In my view, the Civil War is the single most crucial event in the history of United States. During the four-years from 1861-1865, more than 660,000 American soldiers – both Union and Confederate – died or were wounded in the War Between the States, making it the bloodiest conflict ever on the North American continent.
It’s also the most frequently written-about event in American history. In the years since the Civil War ended, it’s estimated that as many as 70,000 books may have been written about the Civil War. Among them: Bruce Catton’s Mr. Lincoln’s Army, Glory Road, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Stillness at Appomattox; James M. McPherson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom; and Shelby Foote’s moving and eloquent triptych The Civil War: A Narrative.
The Civil War: A Narrative, by Shelby Foote, is a powerfully dramatic, highly literate three-volume account of the American Civil War. It’s been described by critics as “…a classic of its kind.” It took Shelby Foote over 16 years and 2,800 pages in three volumes to complete his masterpiece. The Civil War: A Narrative a long journey, but one very well worth taking.
The first volume, entitled Fort Sumter to Perryville, covers the first two years of the war: 1861-1862. Contained in this volume are detailed accounts of the war’s famous early battles: Fort Sumter; the first Battle of Bull Run; the Seven Days; Forts Henry and Donelson (Union victories in the western theater that first brought the name of Ulysses S. Grant to the attention of the public); the naval battle between the union ironclad Monitor and its Confederate counterpart Merrimac; Shiloh; the Shenandoah Valley campaign; and Antietam (a tactical Union defeat but strategic victory that enabled President Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation). Many other important battles are covered in detail as well. Among them: Ball’s Bluff in Virginia; Elkhorn Tavern and Pea Ridge in Missouri; Iuka and Corinth in Mississippi; Chickamauga; and Perryville.
Fort Sumter to Perryville also chronicles the beginnings of the parallel careers of the war’s great antagonists. The book opens with Jefferson Davis resigning from the U.S. Senate in early 1861 and becoming President of the Confederate States of America. At the same time, Abraham Lincoln is entering the nation’s capital in disguise. Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant each step onto history’s stage. Lee, the scion of one of America’s great families, turns down command of the Union armies to take up the Confederate cause on behalf of his beloved home state of Virginia. Grant, a down-and-out hardscrabble farmer, re-enlists in the Union army, becomes a Colonel of Volunteers, and almost immediately begins winning battles in the west.
Lincoln’s unsuccessful search for an effective commanding general is also vividly told in this first volume. Generals Winfield Scott, Irwin McDowell, John Pope, George McClellan, Ambrose Burnside, and Joe Hooker all climb on the leadership merry-go-round; all fail miserably due to their own incompetence. The war continues through 1862 with bloodshed unabated, and an eventual Confederate victory seemingly assured…
The second volume, Fredericksburg to Meriden, covers the year 1863, the year that marks the turning point of the war; the year when the foundation for Union victory is first laid. Fredericksburg to Meriden takes the reader through some of the most famous battles of the war. Throughout the spring and early summer, these battles – Second Bull Run, The Wilderness, Chancellorsville, and Winchester among them – usually end with predictable results: Union defeat at the hands of the Confederates. In the eastern theater, Lee, accompanied by Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet, administer a series of thrashings to Union forces. Lincoln’s search for an effective commander continues: Halleck, Rosecrans, McClellan (again), Meade.
But the tide of battle is slowly beginning to change. Union defeats in the eastern theater are offset by greater Union successes in the west. Grant and General William T. Sherman have won a series of small but significant victories beyond the Appalachians.
On July 1-3, 1863, Lee is soundly beaten at the battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. The Union victory at Gettysburg is the first half of a “one-two punch” that ultimately decides the war’s outcome. The other half comes on that same fateful July weekend at Vicksburg, Mississippi. After a month and a half-long siege there by forces under Grant, the city surrenders; the Mississippi River one again runs “unvexed to the sea…”
Many other battles, large and small, are recounted in Fredericksburg to Meriden, most notably: the Union victory at New Orleans; the battles at Missionary Ridge and Chattanooga in Tennessee; and at Meriden, Mississippi. By the end of this volume, it’s becoming more evident that momentum is beginning to swing in favor of the Union.
Red River to Appomattox is the third volume of The Civil War: A Narrative. It is a chronicle of the war’s final two years, 1864-1865, when Abraham Lincoln finally discovers the general that can lead the Union army to victory. As the book opens, a Union victory is in no way assured. Although the Union armies have won important victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and Missionary Ridge, the Confederates, ably led by Robert E. Lee, are still formidably strong. They’re spoiling for a fight, and they soon get one.
In April 1864, one month after President Lincoln appoints Ulysses S. Grant as General-in-Chief of all Union armies, Grant and his 120,000-man Army of the Potomac cross into Virginia. What follows is the bloodiest campaign of the war, with battles at the Wilderness; Spotsylvania; Cold Harbor; and Petersburg. During this three-month long campaign, Union and Confederate armies inflict over 55,000 casualties on each other. Grant slowly and inexorably moves toward the gates of Richmond… and ultimate Union victory.
Meanwhile, Union forces in Tennessee and Georgia are “putting the squeeze” on the Confederacy from a different direction. General William T. Sherman marches his army south from Chattanooga to Atlanta. In September 1864, Sherman captures Georgia’s largest city. A month later, after razing Atlanta, Sherman and his “bummers” begin a march eastward through Georgia toward Savannah, leaving a path of total devastation behind them.
By March 1865, Sherman has reached Savannah and marched northward from there. His army captures Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina. The city of Mobile, Alabama is in Union hands. In Virginia, Grant’s forces have been besieging Petersburg for nearly nine months. Lee’s forces have been significantly weakened. In a superbly written denouement to this book, Foote describes the final battles of the war: Five Forks; Petersburg; and finally, Appomattox.
I first read all three volumes of The Civil War: A Narrative in 1993 and re-read them in 2009. Both times, it was an immensely enjoyable reading experience. Shelby Foote is a master at weaving the personalities and events of the Civil War into a seamless and often captivating narrative. One of the great beauties of this trilogy is Foote’s ability to hold the reader’s interest for the long haul with his sparkling, almost musical prose.
Shelby Foote has been criticized for factual errors, slipshod research, and incorporating a “Southern bias” into his writing. I found none of these attributes in any of these three volumes. The author’s account of the Civil War is fair, objective, detailed, and historically accurate.
Because Foote is not a professional historian, he doesn’t spend a lot of time analyzing or interpreting the causes and effects of the Civil War. Since this is narrative history, devoting a large number of pages to historical analyses is unnecessary. The Civil War: A Narrative may not the best book to use as a primary resource for academic or scholarly research. Readers who want to learn about how the war was fought, without getting bogged down in why, can find no better books than these.
The Civil War: A Narrative does have a few minor flaws. Although the trilogy is apparently based on solid historical research, Foote did not adhere to established standards of incorporating foot/end notes, and only provided sparse bibliographical references. I would have much preferred to see footnote or endnote citations of the author’s sources and a more comprehensive bibliography. Another complaint: these books definitely would have benefitted from larger maps and more illustrations.
The Civil War: A Narrative is an eloquently written, beautifully textured, colorful, and detailed narrative of the Civil War, and an outstanding work of history. Highly recommended!
