General John Sedgwick: The Story of a Union Corps Commander (review)

BOOK REVIEWS279 and food crops, and even cleared a profit. This experiment in black self-support on the plantations of Jefferson Davis and his brother has been told before, but nowhere so clearly and cogently as here. Currie says (p. 144), "The place, the people, and the potential were right. The time was unfortunately wrong." He concludes, in agreement with Vernon Wharton, that a more farsighted government could have provided more encouragement and financial support—a conclusion historians often apply to a variety of Reconstruction endeavors. Most of the interpretations are what would be expected; the biggest difference is Currie's finding that the crop-lien system had greater flexibility and less debilitating results in Warren County than its general reputation suggests. The reasons are not fully clear, and Currie notes that Warren County may not have been typical of the South or the rest of the state. The author has done extensive research in a variety of national and local sources. The style is clear, though not particularly engaging, for individuals (even leading ones) never get to wear their full personalities, and everypage labors under theweight ofthe passivevoice, from which neither authornor editorknew how to escape. Students of theperiod can profitably read this volume and apply its approach and methodology to a variety of other questions. James E. Sefton California State University, Northridge General John Sedgwick: The Story of a Union Corps Commander. By Richard Elliot Winslow III. (Novato, California: Presidio Press, 1982. Pp. xiii, 205. $20.00.) This study of General John Sedgwick, the stolid corps commander who served in the Army of the Potomac from the Peninsula campaign until slain at Spotsylvania, reflects primarily the author's interest in the realities of army routine. Sedgwick is viewed essentially from the focus ofhis character and personality as he fulfills his duty to his men, subordinate and superior officers, and, to a lesser extent, the politicians of the Lincoln administration. The author constructs his account largely from private correspondence, including little-used manuscript collections. There is supplementary material drawn from newspaper accounts and even the occasional foray into the Official Records, despite an unnecessary and distorted prefatory put-down of the OfficialRecords and historians who use them. This is not a modern study of field command, in the sense that a modern study focuses on how a field commander thinks and acts in relation to doctrinal and organizational development in the history of warfare. There is nothing here of Sedgwick's military world view in the tactical and strategic development of modern warfare in which the Army of the 280CIVIL WAR HISTORY Potomac played such an important role. Yet the modern student of warfare will find a random selection of incidents that will contribute to a modern historiographical outlook. Vivid descriptions of the sheer physical difficulty of movement with a mass army in American terrain qualitatively brings to life the quantitative realities of modern logistical analysis . There is something for the modern historian who attempts to analyze organizational and technological realities in the development of a modern system of tactical and strategic communications. He will find a personalized sense of the problems arising from the extended lines of mass armies running through woods, up hill and down dale. Descriptions of the enormity of the tactical transition to trench warfare and mass slaughter in frontal assaults is peculiarly underplayed considering its prominence in the life of the Army of the Potomac. The author is more comfortable with the personalized side effects of tactical history, with reactions to death, dying, doggedness, and courage. Sedgwick, a conservative Democrat, successfully attempted to enlist the financial support of the Sixth Corps behind the political career of his old commander George McClellan. The author presents personalized material which provides the historian of military culture with a sense of Sedgwick's cultural innocence as he gets caught between a professional world view that attempts to reduce the military officer to his functional military role and the traditional view of an officer playing interdependent roles, including a political role, in the passing culture of preindustrial society. The author's concern with portrayal of the personality and character of this solid and stolid general is sometimes poignant and...