In this five-part review of Civil War Era literature at the Virginia History Blog, we will take a look at period topics in politics, war commands, home front, economy, slavery and memory. Turning to war commands, we begin with titles about three West Pointers from Virginia, Unionist George Thomas and Confederates Robert E. Lee and Richard S. Ewell.
For campaigns, we look at “McClellan’s War” of moderation, Lee’s “Counter-Thrust”, and Sheridan’s “Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 against Jubal Early, and a specialty look at “Trench Warfare of Grant and Lee” in the Overland Campaign of 1864.
Two battles are featured, one Naval in “The Battle of Hampton Roads”, and one on land focusing on “Charlottesville and the Germans”.
For titles reviewed recently, see the blog on Civil War Era, Spring 2018.
George Thomas
Christopher G. Einolf wrote George Thomas: Virginian for the Union in 2007. It is available from the University of Oklahoma Press, and online new and used.
This book includes military history, but also explores political and social issues surrounding the Civil War including race, slavery and Southern Unionism. The West Pointer was raised in Nat Turner’s Southampton County, Virginia, and served in Florida, Mexico, Texas and Arizona. At the secession crisis, Thomas held a legalistic, rule-oriented moral sense of his oath to the Constitution, and held it to be governing over his sentimental attachment to Virginia.
In the Civil War, his careful command style was complemented by his deference to seniority and, lacking a state political constituency, he refused promotions offered to him by William T. Sherman. Thomas became a champion of the United States Colored Troops (USCT) and a supporter of black political rights. The USCT’s fighting at Nashville showed the African Americans as “true men, and that they therefore deserved to be treated as full citizens”. Thomas thereafter supported claims of those Union veterans and blacks generally for civil, political and legal equality.
To buy “George Thomas” on Amazon, click here.
Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee
Elizabeth Brown Pryor wrote Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters in 2007. It is available from the Penguin Press, on Kindle, and online new and used.
Pryor wrote an extensive study of Lee’s correspondence, that of close associates, and public reports covering major events of Lee’s entire life with an eye to narrating his humanity, complexity, and contradictions. Lee was at different times privately and professionally, both decisive and passive. While avoiding characterizing his family life as dysfunctional, the book critiques a life of “sublime moments” but without greatness due to “the ignobility of his era’s easy assumptions”.
Some material is dedicated to describing the racism of southern slave holders as described in contemporary abolition literature, followed by the assertion that Lee must have been like them. Any influence of Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee and George Washington is minimized as historian constructs, but the book places Lee’s life in the historical context of Manifest Destiny, sectionalism, Civil War and Reconstruction.
To buy “Reading the Man” on Amazon, click here.
Confederate Gen. R. S. Ewell
Paul D. Casdorph wrote Confederate General R.S. Ewell: Robert E. Lee’s Hesitant Commander in 2004. It is available from the University Press of Kentucky, on Kindle, and online new and used.
Casdorph writes a biography and military history of Richard S. Ewell that is rich in psychological insight and operational detail. He expansively sites analysis from other Civil War historians including Lost Cause scholars to exonerate Lee even though Lee kept Ewell in senior field command for a year after Gettysburg. Casdorph explains that Ewell’s tendency to indecisiveness and hesitancy was compounded with a defeatist attitude from mid-1864. Life-long depression, complication from loss of a leg and a domineering wife contributed to his performance in combat.
Ewell accomplished his best command achievements under close supervision of immediate superiors. Following “Stonewall” Jackson’s death, Ewell led Jackson’s Second Corps in Lee’s Army of Virginia. His success capturing Winchester, Virginia was followed by two disappointing tactical events at Gettysburg. Subsequent erratic performance in the Wilderness and Spotsylvania led to his transfer to the defense of Richmond.
To buy “Confederate Gen. R. S. Ewell” on Amazon, click here. https://amzn.to/2Jti4lQ
McClellan’s War
Ethan S. Rafuse wrote McClellan’s War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union in 2005. It is available from the Indiana University Press, on Kindle, and online new and used.
This book builds a narrative of the military career of George McClellan. In an effort to explain McClellan’s all encompassing determination to take Richmond and so discredit the rebel cause, Rafuse explains that the usual military expectations of warfare in the age following Napoleon emphasized “a romantic and melodramatic image of war”. McClellan sought a monumentally decisive battle with the rebels to end the conflict.
Rafuse makes a political analysis of Lincoln’s early strategy of moderation. He describes McClellan’s political development comparable to Lincoln’s as a Whig and conservative. As a Democratic favorite who had voted for Stephen Douglas in 1860 and subsequently ran for President on the Democratic ticket, McClellan’s military demise was the signal of the administration abandoning moderation to save the Union as it was, and the emergence of radical Republican politics as war policy.
To buy “McClellan’s War” on Amazon, click here.
Counter-Thrust
Benjamin Franklin Cooling wrote Counter-Thrust: From the Peninsula to the Antietam in 2007. It is available from the University of Nebraska Press, on Kindle, and online new and used.
This book is an operational narrative focusing on the four-month period from July to October in 1862 following Lee’s repulse of McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign. The immediate threat from Washington to Richmond was parried at Second Manassas, and Lee’s offensive into Maryland that coincided with Bragg’s offensive into Kentucky turned out to be the “Confederacy’s best bid to win the war”. The conduct of the war by the Lincoln administration during this period changed as the president searched for a winning general. Conciliation and moderation were “swept aside by a new sternness, even harshness, of a people’s war”.
The analysis not only features command decisions, it incorporates views of the common soldier. The context of the Civil War is expanded showing the influence of military events on social, political and diplomatic arenas. The promising Confederate offensives failed, and the war aims of the Union were dramatically changed at their victory at Antietam and the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation heralding the coming of “hard war”.
To buy “Counter-Thrust” on Amazon, click here.
The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864
Gary W. Gallagher edited The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 in 2006. It is available from the University of North Carolina Press, on Kindle, and online new and used.
This collection of essays is the ninth volume of the Military Campaigns of the Civil War series, intended to show how “military affairs, civilian experiences, and politics played off one another.” The book does focus on the actions of the leading Union commander Philip H. Sheridan and Confederate commander Jubal A. Early, and their command structures. The campaign was especially important as an example of the ascendance of Union cavalry and the subsequent demoralization of the Confederates.
Sheridan’s militarily successful and agriculturally destructive campaign intensified Confederate resolve among civilians and soldiers in the Valley of Virginia. Individual treatments are given to Union Charles Russell Lowell and the Virginia Pattons who included three Confederate colonels, one the grandfather of WWII General George S. Patton.
To buy “The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864” on Amazon, click here.
Trench Warfare Under Grant and Lee
Earl J. Hess wrote Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign in 2007. It is available from the University of North Carolina Press, on Kindle, Audiobook and online new and used.
In this thorough and technically exhaustive study of field fortifications, Hess studies both the traditional and innovative field fortifications of the Union and Confederate armies, but the engineers who oversaw their design and construction.
During the Union’s Overland Campaign of 1864, both Lee and Grant used entrenchment tactics nightly in a “major shift in the use of field fortifications in the eastern theater”. Grant pursued a strategy of continuous pursuit and engagement. While Lee could not replace losses, Grant’s troops were inexperienced and poorly trained. Nevertheless, Grant was able to maintain the initiative that Lee had once held for two years. Representative illustrations from three hundred battlefields and fortification sites include specific fortifications of the Overland Campaign.
To buy “Trench Warfare Under Grant and Lee” on Amazon, click here.
The Battle of Hampton Roads
Harold Holzer and Tim Mulligan edited The Battle of Hampton Roads: New Perspectives on the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia in 2006. It is available from the Fordham University Press and online new and used.
In this collection of papers presented at a symposium at the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News, Virginia, there is traditional naval history, accounts of technological innovation, interactions of inventors, politicians and sailors, as well as narrative of a battle of strategic significance. Both sides recognized the potential for strategic ironclad dominance over wooden sail ships and both rushed into production. The eventful duel of the two iron clads is complemented with a report of daily life under harsh conditions for the men who sailed in them. The actual engagement was remarkable at the time for lasting hours.
The monitors proliferated into the mouths of every southern harbor to effectively enforce the Union’s blockade of Confederate ports. But just as important as its tactical deployment, there was an international diplomatic impact. The monitors were developed into sea worthy vessels that could “seek and meet” the British wooden sailing ships on the open ocean, reducing the very real threat of British intervention on the side of the Confederacy.
To buy “The Battle of Hampton Roads” on Amazon, click here.
Charlottesville and the Germans
Christian B. Keller wrote Chancellorsville and the Germans: Nativism, Ethnicity, and Civil War Memory in 2007. It is available from the Fordham University Press, and online new and used.
At the battle of Chancellorsville, “Stonewall” Jackson fell upon the Union’s exposed right flank held by the largely German Eleventh Corps. The Germans were held as scapegoats in the popular press, the “Dutch” cowards, “flying Dutchmen”, despite supportive statements by corps commander General O. O. Howard. The nativism the Germans encountered then and following the Civil War had far reaching effects, delaying their ethnic assimilation.
Keller narrates the entire battle, beyond the routing of initially overrun units whose officers had not posted sentries. Large parts of the Eleventh Corps did fight, and they fought well, bringing the surprise assault to a halt, reforming broken regiments under fire, and holding in place long enough for the rest of the Army of the Potomac to react to the Confederate flank attack.
To buy “Charlottesville and the Germans” on Amazon, click here.
Additional history related to Virginia during this time period can be found at the Table of Contents of TheVirginiaHistorian website on the page for Antebellum, Civil War and Reconstruction, 1820-1883. Titles are organized by topics, political and economic Virginia, social history, gender, religious, African American, and Wars in Virginia 1750-1824.
General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.
Note: Insights for these reviews include those available from articles in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the William and Mary Quarterly, the Journal of the Civil War Era, the Journal of Southern History and the Journal of American History.