****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Amongst the hundreds of civil war titles I have read, this is the standout, because it shows why the war ended the way it did.The argument made that Grant and Sherman invented a form of warfare new to the Civil War--the strategic raid--and that such raids were what ended the war, is overwhelmingly convincing.The attention to military matters, particularly logistics, explains so much that has always puzzled me.The judgments concerning character are always interesting, even when I disagree, and the evidence is given so fairly, that in many cases view contrary to those of the authors are as strongly supported as their own.Particularly useful is the evaluation of Grant and the evidence (as I read it) of Lincoln's utter focus on public opinion, that directly caused so much military horror (a view evidently shared by Halleck: one wonders whether it was shared by Halleck's men, Sherman and Grant).What is surprising are the evident but trivial flaws in the book. Occassional horrible writing, that any editor, or grammar checker should have corrected; occassional sentences that directly contradict previous conclusions, thus being as wishy washy as a Union general with the slows, suggest some problems in the writing of the book, perhaps between the authors. But these lapses are so obvious and easy to correct (by the reader) that they hardly detract from the power of the book.I cannot imagine someone thinking the same way about the Civil War after he reads this book.
