Robert E. Lee

Review: Gettysburg: The Last Invasion

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Gettysburg

Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, Allen C. Guelzo. New York: Knopf, 2013.

Summary: An account of the three day battle at Gettysburg, the personalities, key turning points, battlefield topography, and movement by movement narratives that both zoom out and come up close in describing the unfolding of the battle.

There are scores of accounts of the confrontation between Union and Confederate forces for a three day battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1-3, 1863. Allen C. Guelzo’s account, written on the 150th anniversary of the battle has to rank among the best. Guelzo directs the Civil War Era Studies program at Gettysburg College, which means he resides on the site of the battle. I know of no book that reflects such an intimate acquaintance with the topography of Gettysburg, whether it be the two hills that make up Culp’s Hill, Sherfy’s Peach Orchard, or Little Round Top, or even the locations of fences, that made advances more difficult. At Gettysburg, topography was a critical factor on all three days, and Guelzo helps us see how strategic choices, topography, and leadership in battle all contributed to the outcome.

The book is organized into four parts, one for the decisions and movements leading up to the battle, and one for each day. It’s clear that neither Lee nor Meade had “planned” to fight at Gettysburg. Meade had only taken command three days earlier and wanted to gather his army behind Pipe Creek, positioning him between Lee and Washington, a strong position to receive an attack. Lee wanted to scare the North into negotiating, as well as secure much needed supplies for his army. If he could defeat a spread out army in detail, he would take that chance, but without scouting from Stuart’s cavalry, absent on a ride around the Union forces, he was guessing.

When lead elements of his forces engaged Union troops under Reynolds and Howard, he thought he had his chance. The Union leaders barely were right that they could get the rest of the army there ahead of the Confederates. On such calculations the battle swayed back and forth all three days. Guelzo traces these through the battle’s three days: Howard’s decision to leave troops on Cemetery Hill and Ewell’s decision not to attack this thinly held position the first night, Longstreet’s delayed movements on the second day and Dan Sickle’s near fatal advance of his troops to the Peach Orchard, the last minute decisions of Warren and Joshua Chamberlain’s stand that held Little Round Top and the near rolling up of the Union position by Barksdale’s Mississippians, and the fierce resistance of Alexander Hays troops redeeming their ignominious defeat at Harpers Ferry.

Particularly as I read the second day’s account, I found myself on the edge of my seat wondering how the Union managed to hold on. It seemed to me that if Longstreet had attacked a little sooner, and had a bit more support, that the Army of the Potomac could have been shattered. In all this, Meade comes off rather poorly, letting Sickles take a weak position that opened a gap in the rest of his lines, promoting fellow McClellanite John Newton over Abner Doubleday for command of the 1st Division, and preparing for retreat while Winfield Scott Hancock moved troops into gaps, holding Cemetery Ridge and Hill. After they had held the position, according to Guelzo, Meade wanted to retreat and was overruled by his generals.

Then there is the third day and the perennial question of “why Pickett’s charge?” Guelzo reminds us of the military precedents for the success of such charges that may have been in Lee’s mind. Again we grasp what a near run thing this was as Armistead reaches the high water mark of momentarily seeing no one in front of him, only to fall. Had the artillery barrage been more effective, had Pickett more support, much more support, I would venture, the outcome might have been different.

Beyond understanding the outcome of the battle, Guelzo takes us inside the battle. We hear what soldiers are talking about as they wait to give or receive attacks, we witness the incongruity of fierce fighting and human compassion between opposing soldiers, and the gore of war, as brains spatter, limbs are torn off, and men are eviscerated. We read of the primitive surgeries, piles of limbs stacked up, and no infection measures.

Guelzo also helps us understand the politics in the Army of the Potomac that undermined Lincoln’s efforts to defeat Lee. As already noted Meade was a sympathizer with McClellan who wanted a negotiated settlement that likely would have preserved the Confederacy, and he promoted accordingly. Meade was satisfied to drive Lee back across the Potomac when he had an opportunity to defeat him, prolonging the war and the loss of lives (unlike abolitionist John Reynolds, who was spoiling for a fight, and whose aggressive actions precipitated the battle where he would lose his life).

This is a great book to read in conjunction with a battlefield visit. There is something for both Civil War aficionados and those reading their first account of the battle. Most of all, he helps us understand why this battle was “the last invasion” and just what a near run thing it was.

Review: Lee’s Lieutenants (One Volume Abridgement)

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Lee's Lieutenants

Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command (One Volume abridgement), Douglas Southall Freeman, abridged by Stephen W. Sears. New York: Scribner, 1998.

Summary: Stephen Sears abridged version of Douglas Southall Freeman’s three volume study of the military leadership of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee.

Most of the reading I’ve done of Civil War history has either focused on the ups and downs of the Union’s military leadership, or covered different battles looking at what both sides are doing. The unique thing Douglas Southall Freeman did in this landmark work was study in detail the military leadership of the generals who served under Robert E. Lee, battle by battle throughout the Civil War.  Stephen W. Sears, noted Civil War historian abridged this work to one volume, deleting the fourteen appendices Freeman included and condensing the battle accounts, often detailed in other histories. What remains is a focused study of Confederate military history.

We see the rise of Lee, with the patchy, uneven performance of Beauregard, and the conflicts between Joe Johnston and Jefferson Davis. We see the efforts of Lee to weld the leadership of Jackson, Longstreet, Ewell, and cavalryman Jeb Stuart into the powerful fighting force that moved from uncoordinated performances on the Peninsula to a brief shining moment of indisputable glory at Chancellorsville, with Jackson’s brilliantly executed flank attack on the Union right.

That brings us to the sad tale that runs through this book, of tragic losses of irreplaceable commanders, foremost of whom was Stonewall Jackson. The army at Chancellorsville was just not the same a few months later at Gettysburg. The butcher’s bill continued, with the loss of great commanders like Dorsey Pender, Dodson Ramseur, Jeb Stuart, down to Powell Hill in the final defense of Petersburg. Much of the narrative describes Lee’s efforts to cobble together the needed leadership from those who rose within the ranks as shining examples of leadership through the fighting.

We see the rise of leaders like John B. Gordon, William Mahone, Wade Hampton, Robert Rodes and others. Some like Gordon and Mahone made it to the end while others like Rodes met their death on the battlefield. We see the decline of others like Richard Ewell, who after an amputation never was the same. And we have accounts of the “unlucky” commanders, often through no fault of their own, who ended up in the middle of losing actions. Probably the steadiest of all was Henry Heth. The most notable of all was George Pickett whose troops were decimated at Gettysburg through no fault of his own and at Five Corners at the very end of the war, while he was enjoying a shad bake.

The other category of commanders were those who were neither brilliant nor bad but consistently did their duty and led their men. Dick Anderson, Jubal Early, Powell Hill (when he wasn’t ill), and most of all, Longstreet, were in this category. All but Hill survived the war.

The other thing this study of war brought out was the tension between strategy and “the fog of war” when commanders have to make decisions on incomplete information. Ewell’s hesitation of pressing the attack on Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg on Day One of the fighting was the classic example. Stuart’s calvary hadn’t returned from its raid and Ewell, not knowing what he was facing allowed the Union to establish its foothold. Others, like Jackson made key decisions to reinforce troops at places like Antietam that made the difference between victory and defeat.

Perhaps the most striking thing about Lee was his ability to weld these different personalities together and, for a season, to overcome the disadvantages facing the Confederacy while maintaining the support of Jefferson Davis, a difficult president at best under whom to serve.

I suspect there are more recent studies that have refined this work. But for its scope, this continues to be a magnificent work, served well by this abridgement by Sears. A must read for any Civil War buff!

 

 

Review: Crucible of Command

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Crucible of CommandCrucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee–The War They Fought, The Peace They Forged, by William C. Davis. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2015.

Summary: This is a dual biography of Grant and Lee that studies their contrasting origins and yet similar qualities of command through back and forth narratives covering similar periods leading to their climactic confrontation, the peace they established, and its aftermath.

Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee have been the subjects of numerous biographies, including Grant’s own memoirs. What distinguishes this book is that it attempts, and I think, succeeds in rendering parallel accounts of these two men’s lives who met first in Mexico and finally at Appomattox Courthouse (and once later when Grant was President).

Davis traces their contrasting childhoods and characters. Lee was the Virginia patrician who loved his home state and rarely traveled from it except on assignments. By contrast, Grant was the merchant’s son who moved around, wanted to see the world and was a failure at everything except leading men in battle. Both were educated at West Point, Lee at the top of his class, Grant in the lower half. They briefly encountered each other in the 1840’s during the U.S. invasion of Mexico. In the years leading up to the Civil War Lee struggled with resolving the Custis estate while Grant struggled through a series of failed business ventures, finally working in his brother’s store in Galena, Illinois.

When war comes, Grant re-joins the army, commanding troops in Kentucky and Tennessee. Lee resigns his commission, and after serving as an assistant to President Davis, eventually gains command of the Army of North Virginia, which he leads for the remainder of the war. We see both learning to command large forces. Grant in his tactical defeat at Belmont, his victories at Forts Henry and Donelson and near disaster at Shiloh. Lee’s first command is in western Virginia where he is defeated at the battle of Cheat Mountain. What is clear about both is that they learn from mistakes, develop command staffs around them they can trust and win a series of striking victories that ultimately bring them opposite one another in the campaigns of 1864-1865 where the Union’s overwhelming superiority eventually outflanks and surrounds Lee. We discover hardening resolves, of Lee against the Union even while he extricates himself from slave-holding, and Grant from an indifference to the issue of slavery to increased support of emancipation and the capabilities of black soldiers.

The author also explores the political realities each faced and their skill in handling this. Lee learned through constant communication to win the trust of Davis who easily could have micromanaged the war. Grant had to deal with political generals and a sometimes hostile press. Part of the success of both men was their skill in navigating the political realities that military leaders cannot be ignorant of.

While reading this book, I forgot the last phrase in the subtitle–“the peace they forged.” This book does not stop with the dignified surrender of Lee nor the magnanimity of Grant in allowing the Confederates to return home with their horses and side arms. It explores the subsequent years and the efforts both made to promote reconstruction, efforts subsequently frustrated. And both men die in their early 60s, after serving as Presidents, Lee of a college, Grant of a country.

William C. Davis interweaves the narratives of the two lives skillfully, and while we see differences between the two men, we see two great military leaders, formed by common training and experience, coping with similar exigencies of war. Davis observes that in some ways, Lee has fared the better of the two, mostly because of the corruption in Grant’s administration. But it seems that, while on opposite sides, they were a pair of shining stars of equal brightness. And for the reader interested in biography who thinks they must choose between these great lights, Davis has provided the alternative of discovering them together.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher as an ebook via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”