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The Man Who Saved Cincinnati
A thrilling history of the Queen City of the West during the Civil War.
The Man Who Saved Cincinnati...Rescued the Queen City from a Confederate attack;Formed the first Black Brigade in the Union Army;Saved Washington, DC;Captured Billy the Kid and stopped a bloody range war;Wrote one of the greatest books in American literature, Ben-Hur. The secret plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln in Cincinnati;
Panic and threats from Morgan's Raiders;
How the scapegoat of Shiloh became the Savior of Cincinnati.
The Man Who Saved Cincinnati...Rescued the Queen City from a Confederate attack;Formed the first Black Brigade in the Union Army;Saved Washington, DC;Captured Billy the Kid and stopped a bloody range war;Wrote one of the greatest books in American literature, Ben-Hur. The secret plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln in Cincinnati;
Panic and threats from Morgan's Raiders;
How the scapegoat of Shiloh became the Savior of Cincinnati.
335 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 9, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 19, 2024
Born and raised in Cincinnati. Knew of Lew Wallace from high school/college American history courses. Never heard of his exploits in my hometown. I was given this book by a friend who knew I was missing my hometown. And it’s a solid read. But I feel like Peter Bronson may have AdHd with how much jumping around there is. While Cincinnati comes up a fair amount and gets whole sections of the book. There is a lot to get through before you start seeing references to the Queen City.
Overall. It’s a great read. I would recommend for anyone with an interest in Cincinnati, Ohio History and/or Civil War history give it a try.
Overall. It’s a great read. I would recommend for anyone with an interest in Cincinnati, Ohio History and/or Civil War history give it a try.
June 4, 2024
Unreadable. I am upset I spent time finishing this terrible book.
August 17, 2025
Book was good I just find the civil war boring, but book was cool
May 21, 2026
Life is interesting! My husband and I had gone to Oakwood, a Dayton suburb, to hear a Civil War Roundtable over a month ago which was followed by a meeting of the SUVCW of which I am not a member. As it was held in the Wright Library, I decided to explore that library. I acquired a card, looked for a book, and this is the one I found. It was a great find, I thought, as I had been in Crawfordsville, IN, many times in my childhood and adult life. We had been to the Lew Wallace Museum there and even watched El Cid at the El Cid drive-in theater. I thought I knew somewhat about the man's life but not about his military prowess. I'd seen his artworks and felt a personal connection to the man.
The book disappointed me from the start! Just a couple of pages into the preface, Peter Bronson wrote that U.S. Grant spent some of his childhood in Pleasant Plain, OH. I grew up six or seven miles from there and knew that simply wasn't true. Alarm bells: how reliable is this writer?? Doubts arose. His account of Clement Vallandigham's self-inflicted shooting was not as I had been taught. Not in a courtroom in Hamilton, but in the Lebanon House or what is now the Golden Lamb!
Errors or not, the writing feels like historical fiction and it is surely not footnoted or cited well at all. There is virtually no index. And the settings just jumps all over the place. He's in the Civil war, the Indian wars, and capturing Billy the kids! It felt as if he had some exciting stories that he'd heard and wanted to tell but didn't bother much with researching or verifying his information. For me, it was painful reading and simply took too much time.
The book disappointed me from the start! Just a couple of pages into the preface, Peter Bronson wrote that U.S. Grant spent some of his childhood in Pleasant Plain, OH. I grew up six or seven miles from there and knew that simply wasn't true. Alarm bells: how reliable is this writer?? Doubts arose. His account of Clement Vallandigham's self-inflicted shooting was not as I had been taught. Not in a courtroom in Hamilton, but in the Lebanon House or what is now the Golden Lamb!
Errors or not, the writing feels like historical fiction and it is surely not footnoted or cited well at all. There is virtually no index. And the settings just jumps all over the place. He's in the Civil war, the Indian wars, and capturing Billy the kids! It felt as if he had some exciting stories that he'd heard and wanted to tell but didn't bother much with researching or verifying his information. For me, it was painful reading and simply took too much time.
July 3, 2025
Peter Bronson's "The Man Who Saved Cincinnati" tells the story of General Lew Wallace and the role he played in keeping Cincinnati from an attack that thankfully never fully materialized. The book itself is an interesting look at Wallace who would be ostracized unfairly after Shiloh and forced into assignments he didn't exactly deserve. Bronson also guides us through most of Wallace's life as well as the events that led up to the planned attack on the Queen City of the West along with the preparations for it on both the Ohio and Kentucky sides of the border. This is an event that as a native of Ohio I wasn't fully aware of, and it does add to my knowledge of both the Civil War and Ohio history in general.
February 9, 2024
An interesting study of Lew Wallace. Jumped around a bit.
May 11, 2024
I was confused from the first, how can a non-fiction book, contain fictional characters? It was more like a book of short stories that weren't arranged in chronical order and hard to follow.
December 19, 2024
Great history about Cincy and NKY but story seemed to jump around a bit too much
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews