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Book Reviews213 U.S. House of Representatives and die Senate, as Jackson's minister to Russia , as Polk's Secretary of State, as Pierce's minister to Great Britain, and finally Buchanan's unhappy single term in the White House. The book is diorough, readable, and informative, and it reveals why few biographers have chosen to study Buchanan. Buchanan was a stuffy burgher. He was neither lovable nor dynamic. Though successful in obtaining and holding office, he was not creative or stimulating as a political leader. He lacked the gritty toughness of an Andrew Jackson or an Abraham Lincoln. Buchanan was humorless. He snooped and spied on those about him. A lifelong bachelor , he looked after a host of nieces and nephews and managed the business affairs of less fortunate friends and relatives, but they often resented Buchanan 's domineering ways. In all, Professor Klein devotes 125 pages to Buchanan's four years as President . He is sympathetic to Buchanan's handling of the sectional crisis, his relations widi Southern leaders who later led die rebellion, and his efforts to keep his administration intact despite growing friction within his party and die increasing animosities of die Republican opposition. Klein portrays Buchanan as a victim of die sectional crisis, radier dian as an effective political leader seeking to diwart aggressive Soudiern leaders in dieir move to dissolve die Union. The format of the book is plain and readable. The footnotes, as is the custom of many publishers diese days, are tucked in at die end of the book. Following page 12 diere are thirty-five excellent photographs, sketches, cartoons , and a sample of Buchanan's graceful handwriting. Klein's bibliography indicates diat he has examined manuscript collections in more than twenty depositories, about fifty newspapers, and large numbers of biographies and secondary accounts. There has long been a need for a modern, one-volume biography of Buchanan, whose career and place in history have been distorted by Republican partisans and unfriendly historians. Professor Klein's well-researched book fills diis need. Students of die Civil War era will be grateful to him for his diligence and dedication to die task. P. J. Staudenraus University of California, Davis Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff. By Stephen E. Ambrose. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1962. Pp. vi, 226. $5.00.) For many years students of the Civil War have needed a competent, modern biography of die Civil War's least popular general, Henry Wager Halleck. The late Kenneth P. Williams did something to improve HaUeck's reputation, but now Professor Ambrose deserves praise for drawing a sympadietic and clearer picture of die man who held four high posts in the Union army. As every school child knows, Halleck was "Old Brains" to his contemporaries at the start of the war. Ulysses S. Grant wrote that "He is a man of gi- 214CIVIL WAR HISTORY gantic intellect, and well-versed in the profession of arms" (p. 3). William Tecumseh Sherman later told HaUeck, "You possess a knowledge ... of die principles of war far beyond diat of any odier officer in our service" (p.4). Yet he has been one of die most vilified and denigrated of Civil War leaders. Provoking antagonism and contempt, "Halleck was an easy man to hate" (p. 205). Given to violent hatreds himself, he had no close friends. He was sly rather than forthright in his dealings with people. Professor Ambrose's fine book is sound, dioughtful, and scholarly. It also demonstrates an understanding of die problems of high command in modern war, and helps to explain the divergent attitudes of Halleck's contemporaries. At the start of the war Halleck's military theories, like those of his fellow graduates of die U.S. Military Academy, were derived from Baron Jomini. An exponent of limited war, Jomini stressed die importance of places radier tiian destruction of armies as military objectives. He preached die doctrines of concentration of forces in die decisive dieater, of strategic maneuver against fractions of the enemy, and tactical concentration against decisive points on die field of battle. Few Americans in 1861 had ever heard of Clausewitz, but during die Civil War a school of diought...

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