A Savage War: A Military History of the Civil War

by Williamson Murray, Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh

The Civil War represented a momentous change in the character of war. It combined the projection of military might across a continent on a scale never before seen with an unprecedented mass mobilization of peoples. Yet despite the revolutionizing aspects of the Civil War, its leaders faced the same uncertainties and vagaries of chance that have vexed combatants since the days of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War. "A Savage War" sheds critical new light on this defining chapter in military history.
In a masterful narrative that propels readers from the first shots fired at Fort Sumter to the surrender of Robert E. Lee's army at Appomattox, Williamson Murray and Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh bring every aspect of the battlefield vividly to life. They show how this new way of waging war was made possible by the powerful historical forces unleashed by the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution, yet how the war was far from being simply a story of the triumph of superior machines. Despite the Union's material superiority, a Union victory remained in doubt for most of the war. Murray and Hsieh paint indelible portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and other major figures whose leadership, judgment, and personal character played such decisive roles in the fate of a nation. They also examine how the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Northern Virginia, and the other major armies developed entirely different cultures that influenced the war's outcome.
A military history of breathtaking sweep and scope, "A Savage War" reveals how the Civil War ushered in the age of modern warfare.

Genres: History, Civil War, American Civil War, Military History, War, American History, Nonfiction

602 pages, Hardcover

First published September 13, 2016

About the author

Williamson "Wick" Murray was an American historian and author. He authored numerous works on history and strategic studies, and served as an editor on other projects extensively. He was professor emeritus of history at Ohio State University from 2012 until his death.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The American Civil War combined an unprecedented movement and projection of military forces across a continent on a scale made possible by the Industrial Revolution with the psychic mobilization of two contending nations that the French Revolution had foreshadowed. It represented a momentous change in the character of war from the conflicts of the previous century and a half. Nevertheless, the American Civil War forms an integral element in the overall development of the Western way of war, influenced undoubtedly by the peculiarities of geography, politics, economics, and intellectual perceptions that shaped the developing nation at that time.”
- Williamson Murray & Wayne Wei-Siang Hsieh, A Savage War


There are a lot of books out there about the American Civil War. There are multi-volume histories and single-battle monographs, biographies of every major participant, biographies of every minor participant, unit histories, and even cookbooks, just in case you’re tired of eating edible food and wanted to know what dishes you can whip up with maggoty hardtack.

In short, we are awash in literature on America’s bloodiest and consequential war.

For the most part, this is great, because learning about the Civil War is awesome and – in some respects – necessary.

Still, it makes it hard to choose. As with other big world-historical subjects – the World Wars, for instance – quantity is not the issue. It’s quality.

***

In such a crowded field, it helps to know what angle a book is playing. Williams Murray & Wayne Wei-Siang Hsieh’s A Savage War promotes itself as a military history. What’s that mean? In short, it’s about the battles. No politics. No biographies. No social or economic concerns. This is about military campaigns and grand strategy. As the authors state: “The battles mattered; in the end they determined the winners and losers and drove the course of world history.”

The bulk of A Savage War (and at 548 pages of text, it has some bulk) is spent in an examination of the war’s clashes. This entails more than tactical discussions, but an examination of the overall web of war, in which decision to send men over here means you don’t have men over there; and the decision to defend this position, means you might not be able to defend that one. For example, if you are the Confederacy, and you use your limited iron supplies to make ironclad ships (in a naval war you probably won’t win), then you can’t use that iron to improve your railroads (which might have helped you take advantage of interior lines of communications).

This is the kind of global perspective that Murray & Hsieh are good at.

***

Unfortunately, they are not so good at the writing. The prose here is rather blunt and graceless. For instance, we have this clunker of a sentence about Thomas Jonathan Jackson at Bull Run:

A Virginia brigade now arrived on the field, where its steadfastness won its commander the nickname of “Stonewall” for its steadfastness under fire.

Okay, got it. Steadfast.

Aside from a stilted prose style, there is a lot of repetitiveness. A lot of repetitiveness. A lot of repetitiveness. The same points made over and over. This is unfortunate, because – as already noted – the writing is not something to savor.

To that end, it should be noted that this is not a narrative history. The battles are told from an impersonal distance, with no first-person accounts or dramatic set-piece descriptions. Murray & Hsieh are here to analyze, not engross.

For those who like to follow along with a map, there are a lot of them here. Unfortunately, they are surprisingly bad at showing you what you want to see.

***

In terms of background, Murray & Hsieh are experienced military historians. Hsieh teaches at Annapolis, and they have both worked for the U.S. Military. Nonetheless, I never felt like they were experts in this particular field. They do not have the easy comfort with the material that you find with Stephen Sears, Allen Guelzo, or James McPherson. This leads to some idiosyncratic opinions, such as counting the Battle of Petersburg as one of Ulysses Grant’s “losses.” Since Grant won at Petersburg, and shortly thereafter forced Robert Lee’s surrender, it’s clear I’m operating under different definitions of victory and defeat than Murray & Hsieh.

***

The trouble with a “military history” that intentionally eschews politics is that politics is inextricable from an understanding of the Civil War. You cannot judge Lincoln for maintaining a string of terrible generals without acknowledging that he had to maintain these generals, because they were Democrats, and to fire them would be to lose political support to execute the war. You cannot judge Lee’s “greatness” without critically examining his dubious political sense, which led to two lunges into northern territory that backfired not only militarily, but in terms of international opinion as well.

***

This is a bullet-point book. It ranks low on the readability scale, though it somewhat makes up for that by proposing interesting ideas (only some of which they prove).

One of the things the authors really hammer is that winning the war was an incredible Union achievement. For too long, as they note, it was assumed that the Confederate defeat came about because they were simply overwhelmed (which fed into the “Lost Cause” mythology). Well, as the authors point out, that might be true, but it’s no simple thing to “overwhelm” one’s enemy. Rather, the Union had to conquer vast, European-sized pieces of territory, all while organizing an intricate system of logistics and mobilizing its population, its industries, and its economy towards a single goal. It was hard to do, and those who did it – such as General Grant – deserve far more credit than they have received.

Murray and Hsieh also have interesting insights into the many troubles plaguing the Army of the Potomac. They focus, for instance, on the education the officers received at the United States Military Academy:

At the start of the Civil War most of the army’s officers were graduates of West Point…Sylvanus Thayer, the crucial figure in West Point’s early history who had shaped the curriculum that produced the Civil War’s generals, had seen military engineering as identical to military science, and part of West Point’s social support stemmed from the civil engineering expertise it produced, as opposed to a rigorous form of military professionalism. While the academy produced the best-trained engineers of antebellum America, it neglected other crucial subjects such as military history and strategy. And while its disciplinary regime produced obedient junior officers well versed in tactics up to regimental level, such a restrictive environment was not necessarily conducive to innovation and risk taking.

This is a fascinating insight, and A Savage War is at its best when making them.

I also appreciated the discussion regarding the Army of the Potomac’s unfortunate loss of many competent leaders, either to death or promotion (the authors point out that Joseph Hooker, a fine corps commander, should never have risen to command an entire army). While the historiography of the Civil War dwells on the death of Stonewall Jackson, and its effect on the Army of Northern Virginia, less is made of the battle deaths of Phil Kearny, Jesse Reno, and John Reynolds, bright stars knocked from orbit.

Murray & Hsieh are balanced when it comes to their judgments. There is probably a bias towards Union accomplishments, but since the Union Army in general has been deprecated since 1861, I think its okay to rebalance the scales a bit.

***

At the end of the day, I’m not really sure I’d recommend A Savage War. It’s a big chunk of oft-inelegant reading. It’s not really designed for general readers, and even those who are Civil War buffs might find their time better spent on battle-specific histories. The content was fine, even thought-provoking at times, but too often I felt like a pig sniffing truffles, trying to root out something valuable in very large, very dry patches of earth.

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Greatest Disturbance In The History Of The Americans

Williamson Murray and Wayne Wei-Siang Hsieh make the first of their many references to Thucydides in the Preface to their book, "A Savage War: A Military History of the Civil War." Thucydides had described the Peloponnesian War as "the greatest disturbance in the history of the Athenians". The learning of this book, which draws insights from Thucydides through the Franco-Prussian War through the two World Wars to modern Iraq, help makes the work a most perceptive, penetrating history of the United States' "greatest disturbance". The two authors are scholars of a broad range of military history in addition to the Civil War. Murray, Professor Emeritus of History at Ohio State University, has written on the Iran-Iraq war, and on much else. Hsieh, Associate Professor of History at the United States Naval Academy is a specialist in 19th Century American military history. Together, they offer a broad perspective on the Civil War with a high regard for "the greatest of strategic historians, Thucydides.

"A Savage War" discusses the American Civil War in both breadth and depth. It studies meticulously the key battles and campaigns, armies and navies, and military and political leaders of the conflict while putting the Civil War in historical perspective. Early in their study, the authors describe several conditions with created a "military-social revolution" that transferred the nature of warfare. They find that two conditions critically affected the character of both the Civil War and of WW I. The first was the Industrial Revolution which allowed the mobilization of soldiers and material over large areas. The second was the French Revolution which created passion and a spirit of nationalism in the war efforts of both North and South. Throughout the book, the authors stress the influence of these two factors on the conduct and outcome of the War.

The authors also examine other broad factors in the Civil War and its outcome. The most important of these is individual leadership. The book is critical of the attempts of some modern historians to minimize the importance of individual leaders. It argues that strong individual leadership was important politically and militarily to the War's outcome. Abraham Lincoln receives the highest praise in this book for his strong, committed, and astute leadership of the Union war effort. General Ulysses Grant is similarly praised for his leadership and for his rare understanding of the strategic nature of the war and his ability to put his understanding into effect on the ground. Other leaders receiving more qualified praise include Sherman, Sheridan, Lee, and Jackson. Both sides also had their share of unsuccessful leaders, including Bragg for the Confederacy and McClellan for the Union. The authors are thorough and fair in their discussions of the combatants.

The book examines the different Civil War Armies and their competing organizations and cultures. Here as well, the authors explain the differences between the poor showing of the Army of the Potomac as compared with the Union's western armies. Conversely, they show how leadership and organizational structure made the Army of Northern Virginia a formidable force as compared to the Confederacy's Army of Tennessee.

The book emphasizes throughout that the Civil War was a close thing and that the result was not predetermined. Chance as well as leadership played a role in the outcome. The authors write: "[w]e do not take a deterministic view of the war; the North confronted and almost insoluble task of crushing Confederate resistance because of both the distances involved and the tenacious nature of white Southern resistance. In the end, the Union succeeded, but only by the barest of margins."

Some of the strongest passages in the book involve logistics. The work emphasizes the difficulty of projecting Union military might over the long continental distances involved in the War. As the narrative proceeds, the Union was able to muster its forces and industry only after the first two years of the war. The effort was prodigious. Among many other passages describing logistics, the book gives an extended discussion of the Union's support efforts for Sherman as he began his campaign to take Atlanta in Spring 1864. The discussion provided essential background to understand the campaign, both Sherman's advances and Johnston's defenses.

The book shows how, with the strength of Southern resistance, the Civil War gradually assumed a hard, total, or "savage" character. Again, the conflict became increasingly bitter after the first two years when the Union came to the conclusion that in order to prevail it would have to take away the will to fight of the Southern people. This war was taken to the population in Sherman's March to the Sea and march through South Carolina and through Sheridan's activities in the Shenandoah Valley late in the War. The authors find that this form of warfare, which they analogize to the Allies' bombing of German cities during WW II, was militarily necessary to win the war and to discourage the enemy from reopening the conflict. There is a sharp vision here of the harshness of war. The authors also have a strong underlying moral and ethical perspective about having the strength to persevere and to fight for what is right. Some of this will be controversial; I find it refreshing.

The book is clearly written and organized and allows the reader to follow the chronological development of the war and its intensification. Each chapter is followed by a helpful summarizing conclusion. In the Introductory and concluding chapters, the authors describe their approach to the war in broad terms while the body of the book gives the details of the conflict and supports the authors' understanding of the events. The book is written with great knowledge, wisdom, and a fundamental love for our country. Readers with a strong interest in the Civil War will learn from this outstanding book.

Robin Friedman

[Bookman143 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book! After over 20 years of reading books on the Civil War, I have to say that this is one of the freshest, and most insightful books I have read in quite some time. To me, reading it was like sitting in a college class taught by an awesome professor. The conflict is given just the right amount of detail for a one-volume military history and I especially enjoyed the dry humor and somewhat snarky observations contained in many asides. The analyses are splendid and are peppered with references to Thucydides, Clausewitz, and comparisons to many other conflicts all the way up to the Iraqi War (there are even two quotes from Gen. James Mattis).

I have a feeling this will end up being one of the classics. I would put it right up there with Battle Cry of Freedom as a companion concentrating only on the military history of the conflict.

I really liked the fact that a bit of the writers' personalities came through but never were a distraction from the subject at hand.

These authors sure know a lot more about military matters than I do. But like that favorite professor I alluded to earlier, they ignited my passion and made me want to dig deeper than I ever have before. The final chapter alone, "The Civil War in History," is worth the price of the book.

[Matt Simmons · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exceptional book, marked by the sophistication of its analysis, yet marred by its narrative style. The authors propose that we must understand the American conflict of 1861-65 in terms of a transitional war, where the eternal lessons of Thucydides meet with the sociological changes wrought by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, especially the new conceptions of nation and citizen. However, the authors make clear that even this sociological revolution still carried with it the old notion of a "decisive victory"--something Lee, especially, was constantly seeking, showing his blindness to the new strategic framework presented by other sets of changes caused by the Industrial Revolution. That Revolution, especially as it picked up steam and grew exponentially more complex and the changes it wrought became greater and greater throughout the first half of the 19th century, presented unprecedented logistical contexts. When these logistics were played out against the sheer continental size of the Confederacy, where most of the War took place, the strategic frameworks of the war and its battles became something largely new in modern history. Both armies learned on the fly--and through creating mountains of corpses--producing a conflict that, in 1861 looked like an 18th century war, and by 1864, eerily presaged what the Western Front would look like 50 years later.

The authors draw heavily on Grant and Sherman's memoirs, and thus there is a heavy focus on both men as perhaps the two most significant military figures of the War, as well the "hard war" of its closing years. As it is presented here, Sherman's March to the Sea, and even more so his Carolinas Campaign, was the precursor to the RAF's Dehousing campaign and Hiroshima--ostensibly necessary brutality to achieve victory through destroying all will on the part of the civilian population to continue the fight. This, in their assessment, is simply how wars are fought, especially a war of this sort with the huge distances, new technologies, and strategic contexts; only a "savage war" could have won it.

But to be clear, in their presentation, a "savage war" could have won it for the South, too. Had Jeff Davis left Joe Johnston--whom they regard as one of the great generals of the War, and a defensive genius--in charge of the Western Theatre in 1864, they suggest his defensive tactics could very well have produced a Fabian strategy that would have resulted in Sherman's inability to accomplish much of anything except for his own soilders' loss of blood. The authors suggest that this, combined with the tactical genius that allowed Lee to survive in Virginia despite the odds against him at this time, could have destroyed political support for the cause in the North, thus costing Lincoln the election and bringing a President McClellan to the bargaining table with Richmond. Because of the new, and ever evolving, strategic and logistical contexts of this conflict, savage war--whether breaking the will of the Confederate populace through sheer domination or bleeding a Union army stuck in neutral to the point of Northern exasperation and acquiescence--was the only way this war would end.

The authors show Grant is perhaps the only general who understands this early on, and thus they emphasize the early years in the Western theatre. Lee and the Southerners' brilliant victories in the early years in the East mattered little, as they could never achieve that "decisive" Napoleonic victory; meanwhile, in the West, Grant was systematically using the logistical and industrial might of the North to destroy Southern railroads, communication, river traffic, and food production, ensuring that the Army of Northern Virginia would (eventually) be crippled. Thus, even though the authors resist the classic narrative that the North would necessarily win just from sheer numbers--Shelby Foote's notion that the North "fought with one hand tied behind its back"--their argument actually shows just that to be the case, with some important caveats. Grant, in their view, isn't just throwing men into the grinder, knowing that the Confederates will run out of men before he does; rather, they connect the North's population, industrial, financial, and logistical superiority to the proper strategic and political contexts and decisions, and suggest that Grant was engaging those frameworks through leveraging the numerical superiority of the North.

So yes, this is a Grant-heavy, and to a lesser extent a Sherman-heavy, book. But there is also great praise for Southern generals. Lee is shown to lack a necessary strategic imagination, but to be as tactically brilliant as his legend shows him to be (even if his pride and myopia led him to some tactical blunders, most notoriously Pickett's Charge). Johnston and Longstreet also come in for praise, as does Jackson--shown as a ferocious, hard man much more than a gallant, pious Christian knight. There is also real praise for N.B. Forrest, whom the authors implicitly regard as having led what amounts to a nigh-invincible special forces/commando team that the Confederates could never quite figure out what to do with. Forrest comes off as a mad genius and perhaps the single-greatest, and certainly most sui generis, military mind of the conflict; the authors mention, though refuse to speculate in any length, what things would have been like had Forrest been given command of a corps, much less an army.

The book is also provides strong analysis of the politics of the war--everything from the incompetence of the various political-appointee generals who hampered the Northern war effort, to the noxious, petty command cultures of the Armies of the Potomac and Tennessee, to Jeff Davis's petty favoritism and myopic micro-management of the Western Theatre that doomed the Confederacy well before the fall of Atlanta, to the aforementioned need for Lincoln's reelection, and the way both his leadership in Washington and the battlefield performances of Sherman and Grant ensured that happened. Thus, the authors provide us with a sweeping and comprehensive analysis of the War from multiple perspectives. From an analytical standpoint, the book is dynamite.

However, the book suffers in its narrative passages and in certain verbal tics by the authors. For one, having two authors does in places reveal itself, as it sometimes moves from rather sober language to strange attempts at black humor and snark; this is jarring and makes for strange reading. And while the book does have an obvious rah-rah-Union quality (unsurprising for a host of reasons, not least of which being the authors' employment at the Naval Academy, and thus an almost-certain interest in defending a particular vision of America one can trace forward from Lincoln to the Global War on Terror), one of the narrative voices often slips into something close to vitriol directed at the South, a sort of implied "the bastards got what was coming to them, and should have had it worse, and it would have been fine and dandy." This may fit your politics (or not), but it tends to take away from the sober, scholarly detachment the book cultivates throughout. A scholarly assessment briefly becoming a political screed, only to see a quick return to a scholarly assessment, is just fundamentally odd and distracting.

Finally, and most egregiously, the book's one-volume treatment of the entirety of the War leads to narrations of battles and campaigns that often feel quite leaden. In attempting to fit so much information into so (relatively) few pages, the narrative and descriptive passages become very often inelegant, confusing, and hard-to-read, like the small, compressed comments under maps one would find in a history textbook. As so much of the book is narrative, this becomes a real liability for its overall success.

Nevertheless, despite the problems with narrative and the linguistic oddities, this book is a masterpiece of historical analysis that situates the War into the overall history of the evolution of human conflict in ways I had not encountered before. Its insistence on the significance of the Western theatre, especially early on, and the ways in which industrialism, new modes of nationalism and patriotism post-1789, and the emergence of new transportation and communication technologies made for novel logistical challenges combine to make clear there was only one winning strategy: that of savage war. For perhaps the first time in modern military history, tactical brilliance and decisive victories wouldn't cut it. Rather, what would win this war would be something akin to what we saw centuries before, and had come to forget: something like the rapacious destruction of the Huns, the grinding exhaustion of the Fabian strategy of the Second Punic War, or the totalizing violence of the Pelopennesian War. We might thus see this as the last of the Ancient wars rather than the first "modern" war; Lincoln came to understand this, Jeff Davis never did, and their respective managements of their armies followed suit. And in so many words, that, in the authors' analysis, is why the North won.

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Savage War is a no frills military history of the Civil War. The authors do not look at social or political issues except most tangentially, e.g., the presence of “political” generals in both armies. And economic history is only considered in so far as the technologies and wealth created by the Industrial Revolution transformed how armies operated and how states projected power across heretofore unimaginable distances.

The book doesn’t cover much new ground. I don’t think there’s any historian who contests that the Civil War was the first “modern war” and adumbrated the slaughter fields of the Great War fifty years later. Where it excels, in my opinion, is in its discussion of the command cultures of the Union and rebel armies and the personalities who led them. For example, even though he only commanded the Army of the Potomac for little more than a year, McClellan’s baleful influence was so entrenched its leaders continued strong resistance against Grant’s strategy and performed little better in 1864 than it did in 1862. On the rebel side, Braxton Bragg created a command environment in the Confederacy’s western armies so poisonous that it seriously crippled the rebel’s effectiveness and made it that much easier for the Union to crush the rebellion there. The authors also emphasize the significance of chance in how history plays out: Consider a Democrat or any Republican other than Lincoln in the White House in 1861. It’s very likely the North would have either let the South go its way or would have sued for peace after the disaster of First Bull Run.

Recommended if you’re interested in military and/or Civil War history. A Savage War is narrowly focused but that’s fine. For what the authors intend, it’s a good, well-written narrative. And the bibliography offers plenty of suggestions for those interested in specific people or aspects of the conflict.

[Andrew Carr · Rating 5 out of 5]

In summer 2012 I took a horse and buggy ride through Lexington, Virginia. As we moved around the town, the lady leading the tour pointed to the houses and buildings which Union soldiers had burned in 1864. And she was still pissed about it.

I’ve never quite understood her attitude, but now at least thanks to Murray and Hsieh I know why the damage occurred. It was a distraction operation under General David Hunter, to draw Confederate eyes away from Grant’s main thrust, while also helping to bring the war to the people of the rebellion.

While I’ve read several accounts of Lincoln and the war, my military knowledge of it is admittedly weak. Despite my profession, I tend not to read military history. Too often I find the genre focused on the actions of incredible, but insignificant individual soldiers. Which is fun in the same way an action movie is, but the real meat for me has always been the politics of conflict. Namely the interplay of strategy, leadership and logistics upon which wars —not just battles— are won or lost.

It was for this reason I ordered A Savage War: A Military History of the Civil War on the strength of one of its co-authors, Williamson Murray. Murray is a hugely prolific scholar in the field of strategic studies, with a knack for clearing away the brush to focus on the most significant issues. He also has an excellent grasp of strategic theory and history which is usually —though not always—deployed to good effect here. Throughout the book there are references to relevant insights or events in Thucydides, Clausewitz and from the contemporary era such as the 9/11 report and the Iraq War.

A Savage War takes some chewing through at 547 pages, but the writing of Murray and Hsieh is juicy and tempting. They neatly cover the build up to the conflict to give a refresher, without delaying too much before the action begins. Woven through the main chronological account there are insightful analyses of the main players, strategies and controversies of the era and in an engaging final chapter, its place in history.

Importantly there is also a deft touch when it comes to recounting the actual military events. Most battles are covered in just a few pages, with plenty of useful maps alongside the text. Details of some of the less well known and inconclusive battles can occasionally drag, but the authors resist the temptation to sex it up with fictionalised narratives or overt focus on individual heroics.

Instead, much of the side text is a discussion primarily of leadership and the role of the key generals and commanders and the army cultures they instilled. You can often feel the frustration of the authors at the mistakes, missed opportunities and often rank amateurism of the Union. While McClellan’s tardiness is famous, there are dozens of occasions, small and large where a needless delay or refusal to move cost the Union an earlier victory. But as the authors regularly note, this would not surprise those who have studied strategy and war at all.

Interestingly, the authors have little sympathy or praise for the Confederate General Robert E. Lee. While understandable for his politics, there’s often a debate among civil war buff’s about whether Lee or Grant was the superior general. For me, the politics (and final results of the conflict) overwhelm almost everything else when deciding, but in a text like this, I’d have liked a little bit more assessment. Perhaps the answer lays in the authors’ focus on the strategic level. Here Grant (like Lincoln and Sherman) understood the purpose of the war. Lee did not. His tactical and operational brilliance could not make up for a strategic deficit of understanding that ultimately contributed to the Confederacy’s comprehensive defeat.

As the authors themselves acknowledge, the best single volume account of the war is still James McPhersons’ Battle Cry of Freedom. A gorgeous and riveting book. But Murray and Hsieh have provided a fitting companion to it. One that understands and explains the war part of the Civil War. For those seeking a wider reading, especially bringing in the insights from history’s social turn and focus on events from the bottom-up, I’d also recommend Allen C. Guelzo’s Fateful Lighting (Reviewed here

The US Civil War fascinates to this day not just because of its location, but because it is an inherently modern conflict. It was the first true Industrial war. Yet even more importantly, and like the French Revolution of 72 years earlier, it was a people’s war. It could only be defeated when the people themselves recognised it. And as that lady in Lexington —and perhaps the next inhabitant of the White House— show, some of that recognition is still to come.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a major disappointment. The authors don't really cover any new ground or offer an intriguing new perspective on a war that, by their own admission, has been covered ad nauseum. There's nothing wrong with writing a new narrative on the Civil War as many, myself included, enjoy reading well trod history for it's own sake, provided it's done well. Part of the problem with this book is their attempt to cover the entire conflict in a single volume of 550 pages of narrative text. That is really trying to cram ten pounds of junk into a five pound bag. Massive and consequential engagements are limited to a few pages severely limiting their ability to go in depth not only on the tactics employed, but also how each engagement fit into the larger conflict. For such a (relatively) short telling of the entire war, they did an admirable job, but I'm not sure why they hamstrung themselves with a single volume. n
My greater problem with this book, and why I'm personally pleased the authors didn't write more, is the overall tone of the book. The narrative swings wildly from serious historical analysis to glib and snarky asides about how idiotic some contemporary leaders were, historians the authors disagree with, and the South in general. It's hard to take a work seriously when one of the authors constantly felt the need to insert attempts at humor but which come off as groan worthy and grating. For instance, was it really necessary to interrupt the narrative of McClellan's failures as a leader to fantasize about reaching through time and space to strangle him? I'm not McClellan apologist, but this was just ridiculous to include in what purports to be a serious historical analysis. The McClellan jab was one of many such stabs at Civil War leaders, on both sides, who were not among the authors preferred. It gets so bad you can almost visualize them high fiving as they dunk on yet another man who has been dead for well over one hundred years. This levity may work in a lecture hall environment, but here it only serves to suck the reader out of the moment.
Further, their tendency to sniff at any and all historians who don't agree with their preferred interpretation of historical events quickly wears thin. Conflicting theories by "arm chair historians" are briefly brought up and waved away with a perceptible sneer. Again, that's fine to disagree with other historians, but being tactful and forceful in your counter arguments is the mark of a true historian. Dismissing contrary beliefs with a wave of the hand and little more than "you're stupid" does nothing to further their case. Particularly when these authors do not break any new serious ground in their analysis.
Finally, the incessant historical and literary name dropping wears very thin, very quickly. The number of times Thucydides, or von Clausewitz or rammed into the narrative is jarring. Not to mention that most of the ham fisted attempts at demonstrating just how well read they are is done with all the grace of a high school sophomore dropping a BrainyQuote into his book report. "War is politics by other means"? Wow! I've never heard that one before!
In the end, the authors hyper critical attitude towards any and all battlefield commanders who did not perceive as immediately obvious what they do (with over 150 years of hindsight, serious historical analysis, and from the comfort of their offices) is almost too much to bear. They even comment in the epilogue how modern historians distort the conflict through Monday morning quarterbacking and free from the fog of war. It's as though they didn't read their own work.
There are far too many superior and more thoughtful accounts of the Civil War (Foote comes to mind) for readers to waste their time on this volume.

[P. Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book continues in the tradition of James MacPherson's The Battle Cry of Freedom, in that it lays the blame for the Civil War squarely on slavery. That doesn't seem to be such an issue anymore. While 'a military' history that focuses on the tactics of the significant battles, it also does a good job with the strategic side, including the North's overwhelming industrial superiority. Notwithstanding, it also argues that the outcome of the war was not preordained. There were several turning points at which the South could have gained a political advantage, with either foreign powers or northern voters.
What I particularly liked was the discussion of the army commanders. I'm convinced that this would make a great management book, in that it outlines all those qualities which go to making a great, and not so great, leader. Grant was the first; Bragg the second. The authors also rank Grant higher than Lee because of the former's strategic genius. Grant's Vicksburg Campaign, in their estimation, was the best executed of the war. One drawback to the book was the rather pedestrian prose, but the information provided made up for the style.

[Clay Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book on the military aspect of the Civil War.

[Mick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read for those with an interest in military history. Some knowledge of 18th and 19th century warfare will benefit the reader in understanding some references within the text. Worth your time.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murray and Wei-Siang Hsieh combined their scholarly efforts and backgrounds to reexamine the American Civil War and to compile and distill the war into one volume. They refute the idea that the ending was a forgone conclusion, pointing out the various points and decisions that could have changed the peace and permanently divided the United States.

Why I started this book: Near the top of my Professional Reading list for the year, plus the library had an audio copy... easy choice.

Why I finished it: This book was exactly like taking a college course. The material was engaging and authors pointed out the necessities of revisiting the historical narratives and analysis to counter/balance the preponderance of Southern authors and the Lost cause narrative prior to the 1960s. A convenient idea that absolved the Confederate leaders and generals of responsibility for their mistakes and choices while still apportioning glory and honor. Murray and Wei-Siang Hsieh also gave historical context to the battles; comparing the battles and strategies to the days of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War, the de-housing bombing campaigns of World War II and the campaigns and their distances of Napoleon. The emphasis on logistics, strategy, and individuals' decisions was fascinating.

[David Bird · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Savage War
There is is much good in this volume, and it’s unfortunate that the authors so frequently distract from their solid core by winking at their audience to signal that they’re serious historical thinkers. At their best, they argue for the recognition of the Union’s logistical achievements, and for a realistic assessment of the reasons why it took so long for Lincoln’s government to triumph beyond simple incompetence.

Do the authors really want the comparison to Thucydides that they seem to invite with their frequent invocations of him? I get it: they’ve read the Greek historian. So have I. One may say up front that they have not created a “possession for all time” but are rather speaking to “an immediate audience” (Thuc. I.22). Their immediate audience is, one gathers, a particular clique of strategic historians, among whom citation of Thucydides is proof of seriousness (even if only serious enough to cite page numbers in Rex Warner’s Penguin, and not the Greek book/chapters). It is an intellectual veneer, rather than a solid engagement.

So we are given a paragraph that situates a commander’s ability to make the right decision at the crucial moment not only in the landscape of Clausewitz but also of the assessment Thucydides makes of Themistocles (p. 104). That the Greek statesman ended up exiled as a traitor makes narrow mention of him a bit odd in the context of a passage on commanders choosing sides in a civil war. The effect is similar when Simon Cameron’s exile to St. Petersburg is compared to Otto von Bismarck’s a posting there: it signals to their chosen audience the authors’ familiarity with Bismarck’s career, but misses the point that Russia was far more important to Prussia than to Lincoln’s government (p. 117). This all distracts, rather than deepens.

These distractions are unfortunate. If there is an intellectual engagement with Thucydides, it is in the assertion of the role of contingency and the importance of individuals. Yet the Thucydidean position is taken as proven even where the author’s own account of the importance of both industrial technology and an industrial approach to problem-solving challenge—or at least qualify—a romantic notion of military genius.

Similarly, there is a need to engage seriously with the intellectual tradition of strategic writing that holds up the Prussians as paragons: Moltke (Moltke the Elder, of course!) for the military, Bismarck for the political, while dismissing the American Civil War as irrelevant for serious students of strategy (as in Lawrence Freedman’s Strategy: A History). Here, Murray and Hsieh are better, with explicit comparisons of the Union achievement in continental force projection to the much smaller distances faced by the Prussians.

The nods and winks situate the authors as (neo)conservatives, particularly in that their Thucydides is clearly that of Donald Kagan. So it’s interesting to see what is now consensus enough to be prevalent on the right. Perhaps the most significant is championing of Grant and not Lee as the war’s greatest commander. But they have abandoned much other ground defended by the conservatives of previous generations. Indeed, a large part of their project depends on de-throning The Lost Cause paradigm, so that the outcome may seem suitably contingent in a Thucydidean, Great Man sort of way.

But their neconservatism may explain why the authors seem curiously confident that racism among historians evaporated in 1970. That the army still has a Fort Bragg is attributed to the historical myopia of a politically correct age rather than lingering loyalty to ‘heritage not hate.’ Of course, that’s a throwaway line (like the Themistocles reference, not worthy of inclusion in the index). But it’s a marker of the ambivalence with which the authors eschew the Lost Cause and challenge its assumptions, while seeming careful not to offend any of its modern heirs. Moreover, it has a bit of the same intellectual dishonesty that lets those advocates of the Iraq disaster continue to market themselves as ‘serious’ students of strategy.

For me, true engagement with Thucydides in the context of the American Civil War would be an engagement with the degree to which historians bend, blend, and select from different accounts to create a narrative matching assumptions of what must have happened. For the Greek historian, we are mostly at his mercy regarding what to include or exclude. His soaring intelligence means that challenging his conclusions tales serious work. Yet a major element is that in the speeches he reports, he is presenting points of view rather than assertions of objective truth. Part of his power lies in capturing opposing views convincingly.

For the Civil War, we have so many competing narratives that the a student of the conflict has the luxury and challenge of comparing multiple versions to get a sense of how to situate each one. Where possible, I use inclusion of the kidnapping of African-Americans in the account of Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania as something of a test-case. I’d been reading for a while, from the late 1970s until at least in the 1990s before I remember encountering it. It’s just strikingly problematic for a narrative of Southern Chivalry and the benevolent paternalism of the Peculiar Institution, and awkward for an army fired up by the defense of States’ Rights.

On the one hand, it is here in Murray and Hsieh, even given prominence with a period quotation. But at the same time, the authors consider the volumes of Shelby Foote “reliable scholarly accounts,” without considering the implications of Foote’s professed loyalty to the Confederacy or avowed fondness for Nathan Bedford Forrest. I’m not arguing for censorship of Foote as politically incorrect. I just have difficulty with the pretensions of intellectual seriousness of authors who do not interrogate him as a source, especially when those pretensions are so prominently displayed.

Ultimately, my grumpiness about this book reflects a sense that it’s a lost opportunity. There are some worthy insights. But the unevenness of the execution is only dramatized by the company they profess to keep.

[Schoppie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the best military accounts of the war I have read. It is refreshing to find academic historians who still believe the military events of the Civil War are worth studying. I find little with which I disagree in this book, and it offers, perhaps, the most fair assessment of Union and Confederate military leadership I have read. I look forward to reading more from these authors.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cogent writing and spot on analysis accompanied by solid maps and a fascinating bibliographic essay easily makes this work the best single volume military history of the Civil War one can buy. Recommended.

[Chase Metcalf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: Murray and Hsieh provide a well researched and detailed military history of the United States Civil War. This narrative examines the each sides leadership, strategy, and unique approach to warfare. Ultimately, the authors show how the outcome of the war was far from certain at the beginning and how the North ultimately won through a combination of superior leadership, greater resources and better soldiers, and Southern mistakes. At times overly detailed this book is a must read for anyone wanting to understand the importance of strategic leadership in warfare or seeking to better understand the story of the US Civil War.

A few key highlights (spoiler alert):
- US Civil War and WWI marked military-social revolution in terms of mobilizing and projecting power over long distances
- Civil War shaped and transformed American way of war founded on superior logistics and power projection
- Lincoln began war focused on avoiding major mistakes - allowed Jefferson and South to undermine own cause
o South firing on Sumter - thereby being the aggressor in the war
o Polk violating Kentucky neutrality - forcing border states to choose sides
o Southern imposition of “partial” embargo of cotton to Europe - denying South resources and reducing European dependence on South
o Southern overconfidence inspired by Bull Run - led to tactical and operational mistakes
- Strategists must understand the difference between essential and insignificant - failure to do so leads to wasting resources (most important of which is time) and failure to concentrate forces at decisive point
- Incompetent Generals attempt to adapt real world to their preconceived notions rather then adjusting their assumptions to reality

Authors conclude (spoiler alert):
- Leadership matters
o Lincoln and Grant demonstrated superior strategic sense and ability to transform military power into political outcomes
o Davis and Lee pursued decisive battle and lost sight of the political nature of war (Atlanta)
Civil War shaped by four turning points: 1) Antietam; 2) Gettysburg; 3) Vicksburg; 4) Atlanta (decisive for 1864 elections)
- Hard hand of war - represented by Grant’s strategy of relentless pressure and Sherman’s march through the South - destroyed Southern means and broke popular will
- South failed due to:
o Context and strategic framework of the conflict - unfavorable at beginning and got progressively worse due to Southern approach and failures
o Political & Strategic leadership - lack unity of effort or strategic vision found in North
o Role of strategic decision making - Southern leadership far more indecisive and lacked unity of effort that developed in the North
o Incalculable roll of luck - broke in North’s favor
o Ability of each side to adapt - South failed to adjust to changing character of warfare while North adapted to leverage all its inherent advantages
o Military effectiveness and strategy - Southern strategy unable to overcome Northern superiority when South failed to focus on political outcome

[joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this military history and I stayed up until 3 AM to finish it. I found the arguments clear and well stated and found several new insights. I liked the concluding remarks. In the face of modern history with so much study of movements and class and grand forces, the authors lay credit for winning the war at the feet of the Great Leader - Abraham Lincoln.

As they explain there were many ways for the North to not win the war and Lincoln managed to find the correct course time after time. Lincoln's focus on the war objective to maintain the Union until the moment came when it was appropriate to issue the Emancipation Proclamation was paramount.

One new insight to me was the idea that if the Union had won the war too early, slavery might not have been abolished. It was only after the need to undermine the Southern economy made this politically acceptable to many Union racists.

One issue the authors do not go into was the racism that underlay the rationale that made slavery a central institution to the southern way of life. Eradicating racism was not a war aim.

Another part of the text that I enjoy was the list of the three worst generals in the war. I had not realized how bad a general Halleck was. The irony that McClellan was a terrible general but if he had not been so bad the Union might have won before the need to abolish slavery became apparent to the majority of the Northern electorate. The authors remarks about Bragg being the worst yet still honored in having a fort named after him were indeed ironic.

One more point that I gained from reading this history was a better appreciation of Grant's performance as the best general in the war. I never appreciated how important the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson was to the entire strategy of the war. That victory opened up the major rivers into the southern interior leading to Atlanta and the final destruction of the Confederacy. Grant's recovery after the first day of Shiloh, his Vicksburg campaing, and his finally executing the simple strategic insight that even the self taught Lincoln espoused - with superior numbers one should strike one's opponent in many places simultaneously.

Despite a few repetitious phrasing in several places, I highly recommend this history.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I have read in years. It is engaging, clear, and the right length. My Civil War education was sorely lacking, so I learned much from this. A key framework the authors introduce early on is that the Civil War was the first major conflict to combine that population-mobilizing aspects of the French Revolution with the industrial war made possible by the Industrial Revolution. Indeed the North's industrial capacity was both far larger and better managed that the South's. For example, while the North produces railroads and locomotives at a furious rate, the South did very little and wasted much of its steel output on ironsides. Southerners were quite arrogant in the beginning, thinking their rural background would make them superior to the city boys of the North. But the northerners had the engineers and the factories, and they were fine fighters too.

The authors emphasize the geographic scope of the war. It was huge, much larger than anything the Europeans had experienced. Combatants had to project force over huge distances, and the North was better at this. Sherman's move to Atlanta was supplied by a massive, constantly maintained supply infrastructure.

Another theme of the authors is that the eastern theater gets too much attention. Really, very little happened in the east. The Union never made it very far into Virginia, and Lee's two invasions of the North failed immediately. Moreover, the Union army in the east really only won two major battles (the authors count Anietam as a tie). Meanwhile, in the West, Grant and Sherman and the others spent the war making massive territorial gains, and eventually the western armies conquered everything and joined Grant in Virginia.

Key updates for me:

- Grant is underrated
- Sherman is underrated and overhated
- Lee is overrated
- The eastern theater is overrated.
- Lincoln is excellent, perhaps appropriately rated at very high levels.
- Leadership was key to outcomes; Lincoln fired people until he arrived at the right team (ie, Grant and Sherman).

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Savage War is a masterclass examination of the military elements of the American Civil War. The authors make a compelling argument for how the forces of the French and Industrial Revolutions met for the first time on a Continental scale and resulted in one of the world's first "modern" wars. A Savage War also powerfully describes how the skills and flaws of Northern and Southern leaders played a decisive role in the outcome of the Civil War.

For a relative newcomer to the Civil War, the book does a standard, if not exhaustive job, of addressing the political tensions leading up to the Civil War, as well as compromises over the issue of slavery in the 50+ years leading up to the outbreak of War. However, A Savage War stands out in its ability to contextualize battles of the Civil War by providing readers with a clear understanding of strategic goals of both Northern and Southern Generals, and the way in which the American geography impacted the course of the war.

I would not consider A Savage War as my first recommendation for anyone interested in the Civil War - that honor continues to fall to Battle Cry of Freedom - but for enthusiasts and those wanting greater understanding for the strategic overview of the American Civil War, I strongly recommend A Savage War. However, it should be clear that the book does not stray far - look elsewhere for a deeper examination of White civilian, slave, or free African American perspectives.

[Kyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent military history of the war that does not offer many new insights. Their assessment of generalship on both sides is critical to the point of absurdity (everyone but Lee and Grant was bad, basically) and they delve into a lot of unconvincing armchair generalship. This aspect feels especially irksome because near the end of the book they scold other historians for engaging in “Monday morning quarterbacking.”

I also found the organization of the book in the first few chapters to be a little baffling in a way that would make it hard to follow for those not already familiar with the material. As a single volume military history of the war it’s not terrible, but there are better options out there; How the North Won by Hattaway and Jones, for example.

Their overall argument that the war represented a welding of the dynamics of the French and Industrial Revolutions is interesting, but not especially insightful. Same goes for their attempts to relate the war and it’s nature to the Peloponnesian War as described by Thucydides which feels more than a little strained. These connections across history are important to illustrate points, but their overlap conclusion using historical examples is to look on the war and say “the outcome was contingent on the circumstances.” Again, not especially groundbreaking.

[Omar Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding history of the civil war. While billed as a military history, it also covers the causes of the war, and the economic and industrial factors that gave the union a decisive edge. But unlike many modern historians who regard those factors as almost pre-ordaining a Union victory, this book insists that leadership and luck played a role (as it does in all wars). The authors consider Lincoln and Grant as the most outstanding individual actors in this regard and make an excellent case for their view. Lee gets knocked down a peg and Grant gets a leg up as being far more than the "meat-grinder" of legend. They also make a good case for seeing the Western theater as the most decisive theater of operations and Grant's Vicksburg campaign as the single most outstanding military campaign of the war. The authors also have a dry sense of humor that adds to the appeal of this book. e.g. "..that antebellum advocate of secession, Edmund Ruffin, fired one of the first shots. He also fired the last shot when he blew his brains out in June 1865".
And they make sure you understand that it WAS about slavery, not some crap like "state's rights'.
All in all, an outstanding book.

[Jim Woolwine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb.

"Too much romanticism about the Civil War pervades the recent day view of the conflict. The apocryphal tale of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to a detachment of the Army of the Potomac, commanded by that great hero Joshua Chamberlain, often appears as a representation of the first steps toward the reunion of the two halves of a nation sundered by a great Civil War. It represented nothing of the sort. The wounds of the conflict only began to heal in the 1960s and 1970s when the white South finally began to rejoin the United States. Representative of the real attitudes of former Confederates was the Ku Klux Klan, which aimed to retake the political ground lost by the war and to ensure that the South's black population would remain in abject servitude since the war had destroyed the institution of slavery. Most of the whites in the South nursed a dark, abiding hatred of the North in their souls, But they would not resume the war; instead, they would cloak the conflict in a fog of dishonest myths that would cover over and distort the real history of the war until the 1960s.(p 508)"

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book, providing a thorough military history of the US Civil War. The authors, noted historians Williamson Murray and Wayne Wei-siang Hsieh, deliver an in-depth narrative of the course of the war alongside a deep analysis. The book makes use of much recent scholarship, taking the time to explain why previous understandings were incorrect and pointing out remaining areas of contention. Also present is much of the work Williamson Murray has done with comparative assessments and innovation in warfare. My favorite element were the comparisons between the various leaders, with the book overcoming previous myths and sticking to the rational analysis. The argument that Sherman’s campaign through Georgia and the Carolina’s in the final year of the war was similar to WWII’s firebombing of Japan is, for me, a new and useful way to think about Grant’s overall strategy. This is a great book for any military officer looking to expand their understanding of military science. Highly recommended for all Civil War history buffs.

[Roger Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read a number of Civil War histories, I would rate this as one of the top three along with those of McPherson and Shelby Foote. If you wish to understand the military side of the war without a lot of distractions, this book is for you. Murray presents a clearly written summary of the war and a brilliant analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the military and political leadership, particularly that of Davis, Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Lee and those he recognizes for good reasons as weak, incompetent and destructive of their cause. He identifies a relatively new concept, that of the culture of leadership in the competing armies and shows how the Army of the Potomac suffered especially because of that culture, instilled primarily by McClellan. To understand the war, you should add this book to your reading list.

[Joel Blankenship · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on the logistics & strategy involved in how the Civil War was won by the Union. I appreciated Murray's contextualization of the war's events in the wider course of both the political & economic framework in the North (and to a lesser extent the South). Murray does not get bogged down in the tactical details of each battle however highlights decisions that would alter the course of the war. (Ie. Gen. Warren's actions during the Second Day at Gettysburg or Gen. Thomas' actions on Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga). The book features many references to the ideas of Thucydides, Clausewitz, and how lessons learned from the the first "modern war" would impact/compare to subsequent wars such as the Franco-Prussian War & WWI. Should be considered as an exceptional and very well written military companion to McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom".

[Ralph F. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not the traditional CW history

This is a book more attuned to advanced students of the Civil War. Battles are discussed only enough to demonstrate what the authors ably do, to reveal the underlying issues that directed the war's event path. For the first time, the issues of leadership are subject to an intense scrutiny. Also the massive machine of logistics the Union assembled and put in operation which kept its soldiers fed, clothed. And armed, and also the Navy. A reader who is familiar with the war's battles will find this very useful as it delves into the issues most historical works don't have the time and space for, but were nevertheless crucial to the outcome. I was enthralled.

[Tim Armstrong · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

This was an interesting book. It won't ever be considered among the pantheon of great Civil War one-volume narratives, but it was an engaging narrative nonetheless. It's focus is completely on military matters and the authors follow a linear narrative, telling the reader the military story of the Civil War. However there really isn't anything new presented here, and all of the information can be found in more robust Civil War books. So it was quite good, but never great.

I also didn't like the authors habit of comparing Civil War command decisions to ones made by US Commanders in modern wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Such widely different times and wars and I don't think the references to modern events improved the narrative in any way.

[Sara Laor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, in-depth overview of the civil war. I had understood about the incompetence and the carnage, but this book made me fully comprehend the extent of both. The parallels with Napoleonic, Franco-Prussian and WW1 examples are also invaluable. The author's analysis of distances, technological advances in both transportation, messaging and medicine also enhance the tale. Very interesting analysis of the myths and legends that were woven at the end of the war -- and the 'lost cause.' Absolutely excellent book.

[Andrew Pratley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear eyed modern interpretation of the military history side of the American Civil War. Needless to say there have been a huge amount of books on this conflict. Some of which have a colored view events & the main participants. This book is worth reading as it tells the story in a straightforward manner. It also doesn't pull its punches. It conclusions are also sound. For those who are happy to eschew romanticism this is an excellent one volume guide to a conflict that is still the central event in American History.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic one volume military history of American Civil War. Not just descriptive and pretty well written (some additional editing wouldn't have hurt), but I really liked how opinionated they were. Bragg was an idiot, McClellan was a great administrator but otherwise completely useless, Jefferson Davis was a meddling idiot and Lincoln was an amazing politician, etc. They pulled no punches and offered plenty to back up their opinions. Great read.

[R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good history of the American Civil War, with a view on the military leadership, and strategies during the conflict. The military context (vast distances, limited infrastructure, nationalism) is reviewed, and show how the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Northern Virginia, and the other major armies developed different cultures. It was interesting to read how generals affected the morale of their respective armies.