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.

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.

Book Review: Ulysses S. Grant: A Victor, Not a Butcher

I started off the New Year by getting back to reading about my favorite topic, the Civil War, after having read little in this area since September. I tackled first a book that I've wanted to read ever since I first saw it on the shelf a few years ago. There's something about a book titled "Ulysses S. Grant: A Victor, Not a Butcher" that is guaranteed to draw in a Grant enthusiast like myself. I'll admit I was eager to see one of my personal heroes acquitted of the title that he earned post-war when people looked back on charges like the second attack on the Vicksburg trenches or the poorly-executed attempt to break Robert E. Lee's lines at Cold Harbor. What I read didn't disappoint me; after finishing Bonekemper's book, I was left with a personal hero smelling perhaps a bit too much look roses...

Review

Bonekemper III, Edward H. Ulysses S. Grant: A Victor, Not a Butcher. Regnery Publishing, Inc. 2004. 453p. Photographs, bibliography, maps, index. ISBN: 9781596986411.


The thesis of this work is clearly stated in the title: to marshal evidence to dispel the persistent belief among the American public that Ulysses S. Grant, the general who led the Union forces to victory in the US Civil War, was an unskilled general whose poor leadership led to the needless sacrifice of thousands of soldiers. This view is generally contrasted with a far more flattering assessment of his opponent, Robert E. Lee, who is seen as a brilliant tactician. Bonekemper (military historian at Muhlenberg College, PA) uses a wide array of statistical information and extensive research of both period documents and modern histories to describe how the "butcher" myth came about and to thoroughly refute it. His treatment demonstrates clearly that Grant's casualty rates were comparable to other generals throughout the war, that he used tactics and maneuver much more often than brute force when facing an opponent army, and that his results were exceptional, including the capture of multiple opposing armies and the forced surrender of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, which brought an effective end to the combat of the Civil War.

This is a solid piece of scholarship, aimed at a lay reader, and therefore treats most topics as if the reader knows little about them. It is written in an engaging and flowing style that draws the reader in, and Bonekemper makes each of his points in support of Grant with a flourish of style and wit. However, it is difficult not to notice that, in Bonekemper's assessment, Grant never does wrong; every decision is thoroughly defended and Grant is acquitted on all counts. It is easy to finish this work convinced that Grant hardly made a wrong step the whole war; even the disastrous first day at Shiloh is quickly explained away as not Grant's fault, while he receives full credit for the turn-around in Union fortunes the next day. In his effort to convince the reader that Grant is not, in fact, a butcher, Bonekemper at times loses sight that Grant did still make mistakes.

For a thorough re-assessment of the generalship of Ulysses S. Grant, taking in to account both the analyses of his contemporaries and the scholarship of prominent historians from the past 150 years, Bonekemper's work is excellent and readable. However, it is a work that is best read with an understanding that Bonekemper has an agenda, and has white-washed or hurried past (though not ignored!) information that would interfere with that agenda.

Rating: 4 out of 5