Abraham Lincoln: The Enigmatic President

    Bitterly Divided: The South's Inner Civil War by David Williams  Bitterly Divided by David Williams makes sense. If the political establishment in a bunch of states decided to secede, there would obviously be inhabitants who retained a stronger loyalty to the United States of America. After all, they had been proud U.S. citizens for their entire lives. I bet you saw a but coming. The but is that although Williams presents voluminous evidence of insurgence within the CSA, it is not clear that it materially hampered the Confederacy’s war efforts until the last year or so. The catchphrase, ‘rich man’s war, poor man’s fight,’ may have been a truism, but Southern men continued to fight until victory became hopeless or they received news from home that their families were starving. Williams contends that slaveholders masterminded the war, but, for the most part, non-slaveholders fought it. Three-fourths of southern whites owned no slaves, so arithmetic alone proves Wi...

  Mr. Lincoln’s High-Tech War: How the North Used theTelegraph, Railroads, Surveillance Balloons, Ironclads, High-Powered Weapons,and More to Win the Civil War Thomas B. Allen & Rodger MacBride Long title and a bit of a misnomer because this book also deals with the  use of technology by the  Confederate States of America. Granted, the Confederacy was limited by its scarce industrial capability, but it focused what it had on its navy, including the first ironclad in combat and the first submarine. Both were effective when let out of the barn, but neither lasted much beyond their first engagement. That’s the way it goes with military innovation; failures often precede a workable design. Most people view the American Civil War as a series of bloody battles fought with muskets and cannons. It all looks so backward from a modern perspective. In truth, the American Civil War changed warfare dramatically through technological advances. Before the Civil War, Napoleon de...

  Dixie Betrayed, How the South Really Lost the Civil War  by Davis J. Eicher To understand the Civil War period, it is necessary to study the war from both sides. Dixie Betrayed by Davis J. Eicher provides the view from the Confederate side. Dixie Betrayed is a different book than the title implies. The last words of Eicher’s book are “Jefferson Davis had lost his power as Confederate president — but not before the whole cause of the Confederacy was lost. Dixie was Betrayed.”  The title and these final words actually betray the worth of this book.  Nearly twenty thousand books have been written about Lincoln and almost a hundred thousand about the Civil War. Less than an estimated twenty percent of these were written from a Confederate perspective, and many of those were Lost Cause screeds. Since the Confederacy lost, official documents were often destroyed, requiring historians to rely on sources like newspapers, letters, and memoirs—and these are not nearly as w...

  Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William T Sherman   In turns fascinating and boring. General Sherman wrote a valuable memoir for historians, but too much minutia for the casual Civil War buff. Sherman includes innumerable orders and other correspondence and describes his entire command structure every time there is a significant change or battle. Although historians, especially military historians, will find this invaluable, it can often be dull reading. Sherman frequently allows these documents to tell the story without presenting a description in his narrative. This means the reader must at least review the correspondence to gain a sense of the events. Disappointedly, Sherman seldom shares his opinions or even thoughts about significant issues. It’s sort of the Jack Webb version of his life. When Sherman does express an opinion, it’s pure gold, especially the chapter when he recounts what he believes are the military lessons from the Civil War.

  Abraham Lincoln and The Second American Revolution  by James M. McPherson This book is a collection of seven essays on the Civil War. Originally, these essays were lecture notes. They are well-written and thoughtful. The common theme is that the Civil War was a second revolution because it brought revolutionary transformations to the country and was followed by a counter-revolution a couple of decades after Appomattox. Each essay covers a single premise and can be read separately. Slavery divided the nation in 1787 and severed the country in 1860. Many have said that the Civil War settled the key issue that the Constitutional Convention kicked down the road. Did the Civil War finish the Founders’ work or was it in and of itself revolutionary? Read Abraham Lincoln and The Second American Revolution and decide for yourself. Ending slavery in the United States was horrendously difficult. It took a four-year war with about 620,000 deaths. The politics were byzantine, and t...

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald Lincoln by David Herbert Donald is worthy of all the praise and awards it has received. As the cover exclaims, Lincoln was a New York Times Bestseller, the book won the Lincoln Prize, and Donald had previously won the Pulitzer Prize twice. Published in 1995, it was called the best single-volume biography of Lincoln to date and can arguably still claim that distinction. Donald’s book title indicates that he had nothing less in mind. Merely, Lincoln , with no subtitle. All of this acclaim does not mean the book is flawless. I read a trade paperback edition that was 600 pages long, with another 114 pages of back matter. I hadn’t seen paper so thin since the Bible. I constantly checked page numbers to ensure I hadn’t flipped two pages by mistake. Yes, the book is comprehensive, thorough, and encyclopedic. Yet never boring. Donald’s writing is clean and unadorned. He does not intrude on Lincoln’s story, and it is such a good story that the reader is pulled t...

  Bitterly Divided: The South's Inner Civil War by David Williams Bitterly Divided by David Williams makes sense. If the political establishment in a bunch of states decided to secede, there would obviously be inhabitants who retained a stronger loyalty to the United States of America. After all, they had been proud U.S. citizens for their entire lives. I bet you saw a but coming. The but is that although Williams presents voluminous evidence of insurgence within the CSA, it is not clear that it materially hampered the Confederacy’s war efforts until the final year or so. The catchphrase, ‘rich man’s war, poor man’s fight,’ may have been a truism, but Southern men continued to fight until victory became hopeless or they received news from home that their families were starving. Williams contends that slaveholders masterminded the war, but, for the most part, non-slaveholders fought it. Three-fourths of southern whites owned no slaves, so arithmetic alone proves Williams correct. S...