The Civil War as heroic ordeal

Review essay on Shelby Foote's The Civil War, Volumes I, II, & III

There are an awful lot of books about the Civil War and Lincoln. This series, which runs to about 3000 pages, is one of the most daunting, if “classic”. When I finally found the courage to crack it, I was immediately swept into the narrative. Though with all the battle detail it is a bit like jumping onto a moving train, the power of the language, the evocation of personalities, and display of military tactics and strategies (as they appeared to distant politicians and commanders) are first rate. As a history buff, I knew a lot of this already and still it was a delight to go back over it and, of course, there were many details I didn't know.

Volume I covers the first 2 years of the war, from its outbreak at Fort Sumter, where southern rebels had taken over a Union fort, to the Confederate invasion of Perryville, Maryland in 1862. The view is from the command post – above the trenches – where the commanders pitted their men against each other and marshaled their “national” resources. The contest quickly became continental and prolonged, in spite of the hopes of politicians that it would end with capitulation after a decisive battle or two. By the end of 1862, with a catastrophic stalemate in the making, William Tecumseh Sherman saw that the war would become total, i.e., not just armies duking it out for territory, but the mobilization of the entire northern society – demographic, industrial, agricultural – with the object of smashing the other side into complete submission.

In gross strategic terms, the South was decisively disadvantaged in all areas. However, the fighting spirit of its soldiers was superior in the beginning, perhaps because they felt they were defending their homes and culture against invaders. In addition, especially once Robert E. Lee was appointed as chief field strategist, he was able to coordinate the various Confederate armies in attack plans that disrupted Federal initiatives and carried attacks to the weak points in their lines. That Jefferson Davis was a graduate of West Point and a politician only in the latter half of his career helped as well, for he could consolidate resources and deal with military commanders from a solid knowledge base. This resulted in many victories early on, though it was depleting the South of its best manpower – each “victory” was costly.

On the Federal side, there was a leadership gap. Though popular with the men, top general George McClellan was so excessively cautious that he consistently over-estimated Rebel forces, sometimes by a factor of 2 to 3. McClellan repeatedly refused the take the initiative because he never felt sufficiently prepared, a tendency that led Lincoln to make many sarcastic jokes. As a result, the Federals massed resources in depots that were frequently plundered by wildly improvisational rebels such as Stonewall Jackson, making them look like inept fools.

Nonetheless, as the book makes clear, the Federals at this time were consolidating their positions, having taken many of the key ports to impose a devastating, if partial economic blockade of the South, and achieving near-dominance in the West while defending crucial points in the East. Moreover, they were learning how to lead what became the first truly modern war, dependent on the manufacturing, communication, and transportation capabilities that came with the second industrial revolution.

Finally, while out of his depth in terms of military strategy, Lincoln was learning – and he understood from the outset that the war was as political as it was military, a crucial aspect that Davis didn't seem to grasp. In practical terms, Lincoln maneuvered the South into firing the first shots of the conflict. This put the Federals in the position of “defending” the integrity of the union, while the Confederacy was the champion of slavery, as explicitly stated in its declaration of secession.

By the end of the volume, Lincoln was preparing the Emancipation Proclamation. First, it was intended to re-energize the North with ideological purpose – to free the slaves for the sake of justice and human dignity. This represented a major step away from Lincoln's initial position, which was to “preserve” the union even if it meant accepting some form of slavery. Second, he was sending a message to the world, framing the debate in a way that would make it awkward for any other power to recognize, or ally with, the South. The union was, in his scenario, “the last, best hope of Earth”. Most importantly, having just abolished slavery in the Empire after a prolonged political campaign, this inhibited Great Britain from entering the conflict, as many of its politicians wanted to do out of spite. Perhaps only in retrospect, the Proclamation was one of the greatest political masterstrokes of the modern era, but at the time the Union felt besieged and threatened – Lee's forces were occupying parts of Maryland and military leadership was faltering, as McClellan was finally fired. The volume concludes at a desperate and uncertain time for both sides.

If you are looking for analyses of the causes and meaning of the war, you will not find them here – except as articulated by politicians at the time, hence expressing only their immediate political calculations. That's what a narrative is, I suppose, but it leaves many of the deeper issues unaddressed and as vacant as gaping holes. It is purely descriptive; politicians are often quoted, with a bit about thrown in about what they might have been thinking. While Foote (a southerner) occasionally mentions slavery, he essentially avoids the topic, implying instead that it was more “self determination” that motivated the Rebels. I do not mean to say that he romanticizes the story like Gone with the Wind, but he refuses to take many of the most crucial issues head on – the reader will need to seek that perspective elsewhere, in say, the brilliant America Aflame (see below). With its focus on leaders, there is also very little about what the grunts on the field and civilians in the cities were experiencing. There is nothing in this volume on the fundamental social changes underway, which the war itself was catalyzing.

All in all, this is a great, indeed riveting, read. The battles are, I admit, exciting and moving, often horrifying and stupefying. Foote writes like a novelist, which is a consistent pleasure. For example, he vividly describes naval battles by the ironclads, the metal-plated ships that were coming on line at the time. A friend of mine disdains Foote as “picaresque”, but it rang true to me. I loved his characterizations of the protagonists, however hard it is to keep them straight – I really felt that I was seeing things from their point of view as the war and even each battle unfolded.

In Volume II (“Fredericksburg to Meridian”), Foote describes in masterful detail how the war began to go decisively against the Confederacy. Though the South continued to win battles against insurmountable odds and spinning myths about its honor and “cause”, the North was moving methodically into a strategically superior position that only a failure of political will could derail. Once again, the narrative is from the point of view of decisionmakers and the principal actors on the ground, i.e., how they saw things as they unfolded and what they tried to do.

At the beginning of the volume (1862), the North was still losing major battles. However, as Foote notes, manpower was becoming an acute problem for the Confederacy. Even though man to man the South was doing better in the field, each casualty disproportionately benefitted the North, with its superior resources in every category, from demographics and the economy to industrial manufacturing and diplomatic corps. Somehow, President Davis reasoned, the South would gain diplomatic recognition from the European powers, who would step in to ensure the flow of cotton to their factories (politically impossible given the stigma of supporting slavery); if not that, then he would depend on the North's “lack of will” in the face of his superior fighting power.

As Lincoln knew, Davis’s hopes were delusions unless he lost the election of 1864, which was a distinct possibility given the results of the mid-term congressional elections. None other than George McClellan, the General Lincoln had fired for incompetence and insubordination, emerged as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee; his platform was to immediately withdraw and sue for peace.

It was at this moment that Lee decided to invade the North, perhaps to prove to the European powers that the South was unbeatable and should be contended with on its own. Outnumbered two to one, Lee pulled off a great victory in Fredricksburg, demonstrating once again that the North’s military leadership problem. For whatever reason, Lee began to believe his troops could accomplish anything he put them to, leading him to make a foolhardy attack at Gettysburg – an open field at a punishing incline – against the advice of his top subordinate, General James Longstreet. This resulted in one of the most disastrous defeats of the entire war, forcing a withdrawal that George Meade, the current general in chief of the Union, inexplicably failed to follow up and which might have ended the war then and there. From this point, every defeat of the South represented possible catastrophe and perhaps even an end to the Confederate cause.

In the West, Grant wore down the Confederate forces at Vicksburg in a difficult battle of attrition, the capitulation of which gave the Union complete control of the Mississippi river. This cut the Confederacy in two, crippling its economy and hugely complicating issues of strategic unity and logistics. Though the South won a resounding tactical victory in the battle of Chickamauga, once again it proved Pyrrhic: the North quickly won the region back, further grinding down Southern forces. This put the South in a desperate gloom, as Lincoln called for another draft and brought 100,000 African Americans into the Union forces. From this point, the South began a slide into defeat that was as painful to watch as it was an unnecessary loss of life. It would be nothing but a brutal slug fest from here on in. Finally, from Mississippi, Sherman was mandated by Grant to pursue total war in the South, destroying its infrastructure and even its food resources, hence the popular will to continue; this was one of the many military innovations the war spawned, which included the invention of trench warfare, the first submarine, and breech-loading rifles.

As weak or ineffectual leaders were being weeded out from the North's forces, the South was suffering a decimation in its top ranks. The death of Stonewall Jackson set Lee reeling, disrupting the chemistry of this team of generals. For example, in Jackson's place at Gettysburg, Lee had had George Pickett, a foolhardy seeker of glory whose charge into cannon fire at Gettysburg destroyed the entire division under his command. Finally, with Grant appointed as general in chief in 1864 – he was already being touted as presidential material – Lincoln had finally found his fighter.

Foote succeeds in maintaining the quality he achieved in the first volume. Nonetheless, Lincoln is a mere shadow for most of volume II, reappearing only at the end for an incisive political analysis. Foote also persists in leaving crucial issues unaddressed, such as why the South was fighting, i.e., to preserve the slave economy and society. In addition, while the battles are riveting to read as stories, they are sometimes excessively covered. Sure, there was glory and brilliance to be had, but the carnage was pervasive and worsening.

Volume III (“Red River to Appomattox”) starts with the description of Grant's strategy: he planned to smash Lee in the East while Sherman would get General Joseph E. Johnston in the Southwest. In spite of a series of near-disastrous setbacks, this strategy is the plot of the story in the next 1,060 pages. By this time, the Confederacy was exhausted and hungry, despairing. Nonetheless, not only did the South rally to achieve several major, bloody victories, but there was still hope that the “peace candidate” would be elected in Lincoln's place in 1864. This was the “lost cause”, facing a Union Army that was twice its size with fresh reinforcements on the way and an untouched industrial capacity to manufacture all the matériel that its forces would require. No matter what the South tried, it could not escape the inexorable mathematics of attrition.

In spite of continuing tactical victories, the Confederacy was unable to hold onto its wins. For his part, the tenacious President Davis was almost relieved that the territories he must defend had shrunk to the essential triangle of the deep south. Meanwhile, Lee had entrenched himself in the East so tightly that Grant seemed unable to dislodge him, even after a series of battles after which he continued south to Petersburg, settling in for a grinding siege. It was after Sherman captured Atlanta, ensuring Lincoln's reelection with an unambiguous Union victory, that he began his famous march of destruction through Georgia. Sherman met almost no opposition, demonstrating to the world that the South was in fact on its last legs. Meanwhile, Grant slogged away at Lee's forces, committing however many men he needed to wear him down. Finally, after nearly a year of stalemate, Grant penetrated the line, leading to a quick and final collapse of Lee's decimated forces.

Like the earlier volumes, this one is all about the fighting – strategy, tactics, heroic stories, the leaders' thinking, odd tidbits – and only secondarily about politics. Lincoln appears rarely, which is a pity because Foote covers politicians' concerns and personalities with great density and intelligence. Finally, the big moral and social themes of the narrative are again almost completely lacking. Slavery has only 9 entries in the index! What the war and its aftermath meant for their respective societies is left to others to analyze. The concluding chapters are only a kind of mop up of what soldiers and leaders did as the Confederacy disintegrated. If I expected more, this is a totally satisfying read nonetheless.

What I come away with is a solid sense of the contours of the war and the personalities of the various leaders.  Finally, Foote's language and expression are uniquely vivid, a perfect fit for the story he tells. That makes this a most delicious historical narrative in spite of its omissions and shortcomings. Be warned, it is so massive that you'd better have strong hands to hold it as you get through its 1.5 million words.

If you want a deeper look at the causes and meaning of the Civil War, I would recommend the book in the review below: