If you're only going to read five books on the Civil War - which is like saying, only eat one french fry - make this one of them. Grant's autobiography, written under excruciating conditions of financial pressure and failing health in the late 1880's, is one of the most unforgettable reads available about the American Civil War.
Terse, simple, and almost painfully modest, Grant takes us through his life - the schooling at West Point (he was too retiring to point out they'd got his middle name wrong at registration, and was mistakenly given the name Ulysses SIMPSON Grant which he used for the rest of his life). The bravery and initiative of the Mexican War. The long, lonely postings in the early '50's to California, a continent away from his wife and beloved young children. The depression, leaving the Army, trying to make it in civilian life, failing at almost everything he tried. Then the war begins in 1861 when Lincoln calls for volunteers. It's typical of Grant that he goes to a little midwest recruiting post and modestly says he might take command of something very small - a company, perhaps? This, for a West Point graduate. From then on the book ceases being merely very interesting and starts becoming a can't-put-down.
The simple and good-hearted soul of the man just shines through his words, and he doesn't get caught up badly in the mid-century Victorian fustery of so much Civil War writing. He tells you what happened and what he thought about it; I remember about Lee at Appomatox, he said that he felt like anything in world after Lee's surrender except gloating over so brave an army as Lee's who had fought so nobly for a cause - even though he also thought it was one of the worst causes for which men had ever fought. His prose just flows through the extraordinary events he helped channel - Shiloh, Vicksburg, The Battle of the Wilderness, the surrender, and all points in between. It's an irreplaceable and wonderful resource and you end up falling big-time for Ulysses S. Grant. Don't miss it.

I first read U.S. Grant's memoirs when I was a college student during the Vietnam War. It helped me a great deal to appreciate how horrific war was and still is and that it should only be suffered when the cause is truly worthwhile. It was in the American Civil War and World War II. It was not in the Vietnam War. It was not our finest hour.

But this book also got me hooked on the history of the American Civil War. It is in my judgment, after more than fifty years and reading perhaps a thousand volumes about this watershed event in our nation's history, the single best written and brutally honest work on that event. Especially so in that it was written first-hand by one of the principal characters in that national and human tragedy.

For those of you really interested in becoming a student of the American Civil War, I recommend it highly, after you read the American Heritage History of the Civil War and before you read Lee's Lieutenants by Douglas Southhall Freeman and the four book series by Bruce Catton.

If by that time you're not hooked and become a Civil War junkie, you never will be.

Written more as a military memoir than a personal, Grant proves to be an outstanding author as well as a General. Reading this set me off to find more about the General's personal life. I highly recommend to anyone interested in the Civil War, you won't be disappointed.

This is an excellent study of the Continental Army without which the Revolution would not have been won. Charles Royster is a first class historian and this is one of the best, if not the best, book he has written.

It is something of a social history and it gives a complete account of what the Continental army was like, its motivation, origins, and development, warts and all. I cannot think of another work that covers this topic as well as this one.

One of the most interesting facets of the book, though, is the appendix that covers statistics and the motivation of the Continentals. This gives a true and accurate picture of the Continentals and give them a human face. They weren't demigods, but soldiers who enlisted in an army that had a hard task ahead, and who sometimes failed, always endured, and finally won. In many ways it was the toughest, best army the US ever fielded. It definitely was the most enduring-no other American military force suffered from and finally overcame such an imposing set of obstacles. This book gives a much more accurate picture of the Continental Army than Charles Neimeter's American Goes To War. Charles Royster has a definite story to tell and he tells it with verve, panache, accuracy, and a definite empathy for his subject. This book is a definite must for any student of the American Revolution

The memoirs of William Tecumseh Sherman is a book I continue to return to . It is long, it is detailed but it it is fascinating . You participate with Sherman in the decisions he makes and realize he was the greatest General in the Civil War . Unlike Grant and Lee he avoide the killing of troops , ( on both sides ). He realized that the way to Peace was to destroy the economic underpinings of the South . The concept of his march across Georgia was contrary to the conventional wisedom both North and the South . It is fascinating to read his correspondence with Grant and Lincoln on this subject.
Readers interested in Sherman might want to look at a book by renowned British soldier and writer B.H. Liddell Hart book "Sherman: Soldier, Realist , American" which has been reissued in paperback 1993 and is availaable on Amazon for [...].
Hart feels that Sherman was the greatest General of modern times. He emphasizes the lives saved by Sherman's unconventional strategy.

This book is probably the most fasinating biography I have read. Sherman was an talented outsider whose abilty won the civil war. The book begins with Shermans early military career and civilain life before the civil war. Sherman crisscrosses the content to support his family and becomes a Dean of students, a surveyor, a banker, a rail road man and a partener in a law firm. All these skills and travels blend together to make a master stragist and leader.

Sherman was a man always moving to survive. His plan of attack was to move quickly to destroy property and save lives of his men as well as those of the enemy. He stood for loyality and a chain of command, yet was willing to congole the president and U S Grant into allowing him to march through Goergia and the Carolinas while living off the land.

This is an analytical story of stragidty and passionate story of a man who was unwilling to slaughter men and instead destroyed the means to war.

All war is hell. WT Sherman

This is a great read for anyone interested in American history, the Civil War, military history, or just history in general. This book takes the reader on a tour of the thoughts and feelings of General Sherman, probably one of the most misunderstood people in history. This books shows his difficult trek through life and how he perservered. Although some readers might be biased against him, I think they should give him and this book a chance. It's great to get first-hand impressions of historical events from the people who lived them. Sherman's memoirs not only cover the Civil War but his entire military career and life and a breif family history. I would also recommend Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States", and "Guns, Germs, and Steel".

I was hoping for basically a biography of Lee's war time exploits but this book goes a lot further. The author does devote a good portion of the book to Lee's Revolutionary War time but also to his life after the war. Much research and commentary goes into this period of Lee's life to include his flawed business practices, which ultimately lead to his imprisonment for not being able to pay his debts. Overall a good biography of the father of Robert E. Lee but it is slow in some areas. RECOMMENDED.

Charles Royster is one of the premier historians on the period of the American Revolution. He has done excellent work on the Continental Army and he knows his business.

This volume is no different. Lee is one of the celebrated personalities of the Revolution, especially for his excellent service in the southern theater under Nathaniel Greene. Commanding a green-uniformed legion of infantry and cavalry, he performed superbly with the main army and working happily with Francis Marion and his partisans harrying the British and Tories in the South Carolina back country.

The first part of the book covers this portion of Lee's life. To me it was the most interesting, the Revolution in general and the Continental Army in particular being two of my favorite subjects. however, the rest of the book covers Lee's later life, which steadily went downhill after the Revolution's ending, with bouts of debt, sickness, failure, and an early death. Lee, the father of Robert E., is an interesting, sad figure, egotistical, patriotic, more than competent, and somewhat politically naive.

Royster presents Lee as a whole person, and deftly intertwines his tale with Revolutionary exploits, first hand accounts, family and financial problems, and brings the legend into line with the man's humanity, frailties, and strengths.

This book is a must for all interested in the Revolution and one of the most fascinating personalities to grace the American stage in the 18th century.

Lee's work is well written and, in some cases, provides the only description of the legion of battles and skirmishes that characterized the Southern Campaign. The reader needs to keep in mind that Lee wrote in the 18th century tradition of exagerating one's own triumphs and glossing over any shortcomings. Lee likewise writes in a seemingly authoritative manner about events where he wasn't present. For example his condemnation of the NC militia at the battle of Guilford CH has influenced most subsequent accounts although Lee wasn't aware that their orders allowed them to leave the field after delivering up two rounds. In contrast he fails to mention the flight of the Virginia militia in the right wing. Given these faults, Lee's work is still the best of it's kind. Any Rev War library should have a copy.

Anyone with a sobriquet of "Lighthorse Harry" sets up some expectations with his memoirs, but this book delivers on them. Not only does the book take you into the thick of battle in the Revolutionary War's "Southern Campaign", it also takes you to deliberations about how the Colonists reacted to British Rule and what kind of government America should have and how it should solve practical issues of the day. Henry Lee was there for all of it as one of the "Lees of Virginia". This book has a zest and pacing that gently draws the reader in for the next installment.

The book The Destructive War by Charles Royster, examines the war policies and strategies of the Union and the Confederacy during the civil war. The book talks extensively about Confederate general Jackson and Union General Sherman.

At the beginning of the war the Union did not attack citizens or their property. The Union did not destroy any property of the citizens of the Confederacy because they anticipated winning the war. They realized that if they won the war it would be their responsibility to help the south rebuild. They also thought of the south and the people of the south as Americans despite labeling them traitors. But despite the reluctance on the part of Union Generals to damage citizen's property it eventually became policy. This change in policy came about because, "northern expressions of support for intensified war-making assumed that the Confederate army was an instrument of the Southern populace and that the populace was a legitimate object of attack," (Royster, 81). Women were also subject to attack. Union soldiers attacked women because "in the conventions of the time, women were supposed to use their power to ennoble and civilize-whereas, Southern women, it seemed, were serving what Elizabeth Cady Stanton called "mere pride of race and class." By promoting war against the union and by showing their hatred of Federal soldiers, they imitated Lady Macbeth and "unsexed themselves to prove their scorn of 'the Yankees'." Thus they forfeited their exemption as ladies and noncombatants," (Royster, 87). Confederates did not share this policy. They always were proud that when Lee invaded Pennsylvania in 1863 that he gave an order that soldiers were not to damage citizen's property or plunder it.

The book also talks about General William Tecumseh Sherman. Sherman was a southerner who chose to stay in the Union. "He shared (southern) distaste for abolitionist and for Northern politicians who made hostility to slaveholders a political platform. Still, he told Louisianans that secession was treason and that he would not collaborate with it by remaining in the state," (Royster, 90). He hoped to stay out of the war but eventually he joined the Union army. He participated in the battle of Bull Run and blamed the "defeat on the inexperience and panic of the privates," (Royster, 92). He was the senior commander of central and western Kentucky in 1861, despite his desire not to be in charge. He was dismissed of command of the area and rumors spread that he was insane. He eventually led campaigns down the Mississippi River and captured Atlanta. He became famous for his destructive marches through the south.

General Thomas Jonathan Jackson or Stonewall Jackson was a very famous and effective Confederate General. Everyone even Northerners considered Jackson a "genuine general," (Royster, 42). Jackson on many occasions outmatched many Union Generals on the battlefield. He died on the battlefield on May 2, 1863 from friendly fire. Many Confederate Generals including Lee thought that if Jackson had not died that they would have won the war. After the war Jackson came to symbolize many things after the war. He epitomized the courageous and skilled Confederate soldier. He also represented a model "to all the men especially ambitious and aspiring youths, that the self-control and assiduous application he had become a self-made man," (Royster, 162).

The civil war was "an interior struggle in the (Confederacy and Union), an effort to make the newly forming conceptions of nationality inclusive lasting while they were still controversial and nebulous," (Royster, 145). Both sides believed that the best way to validate their idea of the nation is to destroy the other side's army. The Confederacy thought the best way to establish itself as an independent nation would be to deliver to the north a decisive defeat on their soil. General Stonewall Jackson gave the south many victories against the Union and came to be one of the most famous Generals in the war. The Union thought one of the best ways to bring the Confederacy to its knees would be to attack Confederate citizens. General Sherman was famous for his invasion into the south, wrecking havoc on the Confederate citizens.

I had to read this book for my Civil War class. I thought that the book was a valuable source of civil war information. However Royster repeated himself several times in the book. The book also jumped alot from subject to subject. The chapters did not flow into each other; they tended to skip from idea to idea. Despite this it was full of very detailed information.

This is a brilliantly labyrinthine disquisition on the American Civil War. Royster's premise is the examination of the wars' scale of destruction, and the surprising extent of its violence, developed out of biographical sketches of Sherman and Jackson, who Royster believes best personify the Union and the Confederacy. Further, Royster sees the devastation of the Civil War as incipient in the antebellum period. The Destructive War is interpretive as well as critical, literary as well as historical, dealing as much with the idea of war as the facts themselves. Indeed, the author terms his work " a long essay."

Royster depicts the Civil War as-primarily-aggresive, anomalous, vicarious, and as the title suggests, destructive. The Confederacy sought aggressive war to achieve quick legitimacy, its viability depending on the ability not only to wage war, but also to take that war north of the Potomac, make the Yankees feel its effects, and thereby convince them that the costs of prolonged combat would be far too dear. Royster argues that the Union pursued aggresive war, ultimately, to bring progress to the South and demonstrate the superiority of free labor over slave labor, by razing the Confederacy to its foundations and then rebuilding it in the North's own image.

For Royster no one better epitomizes the Confederacy than Thomas Jonathon Jackson, better known by his sobriquet Stonewall, which Royster asserts, reflected a self-created persona. Jackson's Stonewall was an inelegant fusion of plodding resolve, frustrated (if not checked) ambition, and intense piety, smacking of both Calvinism and Arminianism, all funneled into a zealous devotion to duty. His untimely death at Chancellorsville gave birth to the Stonewall myth-patriotic Christian warrior-providing tantalizing 'what if' grist for the counterfactual mill of post hoc Confederate nation building. An advocate of "the tactical offensive in battle" Jackson is certain the Civil War will be "earnest,massed, and lethal."

The essence of the Union, according to Royster, can be found in William Tecumseh Sherman. Alarmed by Confederate strength and resolve, Sherman presciently observed that tactical defensive warfare would be woefully insufficient in what he believed would be a long and costly war. Egged on by newspapers ravenous for victory on the cheap, and deferring to troops already engaged in wanton mayhem, Sherman embraced, then embodied, that which he originally resisted: total war.

Royster includes subsidiary characterizations of the war as drastic, Republican, and vigorous. Drastic war knows no limits in the pursuit of emancipation and abolition. Republican war means "Emergency war powers" and "passionate nationalism" which will create "a new republic, purged of antebellum evils and backwardness." Vigorous war is possible because of the "widespread eagerness to be exonerated of the criminality attached to bloodshed." Auxiliary adjectives such as harsh, bitter, ineluctable and causeless are employed to complete the illustration. In the book's chapter on vicarious war the author asks, "How had the naive notions prevalent at the start given way so readily to killing on a scale supposedly unimaginable?" This single question is the essence of Royster's work.

Royster's "The Destructive War" is one of the most important works of Civil War Scholarship in the 1990's. He blends a sweeping narrative with extensive analysis to explain the development of "total war" and its effects on Americans. What will really engage the reader is not so much Royster's examinations of General William Sherman's actions and those of his men, but rather the ideas of Stonewall Jackson and the calls for the destruction of Northern cities that they elicit from the Confederacy, a nation that was supposedly only wanted to fight a defensive war. While Royster's argument is not without some structural flaws, it makes some very interesting points about Confederate war aims and the willingness of populations and troops of both sides to destroy the cities of their former bretheren. I've read this book twice for graduate level classes and each time a lively discussion has been generated. An excellent book.

You will not learn anything new in this book that you don't already know. The book consists of 4 or 5 different essays written by 4 or 5 different authors. It isn't a clear book describing the civil war. I was looking for a book that described each of the reasons for the start of the civil war. This book didn't do that. Each essay tried to make a different point - but it was not clear. The book was too scattered for me. So if you want a more in depth, and more straight forward book about the start of the civil war - try another author.

In the face of recent debates over the Confederate flag flying over South Carolina's capital, a lot has been said regarding the author's subject. Some contend that the war was over state's rights and others contend it was over the issue of slavery. It has even been suggested by many sources that Lincoln came to oppose slavery late. I bought this book hoping to read an author who both knew history and could examine the facts impartially. I clearly found both.

The editor explores pre-Civil War history through the voices of the main figures and groups. In the process I discovered that both states rights and anti-slavery contentions are correct. However, these two are so closely tied that it hardly matters, as you will discover through the eyes of the players. Please read this book. This book should be required reading in every high school history class in America.

I found the book to be the best slice of easy reading history I've ever read, and highly applicable to related debates of the 21st century.

Incidentally, if you are interested in the unique origins of the Republican party, the formation of our two parties, the demise of early parties, the early black leaders, the early womens' movements or even early trends in women's literature, this is an amazing read regarding those topics alone. Can't put it down, highligher in hand stuff.

Here here, "A reader from Fort Lauderdale, Florida"

I bought this book due to my interest in history in the US Southeast, and in new ventures. The cover of this book promised "an eye-opening account of greed, folly and venture capitalism".

Wrong!

This history was meticulously researched, but reads like the many 18th century ledgers that the author no doubt examined. No story, little analysis, and just a brutal read. Somehow I persevered through to the end of this tome, but recommend the reader spend their time elsewhere. I wish I had.

This is an excellent study of life among the upper classes in Virgina and North Carolinia. This is the first book I have read that provides details on how many of the planter class struggled to keep their heads above water while trying to appear rich.

I have often wondered what motives some of the elites had in joiing the American Revolution. Royster points out that more than a few of the planter class had strong economic reasons to sever ties with Britian in the hopes of freeing themselves from a mountain of debt.

What my fellow reviews fail to realize is that this book's importance does not lie in the Dismal Swamp Company. Royster has woven a narrative that not only describes the economic climate in which America's elite lived, but also demonstrates that without the support of overseas investors our nation would not have been able to expand as quickly as it did. Granted, the Dismal Swamp Company represents a clear failure, but look at the investors. Prominent Englishman and Virginian planters poured money into this financial black hole. Why? For decades it returned little, if any, profit. The reason they kept investing was the belief that they could make something out of a most inhospitable plot of marshland. In short, do not get bogged down in all the names and places. Instead, think about the overall meaning of what you read.

Just an example of this book's accuracy: a picture of the battle of Bunker Hill shows cavalry as well as uniformed Continentals.

In the middle of reading a wonderful book on the American Revolution recently (Setting the World Ablaze--Washington, Adams, Jefferson and the American Revolution) I found myself wanting more geographic details than my modern atlas provided, so I sent off for the newly published Historical Atlas of the American Revolution.What a waste of money and fine printing.

The format of the book is generally to have a two-page spread on each topic with copy (plus some inane, barely relevant graphic) on the left and a map on the right. Good idea, bad realization.

The person who wrote the boring, stiff, choppy copy apparently never talked to the person who did the maps. As a result sometimes the words are relevant to the maps and sometimes not. For instance, the spread on Density of Population Settlement has a rambling, oblique discussion of settlement, while the map shows areas settled by 1700, 1740, and 1760. I guess we are to assume that the areas settled the longest are the densest, but that is hardly enlightening. It also shows two mysterious areas to the west of Virginia labeled Vandalia and Transylvania, but there is nary a word in the book about either.

Even when the copy is somewhat germane to the map at hand there are maddening lapses. For instance, the spread entitled King George's War discusses its European causes and events in Nova Scotia, but ignores George Washington and his capture at Fort Necessity (though the map does show it). But this map, and all the others I looked at have glaring omissions. The copy mentions the Mohawk Indians but they're not shown on the map. That might be ok if you knew the Mohawks were part of the Iriquois which are listed. Likewise the Cherokee nation country is mentioned in the copy but not listed on the map; ditto the Ohio Valley. This goes on and on. As I said before, it's like the writer and cartographer never met or talked. A good editor should have straightened that out. Maybe there was no editor. I quit reading after I got to the battle of Lexingon and Concord and the text mentioned, but the map left out, Punkatasset Hill and Harvard College.

Perhaps it got better later on. But, for 40 bucks I expected something a lot more accurate, exciting and informative.

I have been looking for a book like this for some time and I was indeed pleased with much of what this one has to offer. However, as mentioned by several other reviewers, the text and the maps often don't seem to go together with the text often omitting information that is displayed on the maps. My biggest problem with the book stems from several glaring errors in the history being presented. For example, the Battle of Fort Necessity is presented in the section about King George's War instead of the French and Indian War where it should be. Also, several maps show errors in locating certain places and events, such as showing Forts Presque Isle and Le Boeuf on maps pertaining to a time period before they even existed. It may not be a big deal, but the little things they get wrong do tend to annoy at times. Otherwise it is indeed a very nicely illustrated book with informative and colorful maps to help visualize the many locations and events presented.