Gabor Boritt, Lincoln’s Generals, 1st ed.

Description

Gabor Boritt’s Lincoln’s Generals gathers some of our finest historians to write essays examining Abraham Lincoln and the military.

Boritt and his fellow contributors examine the interaction between President Lincoln and five of his key generals: McClellan, Hooker, Meade, Sherman, and Grant. In each chapter, the authors provide insight into this mixed bag of officers and the president’s tireless efforts to work with them.

Stephen Sears underscores McClellan’s perverse obstinacy as Lincoln tried everything to drive him ahead. Mark E. Neely, Jr. sheds new light on the president’s relationship with Hooker, arguing that he was wrong to push the general to attack at Chancellorsville. Boritt writes about Lincoln’s prickly relationship with the victor of Gettysburg, “old snapping turtle” George Meade. Michael Fellman reveals the political stress between the White House and William T. Sherman, a staunch conservative who did not want blacks in his army but who was crucial to the war effort. John Y. Simon looks past the legendary camaraderie between Lincoln and Grant to reveal the tensions in their relationship.

A brilliant portrait that takes us inside the individual relationships that shaped the course of the war.

Lightly sunned; else very good in very good dust jacket. Boritt, Gabor S., ed.

LINCOLN’S GENERALS. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. 1st edition, 248p., illustrations.