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tarmstrong112's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this, it was great! Sears is an engaging writer and makes history come alive. No stone was left unturned in his history of the Chancellorsville Campaign. I found this book interesting from start to finish, it moved quickly and kept me engaged in the story all the way through. I am very glad I read it.
ncrabb's review against another edition
3.0
I often think about whether it has value to tie books to seasons. We think of vacationers in summer who want something short and relatively mindless. Perhaps some of us think of winter as a time to read those long nonfiction books we've put off all year. For others, there really is no specific season or time to read a particular type of book. We just grab what we think will interest us and carry forward with it regardless of what the calendar says. I'm hopeful that's the case this month. This isn't exactly the kind of book you would think about taking on an airplane trip or to the beach. On the other hand, why not?
I was into this book only a few pages before it began to fascinate me with its numerous facts and circumstances about which I knew little. I make no pretense of being part of the civil war cognoscenti. But I thought I had read enough to at least be almost conversant with what I assumed would be the material in this book. I discovered my woeful ignorance, and I rekindled my insatiable interest in the topic. This book will do that to you. At the very least, it will rekindle your insatiable interest in the topic.
In the earliest chapter of the book, we learn about the horrific state of the army of the Potomac. I had no idea during the winter of 1863 that things were so hopeless. It didn't seem to matter whom Lincoln appointed to the generalship of that army, they failed and failed miserably. But it wasn't just a crisis of leadership that dogged the president and his cabinet. As soon as Lincoln released the Emancipation Proclamation in January of 1863, desertions of Union soldiers took an upward jump. There was a significant sentiment among the Union army that they weren't there to free blacks. And many of them determined then and there that their participation in the war was over. I had no idea how bad it got. This book includes fascinating stories about soldiers who received civilian clothing from the folks back home and simply slipped out of the ranks and rejoined life as civilians. That changed to some degree when Lincoln named fighting Joe Hooker as the commanding general of the Army of the Potomac. But he came with his own troublesome baggage, and his tenure as the head of that army would not last all that long. Still, the author points out that history may have been unfair to Hooker Thinking that perhaps he wasn't quite as prone to drunkenness as his associates claimed.
One of the things that drew my attention was the extreme hunger of the Confederate troops. Robert E. Lee may have gone on the offensive that spring if his forces had full stomachs. But they didn’t, and supplies were tough to get. The rations were pitiful, and I was amazed that there weren’t more desertions. Chapter five looks briefly at the Richmond bread riots and the struggles faced by the civilian population during the time of the battle of Chancellorsville.
You’ll read about miscommunications and Hooker’s bad decisions that forced his forces to fight in the wilderness rather than bringing the battle into the open. Critics claim that one decision made in early May rang the death nell to any Union victory.
Decency and good humor can find lodging in the strangest of circumstances. The book gives the account of two bands—a Union and a Confederate one—being within hearing distance of one another. The Confederates struck up a rendition of “Yankee Doodle,” and the Union band promptly replied with a jaunty arrangement of “Dixie.” Men on both sides cheered when they heard the two songs. In a chapter closer to the back of the book, the author dedicates a paragraph or two to narrow escapes. He described 1 Confederate soldier who dealt with a missing backpack. a Union ball ripped the backpack off the soldier and flung it 40 feet behind him. The Confederate soldier suffered no damage. Other soldiers wrote home describing hats riddled with bullet holes while the head bearing the hat was undamaged. Another man was horrified to see holes ripped in the armpits of his coat by bullets, but he suffered no harm. Still another reported that the seat of his pants was missing probably the result of a narrow escape from a shell. Miraculously enough, the buns the trousers once covered suffered no ill effects. In yet another narrow escape, a Confederate soldier became convinced he was dying when he saw what he thought was blood running from his body. It turned out that a Union bullet had punctured his canteen, and the fluid was not blood but water.
Chapter 11 explores the fate of Stonewall Jackson. You may remember from your own knowledge of civil war history that Jackson died eight days after friendly forces shot him. He had gone out on a night excursion, and a Confederate soldier took him for a Yankee. He lived in a hospital for several days after his shooting. Physicians amputated his arm at the shoulder. He complained occasionally of pain in his side but felt as though he were beginning to recover. He lived long enough to dictate a missive to Robert E. Lee and receive one in return.
The epilogue looks at some of the reasons for the failures associated with Chancellorsville. The book's tone is thoughtful, and it will leave you with a great deal to ponder as you consider the importance of the battle in light of what would happen just over a month later in Pennsylvania.
The only negative I experienced with the book is a circumstance that is unavoidable. I could not always follow appropriately all of the names and places referenced in the book. I think if I had had vision and had been able to flip back and forth between the text and some of the battle maps and other illustrations that are doubtless in the print edition, this would have been much easier for me. As it was, I found myself sometimes frustrated and confused by all the place names and geographic references. Not the author's fault.
I was into this book only a few pages before it began to fascinate me with its numerous facts and circumstances about which I knew little. I make no pretense of being part of the civil war cognoscenti. But I thought I had read enough to at least be almost conversant with what I assumed would be the material in this book. I discovered my woeful ignorance, and I rekindled my insatiable interest in the topic. This book will do that to you. At the very least, it will rekindle your insatiable interest in the topic.
In the earliest chapter of the book, we learn about the horrific state of the army of the Potomac. I had no idea during the winter of 1863 that things were so hopeless. It didn't seem to matter whom Lincoln appointed to the generalship of that army, they failed and failed miserably. But it wasn't just a crisis of leadership that dogged the president and his cabinet. As soon as Lincoln released the Emancipation Proclamation in January of 1863, desertions of Union soldiers took an upward jump. There was a significant sentiment among the Union army that they weren't there to free blacks. And many of them determined then and there that their participation in the war was over. I had no idea how bad it got. This book includes fascinating stories about soldiers who received civilian clothing from the folks back home and simply slipped out of the ranks and rejoined life as civilians. That changed to some degree when Lincoln named fighting Joe Hooker as the commanding general of the Army of the Potomac. But he came with his own troublesome baggage, and his tenure as the head of that army would not last all that long. Still, the author points out that history may have been unfair to Hooker Thinking that perhaps he wasn't quite as prone to drunkenness as his associates claimed.
One of the things that drew my attention was the extreme hunger of the Confederate troops. Robert E. Lee may have gone on the offensive that spring if his forces had full stomachs. But they didn’t, and supplies were tough to get. The rations were pitiful, and I was amazed that there weren’t more desertions. Chapter five looks briefly at the Richmond bread riots and the struggles faced by the civilian population during the time of the battle of Chancellorsville.
You’ll read about miscommunications and Hooker’s bad decisions that forced his forces to fight in the wilderness rather than bringing the battle into the open. Critics claim that one decision made in early May rang the death nell to any Union victory.
Decency and good humor can find lodging in the strangest of circumstances. The book gives the account of two bands—a Union and a Confederate one—being within hearing distance of one another. The Confederates struck up a rendition of “Yankee Doodle,” and the Union band promptly replied with a jaunty arrangement of “Dixie.” Men on both sides cheered when they heard the two songs. In a chapter closer to the back of the book, the author dedicates a paragraph or two to narrow escapes. He described 1 Confederate soldier who dealt with a missing backpack. a Union ball ripped the backpack off the soldier and flung it 40 feet behind him. The Confederate soldier suffered no damage. Other soldiers wrote home describing hats riddled with bullet holes while the head bearing the hat was undamaged. Another man was horrified to see holes ripped in the armpits of his coat by bullets, but he suffered no harm. Still another reported that the seat of his pants was missing probably the result of a narrow escape from a shell. Miraculously enough, the buns the trousers once covered suffered no ill effects. In yet another narrow escape, a Confederate soldier became convinced he was dying when he saw what he thought was blood running from his body. It turned out that a Union bullet had punctured his canteen, and the fluid was not blood but water.
Chapter 11 explores the fate of Stonewall Jackson. You may remember from your own knowledge of civil war history that Jackson died eight days after friendly forces shot him. He had gone out on a night excursion, and a Confederate soldier took him for a Yankee. He lived in a hospital for several days after his shooting. Physicians amputated his arm at the shoulder. He complained occasionally of pain in his side but felt as though he were beginning to recover. He lived long enough to dictate a missive to Robert E. Lee and receive one in return.
The epilogue looks at some of the reasons for the failures associated with Chancellorsville. The book's tone is thoughtful, and it will leave you with a great deal to ponder as you consider the importance of the battle in light of what would happen just over a month later in Pennsylvania.
The only negative I experienced with the book is a circumstance that is unavoidable. I could not always follow appropriately all of the names and places referenced in the book. I think if I had had vision and had been able to flip back and forth between the text and some of the battle maps and other illustrations that are doubtless in the print edition, this would have been much easier for me. As it was, I found myself sometimes frustrated and confused by all the place names and geographic references. Not the author's fault.
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