Showing posts with label american civil war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label american civil war. Show all posts

Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief Review

Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief
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Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief ReviewMany scholars have described Abraham Lincoln's legacy, but surprisingly few have chronicled his role as Commander-in-Chief. Arguably our premier Civil War historian, James McPherson, whose Battle Cry of Freedom won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998, brilliantly remedies this neglect.

"In his conception of military strategy," writes McPherson, "Lincoln was Clausewitzian. The Prussian theorist of war had written that 'the destruction of the enemy's military force is the leading principle of war,' and it "is principally effected only by means of the engagement' that is, by 'hard, tough fighting.'"

Lincoln was often frustrated by his generals' lethargy, especially by George McClellan, a pompous prima donna with a messianic complex who preened himself as being "The Young Napoleon." Strutting about like a bantam rooster, McClellan boasted that he, and he alone, was destined to save the Union. True, by means of seemingly endless formation drills, he whipped the Union army into a formidable fighting force, but then stubbornly refused to budge against the enemy. Whining and complaining, inaccurately, that the Confederate forces arrayed against him were at least twice the size of his Army of the Potomac, he postponed, time and again, an offensive campaign, to which cowardly inactivity Lincoln tartly retorted, "If you don't plan to use the army, may I borrow it for a while?"

Only in the last year of the war did Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, George Henry Thomas, and Philip Henry Sheridan grasp Lincoln's insight that the Union's concentration in time (simultaneous coordinated attacks) trumped the Confederate superiority in space (by using interior lines).

Tried by War is a fascinating narrative not only of Lincoln's prescient military leadership but also a bird's-eye view of the major military encounters of the Civil War. McPherson has written a perceptive and persuasive volume.
About the author: James M. McPherson is the George Henry Davis `86 Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University, where he taught for three decades. He is the bestselling author of numerous books on the Civil War, including Battle Cry of Freedom (which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998), For Cause and Comrades, which won the prestigious Lincoln Prize, and Crossroads of Freedom. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief Overview

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Lincoln on War Review

Lincoln on War
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Lincoln on War ReviewA nice array of Abraham Lincoln's written comments on war as complied by the noted expert on our greatest president, Harold Holzer.
Mr. Holzer keeps his informed introductions to the selected comments brief, wisely allowing Lincoln's clear words to speak for themselves. (I was interested to learn that the weight of current scholarship is now on the side of President Lincoln, not John Hay, as being the author of the famous letter of condolence to Mrs. Bixby.)
This book is not a substitute for reading more comprehensive biographies and histories of the Civil War period, but does provide a handy resource for most all of Abraham Lincoln's recorded thoughts on all that touches upon armed conflict.Lincoln on War Overview

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