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Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861-1865
In this first full consideration of the remarkable Union army that effectively won the Civil War, historian Steven Woodworth tells the engrossing story of its victory by drawing on letters, diaries, and newspaper accounts of the time.
The Army of the Tennessee operated in the Mississippi River Valley through the first half of the Civil War, winning major victories at the Confederate strongholds of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicksburg. The army was created at Cairo, Illinois, in the summer of 1861 and took shape under the firm hand of Ulysses S. Grant, who molded it into a hard-hitting, self-reliant fighting machine. Woodworth takes us to its winter 1863 encampment in the Louisiana swamps, where the soldiers suffered disease, hardship, and thousands of deaths. And we see how the force emerged from that experience even tougher and more aggressive than before. With the decisive victory at Vicksburg, the Army of the Tennessee had taken control of the Mississippi away from the Confederates and could swing east to aid other Union troops in a grand rolling up of Rebel defenses. It did so with a confidence born of repeated success, even against numerical odds, leading one of its soldiers to remark that he and his comrades expected “nothing but victory.”
The Army of the Tennessee contributed to the Union triumph at Chattanooga in the fall of 1863 and then became part of William Tecumseh Sherman’s combined force in the following summer’s march to Atlanta. In the complicated maneuvering of that campaign, Sherman referred to the army as his whiplash and used it whenever fast marching and arduous fighting were especially needed. Just outside Atlanta, it absorbed the Confederacy’s heaviest counterblow and experienced its hardest single day of combat. Thereafter, it continued as part of Sherman’s corps in his March to the Sea and his campaign through the Carolinas.
The story of this army is one of perseverance in the face of difficulty, courage amid severe trials, resolute lessons in fighting taught by equally courageous foes, and the determination of a generation of young men to see a righteous cause all the way through to victory.
Nothing but Victory is an important addition to the literature of the Civil War.
The Army of the Tennessee operated in the Mississippi River Valley through the first half of the Civil War, winning major victories at the Confederate strongholds of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicksburg. The army was created at Cairo, Illinois, in the summer of 1861 and took shape under the firm hand of Ulysses S. Grant, who molded it into a hard-hitting, self-reliant fighting machine. Woodworth takes us to its winter 1863 encampment in the Louisiana swamps, where the soldiers suffered disease, hardship, and thousands of deaths. And we see how the force emerged from that experience even tougher and more aggressive than before. With the decisive victory at Vicksburg, the Army of the Tennessee had taken control of the Mississippi away from the Confederates and could swing east to aid other Union troops in a grand rolling up of Rebel defenses. It did so with a confidence born of repeated success, even against numerical odds, leading one of its soldiers to remark that he and his comrades expected “nothing but victory.”
The Army of the Tennessee contributed to the Union triumph at Chattanooga in the fall of 1863 and then became part of William Tecumseh Sherman’s combined force in the following summer’s march to Atlanta. In the complicated maneuvering of that campaign, Sherman referred to the army as his whiplash and used it whenever fast marching and arduous fighting were especially needed. Just outside Atlanta, it absorbed the Confederacy’s heaviest counterblow and experienced its hardest single day of combat. Thereafter, it continued as part of Sherman’s corps in his March to the Sea and his campaign through the Carolinas.
The story of this army is one of perseverance in the face of difficulty, courage amid severe trials, resolute lessons in fighting taught by equally courageous foes, and the determination of a generation of young men to see a righteous cause all the way through to victory.
Nothing but Victory is an important addition to the literature of the Civil War.
784 pages, Hardcover
First published October 25, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
November 5, 2015
A well-written and enjoyable history of the Army of the Tennessee, which had a stunning record of victory against the Confederates. Woodworth gives comprehensive treatment to the campaigns and gives us a well-balanced look from both the soldiers and the army’s notable commanders, although the work is more about the army’s leaders and soldiers than its campaigns and battles. Woodworth argues that its success came from its “cohesiveness”; soldiers trusted their commanders, and commanders utilized a good balance of aggression and coordination.
Among the most notable of these commanders, of course, was Grant and Sherman, and Woodworth shows how they operated with an effective working relationship and trusted each other with their lives. Woodworth also describes the exceptions to an otherwise workable command structure, such as General McClernand, a prime example of the Union’s many “political generals.” Another element of the army’s success was Grant’s grasp of strategy and his aggressive pressing of the advantage, which proved decisive and was a stark contrast to such dithering eastern commanders like McClellan. Woodworth also explores the army’s ability to operate far from it supply lines and its use of foraging, a unique aspect of the Army of the Tennessee. Woodworth shows how big of a role Grant played in the army’s success, and how he overcame such obstacles as Halleck’s ambivalence, the politicking of McClernand, and the unstoppable rumors about his drinking problem.
Curiously, the book suffers from a lack of maps. Still, a well-researched, vivid, and richly detailed study of the Army of the Tennessee, its commanders, its soldiers, and its campaigns.
Among the most notable of these commanders, of course, was Grant and Sherman, and Woodworth shows how they operated with an effective working relationship and trusted each other with their lives. Woodworth also describes the exceptions to an otherwise workable command structure, such as General McClernand, a prime example of the Union’s many “political generals.” Another element of the army’s success was Grant’s grasp of strategy and his aggressive pressing of the advantage, which proved decisive and was a stark contrast to such dithering eastern commanders like McClellan. Woodworth also explores the army’s ability to operate far from it supply lines and its use of foraging, a unique aspect of the Army of the Tennessee. Woodworth shows how big of a role Grant played in the army’s success, and how he overcame such obstacles as Halleck’s ambivalence, the politicking of McClernand, and the unstoppable rumors about his drinking problem.
Curiously, the book suffers from a lack of maps. Still, a well-researched, vivid, and richly detailed study of the Army of the Tennessee, its commanders, its soldiers, and its campaigns.
January 29, 2010
I like this Woodworth. He’s a big right-wing Christian, an orientation undetectable in this book but for the genteel censorship of quoted correspondence (“We had one h--- of a battle.” “That --- McClernand!”) and the quiet recurrence of “providentially” as a shyly favored adverb. Still, the man can write. He has a command of the foot solider diaries that repose, by the thousands, in our historical societies; the book has a novelistic texture, a density of memorable stories--also, quite a few magnificent set-pieces (the running of the guns at Vicksburg by unarmed riverboats, the drunken carnival-torching of Columbia, SC). Large-unit movements, a challenge to the historian who would write pictorially, trouble Woodworth not at all: whenever you read “Logan’s corps moved into position for the attack,” you always know Woodworth has a few guys down front, privates whose letters and diaries he’s memorized; the thrust of an abstract arrow across a map thus becomes the communal thrill and athletic rush of the attackers, and their fear and confusion and blood. Woodworth is funny too, casting a cold apothegmatic eye on high politics and on the psychologies of successful and would-be warlords.
The Army of the Tennessee was, as Woodworth says, the victorious field army in the decisive theaters of the war, the trans-Mississippi Valley and Georgia breadbasket of the Confederacy, where under Grant and Sherman it gutted the slaveholders’ revolt. The army was called after the Tennessee River: Grant’s force was water-supplied and frequently water-borne, using troop-carrying steamboats and squat, broad-bottomed ironclads called “mud turtles” to blast apart Rebel river bastions and force a way into the heart of the Deep South. Grant honed this mass of Midwestern regiments from Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota into a superb fighting force; it was a tad rougher than the spit-and-polish but hard-luck eastern armies, whose French-style kepi was crowed over as a “little cap” by Grant’s men, who wore broad-brimmed headgear we would think of as cowboy hats. When Grant went east to face Robert E. Lee, the army, in somewhat reduced form, passed to Sherman, who employed it as his hard marching, hard fighting “whiplash” on the Atlanta Campaign and on the March to the Sea. Sherman then turned his men north into South Carolina and scourged a path through the birthplace of secession to North Carolina, where he received the surrender of the last remaining rebel field army.
The army’s major campaigns in the Mississippi Delta and the mountainous country of northern Georgia were long and difficult, presenting every kind of physical and managerial challenge; how fortunate (how providential, Woodworth coughs) that among the superb topographers, bridge-builders, logisticians, railroad makers and breakers pumped out by West Point there were a few like Grant and Sherman, engineers with a vengeance as Melville's whaleship captains are "Quakers with a vengeance," men who possessed both the brains and the aggression needed to harness the country’s industrial power as a weapon. As Sherman wrote a secessionist colleague at war's commence: "You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth--right at your doors. You will fail."
Woodworth loves Grant; and I fail see how he is short of the greatest Americans; and lo, the merciless Nast-style lampoon of Grant in The Education of Henry Adams, though superbly written (Adams is only interesting when talking about others) and politically understandable (Grant’s presidential administration was spectacularly corrupt), becomes yet another reason for me to grimace whenever I handle a copy of that insufferable, piss-damp blanket of a book. I never went on a high school trip to Washington DC, so I only just got around to visiting the city a couple years ago. I like that the Civil War monuments are so dominant. I was especially impressed by the equestrian Grant statue positioned Savior-of-the-Republic-style right in front of the Capitol, the supposed temple to the popular will whose giant imperial dome Lincoln continued work on during the War, as a national morale booster. It’s appropriate that the hatted, ponchoed Grant effigy isn’t rearing like a cavalier or cantering into Valhalla (for that, see Sherman in Central Park), but looks as if he could be perched in the saddle at a muddy Mississippi cross-roads, a cold cigar butt clamped at one side of his beard-trimmed mouth, muttering encouragement to passing troops under a cold rain. Grant’s homely grandeur, his common-man personal carriage throughout the conflict (except when performing Mongol feats of horsemanship), seem truly captured. From the Personal Memoirs his friend Mark Twain urged him to write:
General Lee was dressed in a full uniform which was entirely new, and was wearing a sword of considerable value, very likely the sword which had been presented by the State of Virginia; at all events, it was an entirely different sword from the one that would ordinarily be worn in the field. In my rough traveling suit, the uniform of a private with the straps of a lieutenant-general, I must have contrasted very strangely with a man so handsomely dressed, six feet high and of faultless form. But this was not a matter that I thought of until afterwards.
The Army of the Tennessee was, as Woodworth says, the victorious field army in the decisive theaters of the war, the trans-Mississippi Valley and Georgia breadbasket of the Confederacy, where under Grant and Sherman it gutted the slaveholders’ revolt. The army was called after the Tennessee River: Grant’s force was water-supplied and frequently water-borne, using troop-carrying steamboats and squat, broad-bottomed ironclads called “mud turtles” to blast apart Rebel river bastions and force a way into the heart of the Deep South. Grant honed this mass of Midwestern regiments from Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota into a superb fighting force; it was a tad rougher than the spit-and-polish but hard-luck eastern armies, whose French-style kepi was crowed over as a “little cap” by Grant’s men, who wore broad-brimmed headgear we would think of as cowboy hats. When Grant went east to face Robert E. Lee, the army, in somewhat reduced form, passed to Sherman, who employed it as his hard marching, hard fighting “whiplash” on the Atlanta Campaign and on the March to the Sea. Sherman then turned his men north into South Carolina and scourged a path through the birthplace of secession to North Carolina, where he received the surrender of the last remaining rebel field army.
The army’s major campaigns in the Mississippi Delta and the mountainous country of northern Georgia were long and difficult, presenting every kind of physical and managerial challenge; how fortunate (how providential, Woodworth coughs) that among the superb topographers, bridge-builders, logisticians, railroad makers and breakers pumped out by West Point there were a few like Grant and Sherman, engineers with a vengeance as Melville's whaleship captains are "Quakers with a vengeance," men who possessed both the brains and the aggression needed to harness the country’s industrial power as a weapon. As Sherman wrote a secessionist colleague at war's commence: "You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth--right at your doors. You will fail."
Woodworth loves Grant; and I fail see how he is short of the greatest Americans; and lo, the merciless Nast-style lampoon of Grant in The Education of Henry Adams, though superbly written (Adams is only interesting when talking about others) and politically understandable (Grant’s presidential administration was spectacularly corrupt), becomes yet another reason for me to grimace whenever I handle a copy of that insufferable, piss-damp blanket of a book. I never went on a high school trip to Washington DC, so I only just got around to visiting the city a couple years ago. I like that the Civil War monuments are so dominant. I was especially impressed by the equestrian Grant statue positioned Savior-of-the-Republic-style right in front of the Capitol, the supposed temple to the popular will whose giant imperial dome Lincoln continued work on during the War, as a national morale booster. It’s appropriate that the hatted, ponchoed Grant effigy isn’t rearing like a cavalier or cantering into Valhalla (for that, see Sherman in Central Park), but looks as if he could be perched in the saddle at a muddy Mississippi cross-roads, a cold cigar butt clamped at one side of his beard-trimmed mouth, muttering encouragement to passing troops under a cold rain. Grant’s homely grandeur, his common-man personal carriage throughout the conflict (except when performing Mongol feats of horsemanship), seem truly captured. From the Personal Memoirs his friend Mark Twain urged him to write:
General Lee was dressed in a full uniform which was entirely new, and was wearing a sword of considerable value, very likely the sword which had been presented by the State of Virginia; at all events, it was an entirely different sword from the one that would ordinarily be worn in the field. In my rough traveling suit, the uniform of a private with the straps of a lieutenant-general, I must have contrasted very strangely with a man so handsomely dressed, six feet high and of faultless form. But this was not a matter that I thought of until afterwards.
October 6, 2020
An absorbing historical narrative, in the best traditions of Catton, Foote and Nevins, of the trials, tribulations, battles and campaigns of the Army of the Tennessee. Professor Woodworth takes us from the raising of the individual companies and regiments, and to their first deployment along the Ohio River, where they were fortunate enough to be commanded by a then-obscure general named Grant. The battles of this great army are a roll-call of honor: Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Atlanta, the marches through Georgia and the Carolinas; the Army of the Tennessee was fortunate in its commanders as well, good generals all: Grant, Sherman, McPherson and Howard, and the book also examines the generally competent regimental, brigade, division and corps commanders as well. My only complaint here is that there is only a single map of the Southern states, and that's it! No battle or campaign maps, it's simply unbelievable that a military history book could be published thusly nowadays. Hence only 4 stars, but still a great read and a fine addition to your Civil War bookshelf.
May 20, 2024
4.5 stars, rounded up
June 23, 2021
Steven E Woodworth's 2005 tome Nothing But Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861-1865, was one of the very first books I bought about the American Civil War. I have been most interested in tracking the movements of the 9th Iowa, which was brought into the Army of the Tennessee as William T Sherman passed south on the Mississippi River from Memphis in December 1862, collecting several regiments up at Helena, Arkansas, just in time to participate in the miserable fight at Chickasaw Bayou in the swamps northwest of Vicksburg. The 9th Iowa remained in the Army of the Tennessee for the rest of the war, and I spent a number of years picking through the Woodworth book as I traced out the routes taken by the regiment through Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas. It was only a few months ago that I decided it was time to actually read the book in its entirety, start to finish.
In part I was slow to tackle the whole book because it is so daunting: all the exploits of the famous Army of the Tennessee ― under the leadership of such titanic personalities as, first, Ulysses Grant and, second, William T Sherman ― in a single volume. I marvel that any author would conceive of taking on such a stupendous and gigantic subject. But as I got a few pages into the book I marveled even more to discover that this book is, well, great.
In recent years it's become fashionable for Civil War writers to intercut the accounts of marches and battles with excerpts from soldier letters and diaries and contemporaneous newspaper articles. It's a noble effort, but few if any of them do it as smoothly as Woodworth did here. A number of Civil War books will provide regiment-level detail of battlefield action which is fine, although sometimes it leaves the reader's eyes reddening and drooping as he strains to recall and juggle the names of all the accruing lieutenants and colonels and the brigade organization and which terrain features the various companies of all are crouching behind at any given moment. We find the shifting focus here evenly distributed between division commanders and privates and civilians, but somehow Woodworth's storytelling always remains perfectly balanced and seamless. He successfully achieves a grand and yet coherent story through-line. The effect is a rarity in the Civil War history genre: an engrossing and compelling book that is hard to put down.
Besides Woodworth's obvious very impressive storytelling skills, over and over I was amazed with his accounts of battlefield action. His reportage is incredibly detailed without ever getting bogged down in minutiae. Without fail I learned new information I'd never before encountered at every turn. This is rather incredible, as every single one of these battles easily could, and has, taken up entire books by itself. Honestly, I can't understand how Woodworth packed so much information within the covers of this book and wrote it in such an engaging manner that goes down so smoothly.
I don't often write such a glowing review, but this book is special.
The subject of maps is always a touchy one in Civil War books, and very often readers are dissatisfied for reasons reasonable and irrational. Nothing But Victory is striking in that it contains a single map: a general one that covers the states I mentioned earlier and small portions of a few more. A number of reviewers slight Woodworth for this, which is preposterous, given the sheer scale of the book's vast staging ground and the dozens of maps that would be required to do justice to all the battles and campaigns covered. Besides, we live in the Internet Era, people: maps are easy to find.
I do have a few problems with this book, however. One is that Woodworth sometimes lets his own biases about certain characters leak through. Most often this involves those who are presented as minor characters intruding from outside on the main thrust of his narrative. One example that comes to mind is Woodworth's characterization of Secretary of War Edwin M Stanton, in the aftermath of Lincoln's assassination, as a man: " . . . who was always very excitable, not to say unstable . . . " (page 636). I don't think Stanton was unstable, but regardless, such comments are unnecessary and make one wonder what other subjective biases are tucked into the book. This is only one example of a kind of false note that rings out in the book, fortunately with limited frequency, except with one notable exception: it is quite clear that Woodworth is a much bigger fan of Ulysses Grant than he is of William T Sherman.
This leads to what I perceive to be the bigger problem in the book. After Chattanooga, Grant of course departed for Virginia, and Sherman afterward commanded multiple armies ― including the Army of the Tennessee ― that advanced to Atlanta, then to Savannah, then north through the Carolinas. This leaves Woodworth with three problems, as after the hinge-point of Chattanooga the story of the Army of the Tennessee pivots into the second half of the story. First, Sherman is now in charge, and as he is clearly not Woodworth's favorite, the author's attention is bound to waver. It does. Second, with a few important exceptions, the large and dramatic battles about which Woodworth writes so vividly are now a thing of the past. The exciting story of the Army of the Tennessee does not diminish, but it does change significantly, especially in the aftermath of Atlanta. Unfortunately, Woodworth seems less able to adapt to and embrace this altered kind of storyline with the same vigor he showed in the first half of the book. Third, with Sherman commanding multiple armies for the rest of the war, the Georgia and Carolina story gets distributed among them all, but Woodworth for the most part limits himself to the actions of the army of the book's title. While appropriate for a book about a specific army, the effect is a distortion of the significance of the action that is unfolding.
So if I had my way, this book would have been divided into two volumes reflecting the commands of Grant and Sherman, and the second volume would have been brought up to par with the first half through expansion and a better appreciation of Sherman as a personality and better coverage of what was being accomplished on a wider scale than simply marching from one battlefield to the next. But we can't judge books we'd prefer had been written rather than the ones we actually hold in our hands or read on our electronic devices. Despite the problems I've mentioned, this remains a great book. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a solid 9. But when we can only rate books with a smaller handful of stars, this one deserves all it can get.
In part I was slow to tackle the whole book because it is so daunting: all the exploits of the famous Army of the Tennessee ― under the leadership of such titanic personalities as, first, Ulysses Grant and, second, William T Sherman ― in a single volume. I marvel that any author would conceive of taking on such a stupendous and gigantic subject. But as I got a few pages into the book I marveled even more to discover that this book is, well, great.
In recent years it's become fashionable for Civil War writers to intercut the accounts of marches and battles with excerpts from soldier letters and diaries and contemporaneous newspaper articles. It's a noble effort, but few if any of them do it as smoothly as Woodworth did here. A number of Civil War books will provide regiment-level detail of battlefield action which is fine, although sometimes it leaves the reader's eyes reddening and drooping as he strains to recall and juggle the names of all the accruing lieutenants and colonels and the brigade organization and which terrain features the various companies of all are crouching behind at any given moment. We find the shifting focus here evenly distributed between division commanders and privates and civilians, but somehow Woodworth's storytelling always remains perfectly balanced and seamless. He successfully achieves a grand and yet coherent story through-line. The effect is a rarity in the Civil War history genre: an engrossing and compelling book that is hard to put down.
Besides Woodworth's obvious very impressive storytelling skills, over and over I was amazed with his accounts of battlefield action. His reportage is incredibly detailed without ever getting bogged down in minutiae. Without fail I learned new information I'd never before encountered at every turn. This is rather incredible, as every single one of these battles easily could, and has, taken up entire books by itself. Honestly, I can't understand how Woodworth packed so much information within the covers of this book and wrote it in such an engaging manner that goes down so smoothly.
I don't often write such a glowing review, but this book is special.
The subject of maps is always a touchy one in Civil War books, and very often readers are dissatisfied for reasons reasonable and irrational. Nothing But Victory is striking in that it contains a single map: a general one that covers the states I mentioned earlier and small portions of a few more. A number of reviewers slight Woodworth for this, which is preposterous, given the sheer scale of the book's vast staging ground and the dozens of maps that would be required to do justice to all the battles and campaigns covered. Besides, we live in the Internet Era, people: maps are easy to find.
I do have a few problems with this book, however. One is that Woodworth sometimes lets his own biases about certain characters leak through. Most often this involves those who are presented as minor characters intruding from outside on the main thrust of his narrative. One example that comes to mind is Woodworth's characterization of Secretary of War Edwin M Stanton, in the aftermath of Lincoln's assassination, as a man: " . . . who was always very excitable, not to say unstable . . . " (page 636). I don't think Stanton was unstable, but regardless, such comments are unnecessary and make one wonder what other subjective biases are tucked into the book. This is only one example of a kind of false note that rings out in the book, fortunately with limited frequency, except with one notable exception: it is quite clear that Woodworth is a much bigger fan of Ulysses Grant than he is of William T Sherman.
This leads to what I perceive to be the bigger problem in the book. After Chattanooga, Grant of course departed for Virginia, and Sherman afterward commanded multiple armies ― including the Army of the Tennessee ― that advanced to Atlanta, then to Savannah, then north through the Carolinas. This leaves Woodworth with three problems, as after the hinge-point of Chattanooga the story of the Army of the Tennessee pivots into the second half of the story. First, Sherman is now in charge, and as he is clearly not Woodworth's favorite, the author's attention is bound to waver. It does. Second, with a few important exceptions, the large and dramatic battles about which Woodworth writes so vividly are now a thing of the past. The exciting story of the Army of the Tennessee does not diminish, but it does change significantly, especially in the aftermath of Atlanta. Unfortunately, Woodworth seems less able to adapt to and embrace this altered kind of storyline with the same vigor he showed in the first half of the book. Third, with Sherman commanding multiple armies for the rest of the war, the Georgia and Carolina story gets distributed among them all, but Woodworth for the most part limits himself to the actions of the army of the book's title. While appropriate for a book about a specific army, the effect is a distortion of the significance of the action that is unfolding.
So if I had my way, this book would have been divided into two volumes reflecting the commands of Grant and Sherman, and the second volume would have been brought up to par with the first half through expansion and a better appreciation of Sherman as a personality and better coverage of what was being accomplished on a wider scale than simply marching from one battlefield to the next. But we can't judge books we'd prefer had been written rather than the ones we actually hold in our hands or read on our electronic devices. Despite the problems I've mentioned, this remains a great book. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a solid 9. But when we can only rate books with a smaller handful of stars, this one deserves all it can get.
April 25, 2023
A solid book focusing on the core of The Army of the Tennessee from the beginning to the end of the war. The first half of the book felt to me like a light version of Chernow’s “Grant” to a certain extent. I appreciated the detail and analysis of early war battles such as Belmont, Fort Donelson, and Shiloh. However… Perhaps it was my own fatigue as the story progressed, but the narrative loses some luster after these early war campaigns. Part of my perceived loss of interest is absolutely the fact that there are zero quality maps throughout the entire book. The Vicksburg and Atlanta campaigns, in particular, are very hard to comprehend and truly grasp unless the reader has some sort of spacial and geographic context. I fancy myself fairly knowledgeable when it comes to most of these campaigns, but there is a definitive barrier to understanding a situation without having maps or visuals. Even basic Order of Battle diagrams now and again would be helpful. It really is a pretty egregious omission for an otherwise great book. Whoever made that decision needs to be slapped as this would easily be a 5 otherwise.
December 17, 2023
Top 5 military history book I have read.
September 13, 2023
I was looking forward to reading this book about the Army of the Tennessee for several reasons. I don't know as much about it as a fighting unit as I do the Army of the Potomac and I was eager to learn more about the army, it's campaigns and the drama/politics that inevitably follow a Civil War army.
Ultimately I think this book collapses under the weight of itself. There is so much information presented here (almost 200 pages of notes/sources) that the narrative constantly bogs down in what individual regiments and soldiers are doing during each battle. This can be interesting information, but if I wanted such detail I would have picked up a volume on the battle itself. There's no doubt this book is well researched, but that doesn't mean the book was easy or enjoyable to read.
I was hoping for more on the intrigue, drama and personal conflicts between the leadership of the Army, and the parts we got were fantastic. But there were just to far apart to make the book interesting. Far too much time was spent on getting to the gritty details of battles when that could have been left for other books or narratives.
Another gripe I had was the author's habit of censoring actual historical quotes to take out even the most harmless of curses. A very strange choice to me.
All in all, I was disappointed but nevertheless, it's a fine book for people interested in the operational historical of the Army of the Tennessee. I was just hoping for a more overall look at the army itself.
Ultimately I think this book collapses under the weight of itself. There is so much information presented here (almost 200 pages of notes/sources) that the narrative constantly bogs down in what individual regiments and soldiers are doing during each battle. This can be interesting information, but if I wanted such detail I would have picked up a volume on the battle itself. There's no doubt this book is well researched, but that doesn't mean the book was easy or enjoyable to read.
I was hoping for more on the intrigue, drama and personal conflicts between the leadership of the Army, and the parts we got were fantastic. But there were just to far apart to make the book interesting. Far too much time was spent on getting to the gritty details of battles when that could have been left for other books or narratives.
Another gripe I had was the author's habit of censoring actual historical quotes to take out even the most harmless of curses. A very strange choice to me.
All in all, I was disappointed but nevertheless, it's a fine book for people interested in the operational historical of the Army of the Tennessee. I was just hoping for a more overall look at the army itself.
September 21, 2022
So much of Civil War history focuses on the Eastern campaigns and the ineptness of Union generals in the face of Lee, Jackson, etc. Yet there were campaigns across the United States and it is often overlooked how successful Union armies were in those campaigns. This book focuses on the Army of the Tennessee, which was Grant's original command. He overcomes political intrigue behind his back to become the premier Union general of the war. This does not mean he or Sherman are without their flaws. I appreciate that Woodworth points out their shortcomings in battle instead of only focusing on the positive. The book got a bit bogged down in details, but my main complaint is the lack of maps. Each major battle should have had a map for reference. However, that does not overshadow the research the author put in the book.
March 7, 2018
Picked this book up at the "Battles of Chattanooga" museum recently, not what I expected, but still quite good. Kind of thought it would be a local history of the Civil War, but instead it was the UNION Army of the Tennessee, which was fine, because this is the army who gets the shaft in the history books despite the volumes of amazing work they performed during the war. Woodworth really shines their star, and it's a great learning experience for those of us who's knowledge of the Civil War is a little coast biased...
March 5, 2019
An excellent history on the army that many historians claim is the army most responsible for winning the Civil War. Professor Woodworth brings in a lot of detail on the battles fought and what Grant and Sherman's strategy was.
I would give this book five stars, but as other reviewers have stated there's a lack of maps. I had to go to other sources to get battle maps to fully understand what was happening. Otherwise I would give this book 5 stars.
I would give this book five stars, but as other reviewers have stated there's a lack of maps. I had to go to other sources to get battle maps to fully understand what was happening. Otherwise I would give this book 5 stars.
December 13, 2020
The best book I have found covering the Army of the Tennessee from its first battles of the Civil War to the end at Bentonville. Very well done summary of the army’s strategic and political trials. Battle accounts have minimal detail but are loaded with personal accounts which so well reveal the soldiers’ and officers’ experiences. A great history!
July 10, 2017
This book gave outstanding views of the Union side of the battles of Vicksburg and Atlanta. It was worth reading just for that. The book overall was informative on many aspects of 1st Grant's and then Sherman's command. Very good read and never tedious despite its length.
March 20, 2021
I wanted to give 4 stars but the book became a bit tedious in its details of troop movements. Maps would have helped greatly to depict how the battles were developing. Otherwise it provided a great feeling for what it was like to fight for the Army of the Tennessee!
September 29, 2024
I liked being able to follow some army other than the army of the Potomac and only from one side's point of view. Would have liked some maps though.
July 10, 2012
When I decided to go see a Civil War Battlefield (since it was the 150th Anniversary of the war) I wanted to try and find out where Iowans had actually fought. I was surprised to learn that, from what I could tell, none of them fought at Gettysburg and I was surprisingly OK with that. I figured that Gettysburg will be the highlight of the 150th Anniversary celebrations and everyone will want to go. So I did a little digging and found out that most Iowans had fought mainly in the Western theater, playing prominent roles in the Battle of Shiloh and the Siege of Vicksburg as part of the Army of the Tennessee. Ken Burns' amazing documentary aside, I wanted to do some more homework before actually going down there, so when Steven E. Woodworth's book Nothing But Victory caught my eye, it seemed like the perfect way to do just that.
Woodworth tells the story of the Army of the Tennessee from start to finish- from the recruitment of volunteers from all across the Midwest, including Cedar Falls and strangely enough, Upper Iowa University in Iowa City. (The Quiet Man said he was going to email Woodworth with a correction. I wonder if he's managed to do that yet.) Camp Randall outside of Madison was used to stage new Army recruits (one of the Wisconsin regiments picked up a mascot, Abe the Eagle which stayed with them throughout their service.)
The Army gathers itself, moves into Southern Illinois and then the story shifts slightly to tell the story of the emergence of Ulysses S. Grant as one of the most effective generals the Union had during the Civil War. What shocked me about this was just how political Generalships were back then. Grant was booted from command of his Army a couple of times before finally being brought back east towards the end of the war to take command and try and outfox General Lee.
But from the initial captures of Fort Donnelson in Tennessee and leading through to the Battle of Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga and Chickamauga Woodworth builds a fascinating story of how an army of rough and tumble Midwesterners became the most effective fighting force in the Union army- and their experience served them well later in the war, when they faced long odds during the battle for Atlanta and the march through South Carolina.
All in all, this book changed the way I viewed the Civil War. It's not that the Western theater gets short shrift in traditional curriculum- I remember learning about Vicksburg in school but it's engagements like Shiloh, Chickamauga and Chattanooga that helped break the Confederacy. It was Atlanta and the much maligned March To The Sea that shattered their spirits (it was actually a fairly orderly procession- not the orgy of looting and mayhem that's been inflated to legend.) While the Army of the Potomac was fighting inconclusive battles across Virginia, the Army of the Tennessee just kept winning, victory after victory and, as Woodworth amply demonstrates, they became an effective fighting force that helped break down the Confederacy for good- their story is one that is eminently worthy of telling.
Overall: I learned a ton from reading this book- if you catch the Civil War bug during the 150th Anniversary Commemorations these next couple of years, this is an incredibly detailed, rich book that illuminates a large chunk of the Civil War that I knew nothing about. For history buffs, fans of the Civil War or just people looking to learn a little more about America, this book is well worth a read.
Woodworth tells the story of the Army of the Tennessee from start to finish- from the recruitment of volunteers from all across the Midwest, including Cedar Falls and strangely enough, Upper Iowa University in Iowa City. (The Quiet Man said he was going to email Woodworth with a correction. I wonder if he's managed to do that yet.) Camp Randall outside of Madison was used to stage new Army recruits (one of the Wisconsin regiments picked up a mascot, Abe the Eagle which stayed with them throughout their service.)
The Army gathers itself, moves into Southern Illinois and then the story shifts slightly to tell the story of the emergence of Ulysses S. Grant as one of the most effective generals the Union had during the Civil War. What shocked me about this was just how political Generalships were back then. Grant was booted from command of his Army a couple of times before finally being brought back east towards the end of the war to take command and try and outfox General Lee.
But from the initial captures of Fort Donnelson in Tennessee and leading through to the Battle of Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga and Chickamauga Woodworth builds a fascinating story of how an army of rough and tumble Midwesterners became the most effective fighting force in the Union army- and their experience served them well later in the war, when they faced long odds during the battle for Atlanta and the march through South Carolina.
All in all, this book changed the way I viewed the Civil War. It's not that the Western theater gets short shrift in traditional curriculum- I remember learning about Vicksburg in school but it's engagements like Shiloh, Chickamauga and Chattanooga that helped break the Confederacy. It was Atlanta and the much maligned March To The Sea that shattered their spirits (it was actually a fairly orderly procession- not the orgy of looting and mayhem that's been inflated to legend.) While the Army of the Potomac was fighting inconclusive battles across Virginia, the Army of the Tennessee just kept winning, victory after victory and, as Woodworth amply demonstrates, they became an effective fighting force that helped break down the Confederacy for good- their story is one that is eminently worthy of telling.
Overall: I learned a ton from reading this book- if you catch the Civil War bug during the 150th Anniversary Commemorations these next couple of years, this is an incredibly detailed, rich book that illuminates a large chunk of the Civil War that I knew nothing about. For history buffs, fans of the Civil War or just people looking to learn a little more about America, this book is well worth a read.
February 4, 2012
Nothing but Victory is the definitive account of the Army of the Tennessee and the winning of the civil war via the west. The idea that the west played a critical role in the Civil War has been around for sometime but only in the past 5 to 10 years has it become a dominant idea that the battles of the Army of Tennessee were the critical link in allowing the Union to win the civil war and destroying the confederacy. This book provides an overview of the tactics, strategies and human stories that made up this "invincible" army. Molded by General Grant it was made to be aggressive and continue fighting. They never lost a major engagement (although Vicksburg was a long campaign) and their stories would catapult Grant, Sherman and Sheridan to fame.
I will echo one complaint that I have with the author that others have pointed out. There is a annoying lack of maps throughout the book and in fact there is only one at the beginning which is not very good to following the army of the Tennessee. Despite this through the book is well worth the time to investigate and while the author makes a bold claim he supports it well. For those looking to see a different side of the Civil War this is the place to start.
I will echo one complaint that I have with the author that others have pointed out. There is a annoying lack of maps throughout the book and in fact there is only one at the beginning which is not very good to following the army of the Tennessee. Despite this through the book is well worth the time to investigate and while the author makes a bold claim he supports it well. For those looking to see a different side of the Civil War this is the place to start.
May 16, 2012
Provides plenty of POV of ordinary soldiers in the Union army, drawing from their letters. The book seems to be a restatement of Grant's memoirs inserting the soldiers' letters as glosses on the main text. Occasional passages are inferior paraphrases of Grant's own fine prose. And quotations endorsing Grant's hit-them-hard-and-fast philosophy of war sound like a refrain throughout the text.
However, Woodworth provides vivid descriptions of camp conditions both good and miserable, memorable events like big troop movements, and the war-gossip in the rumor mills. Reading these descriptions fills out James_M_McPherson's observation the Civil War made a nation out of the United States partly because the Civil War troops saw many varied parts of the country on the march.
Getting my own maps was essential for following the battle scenes. The free maps on this site are excellent:
www.cwmaps.com
However, Woodworth provides vivid descriptions of camp conditions both good and miserable, memorable events like big troop movements, and the war-gossip in the rumor mills. Reading these descriptions fills out James_M_McPherson's observation the Civil War made a nation out of the United States partly because the Civil War troops saw many varied parts of the country on the march.
Getting my own maps was essential for following the battle scenes. The free maps on this site are excellent:
www.cwmaps.com
July 16, 2010
A tremendous amount of research went in to this book which is evident from the large number of journals and memoirs and diaries that the author drew from. The Bibliography seems to go on forever. In all it's a good representation of the Army of the Tennessee from its inception to dissolution four years later. It does good to point out the military faults of the super-human Grant and Sherman, while showing how they used the talent they did have to produce victory after victory. The only reason it gets four instead of five is that every now and again the author gets caught up with telling things from the Northern perspective and loses his objectivity when describing the Confederates. Being a fan of the South's Army of Tennessee, I tended to take offense. But still a very good read.
February 13, 2023
It has been argued that Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was the best fighting unit in the American Civil War. This book makes a good argument that The Army of the Tennessee was just as impressive or, I would say, better than Lee's army. Entirely made up of mid-Western soldiers, this army fought in enemy territory during the duration of the war . Unlike Lee's army, the Army of the Tennessee did not have the help of the locals and fought in unfamiliar territory, not to mention in harsh conditions, and won in enemy territory. Steven Woodworth wrote a detailed and well researched book about the Army of the Tennessee. The eastern theater gets most of the attention, so this book was enjoyable to read about a different theater of the war.
May 8, 2016
Great history of this fascinating and often overlooked theater of the Civil War. It could have used a few maps, but having a good Civil War battle atlas on hand remedies the only major drawbacl of this book. The battle description contains amazing amounts of detail and I found referring to maps essential to keep track of where all the units involved were at. It would have been nice to get a short overview of some of the major players lives after the end of the conflict, but such a long volume has to end at some point. Truly admirable accomplishment in historical writing.
November 24, 2009
Whew that was a long one. I'm kind of amused when authors pick a general and are terribly effusive about him. In this case Mister Woodworth has a deep and abiding love of US Grant. He may be missing some flaws but hey I admire his passion. I particularly enjoyed the mentions of the 13th US infantry and the 21st Iowa in honor of gggrandfather and gggranduncle.
April 28, 2010
An outstanding history of the army most responsible for the Union victory in the civil war. The only issue I had with it is the lack of maps, which makes understanding some of the battles rather difficult.
Currently reading
August 16, 2010A great addition to the canon. Sheds light on what is misidentified as the "sideshow" of the Civil War, which, in fact, was the show (Western Theater). A nice book touching both common soldier stories and staff command narratives.
March 1, 2011
Truly outstanding work on the Union Army of Tennessee, first under Grant, then Sherman. The campaign to take Vicksburg is especially exciting, and reads like a novel. Gives a good feel for the operational level of war.
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August 2, 2011A good history of one of the most successful Union armies. The author emphasizes the role that Grant played in shaping the attitude of the army as it's first commander. My only complaint is the lack of maps that would help the reader understand and follow key battles and campaigns.
July 3, 2008
Absolutely loved this book and will name my first born Ulysses after the general
August 6, 2008
This book was pretty great....
January 12, 2009
A very well written book about a part of the Civil War that is rarely talked about, the war in the west.
July 29, 2013
It just did nothing for me.
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