This book offers the reader a well researched and presented account of the Battle of Belmont, the first battle in the Western Theatre and one of the first battles fought by Ulysses S. Grant. The book covers Grants attack on the Southern forces under the command of Leonidas Polk and Gideon Pillow at Belmont on the Mississippi River in Missouri on the 7th of November 1861. The maps in the book are easy to understand and guide the reader through the fighting, the narrative runs smoothly and offers a good overview of this battle. There is extensive notes and bibliography to assist the reader with further studies. Overall a decent book covering this battle of the American Civil War. An enjoyable read.

Hughes' biography of Hardee is not unlike its subject: competent, professional, and unspectacular. The focus is appropriately on Hardee's Civil War career. The post-war years receive especially light treatment. Hughes does an excellent job of assessing Hardee's performance during each campaign and battle. To his great credit, he is more inclined than most biographers to be critical of his subject when warranted. Hardee's personality emerges less vividly from the book than we might wish. Perhaps this is due to a lack of insightful source material, or to the fact that Hardee himself lacked the charisma to be an ideal subject. Whatever the reason, you won't find Hardee particularly likeable or loathesome, but you will learn a lot about his role in the Civil War.

This is a biography of an obscure figure from the American Civil War who had a famous name. Jefferson Columbus Davis was no relation to the Confederate president, and stayed loyal to the Union, rising the the rank of brevet Major General. He's probably best known as the culprit in the murder of William Nelson, another Union army general, in 1862. There was, however, more to Jefferson C. Davis than that, as this admirable biography shows.

...

Jefferson C. Davis was from Indiana. He enlisted in the army young, and participated in the battle of Buena Vista as a private in his Indiana volunteer regiment, distinguishing himself so much that he was considered for an appointment to West Point. When that fell through, Davis was directly enlisted in the regular army as a second lieutenant of artillery, and spent the years between the Mexican war and Fort Sumter studying and learning to be a soldier. He was part of the garrison of Fort Sumter, and this notoriety positioned him for a brigade command of Indiana state troops. He led them through the battle of Pea Ridge, and never looked back, concluding the war in command of the Fourteenth Corps during the March through the Carolinas, and during the battle of Bentonville. After the war, he was Alaska's first military district commander, and briefly fought the Modocs on the California-Oregon border.

The authors do a wonderful job of bringing Davis, and his many contradictions, to life. He was a demanding soldier, and a hard taskmaster, but he appears to have generally been a fair and decent person. There is the one incident where he shot Nelson dead, but the authors lay out the course of events, and frankly the whole thing sounds provoked. Nelson was disliked by a lot of people, apparently, to the point that when he was shot, there weren't very many calls for his killer to be brought to justice. The whole thing is laid out in considerable detail. And where Davis emerges as a surprise is in his competence as a soldier. Though his troops were routed at both Stones River and Chickamauga, at Pea Ridge it was Davis who stopped Louis Hebert's attack on the Union left, and at Jonesboro it was Davis who broke the Confederate front. At Bentonville he again held off the main Confederate assault, though with some help. Frankly I was surprised: he turns out to have been a pretty good general, and generally well-liked by the troops, even though he *never* praised anyone for anything, and apparently thought bravery nothing extraordinary. In his defense, he was brave himself.

There is one shortcoming in this book. There is a lack of maps to illustrate the text. The authors try to detail battlefield maneuvers from Buena Vista to Bentonville, with no tactical maps at all, and only three general area maps, none of which are particularly helpful. Only one of the maps even deals with the Civil War. This unfortunately makes the text a bit hard to follow at times. Other than that, I would highly recommend this book for the Civil War scholar. It's definitely worth the money.

General St. John Richardson Liddell was a biased, cantankerous, violent man devoted to the Confederacy yet doubtful of its ultimate success. This is history with the varnish off; Liddell wrote this record immediately after the war and never expected it to be published in his lifetime. It's one of the essential texts for understanding the Confederate Army of Tennessee and provides great insight into the personalities of its commander. More importantly, it reveals in great detail the mind of one former Confederate.

"The Pride of the Confederate Artillery" provides a well researched look into the experiences of a group of volunteers that went off to defend their state during the war of Northern aggression. It is not overly detailed as to the movements of the unit, but does provide a well thought out and insightful look at the sufferings of the soldiers as they do their duty. Mr. Hughes also points out how the class differences between the bourgeois cannoneers and the lower class drivers and teamsters dissolved during battle only to resurface after. This book is highly recommended.

If you can only purchase one book on the battle of Bentonville this book should be your second choice. I have read Hughes history of the battle as well as Mark Bradley's book on the same subject. Bradley's book covers the battle in much greater detail and has excellent maps. Hughes book is a good book, but head to head with Bradley's work finishes a distant second. Hughes gives a good overview, but I did not find his writing as engaging as I did Bradley's. Hughes book lacks the passion of the other book.

This is a very enjoyable book to read and offers a detailed and well researched account of the final battle between Sherman and Johnston at Bentonville fought on March 19-21, 1865. This was the last full scale battle between the two opposing armies. The book has 9 maps which are well presented and the battle ones are very easy to understand and follow. Overall this book is a well documentated account of this very interesting and bloody battle.

Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes Jr. some years ago did a book on the battle of Belmont, Grant's sort of victory in the early part of the war, and the book was very good. Hughes continues this trend with a book on the battle of Bentonville, which has been largely ignored by historians because the war was essentially over when it took place. Hughes explains the maneuvers with dexterity and skill, and shows why the battle was important and how the Confederates thought they were going to make something of the victory they hoped to achieve. Includes much participant accounts of various episodes from the battle. Recommended