Review of A SAVAGE WAR: another Civil War book ?!?
This is not your everyday history of the Civil War. Not because it is well written – it is. Not because it is well researched – it is. Not even that it feels original and true – it is. Rather because it is a SINGLE VOLUME history of the war. Only James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom has pulled anything like this off. It took Allan Nevins eight volumes, Shelby Foote three and Bruce Catton two sets of trilogies to tell the tale. Albeit, Nevins begins in 1845; however, he never got to the end of the war before he died. That about sums it up. To write a brilliant, concise and even daring history of the Civil War in one volume is an achievement of historical proportions … and we have yet to discuss the brilliant narrative constructed by the historians, Murray and Hseih. Yes … not only a single volume but TWO writers. That really takes the cake.
I found the book not only refreshing but long overdue. Just as we tear down Confederate statues and flags and call them for what they are, these two historians finally put the war in its proper spot. The self-generated set of myths around the Confederacy are laid bare and one feels the bracing rush of unfettered truth. For too long we have lived with the malarkey of the “cause” and the martyrdom of the South. Just as Black Lives Matter has revealed the long established horror that is our law enforcement’s relationship with black America, this book exposes the narcissism of the icon Robert E. Lee, the self-absorption and mean spiritedness of Jefferson Davis and the general incompetence of the South.
The North could only lose the war. The Civil War was an act of self-immolation. The death and destruction of a region the size of Europe was not the result of Northern ruthlessness though there was plenty of that. It was the result of Southern elites sacrificing everything to lead an ignorant, racist white population into the jaws of inevitable destruction, all in the name of upholding a culture and economic order rooted in barbarity. Though these measured but ferocious historians contain the narrative within the boundaries of military history, one feels the thunder of their indignation between the lines. In the end, we paid a terrible price not owning slavery, not eradicating the South that created it, and allowing a misty eyed version of the war to grow and shield the on-going violence of our racist history.
This book is about battles, generals and strategy – all told in a gripping straightforward way. Even more, however, this book is about how we got to where we are today … about how easily the truth eludes us and the suffering that comes with historical cowardice.
The following is a threadbare outline of sorts to give a Civil War buff a sense of the narrative direction of this book. Like the war itself, this book takes few prisoners.
The Mexican War
Prior to the war, only ONE state (Iowa) had been admitted into the United States that was FREE. Meanwhile SIX, not including Texas, slave states had been admitted. This simple but revealing fact affirms the following: Northern perception of the “slave power” controlling national affairs, Northern resistance to the War with Mexico, and Northern suspicion that the slavery might overwhelm free labor.
Grant, in his memoirs, called The Mexican War “one of the most unjust wars ever waged by a stronger nation against a weaker one.” Lincoln and most thoughtful Americans were in his camp. The Civil War was the last of many open and even mote covert wars fought to preserve slavery.
The territories brought in to the Union would trigger a crisis only temporarily stemmed by the Compromise of 1850. The argument holds that the Mexican War made our Civil War not only inevitable but urgent.
Confederate Secession
Many who voted for Lincoln and understood the likeliness of war had reached the point with slavery captured by the German proverb, “better a terrible end, the endless terror.”
Congress without Southern opposition immediately passed: Homestead Act, funding for an intercontinental railroad, the Land Grant College Act and a higher tariff - proof positive of two virtually opposite visions of a nation. The Southern vision was of a vast plantation, a cash crop driven economy - a Saudi Arabia of the plains …
Northern Economy
Manufactured 233,000 McCormick reapers, 140 locomotives/year (South manufactured ONE during the whole war), created 430,000 new farms (80% of Northern soldiers came from farms) during the war …
Value of Northern agricultural production was greater that that of Southern Cotton – often referred to as King Wheat. Once England accessed new cotton sources, Europe was more reliant on Northern grain than Southern cotton.
The Confederacy had 9% of the nation’s industrial capacity. Six million immigrants came to America from 1830 thru the Civil War – virtually all of them to the North & the West.
Industrial growth of the North was accelerated by the gold from California. California would soon become a primary source of grain for England!
NOTE: myths are everywhere … Northern “city” soldiers … “King Cotton” …
The Civil War Soldier
When the three-year enlistments expired in 1864, 60% of the Union soldiers reenlisted. Over 80% would vote for Lincoln in 1864 – the Union soldier reelected Lincoln.
50% of all white males between 18 and 60 in the Confederacy were either killed or wounded in the war. A Union soldier’s odds of surviving as a POW in the Confederate camps was only marginally better than the American soldier in a Japanese camp.
Civil War soldiers referred to combat as “seeing the elephant.”
2/3rds of the wars casualties came from disease; however, the likelihood plummets if the soldier survives the first few months.
Union army was full of mechanics – like the American army in WWII. Everything could be fixed on the run. The engineer was to the North at that time what the programmer is to the Internet of today.
The Battles
Shiloh convinced Grant that the war would be long and won by attrition - first war of this kind. Foreshadowed WWI.
More casualties in the battle of Shiloh than in the Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Mexican War combined. The American public, on both sides, were stunned. Put paid to the illusions of Bull Run.
Battle of Perryville in Kentucky “settled nothing and everything.” Huge casualties, awful fighting, Pyrrhic Confederate victory where the South was bled so badly that they had to leave Kentucky. Also, showed the logistical weakness of the South – its real Achilles Heal. Just the opposite for the North.
Later, the South would lose Tennessee at the Battle of Corinth. The war might have been shortened at this point if Grant had been listened to by Halleck.
Antietam: if McClellan had pursued and defeated Lee, the war might have ended. BUT he then, as a war hero, may have beaten Lincoln in ’64 and slavery might not have been eradicated.
Chancellorsville: 17,500 casualties in six hours = 3000/hour …
Gettysburg: a convergence of 10 roads.
The North had to always deal with the “tyranny of distance.” Massive naval blockade, huge railway supply lines, river boats … Chattanooga was the ultimate example when Grant arranges two corps to be moved 1233 miles from Virginia to Tennessee.
Abraham Lincoln
“Perhaps the important quality lay in his willingness to endure the insults of others without blinking.” (Williamson)
“He was never too proud to learn.” (Williamson)
“Of all the men I ever met, he seems to possess more of the elements of greatness, combined with goodness, than any other.” (Sherman)
Jefferson Davis
“The Confederate president never admitted to a mistake or forgave what he considered a wring or an insult, no matter how trivial.” (Williamson)
“Davis was artificial, autocratic, and forever standing on the pedestal of his own conceit.” British military advisor
Southern States (including Border states)
“South Carolina is too small for a republic, and too large for a lunatic-asylum.” (James Petigru) … true today.
The following were enlistment percentages in these critical border states:
Missouri: 65% Union
Maryland: 70% Union
Kentucky: 50% Union 50% Confederacy
Kentucky’s geography was everything … bordered by the Ohio River on the North, with the Cumberland & Tennessee Rivers on the South … The Tennessee flowing south … like a dagger into the Southern heartland … as it would prove to be.
The most vicious civil war was fought in Missouri. The war between brothers and families would create the infamous outlaws of legend.
Lincoln famously suspended habeas corpus in Maryland. He was right to do so. Proof in the pudding was the utter lack of support for Lee’s army as it marched through Maryland in the invasions of 1862 & 1863.
Union Generals
To paraphrase Clemenceau about one his French generals, “McClellan wore the uniform of a general, but possessed the soul of a second lieutenant.”
McClellan famously called Lincoln a baboon and asked his friend to “help me dodge the nigger – I want nothing to do with him (in this war).” He was the perfect candidate for the Northern Democratic Party in 1864. That election was close right up to the end. Easy to forget that among Lincoln’s many challenges, one was having a solid opposition (40%) to the war within the Union itself.
“All in all, Grant’s generalship and leadership in 1863 place him among the great generals in history and as the greatest general of the Civil War.” Was Grant’s terrible decision to fight at Cold Harbor (a decision that earned him the sobriquet “the Butcher”) any different than the highly romanticized slaughter that was Picket’s Charge ast Gettysburg?
Reflections:
In November, 1918, General Jack Pershing insisted that Germany must be vanquished as the Confederacy was in the Civil War. Otherwise, Germany would return to exact her revenge. They didn’t do it and the rest is history. We did not vanquish the South and have paid the price ever since.
“Most of the whites in the South nursed a dark, abiding hatred of the North in their souls. But they would not resume the war; instead, they would cloak the conflict in a fog of dishonest myths that would cover over and distort the real history of the war until the 1960s.” (Williamson)
Finally, to bring this narrative into even sharper relief:
Lincoln over Davis
Grant over Lee
Artillery & Logistics over Leadership & Cavalry
The Western Campaign was THE campaign of the war
McClellan was only the most disloyal and two-faced of an endless series of terrible Union generals.
Lee did the South no favors in the long run with his myopic focus on the Eastern Theater & his misguided and hubristic invasions of the North.
Lincoln won the war … period … despite the massive the Union advantages one must remember: 40% of the Union did not want to fight, the Union was all too often chaotic, corrupt and inefficient but remained a DEMOCRACY throughout the war, the scale of the war was epic as was the slaughter and despair. Lincoln’s judgment, empathy and genius remained intact during what was, very likely.
A Savage War: A Military History of the Civil War
By Williamson Murray and Wayne Wei-Siang Hsieh (2016)
616 pages