The Civil War at Sea. Vol. III, The Final Effort, July 1863-November 1865 (review)

100CI VIL WAR HISTOR Y man as well as Grant. The terminal point of both careers was, after all, overwhelming success; it is there, in an analysis of this sort, that one really begins. Both men grew with adversity, each saw it through to the end, and in the process the special qualities of genius in both—for the purpose at hand—were brought to triumphant fruition. Somewhere along the way, whatever the many factors diat led up to it, die same essential perception was afforded to Grant and Sherman alike—a dawning awareness of the revolutionary character of the struggle. Grant recognized, for his part, that a revolutionary army must be not merely defeated but removed from existence. Sherman saw die corollary : the dependence of a revolutionary government on its supporters' confidence in ultimate victory. To break that confidence—to erode the South's belief in die Confederate government's ability to defend its own heartlandwas the other thing needed, parallel with the actual destruction of its armies, to break its capacity for waging war. It is in view of these fundamental ends that military "genius" and "greatness ," when applied to the American Civil War, require their own very special definitions. The candidates seem to number, in any case, fewer than three. Stanley Elkins Smith College The Civil War at Sea. Vol. Ill, The Final Effort, July 1863-November 1865. By Virgil Carrington Jones. (New York. Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1962. Pp. xxii, 456. $6.50. ) " 'Tell Mother I died for her and my country,' he said as he fell," accurately conveys the spirit of V. C. Jones's trilogy. This final volume, beginning with the July, 1863, action at Fort Wagner and ending with the C.S.S. Shenandoah's appearance at Liverpool six months after hostilities ceased, exhibits both the virtues and faults of its predecessors. Mr. Jones "set out to prepare a good, readable account [of the naval side of the war] , one that is accurate and yet not loaded down with statistics and smaller details of interest only to the student or expert." The narrative reads easily, but no diesis emerges from die piecemeal series of chronologically arranged adventures. Touching human interest anecdotes (accurate premonitions of death and hairbreadth escapes) fill the pages, but diere is little attempt to analyze events described. Jones proudly avoids dipping his pen in the "brine of the sea," castigating his predecessors for confusing readers with their overuse of naval English, but if he had used more salt and less sugar die effect would have been better. Also he might have avoided his strained attempts at clever chapter titles, such as "The Bewitched Witch" and "Bottoms to die Bottom." Unfortunately, The Civil War at Sea has more serious faults. It is unbalanced . Here are the batües but very little else. Jones scarcely mentions questions of overall strategy, administration, and the interplay between politics and naval affairs. The role of die Navy Department and die contributions of Gideon Welles and Gustavus Vasa Fox are virtually ignored. Despite his extensive use of die copious manuscript materials in Washington and at the BOOK REVIEWS101 University of North Carolina, Jones has neglected some major sources. The best Civil War naval manuscript collection—the Fox Papers at the New York Historical Society—has been ignored, and some recent secondary sources have been neglected (Ludwell Johnson's excellent Red River Campaign, for example ). Finally, die index is inadequate. Limited to proper nouns, except for "blockade," it misses many names mentioned in die text (Braxton Bragg, for instance) and some names listed appear on more pages than the index indicates . The Civil War at Sea is not, as die dust jacket claims, the "definitive history of naval operations during the Civil War." If "professionals" have given Jones no "quarter" and have granted him no "mercy," as he complains in his preface, they have had ample reason. Ari Hoogenboom Pennsylvania State University Antislavery and Disunion, 1858-1861: Studies in the Rhetoric of Compromise and Conflict. Edited by J. Jeffery Auer. (New York: Harper and Row, 1963. Pp. xii, 427. $6.00. ) This collection of twenty-three essays was prepared under the auspices of die Speech Association of America...