Mr. Lincoln's Army
The first thing I'll say in regard to Mr. Lincoln's Army, Bruce Catton's first volume in what became his Army of the Potomac trilogy (not to be confused with his Centennial History of the Civil War trilogy), is that I find it really irritating to discover that a classic work that I've just read for the first time is, dammit, out of print. I had my wife give me the first and second volumes of the trilogy as presents, after I read, and loved, the third volume. She had to resort to a POD publisher for this volume, and now not even it is available, except in used editions.
I should have read this twenty years ago, or more, but I mistakenly thought that it would just be a bulkier version of the more famous trilogy, which I read as a youngster, and read again in my 20s. Wrong. Completely different focus. This is a bit more like Shelby Foote for lyric style and focus on characters and their difficult decisions. It is filled with color details taken from regimental histories, and does not disdain to give a page to the fistfight that broke out between two soldiers near the end of Fredericksburg. That fistfight tells you a bit more about what that war was like than almost anything, but who is going to mention that in the middle of a narration about a massive slaughter?
But I'm getting ahead of myself, because that bit is in the second volume, which I've already started.
I was puzzled, at first, because this volume begins at the end of the Peninsular Campaign, with McClellan slowly feeding his troops back up to the Potomac, and refusing to really provide any aid to Pope. But that's not the temporal beginning, because Catton's strategy was to show you McClellan's best moment as a general, pulling the defeated remnants of the Army together after Second Manassas and reinvigorating them for what became the Antietam campaign. It really was a triumph of restoring morale, and puts a finger on one of the irrational elements of military history: that victory or defeat, and their consequences, are more in the minds of the foot-soldiers than they are in the statistics. It's a central theme of all three volumes, that the army has a personality of its own, and should be studied as a historical character, just as much as the generals.
This volume covers the McClellan phase of the Army of the Potomac, and ends with him being replaced by Burnside.
CBsIP: (400 pages of student manuscripts)
Life of the Empress Josephine, anonymous (Cecil B. Hartley?)
Late Wife, Claudia Emerson
Exploration Fawcett: Journey to the Lost City of Z, Percy Fawcett
I should have read this twenty years ago, or more, but I mistakenly thought that it would just be a bulkier version of the more famous trilogy, which I read as a youngster, and read again in my 20s. Wrong. Completely different focus. This is a bit more like Shelby Foote for lyric style and focus on characters and their difficult decisions. It is filled with color details taken from regimental histories, and does not disdain to give a page to the fistfight that broke out between two soldiers near the end of Fredericksburg. That fistfight tells you a bit more about what that war was like than almost anything, but who is going to mention that in the middle of a narration about a massive slaughter?
But I'm getting ahead of myself, because that bit is in the second volume, which I've already started.
I was puzzled, at first, because this volume begins at the end of the Peninsular Campaign, with McClellan slowly feeding his troops back up to the Potomac, and refusing to really provide any aid to Pope. But that's not the temporal beginning, because Catton's strategy was to show you McClellan's best moment as a general, pulling the defeated remnants of the Army together after Second Manassas and reinvigorating them for what became the Antietam campaign. It really was a triumph of restoring morale, and puts a finger on one of the irrational elements of military history: that victory or defeat, and their consequences, are more in the minds of the foot-soldiers than they are in the statistics. It's a central theme of all three volumes, that the army has a personality of its own, and should be studied as a historical character, just as much as the generals.
This volume covers the McClellan phase of the Army of the Potomac, and ends with him being replaced by Burnside.
CBsIP: (400 pages of student manuscripts)
Life of the Empress Josephine, anonymous (Cecil B. Hartley?)
Late Wife, Claudia Emerson
Exploration Fawcett: Journey to the Lost City of Z, Percy Fawcett