Grant, Lee, Lincoln and the Radicals: Essays on Civil War Leadership (review)

298civil war histobt scripts, and other materials to separate myth from reality and bring out the definitive account of the origin and delivery of the Gettysburg Address. Warren contends that three factors affected the formulation of the address and shaped the thoughts embodied therein: (a) Lincoln's life-long practice of preparing speeches and briefs; (b) his belief in the equality of men (expressed in the Emancipation Proclamation earlier in the year); and (c) the spirit of patriotism—greatly stimulated by the July 4 memories associated with the place where he was to speak. The nineteen chapters cover 183 pages of text. The first eight are devoted to events or topics preceding the program of November 1T, 1863. Six deal with topics of the day of the address, and the other five could be labeled "aftermath." The fifteenth chapter, entitled "Press Reaction," indicates the extent of Dr. Warren's research. The eighteenth chapter is a compilation of what famous people, from Charles Francis Adams to Franklin D. Roosevelt, have said about the immortal address. Two chapters trace the history of each of the five Gettysburg Address holographs. Edward Everett's oration is included in an appendix and Dr. Warren lists the 201 sources upon which the study is based. The author draws judicious suppositions from the contradictory evidence on so many aspects of the Gettysburg story—whether Lincoln read the address or recited it, whether Everett kept the crowd waiting, whether Lincoln was invited to speak as an afterthought, whether contemporaries recognized the worth of the address, whether Lincoln wrote the address in whole or in part on the Gettysburg-bound train, and so forth. Warren argues convincingly that at least one and probably two copies of the address were written by the President at the Executive Mansion in preparation for delivery at Gettysburg. He concluded that Lincoln's address, including the applause, lasted about three minutes. Historical errors are few indeed. Tod, not Dennison, served as Ohio's governor at the time of the Gettysburg ceremonies. Lincoln did have more than one speaking engagement for which he was compensated. Men, newly introduced into the text sometimes have only their surnames given. Dr. Warren has devised a citation system which is unique, unfortunate, and maddening—enough to drive a reviewer to distraction. All in all, however, Lincoln's Gettysburg Declaration is a worthy book deserving a prominent place on Civil War bookshelves. Frank L. Klement Marquette University Grant, Lee, Lincoln and the Radicals: Essays on CivÜ War Leadership . Edited by Grady McWhiney. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964. Pp. vi, 117. $3.95.) "There are more Civil War controversies than there were battles between 1861 and 1865," writes Professor Grady McWhiney, and the volume which he has edited is focused on two of those controversies. One of the contro- BOOK BEVIEWS299 versies concerns the relative merits of Grant and Lee as commanders, and those two commanders are discussed in two papers: "The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant," by Bruce Catton, and "The Generalship of Robert E. Lee," by Charles P. Roland. The second controversy, over the relationship between President Abraham Lincoln and the Radical Republicans, forms the subject of two more essays: "Devils Facing Zionward," by David Donald, and "Lincoln and the Radicals: An Essay in Civil War History and Historiography ," by T. Harry Williams. All four papers, we are told by the editor, were delivered at a Civil War Centennial symposium held at Northwestern University. The two essays on Grant and Lee do not in themselves constitute a controversy in that neither essay challenges directly and explicitly the findings of the other. Instead, the reviewer (who is not a special student of military history) would describe the two essays as virtually complementary. Mr. Catton , for example, writes that "Grant merits very high ranking as a soldier" and that "it is not easy to see how . . . [the Civil War] would have been won without Grant." Yet he does not praise Grant at the expense of Lee, for he points to Lee's ability, and praises Lee's conduct of the Wilderness campaign in 1864 as "masterly." In a similar fashion, while Professor Roland describes Lee's accomplishments as "second to none...