The Longest Night
A Military History of the Civil War
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- $329.00
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- $329.00
Descripción editorial
A riveting, indispensable history of the Civil War, told chronologically—from the first shots fired at Fort Sumter to the surrender in the summer of 1865—a conflict that James McPherson in the Foreword calls "the most dramatic, violent, and fateful experience in American history."
In this compelling account of the American Civil War, noted historian David Eicher gives us an authoritative history of battle from the first shots at Fort Sumter to Lee's surrender at Appomattox. As a strictly military history, The Longest Night covers hundreds of engagements, both well known and obscure, including the oft-neglected Western theater and naval actions along the coasts and rivers. The result is a gripping popular history that will fascinate anyone just learning about the Civil War while offering more than a few surprises for longtime students.
Drawing on hundreds of sources and excerpts from correspondence by those who fought the war, The Longest Night conveys a real sense of life—and death—on the battlefield. In addition, Eicher analyzes each side's evolving strategy; examines the tactics of Lee, Grant, Johnston, and Sherman; and discusses significant topics such as prisons, railroads, shipbuilding, clandestine operations, and the role of African-Americans in the war. This is an definitive chronicle of the war that, as the author writes, "like no other conflict in our history, casts a long shadow onto modern America."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a period when the study of campaigns and battles is considered old-fashioned if not misleading, the military side of the Civil War continues to receive a higher proportion of attention than any other modern conflict. Eicher (The Civil War in Books), associate editor of North and South and managing editor of Astronomy, manifests a corresponding degree of intellectual courage in offering this 900-odd page operational history. The war's causes, the armies' composition, the soldiers' motivations all take second place to a straightforward account of the fighting of a war that has already produced shelves of excellent combat narratives by such outstanding scholars as Thomas Rhea and Harry Pfanz. Eicher does more than hold his own in distinguished company and establishes himself as a remarkable battle narrator. He does set pieces like the attack on Little Round Top at Gettysburg or the doomed Confederate charge at Franklin with the verve of Shelby Foote or Wiley Sword. His accounts of Antietam and Gettysburg, Stone's River and Chickamauga, are models of clarity and cohesion, correspondingly useful introductions to the detailed monographs that often lose readers in thickets of data and analysis. Eicher is no less successful on a larger scale. His presentation of the Vicksburg campaign will serve general readers and specialists alike as an overview of one of the war's most complex operations. Eicher offers no significant revisions of conventional wisdom on crucial issues nor does he seek controversy in a field that often invites it. This book,with maps by Lee Vande Visse and a foreword by James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom), succeeds above all in demonstrating that the Civil War offered no shortcuts to victory or defeat at the sharp end of battle.
