Accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg always seem to focus on who is to blame for the Confederate loss. Dowdey's version happens to blame Longstreet, primarily. However, Longstreet fans shouldn't avoid the book on that account. Dowdey gives a clear, well-written, though inevitably at this date somewhat old-fashioned, account. As no other author that I'm aware of does, he discusses the preparation for the invasion: the way that Davis refused Lee the reinforcements he'd requested, the way that Lee failed to rethink his method of dealing with subordinates after Jackson's death. I think Dowdey is a little scanty on Culp's Hill, but then I think that about everyone but Pfanz. Overall, this is a good basic analysis, definitely worth reading.

Control over northwestern Virginia during the Civil War was critical to Confederate
offense or defense; however, the history of campaigns in western Virginia have been
overshadowed by the military events in eastern Virginia. The author notes that the two
regions of Virginia were fundamentally separated before the Civil War "....by reasons
of climate, soil and situation, Eastern Virginia remained the region of large plantations,
with heavy slave population, and profitable agriculture, especially in the production of
tobacco. West Virginia....having been settled by hunter, pioneers, lumberman and miners,
possessed little in common with her more wealthy and aristocratic neighbors beyond the
mountains." As the text notes, Virginia was already divided.

The author debunks the myth of Union solidarity in western Virginia stating that while
60% of the population were pro-Union, 40% of the population were Southern
sympathizers and they controlled 60% of the counties. The text states that on June 2nd the
first land battle of the Civil War took place when Confederate Colonel Porterfield's
command was surprised and being outnumbered fled in chaos in a defeat dubbed the
"Phillippi Races."

Many of the future problems that were to plague both armies were evident in the fighting
in western Virginia. The text illustrates the problems of incompetent, politically appointed
commanders; one example was the ex-Virginia governors Generals Wise and Floyd
refusing to cooperate and were jealous of each other. Both armies had officers lacking
military experience commanding poorly trained and woefully equipped armies.
Washington and Richmond together with their field commanders lacked working
knowledge of the area's topography, road conditions and seasonal weather so that Robert
E. Lee, a Virginian, had to personally scout the area to gain knowledge of the field. In
addition, due largely to miserable field conditions, disease played a formidable and tragic
role for the armies in the field which was an "insurmountable obstacle to any offensive
campaign."

The author states that "during the last half of July (1861), Federal forces worked diligently
to place a firm military grip on the areas of West Virginia under their control. The text
outlines the 1861 battles at Carnifax Ferry, Cheat Mountain, Sewell Mountain and
Barstow. However, before Lee had any realistic opportunity to succeed in the west "and
just four months into the war it seemed that the division of the Old Dominion was
assured." On October 29th Lee returned to Richmond for another assignment and by the
end of November the West Virginia campaigns of 1861 were over. The Confederacy
having lost control of the area in 1861, on June 20,1863, West Virginia became the 35th
state in the Union.

The author states "that the South's attempts to retain West Virginia were feeble at best."
He concludes writing "The Northern forces were not entirely successful either. They
were....more the beneficiaries of an initially inept enemy, than the heroes of a successful
campaign....The almost wilderness nature of the country, with its weary miles of steep
mountain roads that became impassable in wet weather, and the acute absence of forage
for animals were elements which the Federal commanders greatly underestimated."

Historian have not documented the 1861 battles in West Virginia as completely as
the later battles in eastern Virginia; however, the strategic failure of the Confederacy to control
western Virginia exposed the Army of Northern Virginia's left flank often requiring
deployment of critically needed forces from eastern Virginia thereby limiting Confederate
strategic options in the east.

The serious reader of Civil War history will find this account informative.

I find this book fairly understandable, easy to follow and a bit of interesting with good pictures!

Robert E. Lee has been the subject of so much hagiography that it's difficult to write of him as a normal, everyday human being. The South has enshrined him to such a ludicrous extent, that anything negative about Lee is viewed as hearsay. Michael Fellman attempts here to paint an objective and truthful picture of a flawed man and an overrated general. He states the obvious: Lee was a military loser, he lost the Civil War, and he lost it in part because of fundamental mistakes *he* made. The myth of the "Lost Cause" in American culture has been both pernicious and destructive.

Fellman's previous biography of William T. Sherman is the superior effort, but his take on Lee is interesting and novel. He does tend to engage in nit-picking over analysis of Lee's letters, orders and remarks, sometimes putting an irritating and condescending spin on Lee's intent. There is a dose of Freudian bombast thrown in for good measure. Yet he weaves together the narrative in an interesting and free flowing fashion. This is far from a definitive or completely error-free examination of Lee, but it makes for a fairly engrossing read

Robert E. Lee is ever surrounded by a bodyguard of admirers who constantly fend off those who would speak plainly and honestly about the man. Like Alan Nolan before him, however, Fellman uses Lee's own words to demonstrate that the great general employed his remarkable skills in the defense of slavery and racial bigotry. Lee's defenders make much of his freeing slaves, yet, as Fellman points out, Lee did so only when forced to by circumstances. As for those who insist that Lee was free of racial animosity, Fellman need only allow Lee to speak for himself. Time and again, Fellman shows how Lee sought to deprive newly-freed African-Americans of the right to vote, hold elected office, or even find employment. One need only read Lee's statements before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction in February of 1866 to find proof of his monumental disdain of black Americans. In describing the general's views on race, Fellman also points outs that Lee, patrician aristocrat that he was, held ordinary white Americans in scarcely higher regard. I find this especially ironic as most of Lee's more devoted defenders are drawn from this group.

Some years ago Marble Man was published, explaining how post-war Confederates turned Lee into the symbol of fallen Southern chivalry. However, the first part of the book, a psychobiography of Lee, was extremely weak, because the author was unacquainted with 19th century norms of language and conscience.
Fellman has made a systematic study of ALL of Lee's private correspondence throughout his life: the letters written to his wife and children, to the young ladies he enjoyed flirting with, and his military/political correspondence.An entirely new figure emerges, free of the accretions of Douglas Freeman.
Far from being reluctant to leave the US Army in 1861, he embraces the Confederate cause. A man of his time and place, he carries the racism implicit in the Southern viewpoint. Most interestingly, his post-war career at Washington College shows him completely aware of his role as a political actor who represents the fallen cause. Must reading for any serious student of the Civil War.

There have been several books published within the past 20 years that have a revisionist take on the Civil War career of Robert E. Lee, questioning the widely held belief that he was the greatest commander of the American Civil War (if not all American history). By and large, nearly all of them overstate their case and some are downright ridiculous. While this book is one of the better ones, it is not without many of the same flaws common to all the others.

Bevin's biggest virtues are that he usually gives Lee credit when it is due and also makes a good case for many of the alternate decisions and maneuvers that he suggests would have won bigger results for the Confederacy. I found the chapters on the Seven Days battles and the 1864 Overland campaign to be especially good. He points out many cases where Lee should have backed away instead of wasting his strength with costly frontal assaults (though combativeness was the trademark of the whole Confederate Army, not just its most famous general). Also, Bevin does not indulge in any shameful character assassination that other critics of Lee have employed. Lee's final decision to reject guerrilla warfare in favor of national reconciliation is justly praised, as well.

Unfortunately, Bevin does not remain completely objective throughout and many of his proposals were simply not realistic at the time or would have depended too much on the North reacting exactly as he predicted. I think that the argument that the South should have fought purely a defensive war overestimates the Southern population's morale while underestimating the resolve of the Federal Government. The North, too, could have adopted a strategy of avoiding large-scale offensive battles, opting instead to rely on the "Anaconda" plan to run its course. The South became more and more isolated by the Union blockade as time went on, and the war against the Southern population would have grown in intensity, as well (conceivably extending to arming and encouraging slave revolts, which would have been inevitable as economic conditions continued to deteriorate). I believe that Lee had it right, more or less, in trying to win Southern independence by taking the fight to the enemy and inflicting successive defeats on the Union Army. Just waiting it out played into the North's economic and maritime strength and would not have worked in the long run.

To sum it up, this is a very readable and often well-reasoned critique of Lee's battlefield decisions. However, it often fails to sufficiently take into account many of the harsh realities faced by the Confederacy in general and its armies in particular.

I liked this book, although it got a little too detail oriented in a couple spots, I learned alot from this book about Robert E. Lee's overall character and strategy.

I found this book to be very interesting. I couldn't lay it down until I was finished reading it. It was the first Civil War book I have read, and it is a good foundation for the others I have read since.

Alexander uses a lot of detail on tactical moves that Lee and Jackson used. Lee and Jackson are both praised in the book, and Lee is criticized for his mistakes. Alexander does not criticize Lee's character, but only some tactical moves that he made on the battle field. I know hindsight is 20/20, but Alexander gives Lee is dues. Overall, this was an excellent book and fun to read.

Mr Hallsey is too generous is his review of this book. McKenzie would have us believe this is a serious treatment of a serious issue. Wrong! McKenzie fails miserably to support his assertions with probably this and probably that chapter after chapter. To re-examine Lee's career, we really do not need a play-by-play of every battle. A direct approach to Lee's faults and detailed evidence of such would have served the purpose. Instead the reader is given a flimsy statement and referred to footnotes. One footnote citation is not even listed with the footnotes - I had to check the bibliography to find the full title of that reference. Lee's victories at Second Manassas and Chancellorsville are taken from him by this faux historian while he fawns over the immortal Jackson. Historical context is ignored or twisted in McKenzie's stories of Confederate Command failures and the retention of Lee in command over his own proposed resignations. Additionally, the book has inexcusable typos - the aftermath of the Seven Days left the armies EAST of Richmond, not west. The publisher, Hippocrene Books, should be ashamed of itself to put out this shoddy product at such an outrageous price.

Comical is the best word to describe John D. McKenzie's book Uncertain Glory. It should be considered a work of creative fiction and not a serious history book. The research is shallow, the review is cursory and assumptions are never fully developed. The accuracy in the book is also in question since on page 254 Mr. McKenzie has the battle of the crater taking place on "July 30, 1964." This book could have been a remarkable treatise had any serious time been spend exploring artillery placement, troop deployment and southern economic conditions. It would have also been useful to use the opinions of modern military experts to bolster his position. Having studied the Civil War seriously for many years, I find the book to be bankrupt of any serious historical fact (that has not already been discussed) is not worth serious academic consideration.

Southern historians, the author feels, have had it all their way, denigrating Union leadership and enshrining Lee in a mythos of superb generalship he doesn't deserve.
In this trenchant analysis of the Confederate defeat, McKenzie's criticisms of Southern arrogance, disorganization, corruption, military errors, and dubious ideology are difficult to refute, but considering the 5:2 manpower and 10:1 industrial advantages of the North, his belief that a defensive strategy and greater Southern dedication might have prevailed is less persuasive.
With bibliography, a good index, and wonderfully clear action-maps which lack only scale to be perfect, McKenzie's work is recommended as a highly readable, if tendentious catalyst for further discussion.

(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not willingly "score" books.)

This book does not work on any level. Once again, it proves that extensive research isn't enough to make a historical novel good.

Savage postulates that Lee is court-martialed over the defeat at Gettysburg, the trial taking place some time during the winter of 1863. This gives Savage an opportunity to run through all of Lee's battles (with a side trip to Jackson's Valley Campaign) and command decisions up until then. As an amateur scholar who enjoys reading nonfiction studies, I still found these segments excruciatingly boring. The more fictional bits, the court-martial itself, were slow as well and the characterization seemed flawed. Savage doesn't have anything interesting to say about Lee, his leadership, and why he should or should not have been court-martialed; he recaps other scholars' arguments with no particular insight.

The use of language in this book was horrifically bad. This is an example:

"He had foresworn strong drink as a teenager for his mother."

Whoa. Think about that one a while.

Despite the work the author has apparently put in, I see no reason whatsoever why anyone would want to read this book.

This book is semi-enjoyable for its quotes of famous individuals in the Civil War, but at the end leaves the reader unsatisfied. If the author decided to "spicen" up this book with more controversial individuals associated with the Confederacy, i.e. Nathan Bedford Forrest, Braxton Bragg, and added some life to these members and others in the book, it could of been a treat to read. The author decided to use to much direct quotes from individuals, and did not use his own imagination to make the life, court martial and thoughts of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and others more interesting. Overall a dry and unsatisfying read.

i enjoyed this book immensely being an avid civil war buff and all. a great book for those who really love history

Palmer, Palmer, Palmer! How's the weather in La-La Land? When I read your work I was excited because the subject seemed to be original and it was a study that somebody needed to undertake. What I read was a substandard attempt to defame Robert E. Lee at the cost of logic, any basic understanding of what happened from 1861-1865, or a grasp of the discipline of writing history. In short, this book is a farce. I'll end with a plea for someone to write a full-length and competent history of Bristoe Station.

Having read several books on Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, and having a very high opinion of General Lee, I decided I should try and be objective by reading some books that were critical of General Lee. But I was very disappointed in Palmer's work. I was hoping to read some well researched criticism. What I got was a joke. Most of Palmer's arguments have serious flaws to them, any some don't make any sence at all. Don't waste your time with this one.

Understanding the military campaigns of the numerically weaker side is one of the more challenging issue in history. Unfortunately, Mr Palmer displays a thorough lack of historical perspective in this very weak presentation.

Palmer's protrait of Robert E Lee as lacking all the necessary mental capacities when it comes to undertaking offensive warfare is completely devoid of historical understanding of the campaigns involving generals such as Hannibal, Caesar, Frederick the Great, Napoleon and many others who commanded numerically inferior armies. And of course, Palmer offers absolutely no supporting evidence to prop up his claims because in this book the outcome of the campaign is proof enough.

I agree with another reviewer here that this piece is very agenda-driven, simply because of the thin presentation, no supporting evidence, which could only come from a lack of understanding of the campaigns involving the Great Captains.

When I brought this book, I expect to read about the modern pro and con of actions of Robert E. Lee. Instead, what I got was a superifical biography on Lee and some summary judgement of his actions based on the author's say so. So where is that debate of Lee's critics?? Many people like to dismissed Lee's critics as revisionists but they got it backward. While Lee was alive, he was soundly critized in many circles by veterans of Confederacy and by his foes. It was only after Lee's death did this mythology of Lee's greatness took on a godly scale as the reconstruction period was ending. This period of Lee's mythology is the true period of revisionism which did not really end until Thomas Connelly came out with the Marble Man which brought Lee back to Earth and where author critized without merit. This book lack any depth and appears to be pretty shallow work. If the author wanted to back up Lee, do with so with evidence and logic. Just saying so don't mean much. This book will probably go back to the used book store soon......

Taylor's book is a satisfactory survey of Lee's life. Unfortunately, that is not how the book is billed. Taylor purports to answer Lee's critics. I'm squarely in his camp; I find much of the criticism of Lee to be scholarly opportunism: an attempt to make a name through iconoclasm. Taylor is right when he notes that the attempt to puncture the Lee myth went too far, but he fails to convincingly demonstrate why. He brings up specific criticisms infrequently, inadequately lays out the critic's argument, and often dismisses the criticism without having made a convincing case of his own. His arguments concerning Lee's attitudes toward slavery are never fully convincing, for example. This is particularly distressing when one can see that, in most cases, the convincing counterargument is there, waiting to be made. By constructing his book in the format of a chronological narrative, Taylor lost the opportunity to level a blast at academic graverobbers. A book aimed at answering Lee's critics needs to spend a great deal more time and effort on the critics and their arguments. To Taylor's credit, he never attempts to whitewash information damaging to one of his points. He tries to be complete in his portrayal, and that alone makes this a worthwhile read.

This trivia book has over 800 questions on Confederate generals. The problem is that numerous questions are re-used throughout the book. There is also a list of the generals in the back of the book that seems far from complete. It's good points is that it's unlike your regular trivia books due to focussing on a specific area of the war, with questions that will make you want to learn more about these men.