.

For a battle map, the next step is to figure out where the conflict is actually taking place. While this might seem obvious, this is generally where the largest numbers of troops from the two sides are standing - but remember, these groups do not stand still. The only way to really understand a battle is to combine an examination of maps with a narrative account of the battle. Otherwise, for example, you can't tell that Sherman (in this map, the cluster of troops marked Sherman can be found just north of the Warrenton Pike, and on the east side of Bull Run) is soon to charge across a nearby ford and attack the Confederate forces on the other side of the river. A concise, simple description of the battle is of inestimable aid when staring at a map like this - but such a description is not for this blog post. Instead, I'm going to outline a strategy for helping a map like this come alive.

No amount of looking at this map will you tell you who these people were or what the land on which they stood really looked like. However, with the internet, you can get a long way towards doing understanding this better. This is where Google Maps comes in. By combining what a simple battlefield map such as this one can tell us with the plethora of images that can be found on the internet, those trying to learn about a battle can really get in-depth with it, by recreating this map using a custom Google Map. To do this, you will need to have a Google Account and be logged in. Then, go to www.google.com/maps. Select "My Places", then select "Create Map."



Once you have created your map, you fill in the name you'd like to use, and a description. If you are working with a group - for example, a class of students - you can also select "Collaborate," which will give you the option to share the map with any number of other people who can also add features to it.



Once you've got the basic set up, it's time to start adding things to your map! You can add either pins or lines, by using these two buttons:



The one on the left that looks like an inverted tear drop lets you drop a pin; the one on the right lets you draw a line! Dropping a pin looks like this:



You write in the name you want, and a description of the place. You can even copy and paste pictures in to the description! If you click on the representation of the pin in the upper right hand corner, you can change how the pin looks, too. In short, there are a LOT of options. Once you've created a pin, and added what you want, you can save it, and click "Done" over on the left (above the name of your map) and when you got to look, you'll see your pin - and when you click it, the description you wrote will pop up:



I popped in a picture of the Henry House that I took when I visited Bull Run last summer; scrolling down, there is a historical picture of how the house looked after the battle (you can see that image here.) Now you know the basics! Play around until your comfortable with it - Google gives a bunch more information on how to make custom maps here.

So, you've got a map. How can you use it to help teach about the Battle of Bull Run? Lots of ways!

1. Have students figure out where important events took place, and place pins there.
2. Track down images of important figures and sites around the battle field, and use them to illustrate the map (make sure you check copyright information on all such images before using them, though!
3. Add historical data to the description.
4. Use different colored pins to mark different kinds of locations.
5. Collaboratively trace - using lines - the different ways that units came and went from the battlefield.

For getting images, I highly recommend using the Library of Congress American Memory online collection, which hosts a truly amazing number of resources of all kind related to US History, nearly all of which is in the public domain and therefore can be legally used (still cite your sources, though). Just search for what you're looking for!

That's a quick-and-dirty explanation of how Google Maps can be used to help clarify the use of battlefield maps. There's nothing like building your OWN map to help one understand where every one was, why they were there, and what the prominent features of the area were. Going through the process oneself can really help to elucidate maps that seem very cryptic when just glanced at. I've gone ahead and populated my Google Map of Bull Run with many more important features; you can take a look by going to this link. At the time of writing this, it's still a work in progress, but it does demonstrate the various possibilities described in this post!

Next time - more on Bull Run! A strategy for sorting out the confusing back-and-forth and timing issues that come up while trying to navigate this kind of map!

Book Review: A Country of Vast Designs

Last summer, I passed A Country of Vast Designs in the book store, and it immediately caught my eye. I've wanted to learn more about the Mexican War and the politics behind it, yet most of the books I'd read on this topic (such as What Hath God Wrought) have done so only as part of a more general overview of the Antebellum years. What I REALLY want to read is a book that focuses on the military history of the war (the one currently on the wish list is The Training Ground) - but I've had surprising difficulty finding books that really in-depth cover that material. I wasn't sure if A Country of Vast Designs would be that book (as it turns out, it's not - it gives some treatment to the war but only in broad outlines), but it looked very interesting, so a few months after I first spotted it, I decided to pick it up, and I finally got around to reading it!

Review

Merry, Robert W. A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, The Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. 2009. 576p. Photographs, bibliography, index. ISBN: 9780743297448.

James K. Polk is one of the more forgotten presidents in US History, at least among the general public. Merry (journalist, Wall Street Journal and others) sets out to rectify this ignorance and highlight how Polk, in office from 1844 to 1848, was one of the most successful and important presidents of the 19th century. Merry demonstrates how, at the onset of Polk's presidency, the Jacksonian protege had four primary goals: treat with the British to settle the controversy over the Oregon territory; acquire California from Mexico; implement a more balanced tariff; and develop an independent treasury. These four goals, reflecting foreign policy ambitions that could add as many as half a million square miles of territory to the United States, and domestic policy that would change the way the government handled it's money for almost a hundred years, were very ambitious, and Polk was determined to see them all accomplished in just one term. Merry then clearly and lucidly explains how, through politicking, force of personality, a bit of luck, and a lot of hard work, Polk managed to accomplish all of these goals despite challenges from both his own Democratic party and the Whig opposition, an unpopular war, a resistant Secretary of State with ambitions of his own, and other challenges. Even more impressively, Merry accomplishes this assessment without elevating Polk to a position of hero-worship, instead developing for the reader an understanding of the complex man, his strengths, his weaknesses, his successes, and his failures. The writing in the book is excellent and engaging, and all of the complex threads of foreign and domestic affairs come together, leaving the reader with a clear idea of the events of the time, their causes, their effects, and the colorful personalities - such as John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, future president James Buchanan, General Winfield Scott, and many others - whose actions aided and hindered the achievement of the United States' perceived "Manifest Destiny," and capped the last great age of national expansion.

Presenting a complex and thorough view of only a few short years, this book is partly a biography of Polk, but more an in-depth look at four years that transformed the United States. After reading it, one is left with a clear understanding of how America grew to stretch from "sea to shining sea," how this attitude built on national events from the previous 20 years, and how the way events unfolded caused sectional controversies to grow worse and eventually lead to the US Civil War, 13 years later. It's rare to find a book both this scholarly yet easy to read, and even more rare to find a work of non-fiction history that can be described as a "page turner," yet I found this book to be so.

Rating: 5 out of 5.