Lincoln Finds a General. Vol. IV: Iuka to Vicksburg (review)

Book Reviews EDITED BY CHARLES T. MILLER B-Il University Hall Iowa City, Iowa Lincoln Finds a General. Vol. IV: Iuka to Vicksburg. By Kenneth P. Williams. (New York: The MacmiUan Company. 1956. Pp. xv, 616. $7.50.) THIS IS THE MTO-??G?? OF MB. WILLIAMS' PROJECTED SEVEN-VOLUME HISTORY of the Union Army, and as such it shares to some extent the fate ofthe second act of a three-actplay: the opening punch has been dissipated and it is not yet time for the crashing climax. The author now has to deal with that part of the Civil War which is the most confusing and perhaps the least weU known, and the portions of this work which do not deal with Grant directly are seemingly of less interest than those involving the general whom Lincoln finds. PubUc reaction to the first two volumes of this fine series, which covered the war in the East from Sumter through the maneuvering during the autumn after Gettysburg, was as favorable as it was instantaneous, for that was the segment of the war best known to most readers, and the author's penetrating sketches and opinions of the leaders and the operations were on the whole weU taken and not too controversial. The third volume shifted to the West to teU of Grant's early wartime career, and that too was a period relatively weU known from other sources and from Grant's memoirs. But in this volume, before reaching Vicksburg in the final chapters, Professor Williams has necessarily to tie together many loose ends, to recount the confusing marches and counter-marches of BueU, Bragg, Kirby Smith, Rosecrans, Van Dorn, Forrest, Blunt, Herron, and many others, and to shift geographicaUy from Cumberland Gap deep into the Trans-Mississippi area and back again. As a result it is almost inevitable that the narrative is less coherent than that of the previous volumes. This is not to say that the author has in any sense failed in his mission, or that parts of this volume should have been omitted. Iuka to Vicksburg is every bit as 209 Book Reviews211 important as its predecessors, and displays again the author's skiU in translating ninety-year-old operations, taken primarily from the Official Records, into modernmiUtaryidiom. Theverynature ofthe operations of 1862 and early 1863 in the West aUows the spodight to be focused on miUtary logistics, a field in which Mr. Williams is very much at home, but it is probable that this emphasis wiUhave less appealforthe general reader than for the military student. Theworkopenswitiitie cautious sparringbetween BueUand Bragg, twovery similar generals, in the summer of 1862. Bragg and his principal coUeague, Kirby Smith, appear asrather shadowy figures, butnot so Don Carlos BueU. The commander of the Army of the Ohio is exposed as a lesser McClellan, a good organizer and disciplinarian whose talents do not extend to actual contact with the enemy; if the faults imputed to BueU seem too many, they are well and convincingly documented from the records. It is interesting that when George Thomas declines an appointment to succeed BueU—an act usually applauded as motivated by pure unselfishness—the author takes him to task as being overly timid and unsure of himself. When BueU is at last relieved after PerryviUe, his successor is already marked for failure based on his cockiness and ineptitude, according to die author, during the Iuka-Corinth campaign. Certainly Rosecrans receives scant personal credit for the so-caUed victory at Stones River. Mr. Williams is at his best when his story gets back to Grant. The theme of the Vicksburg campaign and the character of the commander of the Army of the Tennessee are both summed up in this striking quotation: It is in no way demeaning the men who carried Northern muskets to say: "Do not become engrossed with diem. Watch die man who is calmly and resolutely directing the great drama." Note what Grant is telling Washington , what he writes to his subordinates. He cannot control the great flood of waters; he cannot make a different man of John McClernand; he cannot silence defamers. But in his messages to Halleck he can reveal himself to...