Decisions at Gettysburg: The Nineteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Campaign

Matt Spruill

The University of Tennessee Press, 2011, 198 pp. + 14 pp. introduction, $24.95

ISBN: 978-1-57233-745-9

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                If there has ever been a constant debate about the Campaign of Gettysburg, it has been the “what ifs” of history.  Many beginner historians oftentimes pose those questions to aid in their critical thinking of the battle itself and since Gettysburg stands as a pinnacle to historical battle analyses, than those “what ifs” of history suit itself here.  In his book Decisions at Gettysburg, Matt Spruill defines what some of the major decisions and repercussions were in the campaign that help to aid in the “what if” struggle of this fateful engagement.  What this book offers are new looks into the grand strategies and the small decisions which would shape the future of the armies.  What he also has done is given a list of what could have happened if other decisions were made.  In the end, this book is a collection of those thoughts and strategies, nineteen to be exact, that shaped what we know today.

                Matt Spruill has authored many battlefield guide books, including Summer Thunder, Summer Lightning, and Winter Lightning.  His work, Summer Thunder, explores the artillery placement throughout the Battle of Gettysburg.  While he is a former licensed battlefield guide at the Gettysburg National Military Park, he is also experienced in leading other battlefield tours as well.  He also served in the armed forces and was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1964 and retired in 1992.

                There are many things right with this book that students of Gettysburg should pay attention to in their studies.  The first major thing which I must say is that the work does not get bogged down in the minutia of regiments along with the over-bloated military terms I have seen in previous works.  Spruill simply defines many of the things which occurred in the campaign which had a lasting effect on how we study the battle today.  He avoids using a standard of analytical military writing which uses tables and charts to help define a point which is undefinable.  Instead, what we get is a coherent statement about the decisions made at Gettysburg which either hindered the Confederacy or aided the Union.  In some cases, they were vise-versa.  The book is separated into five sections, the pre-battle, the three days of combat in separate chapters and the aftermath.  This offers the reader a chance to follow the line of battle instead of ranking the nineteen important decisions out of a timeline.  When talking about the second day of combat, he includes the decisions made at Culp’s Hill, a forgotten section of the battlefield even to this day.  The first day of battle can oftentimes be confusing to readers as to what actually happened, but here in this work, Spruill easily defines the actions taken by the armies that by just analyzing the decisions made on that day, the reader is in full understanding.  In addition to all of this, Spruill includes a lengthy and useful appendix which gives the reader a chance to drive out to the fields and see where these decisions were made along with a view of the action.  Included in this appendix are orders and reports between the commanders so that you are not just reading the decisions, but you are visiting them as well.

                  I recommend this book to the beginner student of the Battle of Gettysburg mainly because it easily defines the decisions made during the campaign that helped to morph this battle into a major Union victory.  I also recommend it to any student of the Civil War because of the simplicity of the work.  I have read other works about strategy and tactics which are filled with military jargon not usually seen in the realm of historical writing.  Knowing his audience, Spruill writes for the historians instead of the select few who could understand his words.  With the addendum of the appendix, this is a welcome addition to any Civil War library.

The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864

John Horn

Savas Beatie, 2015, 374 pp. + 10 pp. introduction, $32.95

ISBN: 978-1-61121-216-7

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                The Siege of Petersburg tends to be one of the more overlooked and overwritten aspects of the American Civil War due to the waning years of the war.  John Horn’s work, The Siege of Petersburg helps to fill in some of the gaps during that lengthy campaign, mainly the battles which surrounded the Weldon Railroad.  Not only is this a strong work which has stood the test of time, it is now available for purchase in a special 150th Anniversary Edition which has been revised and expanded.  This edition has also, as stated in the introduction, been toned down in the realm of footnotes focusing on the direct quotes.  The finished product is a book that has been well polished and is a welcome addition into the annals of history in the world of the Petersburg Campaign.

                John Horn has published numerous articles in many different Civil War publications such as Civil War Times, Illustrated and America’s Civil War.  He has also published other books such as The Destruction of the Weldon Railroad and the Petersburg Campaign.   Along with Hampton Newsome and Dr. John G. Selby, he co-edited Civil War Talk: The Further Reminiscences of George S. Bernard and His Fellow Veterans.  Aside from being an excellent historian, he also practices law and sometimes holds public office.

                I had to laugh when I read the introduction to this book and coming upon Horn’s description of the Petersburg Campaign.  He stated that it was the Rodney Dangerfield of Civil War campaigns: it gets no respect.  Throughout the many books which I have read and reviewed concerning the Petersburg Campaign and its battles in the past year, I have to say that this book is a welcome addition to the collection of works on the event.  Horn leaves no detail unturned and in all reality, goes extremely in depth into the regimental movements of the battle.  This does not deviate from the compelling narrative which fuels this work which is also aided by finely drawn maps.  Horn also breaks down the battles in which he is talking about throughout the chapters especially battles in a complex nature such as Second Deep Bottom.  Almost the entire first half of the book centralizes around the Second Battle of Deep Bottom and it is that attention to detail which makes this work shine.  One of the things which I found to be fascinating was the outlook of the commanders which many have come to revere thanks to their actions at the Battle of Gettysburg.  The situation in which they participated was much different than those three days in July and for some of them it greatly showed.  Certain issues with the command of people such as Francis Barlow and Winfield Scott Hancock gives  the reader a different outlook on the people whom so many consider the heroes of the war just because they stood tall at Gettysburg.  While I have to admit, that I do not own the original edition of this work, but the reprint is done in an excellent format and is quite informative to people who do not entirely know what happened during the fight for the Weldon Railroad.

                I highly recommend this book to the student of the Petersburg Campaign.  The new student to the Civil War might find this book to be a bit daunting due to the attention to detail, but it should not stop them from purchasing and reading this fine book.  John Horn’s new edition of The Siege of Petersburg excels at filling in the gap of what many other histories of the last two years of the war have failed to do.  This is an incredible piece of academia and is a welcome scholarship into the study.      

Lincoln on War: Our Greatest Commander in Chief Speaks to America

Edited by Harold Holzer

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2011, 306 pp. + 28 pp. introduction, $24.95

iSBN: 978-1-56512-378-6

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                In the studies of Abraham Lincoln, the name of Harold Holzer stands tall among other historians.  He has written more books about Lincoln than any other author in our generation.  This work, Lincoln on War is a compilation of the many statements Lincoln had made on the subject of war throughout his career.  These installments have been edited by Mr. Holzer and organized into sections of his pre-presidential career and then into small areas of his presidency going all the way to his death.  However, this work sometimes falls flat and the editorials of Mr. Holzer is lacking in details.

                Harold Holzer is one of the country’s leading historians on Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War era.  He is the recipient of numerous awards including the National Humanities Medal.  He has written for numerous publications such as The New York Times, American Heritage and America’s Civil War.  Some of his previous works have been Lincoln at Cooper Union, The Battle at Hampton Roads  with Tim Mulligan and his newest work Lincoln and the Press which has just won recent Lincoln Prize.  Holzer has also served as the chairman of the United States Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation.

                When I picked this book up, I’m not sure what I was expecting.  I had hoped that this would be a coherent analysis from an editorial standpoint on the works of Lincoln concerning both the Civil War and war as a subject itself.  In the end, many of these little speeches and quibs tended to be nothing but just responses for what had recently happened.  There is no analysis on what Lincoln truly thought about war in general.  One of the examples in the work is a letter to Pennsylvania governor Andrew Curtain about readying the state of Pennsylvania for war in 1861.  The statement is only one line of text and while that is important to the defense of the state, it has nothing to do with Lincoln and his thoughts on war.  What does a simple one sentence statement make about Lincoln’s thoughts on war and, more importantly, what does it have to do with the subtitle of the work?  I think, had this book been marketed differently, that it should have been labelled as the subtitle of the work compiled of speeches of Lincoln speaking to the people.  When editorials throughout the text are offered, they do little to add to the discussion about Lincoln and the fight for the Union.  Some of the editorials only go so far to introduce the text and give a small context on what is going on. 

                There are a handful of historians in the realm of the American Civil War who feel that they are no longer answerable to anyone due to the pedigree of the work which has come before.  I really enjoy some of Harold Holzer’s works, but this book straddles the edge of what is reasonable to put into a book.  There is a feeling that maybe Holzer wanted to compile a collection of letters and speeches which he liked and put them together.  Writing such as this comes off as lazy in the larger scheme of things and there is hope from this Civil War reviewer that his new book strives to perfect his career on Lincoln and erase the stain of Lincoln on War.  I do not recommend this book to anyone interested in Abraham Lincoln or the Civil War because most of the text within the book has already been mentioned in better cohesive collections of Lincoln’s work.  

366 Days in Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency

Stephen A. Wynalda

Skyhorse Publishing, 2010, 590 pp. + 28 pp. Introduction, $29.95

ISBN: 978-1-60239-994-5

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                There have been endless amounts of books written about Abraham Lincoln and his presidency both from the angles of the good and the bad, so this book is another additive to the collection.  Throughout this book, there are many examples of what Lincoln went through in the political, private and militaristic realm of his career but some of these stories attempt to bring about a conclusion which is not reality.  What this book does is write a myriad of human interest stories throughout his tenure as president and president elect without any form of a narrative.  There are many types of books which show the drama and humor of human interest stories, but this book fails to bring about a connection between all of them.

                Stephen A. Wynalda is a journalist, a freelance writer and an avid Civil War researcher.  He is also the author of many works of fiction which has given him a nomination for the Pushcart Prize.  While this is the description of the author on the back flap of the book, I found no trace of his fiction works in the database of goodreads and the only book listed in his name is this work on Lincoln. 

                I’m not sure what I was hoping for in this book but as I looked through the table of contents, I began to realize that the book was just filled with human interest stories from 1860 until 1865.  As the text goes on, there are 84 interruptions of stories of people who viewed Lincoln from the outside instead of a story told about Lincoln himself.  Abraham Lincoln loved telling stories so I began to realize that maybe this collection of human interest stories would add to the lexicon of Lincoln, but I was wrong.  I had heard of these stories before and I had read all of the outside stories as well.  It has become more and more clear to be when it comes to the life of Lincoln that there are certain historians who have the gravitas to deal with the figure of a man such as this and there are authors who struggle with the man.  Lincoln is no easy figure to deal with and this book is incredible proof of that.  This book added nothing to the study of Lincoln and the people who surrounded him.  However, if I were to have this book on my coffee table, there would be a decent reasoning for this collection to be around.  This book serves as a conversation piece instead of a scholarly writing.  So to say that there is no reason to own this book is ridiculous.  It does serve a purpose much like books on Civil War photography and artwork which has graced coffee tables all over the country.

                So in what regards would I recommend this book?  I would recommend it only to the new Civil War student who wishes to know some of the human interest stories of Lincoln and have not read any coherent work on Lincoln yet in their lives.  I do not recommend this book to the accomplished Civil War student and scholar since there is no new information here for them to learn.  The narrative sometimes feels very stilted and gives off a “too the point” ideal of writing instead of a well sourced book.  In conclusion, while this book does not have a purpose in the accomplished Civil War student’s library, it does have some purposes for other Civil War beginners.  

The Enigmatic South Toward Civil War and its Legacies

Edited by Samuel C. Hyde, Jr.

Louisiana State University Press, 2014, 244 pp. + 10 pp. Introduction, $42.50

ISBN: 978-0-8071-5694-0

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                Throughout the collection of essays portrayed in The Enigmatic South, the outlooks from the contributors present a myriad of interesting topics.  From politics to religion along with perspectives on education, the contributors of these essays show the major changes in the south before, during and after the American Civil War.  While there have been many studies in the different parts of the effects of war in the south, these essays showcase something new in the world of Civil War academia.  While many would consider these essays Lost Cause Historiography without even reading the work, they are not so.  While most studies of the south tend to look at the effect of the war during Reconstruction, this collection shows every major aspect of the south throughout the entirety of Civil War studies.

                The contributors to these essays are Christopher Childers who writes an essay about States Rights after the controversies and politics of Missouri’s Slavery.  Sarah L. Hyde writes about the education developments of the Antebellum south in the Gulf states.  Julia Huston Nguyen writes of religion and mainly Clergymen in Louisiana during secession.  George C. Rable writes an essay on Clement L. Vallandingham.  Paul F. Paskoff writes about the wealthy southerners who fought in the war in an intriguing title called “Rich Man’s War.”  John M. Sacher writes of Jefferson Davis and the conscription of Confederates.  Richard Follett writes about the career of Pierre Champomier.  Samuel C. Hyde, Jr., the editor of the collection, writes about the Bowling Green Plantation and Wilkinson County.  Eric H. Walther writes about William Lowndes Yancey and the way he wrote and obscured history.  Lastly, Gaines M. Foster writes of William J. Cooper.  As the editor, Samuel C. Hyde, Jr., is the Leon Ford Professor of History at Southeastern Louisiana University.  He is also the author of several other Civil War works including Pistols and Politics: The Dilemma of Democracy in Louisiana’s Florida Parishes, 1810-1899.

                As stated earlier, one of the nice things about this collection is the fact that there are three parts to the work: Antebellum, The Civil War, and Reconstruction.  It was a breath of fresh air since most books on the Antebellum south tends to pay more attention to politics than to the other major points of society during that period.  While reading Nguyen’s essay about religion and Clergymen during the secession crisis, showed that even though preachers used the pulpit to expose their own political beliefs, they were able to use the pulpit to enable the soldiers to think very much the same as them.  One of the preachers in which she mentioned talks about the statement of defenders of their God and their way of life which used religion in order to aid the Confederate cause.  Sarah Hyde’s essay on education was particularly interesting when talking about the different types of schooling.  From private schools to home schools, they were all determined on the way in which society was placed; if homes were more spread out, than the education system would more likely be home schooled.  Paskoff’s essay about the “Rich Man’s War” not only used modern research to prove his point, but used well labelled and easy to read tables to aid in his thesis.  While I do not have the time to go over every essay in the collection, I should say that they are all excellent works on the analysis of the south from the Antebellum Period to the Reconstruction Period.

                I highly recommend this work to anyone interested in the American Civil War and anyone interested in the evolution of Southern Culture throughout American History.  The Enigmatic South is an excellent collection of essays which bring about new scholarship to the study of Southern Culture during the Antebellum period through the Reconstruction.  What these contributors have brought about in this collection should aid future historians in the understanding of the south during the Civil War period.  It is my hope that these essays will be used to further understanding the people of the south for years to come.  I applaud all the contributors of this work and hope that we see more works by them in the coming future.