| Title | : | The American Civil War: A Military History |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0307263436 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780307263438 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 396 |
| Publication | : | First published October 20, 2009 |
The American Civil War: A Military History Reviews
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3.5⭐️ Interesting international views of the U.S. Civil War. For instance, Britain leant heavily toward the South, which sought diplomatic recognition, but was put off by north British mill owners and workers who were staunchly anti-slavery.
Many generals of both North and South were graduates of the West Point Class of 1846. Grant and Sherman, I already knew, were supremely competent fighters. But I did not know that Robert E. Lee was so highly regarded among that class, nor that he was a brilliant fighter who acquitted himself admirably in the Mexican–American War (1846-48). Certainly his showing against Grant at Petersburg was masterful, even if he ultimately lost. Lee was almost put in charge of the Union army before deciding to "go with my state [of Virginia]." Stonewall Jackson, too, is here considered a "military genius" and a master of tactical maneuver, though he was not as skilled in battle because of the personal faults of aloofness and poor communication with his subordinates. The chapter "Civil War Generalship" lays out each general's strengths and weaknesses.
Lincoln's growth as strategist for the Union, a skill learned only after much trial and error, is fascinating to read about. Churchill greatly admired him. How the North shut down Southern ports and initiated a naval blockade, virtually starving the South of foreign exchange, is cogently explained. The Union strategy was called the Anaconda Plan, which sought to deprive the non-industrial south of imports as well as exports (King Cotton). It was arrived at only after much wringing of hands because Lincoln had no good advisors at the start of the war. He was to become, however, quite proficient as a war-time leader. Something that can't be said of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.
The North's bumbling in the early years of the war is depressing. The incompetence of the generals, especially McClelland, who was risk-averse if not downright timid, and Hooker, who quailed before Chancellorsville, is painful to read about.
Slavery had however kept the South primitive. It had no industry. The North was able to bankroll the war, and they did not stint, relying on the ancient idea of selling government bonds and imposing a temporary income tax. By contrast, the South, because of the Union blockade, was cut off both from proceeds for exports and imports, which were essential since it manufactured little. The North also had exquisite quartermasters handling logistics and communications. It helped, too, that the lion's share of the railroads were in the North.
If Robert E. Lee had taken command of the Northern armies, and had at his service the North's top-notch communications and logistics, the Civil War might have been concluded in far less time than four grueling years. It's tremendous fun, this narrative, as it sorts the heroes and idiots on both sides for the reader's delectation. The account of Stonewall Jackson's death is harrowing, unforgettable. Keegan breathes life into what in another's hands would be undistinguished drivel. This is my fourth Keegan book. I look forward to reading many more.
For me, the real fighting in the eastern theater, as opposed to skirmishing and retreating, doesn't start until Sharpsburg, Chancellorsville and Antietam. Gettysburg is mayhem, utter hell, droves slaughtering droves. And why? For what? To keep persons of color in slavery and not seek industrial development? What a waste of effort. It's like insisting on remaining Neolithic. The story's mind-numbingly effective in Keegan's telling, though he's done little original scholarship. All Americans should have as clear an understanding of our national calamity as this fine book affords. I have not read Shelby Foote yet, though I hope to. But there's much to be said for the one-volume approach Keegan uses here for the way it crystalizes the story of the war into a crisp and memorable narrative. -
3.5 stars
Very informative read n the Civil War. Boy, did I learn a lot. I love books like these. I learned some about the civil war in school. You can can't learn everything but the basics. This book filled in the rest like how many battles were fought each and every day. How brave all of the soldier were. Facing certain death they kept on. Very impressive generals on both sides. Right or wrong they were bound by their devotion to each other and their belief in the cause. Very informative read. -
I started this book with great enthusiasm. As I was reading there were things that started bothering me about the text, though I couldn't put my finger on what exactly was wrong. Then I read McPherson's review in the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/boo...
in which he lists a number of factual errors in the book. Now I'm just a Civil War buff, not a historian; but I've read enough Civil War literature to know that something was wrong here.
Secondly, the book just didn't seem to be edited well. It was as though a number of the middle chapters which discuss the specific battles and fields of operation were written as separate, independent essays with no relation to each other. Anecdotes were given almost word-for-word in more than one chapter. There is the mention of the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson at least six times in the book. I will grant you that these may be the most important "little known" of the Civil War battles, but it doesn't need six mentions.
Thirdly, a book which claims that geography was one of the great reasons the war was fought the way it was and for as long as it was owes it to the reader to provide at least a few maps showing the river system and how it affected strategy. The maps which were included of specific battlefield alignments didn't add to the text, but seemed to be a substitute for talking about the battles in more depth.
Finally, why with all of these complaints did I finish it? Actually the first few and last few chapters which are analyses of the over all operations of the war, explanation of strategies on both sides, evaluations of the general officers, and information on the war's end was actually pretty good. Also good was the analysis of how this pre-figured World War I.
So don't read this book as a military history that describes each battle in detail and what specific corps, divisions, brigades, regiments, or companys were doing or how everyone lined up. For that information read Shelby Foote's "The Civil War" (3 volumes). But if you're interested in the "whys" after you know the "hows", this book is OK. -
Excuse my naivete but I'm shocked that one of the best histories of the U.S. Civil War has been written by an Englishman. Granted that I'm a Keegan fan and thought his history of WW I helped me understand that war for the first time. Nevertheless, I would have thought that there was no room for new insights into the Civil War until I read this book.
His ability to show the impact of geography on the conflict was outstanding. His analysis of the economic aspects of the conflict was clear. His explanations for the South's ability to maintain itself in spite of everything against it were enlightening. He also was able to illustrate why the Confederate Army had such clearly superior leadership early in the war.
I very much liked his approach to the chronology of the war in that he discussed campaigns in detail but not battles, a welcome departure from most Civil War Histories. His conclusion that there was no way the South could have won the war is one I totally agree with, southern disclaimers to the contrary.
Keegan supplies enough detail to support his conclusions. For instance, he shows how the railroads of the North were clearly superior to those in the South and therefore severely limited the Confederate's ability to maneuver. He uses maps and specific examples to support his obviously well researched arguments.
I've read a number of Civil War histories. Most of them left me somewhat overwhelmed and confused. I recommend this volume to anyone who would like to have a clear appreciation of how and why the war was fought in the way it was. -
John Keegan's The American Civil War is without doubt the worst volume of history I can recall reading. Structurally disorganized and illogical to the point of incoherence, the book is plagued by dozens if not hundreds of inaccuracies that range from technical mistakes to grandiose misstatements. The wider conclusions Keegan attempts to draw based on his years of experience as a war historian are often illogical, repetitive, and either outdated (drawn directly from time-honored but disproven or repudiated works) or obviously wrong. There are also overtones of misogyny and racism in these pages. One is left with the firm impression that Keegan, for his final book (he died three years after publication) opted whimsically and arrogantly to hold forth on a subject about which he knew next to nothing.
In crafting a history of something as complex as a war (as opposed to a more linear subject, like biography) historians often resort to a simple chronology. If the scope becomes too broad, however, a structure based on special themes or topics of interest can suffice, eg. industry, economics, women and families on the home front, the realities of battle, technology, etc. It is also common to break down sequential narratives by theatres of war when too many events transpired concurrently. In The American Civil War, Keegan opts for an absurdist mashup of all three narrative styles. There appear to be chapters oriented around theme, though they vaguely embrace chronology, which sometimes breaks down by theatre and sometimes doesn't. The result is frequent restatement of events out of sequence, and an altogether puzzling tendency to end sequential narratives before the conclusion of events only to pick up the narrative later, often after the inclusion of subsequent events out of order. If that sounds needlessly confusing, that's because it is. For example, Keegan relates the chronology of Grant and Lee's battles in Virginia in 1864-65 up until the fall of Richmond. Then he breaks for chapters on naval history and African American soldiers, among other things, relaying sequential narratives that range from the beginning of the war through to the end and afterwards, going so far as to describe the recovery of the Hunley submarine in the year 2000 and the subsequent burial of its crew in 2004. Then he goes back to the previous chronology to describe Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. I am a well-read student of the Civil War, having read hundreds of books on the subject, and I often found this book exceedingly difficult to follow. I imagine the structure would be hopelessly confusing to someone unschooled in the subject, and the confusion starts right from the beginning and continues resolutely until the end, making this a poor book even for excerpting.
... Which is just as well, since the historical scholarship in the book is abysmal. Keegan's minor errors kick in early and often. When describing the war's first military engagement of Fort Sumter, Keegan notes that Confederate officer Beauregard was the pre-war artillery instructor of his opponent, Colonel Robert Anderson (the reverse was the case). He notes that the only casualty of the bombardment was a mule (it was a confederate officer's horse). He misstates casualty numbers, confuses the position of states relative to each other, bungles the flow and direction of rivers, and even appallingly misstates who was Britain's Prime Minister at the time of the war. Even if he doesn't know anything about American history, you'd think this celebrated British historian might know a basic fact or two about Britain!
These are all mistakes of the minor sort though. It is in the domain of conclusion or overarching analysis where Keegan's failings really show up. Keegan advances the 1970s (Vietnam inspired) analysis that the South might have resisted more effectively with a Fabian strategy of guerrilla operations—a theoretical concept long debunked, stemming from the obvious problem that the South's whole cause was built around defense of the institution of slavery, which could not be maintained with the loss of land and control. Keegan suggests that African Americans (he insists on using the term negro) made for poor soldiers because they were overawed by battle and the prospect of fighting former masters—this despite the fact that "colored" regiments performed with inestimable fortitude and valor at many engagements in the war, including but not limited to Battery Wagner, The Crater, and Nashville. He insists that Stonewall Jackson was a general with no command of strategy, despite the fact that books exist dedicated solely to Jackson's theory of aggressive war and repeated urging that the war be brought North to target Union industry—a clearly enunciated strategic concept, whether meritorious or not. Keegan posits that the network of rivers west of the Appalachian mountains acted as barriers to Union advances on the Confederacy, when in point of fact they acted more like highways for invasion, enabling rapid and easy waterborne concentration of forces. Keegan points out several times that battles in the Civil War were oddly indecisive, and suggests that the reason for this was the prevalence of stalemating earthworks—this despite the fact that neither side did much digging at all until late in the third campaigning season of the war and the combatants found no greater decisive success in those earlier years. Frankly, the only times in the book where Keegan seems to grasp important concepts or advance thoughtful analysis of events are times where he is stating nothing new or original and simply parroting the ideas of more insightful historians.
Throughout The American Civil War, Keegan sidetracks into long comparisons between the Civil War and other wars in history, most frequently the Napoleonic Wars or The First World War. These wandering musings ranked among the more interesting parts of the book for me, as they reflect a pointedly European perspective on a period in history that is invariably recounted by Americans in books. However, unless one is expertly versed in these other conflicts, their inclusion provides next to no explanatory value. Moreover, the sidetracking really wanders. At one point, Keegan gets entirely lost sharing Karl Marx's perspective on Civil War strategy, an inclusion that acts as a curiosity but adds no value to the work and seems absurdly superfluous in such a short survey of such a vast topic.
Keegan seems to have read none of the vast literature on the underlying causes of the Civil War, instead letting the Lost Cause revisionist movement power much of his reflections. He repeatedly puts forth a quote that the war was "in some way about slavery," while taking pains to point out that most Southern soldiers were not slave holders and many Northern ones were racist. Obviously, this misses the point of the economic underpinnings of slavery and the complex relationship between industrial and agricultural economic predominance in antebellum America. At times, Keegan seems to waffle from the almost self-deluding ignorance of his stated confusion over the cause of the war, setting forth tepid but at least more coherent ideas, but this only serves to confuse the matter further. The ambivalence reflected by Keegan's statement of the causes of the war is then amplified when he states at the end of the book that the causes for which the war was fought "have been settled." This is a remarkable assertion, given that the book was published in 2009, the year after America elected its first African American president, an event that was heralded as revolutionary, indicative of the fact that the United States was still working on the progress of integrating people of color as full and equal citizens. Moreover, less than a dozen years after this book's publication, an armed insurrection bore the Confederate flag through the halls of the United States Capitol in open defiance of the rule of law and embracing Rebellion and desecration of the Union—as clear an example as one could possibly imagine that the causes for which the war was fought have not been settled 150 years later and indeed, brew in violence and antipathy just below the surface of American politics.
I have to add, though it is a minor point, that Keegan includes some truly egregious statements about women in this book, at one point holding forth on the primary role of women in war as emotional comfort for the traumatized souls of men, and at another, suggesting that the salient "feminine qualities" of Southern women (whatever those are) made them more appealing to Europeans than Northern women were. Women rarely receive mention in these pages, and there are actually a few reasonable and competent anecdotes about luminaries like Clara Barton and Dorothea Dix, but here and again, Keegan takes pains to show himself off as a misogynist fossil, and it really stands out.
By the time I trudged to the end of this book, I felt that, rather than having been treated to a thoughtful and engaging survey of the Civil War, I had been dragged through a nonsensical rambling morass of ignorance, supposition, and abysmal scholarship. It seems markedly clear that John Keegan seems not to have fully grasped why the Civil War was fought, what it was fought for and why the fighting was so ferocious and lethal, how or why it was won and lost, and what the legacy of the war's conclusion was and is. For students of the Civil War, this book will be infuriating. For those looking to learn about the war, this book is dangerously misleading, dull, and hopelessly confusing. Honestly, this is a book I can confidently assert that no one should read. -
In his broad, single-volume history, Keegan offers an outsider's view of the American Civil War, providing fresh insights from a bracingly impartial perspective. However, though critics were quick to voice their admiration for Keegan's previous works, they were deeply disappointed by The American Civil War. His narrative is lamentably riddled with inaccuracies, including the dates, locations, and events of major battles. He incorrectly attributes well-known quotes, presents disproved myths as facts, and repeatedly contradicts himself. Critics also bemoaned the brevity of the book, which muddled the repetitive descriptions of battles and troop movements, and Keegan's obscure asides. ""He's loath to leave any of his erudition off the table,"" opines the New York Times. Critics expected more from this eminent historian, and readers may be similarly disappointed. This is an excerpt of a review published in
Bookmarks magazine. -
I bought this book expecting to be impressed. I was, but not in a good way.
Some time in the past, I don't know when, I read Keegan's single volume histories of World War I and World War II. I liked these, so when I saw he had also done a book on the US Civil War I jumped on it. I expected this to be as good. Unfortunately, while there are many things to like about this book, it wanders and is sloppily written.
On the good side of the ledger, Keegan emphasizes the practical issues of the war, while most other histories I have encountered emphasize the story of the war. Historical series like Bruce Catton's Army of the Potomac or Shelby Foote's Civil War bring the characters to life, but however riveting the personal stories may be, however good a view you have of the shape of the war, you don't see much of the bones beneath the skin which gave the war that shape. Keegan discusses these quickly, clearly, and well. These are such issues as the distances involved, the economic and political constraints on the North and the South, the importance of geography, and the impact of changing technology on the results of the war. Often, reading other histories, I became frustrated at the apparent stupidity of Generals and Presidents. Why didn't they go somewhere else, or do this, that, or the other thing? After reading Keegan, I understand the reason is usually that they couldn't, and I even understand some of the reasons why.
On the bad side of the ledger, Keegan wanders, often repeating himself, saying the same thing two or three times ten or twenty pages apart. This is barely tolerable in a long, multi-volume work, but it is not excusable in a single-volume short history. There is no room to spare. What room there is shouldn't be wasted on redundancy.
Also, there are errors and sloppy writing. I would not ding Keegan much for saying the United States rifled musket, the Springfield, had a smaller bore than the British Enfield when the opposite is true. Nor would I ding him for getting both their bore sizes wrong. These are trivial technicalities that only a fanatic like me would notice; besides, my reading recently has taught me that if you presume that any British popular author knows nothing whatsoever about guns, you'll be right far more often than not.
However, I would have expected a British Subject to know that Benjamin Disraeli was not Prime Minister of Britain during the US Civil War (it was Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston). I would expect Keegan not to contradict himself, such as when he says the Carolina coast wasn't invaded until the end of the War, but then goes on to explain how it was invaded at the beginning of the war. I would expect him to put Vicksburg on either the west or east bank of the Mississippi, not switch it across. I would expect him to know that it was not necessary for the Northern troops to invade Cairo, Illinois, since (being in a Northern state) it was in Northern possession from the beginning. Those were just a few of the errors I caught. Many of them are minor such as should have been caught by the author during revision, or by a competent editor before publication. But they were not caught. When an author is wrong on some of the few facts I do know, it makes me wonder if they were also wrong on everything else.
I have very mixed feelings about this book. I'm glad I read it, but I can't recommend it for someone who doesn't already know quite a bit about the subject. Presumably, that would include most people who would want to read a short, single-volume history like this. -
What a strange and disappointing book. John Keegan was a well known military historian; one of his books, The Face of Battle, broke new ground in the description of the experience of fighting, from generals to the humble private. Unfortunately, the book under review does not attain the standard of that earlier work.
I picked up this book after watching the film Lincoln, which I enjoyed immensely. I realised while watching the film that my knowledge of the American Civil War was pretty sketchy at best, so I thought I'd remedy that and Keegan was close at hand.
Keegan calls his book a military history, yet the first description of battle does not appear until the reader is one third of the way through the book. The hundred pages or so before our first taste of battle is filled with a confusing mash of discussion - a brief and inconclusive foray into the causes of the war, and then a description of the armies involved which actually tells us more about what was going on in Britain at the time rather than America, and a treatise on the "Military Geography of the Civil War", which is simplistic and repetitive.
Repetition is in fact the bane of this book - Keegan is forever jumping forward or backwards in the Civil War chronology to make a point, most annoyingly referencing battles that are yet to occur to illuminate a point about the one he is currently writing about. He continually makes the same points about the advantages and disadvantages of the rivers in the battle areas, and of the railroads. It almost seems as though the chapters of this book are a collection of separate essays that have been brought together, without any editing process.
For a war that had, "By common computation, about 10,000 battles, large and small", the book intersperses the major battles sparsely throughout the text, with much intervening material. The reader gets no feel for how close in time battles might have been to each other, or how wins or losses affected the public at large, apart from brief glimpses.
Once Keegan actually gets on to the fighting, he takes us up to the Fall of Richmond, and then proceeds to wander off the chronological path again, with chapters on Black Soldiers (which restates much he has already stated), the Home Front, Walt Whitman, and chapters on Generalship, Battles, and on whether the South could have survived (which again is a re-hash of earlier sections of the book). Only after this 50 page foray does he get to the final climax of the War, which is then followed by a very strange section which purports to show how the Civil War inoculated the American worker against Socialism!
This book is really all over the place, and the good points - some of the battle descriptions, the pen portraits of the major Generals - are overburdened by the meandering repetitious nature of much of the rest of the book.
The maps are sometimes helpful (although there are not enough of them), and the apparatus is OK (although there are some gaps in the index), but overall, I'd have to recommend not to read this book if you want to be any clearer on the American Civil War. In fact I've found it difficult to write about in any coherent way. One for aficionados - if only to pick holes in.
Check out my other reviews at
http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/ -
John Keegan is a major military historian. His book, "The Face of War," is a fascinating examination of major battles from a very different perspective. But his one volume history of the Civil War disappoints.
On the one hand, this is a standard one volume history of the Civil War. It takes a largely chronological view of the war, with some concluding chapters on very specific aspects of the war, such as naval battle, black soldiers, the war at home, Walt Whitman's role in and view of the war, and so on. These latter elements add interesting sidebars to the main narrative. While Keegan does make some 30,000 foot analyses of the war, there is rather little general large scale analysis.
At the same time, there are strange repeats. At one point he might speak of a battle. Text intervenes. And then he returns to a statement similar to where he had started.
Factual errors are especially jarring. General Ord was NOT a key figure at Five Forks, when Sheridan wrecked the Confederate right flank. The Ninth Corps of the Army of the Potomac was not composed mostly of black troops at Petersburg, although these soldiers comprised a significant percentage of the Corps' manpower. On pager 276, the Battle of Franklin is muddled beyond easy understanding. Hood as a cleverer opponent of Sherman's than Johnston? And so on. One or two errors might be understandable. But for a major figure to make so many is surprising (and other reviewers have noted this, too).
There are interesting points made, including comparisons of the North and South in terms of resources and strategy.
Overall, though, the book ends up disappointing as much as satisfying. -
I debated between 3 and 4 stars for this one. Three stars for a basic, workmanlike history of the Civil War. Surprised at how much of it was familiar from studying the Civil War in grade school - which is to say, many moons ago. Keegan's book, then, doesn't turn over any new ground. It would probably be quite boring for readers who have studied the Civil War in any depth already.
But I bumped the rating up to four stars for a couple reasons. First, Keegan's thrilling description of the battle of Vicksburg, with which I was unfamiliar, was excellent. Second, his insistence on the importance of geography and the ways in which the vastness of the South and the difficulty of the terrain changed the way war was fought was interesting and not previously known to me. For Keegan, a British military historian, the Civil War is most important for its military innovations that prefigured the Great War.
Finally, Keegan's portrayals of the generals involved in the Civil War is fascinating. He gives much time particularly to Grant, Sherman, and Lee (as most other historians would), but his focus on lesser-known generals such as Bishop Leonidas Polk and others really brought this section of the book to life.
Conclusion: if you haven't read a book about the Civil War (besides The Killer Angels), then start here. If you already have a few books under your belt, give this one a pass. -
Not exhaustive, but a relatively complete picture of the war, its aims and strategies, and a fair sampling of the more significant figures in the military aspects of that war. The narrative is crisp and there are few distractions.
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I picked this book up as a complete Civil War novice. One day I realized, I've absolutely no idea about any of the battles (apart from Gettysburg) that were fought and hardly any of the personnel involved. John Keegan comes with an impeccable background as one of the foremost military historians of our times, so I thought, why not, this will be illuminating.
I think I've got a good grip of the timeline, and some of the major battles that were fought (according to one count, there were something like 10,000 (!) battles in the American Civil War, both big and small). So just getting a bare-bones account I can live with. Unfortunately, this book was extremely dry. Also, I realized, I didn't like the fact that when Keegan meant military history, he stuck to it. I think I'd have loved to see what was happening in Washington and Richmond to influence the decisions being taken on the field. There wasn't any narrative flair whatsoever, something I've come to expect in my history books that aren't completely academic. At times, it was a slog just to get through. This book isn't for the novice, it expects you to have some knowledge of the timeline before hand (something I think an American high school education will provide, not so much elsewhere in the world though).
What I liked were some of the introductory and concluding chapters. They were wonderfully written, with a scholar's touch. Things like what motivated the common soldiers to fight even against hopeless odds or what they ate, or was the war really about "something to do with slavery" will stay with me, and allow me to read other books on military history in a new light.
To conclude, this is a dry as dust military history of the American Civil War. For people who like that sort of that thing, go for it. Otherwise, I'm looking for good recommendations on history books that deal with the Civil War in its entirety: the politics, the cultural changes it spawned, or even post civil war migrations into the American West. -
This was a disappointment. Keegan's history of World War I was outstanding, and likewise he did a brilliant job with World War II. In contrast, his treatment of the American Civil War is nothing special. His sources are secondary; he hasn't spent countless hours sitting in local and regional libraries reading collections of letters or rare documents. The man lives in England, and as far as I can see, he may have written this book from there. His maps are insufficient, and the ones he does use are the ones you see in anyone else's American Civil War literature. Likewise, his photographs are ones I already saw somewhere else.
All of that could still make a four star work if he put a fresh perspective into play. I recently read and reviewed the outstanding Our Man in Charleston, by Christopher Dickey. That book offered the British perspective on the conflict, and it was very different from that of either the Union or the Confederacy. I had hoped that Keegan would likewise offer a new perspective and a lively discussion.
The book is instead, dull, dull, and dull. I did not see one piece of information I didn't already know...and he called John Brown a "wild man", perpetuating the textbook stereotype that tends to be used by those that don't care to dig too deeply.
In his end notes he thanks James McPherson, and really if you read McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom along with the memoirs written by generals Grant and Sherman, you'll learn far more and with much fresher, more interesting prose. It is these to which he refers most liberally.
On the plus side, I got my copy used. On the sorry side, it was still eight bucks I could have spent on something I can use.
I advise you to read something else. If you want to read Keegan, read about one of the world wars. If you want one basic yet thorough treatment of the American Civil War, read Battle Cry of Freedom. But not this book. -
Keegan is simply the best military historian writing today, and his "American Civil War" gets the perspective just about right. American history buffs are used to seeing dozens of new books about the CIvil War come out every year, focused on individual battles, specific regiments, letters, etc.
It took an outsider--and a Brit with no less than Keegan's military expertise--to write a definitive book like this. Keegan has made a close study of American geography (his account of the assault on Vicksburg's impregnable heights is brilliant), and the options available to generals when it comes to materiel and maneuver. He is able to put the Civil War in the context of other great struggles of that era like the Napoleonic Wars, the Franco-Prussian War, even World War I.
What I really enjoyed about the book were Keegan's conclusions. Could the South have ever won? He kindly dismisses this idea--the lack of centrality by the Confederacy made it unable to raise money or requisition troops (the responsibility of the states); the "bright spots" of the struggle were the result of cowardice or incompetence by Union generals.
He credits Lincoln as being the master strategist for the North, who muddled through for three years until Grant took command.
Most importantly, he recognizes the American Civil War as the war that "fixed" the American Revolution--finally making it possible for the promise of the Declaration of Independence to be realized for "all men, endowed by their Creator," in the same way that Lincoln's immortal Gettysburg Address reiterated Jefferson's letter to King George III. Lincoln had the will--and the Union had the fight--to fix this once and for all. -
John Keegan remains the most exciting military historian currently writing, and I had looked forward to The American Civil War. Keegan could have benefitted from a more active editorial hand; several passages, which were key points in what is essentially an expanded essay, were repeated nearly verbatim several times over the course of the argument when a simple reference would have sufficed. Not a narrative and therefore not as engaging as James MacPherson's single-volume history, Keegan's effort has value in being written from the perspective of a first-class military mind from Britain. Therefore, his judgements and opinions are unclouded by partisan north-south coloring. Its very refreshing for a historian writing about our civil war to clearly recognize that the South was doomed from before the first shot was fired, and to further recognize that it was the terrain and geography that allowed the South to hold on as long as they did, not the superior generalship so often ascribed to the string of Southern successes. With an outsider's ability to tell painful truth, Keegan also points out the failure of the war to eradicate slavery in fact, if not in law, further putting the proposal forward that American apartheid only began to die with the civil rights movement. A compelling if flawed read. -
There are no original ideas here, just the same mish-mash of Grant/Lincoln hero worship we have all come to know. Grant was a very good general, and Lincoln was one of our greatest presidents but really people, there is no shame in pointing out their faults and failures. It isn't like The Lost Cause devotees are going to get a beachhead by us admitting that Grant and Lincoln were not gods. As regards to Keegan, I think he simply wrote a book because he figured we needed the 'Keegan touch.' On page 233 of The Mask of Command Keegan states that promotion makes normal men into neurotic pomposity. The same is apparently true of notoriety for historians. Now that Mr. Keegan is a lord of history, he no longer feels close to the men of Waterloo, but rather closer to the same Caesar he once damned as a historian.
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Très plaisant à lire, un auteur agréable qui approfondi l'aspect humain et social du plus grand conflit des USA. Seules réserves, les évenements sont abordés par théatres et non chronologiquement, ce qui est parfois un peu difficile quand on n'a qu'une vague connaissance initiale du sujet, et la cartographie est un peu faible.
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Meget skuffet. Kegan er den bedste militærhistoriker, men denne bog er tung og ustruktureret.
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A interesting perspective on the political and geographical influences on the War.
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John Keegan is a brilliant military historian, and he turns his attention in this book to the Civil War. There is, in truth much to like about this book. First, unique among Civil War historians, Keegan does fair justice to Montgomery Meigs, the “supremely competent and incorruptible” officer who erected the dome of the Capitol, built Washington’s water supply, and most importantly for the North, ensured the strategic use of transport capabilities to keep the Union army well supplied throughout. (54) Many histories talk about the strategic logistical advantage the North enjoyed in transportation, communications, materials, and men. Few give the credit to Meigs as he deserves.
Keegan is at his best when talking military strategy. “West Point orthodoxy was acquired from the teachings of the Swiss Napoleonic theorist Henri de Jomini. Jomini taught, among other things, the necessity of obedience to geometric rules, notably that a line of operations should lie at right angles to the base from which it was sustained In that respect the war in northern Virginia was strictly Jominian. Both sides were squared-up to each other across the plain of the Chesapeake waterway and both concentrated their efforts at driving down it. There was, except for the recurrent effort to seize the Shenandoah Valley, no divergence from that narrow battleground. In the West, by contrast, it was difficult to define where, if at all, the base of operations lay. The axis of offensive ran, for the North, down the Mississippi, thereby determining that the South’s defensive efforts must run up and along it. Neither side, however, had a firm base, as defined by major cities or economic centres, running at right angles across the line of operations. Indeed, any attempt to delineate the geometry of the war in the West on a map would produce a cat’s cradle of deviations and crisscrossing lines and arrows. For the South, state boundaries, particularly those of Tennessee, imposed a certain symmetry. For the North, however, the whole theatre of the western war defied Jomini in any form. It lay in detachment from the main mass of Northern territory, and communication could be maintained only by following wide loops of river or rail lines. Indeed once the North’s campaign left the Mississippi Valley, as it did in 1863, and began to burrow eastward, and then northward, into the Southern heartland, all Jominian principle was lost and the picture of the campaign could be kept in focus only within a general’s mental perception, as it was so tenaciously first by Grant and then by Sherman. In a sense the North’s ability to wage the war in the West was as much a triumph of the imagination as it was of logistics.” (96) I have frankly never heard similar analysis in any of the other popular histories of the Civil War, and it is quite convincing and instructional. It is easy to understand why free thinkers such as Grant and Sherman were able to succeed where others stuck in military orthodoxy were unable to advance. Indeed, Keegan further explores this when discussing Grant’s strategy around Vicksburg. He wrote in his memoirs that “I was now in the enemy’s country, with a vast river and the stronghold of Vicksburg between me and my base of supplies. But I was on dry ground on the same side of the river with the enemy. All the campaigns, labors, hardships and exposures from the month of December previous to this time that had been made and endured, were for the accomplishment of this one object.” (214) Grant had obviously intended to ignore military orthodoxy, and instead, in the words of today’s military tacticians, operate on “exterior lines.” “A less imaginative man than Grant would probably have sought to define a geometrical base and line of operations. What Grant did, after bypassing Vicksburg, defied all contemporary rules of strategy. After effecting the rendezvous between Porter’s fleet and his Army of the Tennessee, he had used the gunboats and transports to ferry his army across the river to the east bank.” (215) He then decided to live off the land, campaigning and surprising the Confederate army to great effect at Champion’s Hill, and then took the city of Vicksburg by siege.
Additionally, Keegan convincingly makes the case that the outcome of the war was inevitable after 1862, and the failures of the Confederates to generate a lasting offensive into Tennessee and Kentucky. After this failure, they were essentially boxed into a defensive struggle, and against the logistical power of the North, one that they could not win. (161) Additionally, towards the end of the book, Keegan discusses Civil War generalship as a whole. The discussion of Scott’s Anaconda Plan and his motivations for a plan (minimize damage) such as this are interesting, especially since the plan as a whole contained much that proved to be accurate. Keegan talks about the merits of Sherman and Jackson in contrast to each other. Jackson, clearly a brilliant commanding officer on the battlefield, in the opinion of Keegan left no lasting legacy because his magnificent talents could only be employed in small theatres with known geographies, as opposed to formal military systems that could be imitated such as employed by Sherman. These pieces of analysis are what fans of Keegan’s work have come to expect – interesting and accurate analysis. Even further, I had not understood Marx’s interest and commentary on the American Civil War was as detailed as it was. I also was unaware of Lincoln’s basic understanding of Marx’s message and his explicit rejection of it, even in the face of the war. In 1864, he wrote, “None are so deeply interested to resist the present rebellion as the working people. It should never be so. The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside the family, should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds. Nor should this be a war upon property—property is desirable—is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich and hence is a just encouragement to enterprise and industry. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another but let him labour diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” (365) This leadership and mindset may explain the enthusiasm with which American workers unionized, but then largely opposed revolution that gripped much of the world.
Unfortunately, there are a number of drawbacks as well. First, in terms of organization the work is organized by themes. What this means in real terms is logical groupings of subject matter, but repetitive factual matter regarding the chronological events. It is also difficult at times to place the events in the chronological development of the war. Most concerning, however, is that there are a number of factual errors in the book. The eminent historian James McPherson best documents these errors, a few examples of which are noted here:
• Keegan starts by referring to the Ohio River and its tributaries as defensive moats for the Confederacy, but then later acknowledges that the North employed them strategically for easy transportation and penetration into the Confederate heartland
• He confuses geography extensively by placing forts Henry and Donelson on the wrong rivers, ignores Kentucky by stating that Tennessee “gives on to” Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio
• He states that North Carolina was not invaded until the end of the war, but in reality it was invated in 1862, and makes a number of other date errors
• He dismisses the state of the American Navy calling nearly all of its ships antiquated and ignoring the fact that it had 23 steamships, including 6 frigates as advanced as any in the world
• He states that Disraeli was the English PM instead of Palmerston
• He claims that Lincoln made no distinction in the Gettysburg Address and makes a large point about this, but does not discuss the very large differentiation made when Confederates were refused burial in the cemetery
Overall, these errors are very troubling and not the standard to which Keegan typically sets. For its merits listed above, it is certainly worth reading as there are new and different contributions within this work. However, as a narrative history, Foote writes with much more energy and the chronological order is much better preserved, McPherson has better command of the facts, and Catton still provides an inspiring read. This work does not measure up well with these others. -
The American Civil War is exactly what it says on the tin: a thorough study into the American civil war of 1861, looking at its causes, major battles and eventual outcome.
This book has a lot going for it, and yet I wouldn't say I enjoyed it very much. The good points: It's certainly very thorough and well-researched: if all you're looking for is a decent understanding of the dates, major actions and characters in the war, it will do its job.
Unfortunately, there are many downsides too. The writing is average at best, and never engages or interests in the vein of Beevor or Zamoyski. Similarly, the entire book comes across as quite dry and overly-factual; there are very few first-hand accounts or attempts to really bring across the human elements of what is happening in the war. Similarly, due to the book's need to shove all the history into one book, many major events are glossed over and breezed by, with no ral sense of how the war was fought or how soldiers lived.
Similarly, the chapters are rather randomly ordered: the book begins with a select few independent chapters on how soldiers were armed and equipped, the backstory of the war and how plans were drawn up before we even begin to chronologically narrate the war's events: after that is done, however, we cut back to another series of random chapters, on how black people and women served in the war and whether the South could ever have won. It lends a disjointed and disorganised feel to the book, giving no real flow to the reading.
This disjointedness is continued in the writing itself, which often repeats basic statements time and again. It feels as if every chapter were written independently by someone else, and sewn together at a later time, particularly when - as in two or three cases - things are repeated almost word-for-word.
Some of these random chapters are very interesting, however - particularly whether the South could ever have won - and the pictures the book contains are interesting and well-placed. While the book does have its most important maps right at the front of the book, others, particularly battle maps, are spread throughout the book, though always near to the appropriate description of the battle.
Overall this is a clear, well-researched description of the American Civil War that will give you all of the salient details you need to understand its major characters, events and facts. But those looking for a more in-depth, narrative-based or engaging read will be disappointed by the cold rapid-fire facts that the book sets out. -
A very interesting history of the Civil War, because the author has a relatively detached perspective, while most of the histories of the Civil War have been written by Americans, who are shaped in one way or another by the national mythology that has grown up around the war. While most of the story is familiar to even moderately attentive American students,
Some very interesting points Keegan raised, in no particular order:
- The South had a lack of critical cities or other place to attack (Richmond excepted), which made defeating its population (both of the military-age male population through attrition on the battlefield and of its civilian population's ability to wage war) the war's center of gravity. The loss of the South's biggest city early in the war (New Orleans) did not cripple the South's ability or willingness to fight.
- This was an industrial age war that presaged WWI, in that defeating an army in the field could not be decisive. Even though the generals on both sides were conditioned by training to seek Waterloos or Austerlitzes, they got inconclusive fights that shed blood at appalling rates.
- Despite the North's overwhelming naval superiority, the South's commerce raiding campaign was extraordinarily successful in causing the relative decline of the US merchant marine for decades afterwords as cargos moved away from US-flagged shipping.
- Keegan hypothesized that socialism may not have done well in America in the late 19th century because there was a massive body of memory on what war actually looked like, so there wasn't much appetite for class struggle. -
At some point it came up this summer around the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg that I didn’t know who actually won the battle – this despite knowing that it was the anniversary of the battle.
That made me realize that I’m now pretty much a middle age man, so that to go with the reading on the founders in the last couple of years, it was my duty as an American to become an expert on the civil war.
And this book helped. Now I can knowingly make jokes about Lincoln keeping McClellan as the head general too long when there were other more talented and more decisive generals waiting in the wings.
I think that Keegan may be a little too close to some of the nitty gritty here in the first 80% of the book, but that’s where he’s the best so it makes sense that this is where he keeps his focus. (I’ve read other Keegan like “The Face of Battle,” so I already knew I liked his style. That he does get close to the day to day action and does it well is balanced out by the later quintile where he starts to play economist and sociologist where he is not as good. It sticks out in a bad way.
Overall, it was a worthwhile read.
And the winner of the Battle of Gettysburg? The union, of course. Why else would Lincoln go give his address there? -
TITLE: The American Civil War: A Military History
WHY I CHOSE THIS BOOK: It met my reading challenge; being of the same subject, the civil war, as the book before it, The Andersonville Diary
REVIEW: I really enjoy history, but the sub-genre of military history not so much. I admit when he would go on and on about army movements I would space a little. It was difficult to keep track of all the different commanders, even telling the Union and Confederates apart. Also all the battle place names were difficult to keep track of and place the geography. While the majority of the book was about the battles and military doings there was also just some straight history and social analysis. The fact that this historian is British made me feel that he was more impartial which was nice. The civil war is a topic that gets many Americans worked up. I finished this book more convinced that despite what those who support the Confederacy and that flag it was all about slavery and the rest was pretext. I certainly don't think the Union and its supporters all cared about emancipating slaves or even if they thought that was wrong didn't feel blacks were equal to whites, but for those making the decisions about succession it was all about slavery. -
My first thought was, we have so many great Civil War books already, why do we need one from an Englishman? But Keegan is as lucid and readable as ever, and not being American, he makes fresh observations. One is that the Civil War was remarkable (and awful) not just because battles were bloody, but because there were so many of them. The South didn't offer many vital targets for the North to aim at. So the Confederate armies, and the willingness of the Confederacy to fight, became the targets, with results costly for both sides. He also gives more attention than other historians to the naval war. The North's blockade was effective, but so was the South's raiding of Northern shipping worldwide. He's astute as ever in his analysis of the character of the land battles. The Civil War was unusual for its time period in that battles were mostly infantrymen firing rifles at each other. Artillery seldom played much of a role. Nor did cavalry, despite the dashing horse soldiers of both sides. Keegan is always good on describing individual commanders and battles, and he's good at it here. His choice of outstanding general of the war is unsurprising: Grant.
