Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (175 page)

Retrospective accounts of campaigns and battles by participants, first published in
Scribner's Magazine
two decades after the war and then gathered in four large volumes (available today in an inexpensive reprint edition) are Clarence C. Buel and Robert U. Johnson, eds.,
Battles and
Leaders of the Civil War
(New York, 1888, reprint ed. Secaucus, N.J., 1982). The official records of military operations, published a generation or more after the war by the U.S. government, are also accessible today in libraries, second-hand bookstores, and reprint editions: War
of the Rebellion . . . Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies
, 128 vols. (Washington, 1880–1901) and
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion
, 30 vols. (Washington, 1894–1922). The Civil War took place at the dawn of the age of photography, and many thousand wet-plate photographs of soldiers, battlefields, political leaders, and other images of the war have survived and can be viewed in modern publications, most of which also include a fine narrative text to accompany the pictures. See especially Francis T. Miller, ed.,
The Photographic History of the Civil War
, 10 vols. (New York, 1911, reprint ed., 1957); and William C. Davis, ed.,
The Image of War 1861–1865
, 6 vols. (Garden City, N.Y., 1981–84). Another visual aid to understanding Civil War campaigns and battles is maps; the best, with accompanying text, can be found in Vol. I of Vincent J. Esposito, ed.,
The West Point Atlas of American Wars
(New York, 1959). An indispensable reference guide to military operations is E. B. Long,
The Civil War Day by Day. An Almanac 1861–1865
(Garden City, N.Y., 1971). Two essential compilations of the strength, organization, and casualties of Civil War armies are: William F. Fox,
Regimental Losses in the American Civil War
, 1861–1865 (Albany, 1880); and Thomas L. Livermore,
Numbers and
Losses
in the Civil War in America
, 1861–1865 (Boston, 1901).

Of the many hundreds of excellent narratives of campaigns and battles, biographies of generals and of other military leaders, and studies of particular armies, space allows a listing here of only a few outstanding titles in the latter two categories. Brief biographies of all generals on both sides can be found in Ezra J. Warner,
Generals in Gray
(Baton Rouge, 1959) and
Generals in Blue
(Baton Rouge, 1964). One of the true classics of Civil War literature is Douglas Southall Freeman,
R. E. Lee: A Biography
, 4 vols. (New York, 1934–35) which, along with Freeman's
Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command
, 3 vols. (New York, 1942–44), constitute an exhaustive history of the Army of Northern Virginia. Historian Thomas L. Connelly has been the chief critic of Lee for the limitation of his strategic vision to the Virginia theater and the chief chronicler of the Confederacy's principal western army; see Connelly's
The Marble Man: Robert
E.
Lee and His Image in American Society
(New York, 1977), Army
of the Heartland: The Army of Tennessee
,
1861–1862
(Baton Rouge, 1967),
Autumn of Glory: The Army of Tennessee, 1862–1865
(Baton Rouge, 1971), and, with Archer Jones,
The Politics of Command: Factions and Ideas in Confederate Strategy
(Baton Rouge, 1973). A British army officer and historian, G. F. R. Henderson, has contributed an appreciative biography of Stonewall Jackson that is also a fine analysis of Confederate operations in Virginia until Jackson's death:
Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
, 2 vols. (New York, 1898).

On the Union side both T. Harry Williams,
Lincoln and His Generals
(New York, 1952), and Kenneth P. Williams,
Lincoln Finds a General: A Military Study of the Civil War
, 5 vols. (New York, 1949–59), are critical of McClellan and appreciative of Grant as strategic leaders. Bruce Catton's superb trilogy on the Army of the Potomac,
Mr. Lincoln's Army; Glory Road;
and A
Stillness at Appomattox
(Garden City, N.Y., 1951–53), demonstrates the resilience of these Yankee soldiers despite incompetent leadership and defeat. Two books by a British military expert and historian also offer important insights on Grant's strategic prowess: J. F. C. Fuller,
The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant
(London, 1929), and
Grant and Lee: A Study in Personality and Generalship
(London, 1923). The best military biography of Grant is Bruce Catton's two volumes:
Grant Moves South
(Boston, 1960) and
Grant Takes Command
(Boston, 1969). William S. McFeely,
Grant: A Biography
(New York, 1981), is less enlightening on Grant's Civil War leadership. The general's activities can be followed in his own words in his superb
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant
, 2 vols. (New York, 1885); and in John Y. Simon, ed.,
The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant
, 14 vols. (Carbondale, Ill., 1967–85). For important insights on Sherman, the best place to start is Basil H. Liddell Hart,
Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American
(New York, 1929), a shrewd analysis by a British army officer; and Sherman's own
Memoirs ofW. T. Sherman, 2
vols. (2nd ed., New York, 1887). For a fascinating modern analysis of Sherman's philosophy and practice of total war, see James Reston, Jr.,
Sherman and Vietnam
(New York, 1985). Other memoirs by Civil War generals of interest for their intrinsic literary merits or their stance on controversial issues include: George B. McClellan,
McClellan's Own Story
(New York, 1886); Philip H. Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan
, 2 vols. (New York, 1888); Joseph E. Johnston,
Narrative of Military Operations . . . during the Late War between the States
(New York, 1874); James Long-street,
From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War in America
(rev. ed., 1903); and Richard Taylor,
Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War
(New York, 1879).

Numerous historians have implicitly or explicitly addressed the question of why the North won the war—or alternatively, why the South lost. Five different answers were forthcoming in an anthology edited by David Donald,
Why the North Won the Civil War
(Baton Rouge, 1960). Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones cite superior northern management of logistical and other resources to explain in
How the North Won
(Urbana, Ill., 1983); a thesis anticipated by Benjamin P. Thomas and Harold M. Hyman,
Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln's Secretary of War
(New York, 1962). Grady McWhiney and Perry D. Jamieson,
Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage
(University, Ala., 1982), attribute the South's offensive tactics, which bled Confederate armies to death, to cultural factors, while Michael C. C. Adams,
Our Masters the Rebels: A Speculation on Union Military Failure in the East, 1861–1865
(Cambridge, Mass., 1978), cites cultural factors to explain why Union armies almost lost the war in the Virginia theater before importing successful western commanders to apply their strategy in the East. Richard E. Beringer, Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones, and William N. Still, Jr.,
Why the South Lost the Civil War
(Athens, Ga., 1986), are the most recent exponents of the loss of will thesis to explain Confederate defeat.

Although the existing scholarship on conscription in both South and North is not adequate, good places to begin to study this subject are: Albert B. Moore,
Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy
(New York, 1924); and Eugene C. Murdock,
One Million Men: The Civil War Draft in the North
(Madison, 1971). There is a large literature on black soldiers in the war. The pioneering work is Dudley T. Cornish,
The Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army
(New York, 1956). Mary Frances Berry,
Military Necessity and Civil Rights Policy: Black Citizenship and the Constitution, 1861–1868
(Port Washington, N.Y., 1977), measures the impact of black military service on the enactment of postwar equal rights legislation. Robert Durden interweaves an account of the Confederate decision to arm blacks with illustrative documents, in
The Gray and the Black: The Confederate Debate on Emancipation
(Baton Rouge, 1972); while Ira Berlin et al., eds.,
The Black Military Experience
, Series II of
Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation
(Cambridge, 1982) publishes a large number of documents from army records and provides excellent headnotes and introductions. Civil War prisons and the prisoner exchange question badly need a modern historian; William B. Hesseltine's
Civil War Prisons: A Study in War Psychology
(Columbus, Ohio, 1930) is the only comprehensive monograph, while Ovid L. Futch's
History of Andersonville Prison
(Gainesville, Fla., 1968) is the most dispassionate study of that impassioned subject.

Technological innovations produced to meet military needs during the war are the subjects of two studies full of fascinating information: Robert V. Bruce,
Lincoln and the Tools of War
(Indianapolis, 1956); and Milton F. Perry,
Infernal Machines: The Story of Confederate Submarine and Mine Warfare
(Baton Rouge, 1965). The role of railroads is the subject of: George E. Turner,
Victory Rode the Rails
(Indianapolis, 1953); Thomas Weber,
The Northern Railroads in the Civil War
(New York, 1952); and Robert C. Black,
The Railroads of the Confederacy
(Chapel Hill, 1952). Civil War medicine is treated by: Paul E. Steiner,
Disease in the Civil War
(Springfield, Ill., 1968); George W. Adams,
Doctors in Blue: The Medical History of the Union Army in the Civil War
(New York, 1952); and Horace H. Cunningham,
Doctors in Gray: The Confederate Medical Service
(Baton Rouge, 1958). For a basic history of the U. S. Sanitary Commission, see William Q. Maxwell,
Lincoln's Fifth Wheel: The Political History of the United States Sanitary Commission
(New York, 1956). Readers interested in a stimulating interpretation of the Sanitary Commission in the context of wartime transformations in northern attitudes toward other social and cultural issues should consult George M. Frederickson,
The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union
(New York, 1965).

The foreign relations of both Union and Confederacy have attracted a great deal of scholarly attention; among the most useful studies are: David P. Crook,
The North, the South, and the Powers 1861–1865
(New York, 1974); Frank L. Owsley and Harriet C. Owsley,
King Cotton Diplomacy: Foreign Relations of the Confederate States of America
(2nd ed., Chicago, 1959); Ephraim D. Adams,
Great Britain and the American Civil War
, 2 vols. (New York, 1925); Brian Jenkins,
Britain and the War for the Union, 2
vols. (Montreal, 1974–80); and Lynn M. Case and Warren F. Spencer,
The United States and France: Civil War Diplomacy
(Philadelphia, 1970).

A long-influential study of northern politics during the war was T. Harry Williams,
Lincoln and the Radicals
, (Madison, 1941), which stressed ideological conflict within the Republican party. For the now-accepted modification of this view, see Hans L. Trefousse,
The Radical
Republicans: Lincoln's Vanguard for Racial Justice
(New York, 1969), which emphasizes essential Republican agreement in the face of sharp differences with the Democrats. William B. Hesseltine,
Lincoln and the War Governors
(New York, 1948), shows the shift of power from states to the national government to meet the demands of war. Leonard P. Curry's
Blueprint for Modern America: Non-Military Legislation of the First Civil War Congress
(Nashville, 1968) is a careful study of legislation that supplemented the war's revolutionary impact in transforming the United States from a decentralized agrarian republic to an industrial nation. For a study of some of the leaders who helped accomplish this result, see Allan G. Bogue,
The Earnest Men: Republicans of the Civil War Senate
(Ithaca, 1981).

The opposition, loyal and otherwise, is analyzed by: Joel Silbey, A
Respectable Minority: The Democratic Party in the Civil War Era
(New York, 1977); Christopher Dell,
Lincoln and the War Democrats
(Madison, N.J., 1975); Wood Gray,
The Hidden Civil War: The Story of the Copperheads
(New York, 1942), which tends to indict the Peace Democrats as disloyal; and in three books by Frank L. Klement, who sometimes protests too much in his attempt to exonerate the copperheads from all such calumnies:
The Copperheads in the Middle West
(Chicago, 1960);
The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandigham and the Civil War
(Lexington, Ky., 1970); and
Dark Lanterns: Secret Political Societies, Conspiracies, and Treason Trials in the Civil War
(Baton Rouge, 1984). For military arrests and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus to squelch anti-war opposition in the North, see: Dean Sprague,
Freedom under Lincoln
(Boston, 1965); James G. Randall,
Constitutional Problems under Lincoln
(rev. ed., Urbana, Ill., 1951); and Harold M. Hyman, A More
Perfect Union: The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the Constitution
(New York, 1973). The peace issue in 1864 is treated by Edward C. Kirkland,
The Peacemakers of 1864
(New York, 1927); while the in-fighting within the Republican party during the initial stages of the election campaign that year is chronicled by William F. Zornow,
Lincoln and the Party Divided
(Norman, Okla., 1954). The best single place to go for the history and historiography of Lincoln's assassination is William Hanchett,
The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies
(Urbana, 1983).