What makes a good battle book?
Readers of military history will have a variety of criteria, but it is easy to agree upon a few standards.
And because it eminently meets all of those I consider, I value John J. Hennessy’s Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas (1993, Simon & Schuster) as one of my very favorite Civil War battle books.
Let’s see…where to begin?
First of all, the subject has to be important, and the battle fought on Aug. 29-30, 1862 certainly was. For Gen. Robert E. Lee, Second Manassas was, in Hennessy’s fine words, “the happiest marriage of strategy and tactics he would ever attain.”
Longstreet’s attack on the second day, with 25,000 troops, was the biggest assault Lee launched in the entire war. And when it succeeded, “Lee came as close as he ever would to destroying a Union army.” I remember reading this sentence two decades ago, and it has stuck with me ever since.
The author’s narrative must be comprehensive. This doesn’t mean that the book has to be long--although, at just over 600 pages, this one is.
Hennessy sets the battle in just the right perspective. After McClellan’s failure in the Seven Days, hardliners in the Lincoln administration wanted to shift away from McClellan’s gentlemanly style of leading an army to a harder war, one which would punish Southern civilians for their treason.
Maj. Gen. John Pope, brought from out west, was thought just the man to do this. So Lincoln and Stanton created a new army of some 50,000 men and sent Pope forth with it into central Virginia to wreck farms while subsisting on the countryside.
General Lee, rightly offended by “the miscreant Pope,” determined to “suppress” him before he could be reinforced by McClellan’s troops. Second Manassas, Hennessy writes, “would be his first full campaign as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.”
A good battle history has to capture the drama. Hennessy’s certainly does. Lee’s plan, sending Stonewall Jackson with half the army around Pope’s flank and into his rear, was audacious and brilliantly executed.
Hennessy describes Jackson’s march—54 miles in 36 hours, Aug. 25-26—breathlessly, but the real fun begins when Jackson’s tired veterans captured Pope’s big supply base at Manassas Junction.
“From boxcar to boxcar and warehouse to warehouse the men dashed,” he writes, “uncovering ever more desirable delicacies”: cakes, candy, oranges, canned oysters—you name it. For John Worsham of the 21st Virginia, it was French mustard.
“To see a starving man eating lobster salad and drinking Rhine wine, barefoot and in tatters, was curious,” Worsham reflected. I’ll say. Aug. 27, 1862 ranks as one of the most “curious” days of the war.
The traits and performance of the key leaders must be thoughtfully depicted. Jackson is the hero here. “History must judge him,” the author contends, “as the man who by boldness and incredible speed made Lee’s greatest triumph possible.”
In contrast is poor John Pope. He was laughably pompous (“I have come to you from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies”).
He was pitifully opaque, unable to perceive the danger crashing his way, as when he ordered his army to chase after Jackson and “bag the whole crowd.” On the morning of the 30th, Pope “was practically paralyzed with uncertainty.” When Longstreet began massing for his afternoon attack, Pope continued to disregard the warnings streaming into his headquarters.
The best battle books describe the fighting with enough detail to be definitive without sinking to excessive militrivia. This Hennessy does admirably. He has the added advantage of knowing the terrain— he was NPS historian at Manassas National Battlefield.
I remember decades ago, in Dr. Bell Wiley’s Civil War course at Emory, hearing him voice suspicion that Bruce Catton never visited Gettysburg, based on his description of the battlefield terrain. (Ouch!)
Military history demands a writing style that is spare and pithy, but the best books are written gracefully as well. A confident author is also unafraid to use colorful language. Here, in Hennessy’s words, a Union battery galloping hard for the rear ran through a Federal infantry line and “completely discombobulated” it.
Full annotation and explanatory endnotes are the clearest measures of the author’s scholarship. Hennessy once told me that when researching this book he was reading so much microfilm that he bought a microfilm reader for home use. That’s research.
An outstanding battle book does not have to be flawless. In Hennessy’s, my eyes strain to see a statement of Confederate casualties from the battle. A footnote refers us to the Official Records (1,090 K, 6,154 W).
We insist, of course, on good maps. There have to be enough of them to complement and clarify the text (fifteen here, the work of Richard Darling). To my eye, they should not be too detailed; brigade-level will do unless the book portrays itself as a “microhistory” (think George R. Stewart’s Pickett’s Charge [1959]).
I also believe a good military history will offer stories that stick with you. I remember reading Hennessy’s history and coming upon the story of Captain David Gibson, Co. H, 3rd West Virginia. Before a Federal assault Gibson walked up to another officer and said, “Major, I shall be killed in this charge.”
Maj. Theodore Lang tried to brush off Gibson’s dark premonition. “I tell you, I am going to be killed in this charge,” Gibson repeated. “I knew it last night; I have known it all morning.”
Sure enough, the Federals charged; Captain Gibson was shot in the head and killed.
I remember telling this story to my wife-of-the-time. Her practical response: “If he knew he was going to be killed, why did he charge?”
I have told this story countless times, illustrating how this one vignette from Hennessy’s history illustrates what I call the difference between the practical and the sublime. Everyone gets it.
So how many criteria are we articulating? By all of mine, I wish to thank John Hennessy for a fine battle book on Second Manassas.
Wait—one more. One can see quality in a good book’s final sentences. Hennessy tells how a humiliated Pope, removed from command and sidelined to fight the Sioux in Minnesota, en route stopped over in Chicago. A crowd formed and called for remarks.
“My friends, I am glad to see you to-night,” he began. “I am glad to be back to breathe again the pure air of the State of Illinois. It has been for many years my home, and I am glad to return to it. God almighty only knows how sorry I am I ever left it.”
Stephen Davis is a longtime Civil Warrior and avid book collector. His two paperbacks on the Atlanta Campaign, A Long and Bloody Task and All the Fighting They Want, will be published this summer as part of Savas Beatie’s Emerging Civil War Series.
30 Intriguing Telling Of Streight’s Foiled ’63 Raid On Railroad
Streight’s Foiled Raid on the Western & Atlantic Railroad: Emma Sansom’s Courage and Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Pursuit. By Brandon H. Beck. Illustrated, photos, maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, 112 pp., 2016, History Press, www.historypress.net, $21.99 softcover.
This small, highly illustrated volume tells the story of Col. Abel D. Streight’s mule-mounted infantry raid against the Western & Atlantic Railroad.
This railroad ran from Atlanta, Ga., to Chattanooga, Tenn., with many connections. It was one of the Confederacy’s main transportation links and highly important to the Rebel war effort.
Streight’s Foiled Raid begins with the story of the railroad and the first Union attempt against it, the “Great Locomotive Chase” in April 1862. After a good description of James J. Andrews and the “Chase,” the book gives brief biographies of the main characters involved in Streight’s Raid. It then describes the April and May 1863 raid.
This account would not be complete without a description of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s dogged pursuit of the raiders. Forrest’s chase is the subject of many tales that have become legends.
Streight led his mounted infantry
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Unfortunately for them, Forrest had different ideas. Although outnumbered, he pushed the Yankees ruthlessly, giving them no relief. In the end, Streight abandoned the attempt to hit the W&A and tried to escape.
One of the legendary but true narratives is that of Emma Sansom. Streight’s men destroyed a bridge over Black Creek, which Streight thought would finally give him the respite he needed.
Forrest asked at a local house if there was any other way to cross the creek. A 15-year-old girl, Emma Sansom, said there was a nearby low-water ford where Forrest’s troopers could probably cross safely.
Forrest took her up behind him on his horse and she showed him the way to the ford. The author, Brandon Beck, provides us with Emma’s own story of how she helped Forrest.
The ford that Sansom showed Forrest allowed him to finally catch up with Streight’s main body. The story of how Forrest convinced him to surrender is another that has become almost mythological — among the many yarns that are spun around Forrest, the “Wizard of the Saddle.” In case the story of Streight’s Raid is new to some readers, I will not divulge this tale.
This book has some great illustrations and maps. I highly recommend this modest volume to anyone interested in the war in the Western Theater, Nathan Bedford Forrest or a good story well told.
Reviewer Robert L. Durham spent most of his career at the Defense Logistics Agency. He has written book reviews and articles for numerous historical blogs and publications.
Civil War News
This volume consists of an introduction and eight scholarly essays spanning the gamut of the Civil War in the Indian Territory.
“Bitter Legacy: The Battle Front” covers the war in the Indian Territory and parts of Missouri and Arkansas.
is April 25 for the June issue.
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“Hardship at Home: The Civilian Experience” covers the war the civilians endured. The suffering of both Union and Confederate sympathizers was as bad as or worse than that of civilians in any other part of the country.
“Our Doom is Sealed: The Five Nations in the Civil War” discusses the choices the major tribes in the Indian Territory (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek/Muscogee and Seminole) had at the beginning of the war.
As Bradley Clampitt points out, the eventual choices were made “not necessarily out of affection for the Union or Confederacy.”
“‘The Most Destitute’ People in Indian Territory: The Wichita Agency Tribes and the Civil War” tells the little-known story of the Wichita Tribe and its agency, which was located in the westernmost portion of the Indian Territory. This area was far from the major battlefields of the Indian Territory but close to the Comanche and other hostile tribes.
Two essays cover Reconstruction. “Who Defines a Nation?: Reconstruction in the Indian Territory” discusses the Federal government’s move to end the sovereignty of the Five Tribes after the Civil War.
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In “‘We Had a Lot of Trouble Getting Things Settled after the War’: The Freedpeople’s Civil War” the author points out that “the freedpeople found themselves caught in a second civil war for their rights as members in the Five Nations.”
Two memory essays complete the volume. “Hearth and Home: Cherokee and Creek Women’s Memories of the Civil War in Indian Territory” contains interviews conducted during the 1930s Writers Project.
“To Reach a Wider Audience: Public Commemoration of the Civil War in Indian Territory” is about “bringing historical research to the public consciousness through historical reenactments and ‘living history.’”
This is a serious, scholarly book with some excellent essays. It is highly recommended for Civil War buffs interested in the Indian Territory and the Trans-Mississippi during the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Reviewer Joseph A. Derie is a VMI graduate and a longtime Civil War buff and military book reviewer. A retired Coast Guard officer and Merchant Marine licensed officer, he is a Certified Marine Investigator and marine surveyor.