The Sword of Lincoln
The Army of the Potomac
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The Sword of Lincoln is the first authoritative, accessible, single-volume history of the Army of the Potomac from a renowned Civil War historian.
From Bull Run to Gettysburg to Appomattox, the Army of the Potomac repeatedly fought -- and eventually defeated -- Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia. Jeffry D. Wert, one of our finest Civil War historians, brings to life the battles, the generals, and the common soldiers who fought for the Union and ultimately prevailed. The Army of the Potomac endured a string of losses under a succession of flawed commanders -- McClellan, Burnside, and Hooker -- until at Gettysburg it won a decisive battle under a new commander, General George Meade. Within a year the Army of the Potomac would come under the overall leadership of the Union's new general-in-chief, Ulysses S. Grant. Under Grant the army would finally trap and defeat Lee and his forces.
Wert's history draws on letters and diaries, some previously unpublished, to show us what army life was like. Throughout the book Wert shows how Lincoln carefully monitored the operations of the Army of the Potomac, learning as the war progressed, until he found in Grant the commander he'd long sought.
Perceptive in its analysis and compellingly written, The Sword of Lincoln is the finest modern account of the army that was central to the Civil War.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A Civil War historian distinguished for biographies of Longstreet and Custer, and for several campaign histories, now offers this excellent overview of the Army of the Potomac. Charged with the defense of Washington, D.C. and therefore under the eyes of the politicians from first to last the Army of the Potomac was blessed with a rank-and-file firmly committed to defending the Union. It was not so fortunate, Wert shows, in its high command. The charismatic George McClellan was an excellent organizer but an overly cautious commander who, the author argues, set the pattern for his successors' habit of avoiding defeat rather than aggressively seeking victory. The book is filled with portraits of the divided upper ranks both heroes (Winfield Scott Hancock and Phil Kearney, the latter killed before he could realize his potential) and not (the author is absolutely scathing on Third Division Gen. William French). It is also filled with exceptionally vivid accounts of battles, some of them well known (Burnside's bloody fiasco at Fredericksburg) and others less so (the Spotsylvania campaign, particularly its climax at the "Bloody Angle" trench warfare at its worst). Finally, Wert shows President Lincoln's bond with the army he saw more often than any other, and which felt a personal tie to him. Wert assimilates the half-century of research that has appeared since Bruce Catton wrote his classic trilogy and condenses this mountain of material into a single readable and accessible volume.
