Themes of the American Civil War
Chapters 6, 7, 8, 15. Political and Military Leaders
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| Chapters 6, 7, 8, 15. Political and Military Leaders On the Civil War’s leaders—military and political—the wealth of literature can, again, be daunting. Before launching into the detailed historiographical debates over Lincoln, Davis or Lee, look at Richard J. Carwardine, Lincoln: Profiles in Power (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2003, repr. as Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power (New York Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), William J. Cooper, Jr., Jefferson Davis American (2000, repr. New York Random House, and Brian Holden Reid, Robert E. Lee Icon fora Nation (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, In contrast to Lincoln, around whom a veritable cottage industry has developed that with the anniversary of his birth in 2009 is only likely to crank up its efforts still further, Jefferson Davis has received relatively little attention from historians. Prior to William Cooper’s biography, the most balanced 372 • Guide to Further Reading view of the Confederate President was William C. Davis, Jefferson Davis The Man and his Houri (New York Harper Collins, 1991), an accessible volume, useful for students and general readers alike. Woodworth’s volume, noted above, on Jefferson Davis and his Generals, places Davis in the broader context of Confederate command difficulties, while Paul D. Escott’s After Secession: Jefferson Davis and the Failure of Confederate Nationalism (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1978) is worth reading in conjunction with the works on Confederate/Southern nationalism detailed above. A useful study of the President’s relationship with his leading general is provided by Steven E. Woodworth, Davis and Lee at War (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, On Abraham Lincoln, there are several good biographies that would suit students and general readers. Apart from Carwardine, mentioned above, David Donald’s Lincoln (New York Simon & Schuster, 1995), and Phillip S. Paludan, The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (Lawrence, KS University Press of Kansas, 1994), both provide excellent analyses of their subject, although, in contrast to Paludan’s emphasis on Lincoln’s conjoined goals of saving the Union and effecting the abolition of chattel slavery in the United States, Donald’s biography presents Lincoln as less active, more reactive, as far as the issue of slavery was concerned. On this subject, the best starting point is LaWanda Cox, Lincoln and Black Freedom A Study in Presidential Leadership (Columbia, SC University of South Carolina Press, 1981), and Robert W. Johannsen, Lincoln, the South, and Slavery (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1991). Several essay collections develop and explore the many moral and practical issues of the Lincoln presidency and the Civil War, including James M. McPherson, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution (New York and Oxford Oxford University Press, Gabor S. Borritt, ed, Lincoln the War President (New York Oxford University Press, 1992), and John L. Thomas, ed, Abraham Lincoln and the American Political Tradition (Amherst, MA University of Massachusetts Press, 1986). The broader themes of Lincoln’s wartime actions and postwar legacy are explored in two excellent studies by Mark E. Neely, Jr, The Fate of Liberty Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (New York Oxford University Press, 1991) and The Last Best Hope of Earth Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America (Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press, 1993); this latter theme is explored from the perspective of the famous Gettysburg Address in Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg The Words that Remade America (New York Simon & Schuster, 1992). Indeed, anyone wishing to pursue the themes raised in the chapter in this volume has a wealth of recent scholarship to choose from on Lincoln’s public statements concerning the war and its broader meaning for America two recent studies focus on the famous Second Inaugural, James Tackach, Lincoln’s Moral Vision The Second Inaugural Address (Jackson, MS University Press of Mississippi, Guide to Further Reading • 373 2002), and Ronald C. White, Lincoln’s Greatest Speech The Second Inaugural (2002, repr. New York Simon & Schuster, 2006), while Gabor Borritt, in The Gettysburg Gospel The Lincoln Speech Nobody Knows (New York Simon & Schuster, 2006) analyzes, in minute detail, what Lincoln said at Gettysburg and why he said it. Finally, linking Lincoln to the issue of secession is Russell McClintock’s Lincoln and the Decision for War The Northern Response to Secession (Chapel Hill, NC University of North Carolina Press, 2008), while Brian R. Dirck’s Lincoln and Davis Imagining America (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1991) explores the contrasting national (and nationalist) visions of the Presidents of the Union and the Confederacy, respectively. This volume does not address individual military leaders as such, but anyone wishing to pursue the themes raised in the chapters on the nature of the war and on command and leadership may wish to look at work on Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. For Grant, the best place to start is his own Personal Memoirs (1885/86: London Penguin edn., 1999), and then the two early studies by J. F. C. Fuller, The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant (London: John Murray, 1929) and Grant and Lee A Study in Personality and Generalship (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1933) are well worth turning to, as are Bruce Catton’s three works on the General U. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (Boston, MA Little Brown, 1954), Grant moves South (Boston, MA Little Brown, 1960), and Grant Takes Command (Boston, MA: Little Brown, 1969). The more recent studies of Grant as a military leader include the works by Brooks D. Simpson, Let Us Have Peace Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861–1868 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), and Ulysses S. Grant Triumph over Adversity, 1822–1865 (Boston, MA Houghton Mifflin, 2000), Geoffrey Perret, Ulysses S. Grant Soldier and President (New York Random House, and William S. McFeely’s Pulitzer Prizewinning Grant: A Biography (New York WW. Norton, 1981), although the latter is not sympathetic to Grant’s Civil War career as such. The literature on Robert E. Lee is voluminous, even by Civil War standards (although it is fairly concise compared to that on Lincoln. The best starting point, since it provides an overview of the debates—indeed, arguments— about Lee as a general, is Gary W. Gallagher, ed, Lee: The Soldier (Lincoln, NE, and London University of Nebraska Press, 1996). Douglass Southall Freeman’s four-volume biography of Lee, R. E. Lee A Biography (New York: Scribner, 1934–35) was the work that really launched the Lee industry in historiographical terms, and later historians tended to couch their criticisms in the context of Freeman’s mainly laudatory study. For general readers, the work of Thomas L. Connolly is probably most useful his The Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and his Image in American Society (New York Alfred A. Knopf, 1977) peels away several layers of the Lee legend and his earlier 374 • Guide to Further Reading study with Archer Jones, The Politics of Command Factions and Ideas in Confederate Strategy (Baton Rouge, LA Louisiana State University Press, places Lee in the broader context of the Confederate war effort and the balance (or imbalance in Lee’s thinking, as they see it) between the eastern and western theaters. A comprehensive and up-to-date view of Lee and of Confederate command issues is provided by Joseph L. Harsh in Confederate Tide Rising Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861–1862 (Kent, OH Kent State University Press, 1998). WWW The Abraham Lincoln Association has placed Roy Basler’s edited collection of Abraham Lincoln’s Collected Works on line, and this is fully searchable: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/. Download 2.25 Mb. Share with your friends:
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