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A United States Civil War Center Selection
Review by David Madden
Readers of Civil War military history may find that that Thomas Buell's new book frustrates, in a beneficent way, one's expectations.
Writing in a direct and readable style, "The Warrior Generals" enables us to experience the war through the perspectives of six very different generals, three on each side, from battle to battle. But Buell goes further. He evaluates their conduct as warriors, with key attributes (aristocrat vs. yeoman, for instance). His narrative, shifting year by year from the Eastern to Western theater, is unique and illuminating -- and at moments, quite exhilarating.
The three Northern generals are Grant (the Yeoman), Thomas (the Roman) and Borlon (the Puritan); the three Southern generals are Lee (the Aristocrat), Hood (the Knight Errant) and Gordan (the Cavalier).
Buell knows he will get an argument from those who hold fast to the conventional conviction that the generals of the Confederacy were superior in leadership, overall competency and varied experience. Not so, says Buell. Strategic thinking and the use of modern tactics, not just greater manpower equipped with better and more equipment, were the salient characteristics of Northern leadership. It was not, he argues, Lee but Thomas, the "Rock of Chickamauga," who was the greatest general in the war.
The author of two award-winning books, "The Quiet Warrior" and "Master of Sea Power," Buell takes a different approach to the currently popular, but gradually blurring, focus on Civil War battles and leaders by consistently blending a narrative of the war with evaluations of the military tactics and strategy of these six generals. Buell's inclusion of Barlow, the Last Puritan, brings welcome attention to a general seldom discussed in this company.
The design of the book is excellent, creating a kind of ecosystem of evocative words and sensitively chosen images that other publishers, inclined to bunch a few photographs and drawings in the middle where their effect is diluted, will, one hopes, take as a model. The maps are superior. Even the five appendices and the bibliography further stimulate the emotions, the imagination and the intellect. To put a stop to all this praise, the index, one must admit, is merely an index. But a good one.
David Madden is Director of the United States Civil War Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.
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