President James Buchanan: A Biography (review)

212CI VIL WAR HISTORY at Annapolis to proceed to the beleaguered capital. This timely grasp of the advantages of sea movement may have swayed the balance to save Washington and Maryland for the Union—both of incalculable influence upon the war. The first important victories for the North came from employing sea superiority in combined operations against the Carolinas. The early naval success at Hatteras and die subsequent capture of Port Royal meant more than a lift of morale for the North. They began the deadly drain on the Confederacy in troops, ordnance, and key coastal points, and die lodgement of Union forces behind die lines diat forced dispersal of Confederate strength from die main battlefields. On die Western rivers (which have yet to welcome their definitive historian ) the indomitable John Rodgers overcame Herculean tasks to shape a river fleet for Foote and Grant. The first ships, energetically and swiftly put into service, helped prevent die secession of Kentucky. Behind die strength of this fleet Grant knifed into the heart of the Confederacy in combined operations diat brought repeated disaster to the South. In addition to die foregoing omissions, the South's efforts are inadequately treated and diere are some inaccuracies, such as die account of the H. L. Hunley, the Confederates' valiant submarine. Yet these blemishes merely show diat no book can be perfect. Anderson's broad overall grasp of die conflict and of the interrelation of army and navy as separate but dependent blades of die same shears, mark him as a naval historian of the Civil War widi few equals. Some intimation of diis must have given him satisfaction as he sailed beyond the horizon of this world. E. M. Eller Department of the Navy President James Buchanan: A Biography. By Phihp Shriver Klein. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962. Pp. xviü, 506. $7.50.) Professor Philip S. Klein of Pennsylvania State has produced an excellent life of our fifteendi President, James Buchanan. After two decades of work, Dr. Klein has replaced die old standard two-volume biography by George Ticknor Curtis, published in 1883, Klein's work has benefited from improved historical mediods developed in die last eighty years. Unlike die older work, die present book does not rely on extensive excerpts from Buchanan's letters and speeches and from the correspondence of prominent politicians of diat era. Professor Klein possesses die experience and maturity of scholarship to describe and evaluate Buchanan's forty-eight-year public career. He studied with Roy Nichols, an eminent student of Democratic politics and politicians of the pre-Civil War era, and he has made himself an expert on Buchanan and Pennsylvania politics. The Klein biography covers Buchanan's early life and college experiences, his subsequent law career, his service in die Pennsylvania legislature, in die 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 tiiwart aggressive Soudiern leaders in dieir move to dissolve die Union. The format of the book...