Lincoln's War : The Untold Story of America's Greatest President as Commander in Chief

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: A disappointment.

A book on Lincoln's role in the Civil War might have gone deeply into the controversial issue of the suspension of habeus corpus, or the history of civilian and military relationships in Europe and America, before and after Lincoln. But contrary to the claims on the dust jacket, there is little real discussion of any of these issues in Perret's book.

In fact, this book is mostly just another quick survey of the history of the war. Why do we need to be told again about the battle of Pea Ridge, or Chattanooga, or even Gettysburg, for that matter? All this is covered in many popular histories. Perret should have used his pages to expand his case about technological innovations, for instance. This is indeed a fascinating topic, but Perret just gives us dogmatic pronouncements about iron-clad ships and repeating rifles being the wave of the future, really saying nothing that hasn't been said often before.

I give it the lowest possible rating because Perret makes a huge mistake in his brief discussion of war financing (pages 201 and 202) The controversial "Greenbacks"were not interest-bearing notes. They were "fiat-money", the now familiar paper currency, legal tender for all depts public and private, their values fixed by government authority. Interest bearing bonds were something completely different, with a long history: Samuel Chase, I find from the encyclopedia, apparently pioneered the idea of issuing them in low denominations, twenty five or fifty dollars, targeted for sale to the general public, not just wealthy investors. There is an interesting story here, but in flying over it so fast, Perret has garbled it completely. I wonder who David Taylor from Ohio really was? Somebody could write a book.... If Perret gets this wrong, how can one rely on the rest of his scholarship? (Except when he is repeating familiar material)

Perret exemplifies a style of history-writing that I find annoying. I want a historian to tell the story of what was done in the past, and expand on it by exploring what options were available to the people back then, and why (maybe) they chose as they did, and what it was all like for them. But Perret is like an editorial-writer. He wants to tell us, dogmatically, where the people of the past made mistakes, and what they should have done instead. Perret tells us that Lincoln should have ignored Richmond, and focussed on the western theater. Well, maybe so, and maybe not. The famous benefit of hindsight only tells us how things actually did work out, it doesn't tell us how things would have worked out if different decisions had been made. For a variety of reasons, I am much more interested in how Lincoln, and even how McClellan and Burnside, actually made their decisions at the time, than in how Geoffrey Perret thinks they should have decided.



Rating:
Summary: factual errors
Review: Before buying this book you should read James McPherson's scathing review in the recent issue of The Nation concerning the multitude of factual errors which permeate this book.
Caveat emptor.

Rating:
Summary: Don't confuse me with the facts?
Review: I got this book cheap, fortunately, and read it before I saw the scathing reviews here and elsewhere. As I was reading I wasn't aware of the myriad alleged factual errors mentioned, but I was disturbed by the idiosyncratic writing style, an odd attempt to be "folksy," I supposed. There were also passages which seemed abrupt and poorly edited. While the book was fairly easy to read and had some interesting things to say about Lincoln's role as military leader, I cannot recommend the book due to the apparent sloppy research and editing, and knowing there are undoubtedly much better works available. So I won't say don't read this book, but I will say don't spend any money on it!

Rating:
Summary: Are we seeing a pattern here?
Review: I have been a staunch fan of Mr. Perret's prior works, recommending them to many readers. I have not read this work, but it makes me wonder. Does success necessarily lead to a decline in literary quality or worse? My mind immediately flys to the late Stephen Ambrose, populist historian, and the noted presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Both were plagued by charges of plagiarism. Do the pressures of popular success lead to shoddy work. My first assumption was poor fact checking by administrative staff, or at worse, depending on their circumstances, poor proofing on the part of the author of work done by others and attributed to them. I did expert witnessing and had to evaluate technical reports that were sworn to by credentialled professionals, that in the event were actually authored by graduate students and "signed off" by the credited author. The factual errors in the reports were easily refuted at trial throwing the competence and testimony of the opposing expert into question. Back to Mr. Ambrose. I found numerous factual errors or stretching of the truth in his popular book, "Band of Brothers", to the degree that I could never read another of his books without questioning everything he wrote.
I am sorry to hear the reviews of this most current work by Mr. Perret as it now calls into question his previous works, some of which I have read more than once and number as my favorite reads.

Rating:
Summary: Perret's Accuracy in LINCOLN'S WAR Is Pathetic
Review: I have been studying Abraham Lincoln for nearly 40 years. I do not know what happened when Perret wrote this book about Lincoln since his books on three other presidents are fair or better, but Perret really "dropped the ball" on this one. A large amount of Perret's information is untrue, and LINCOLN'S WAR has a huge number of inaccuracies throughout it. Just a few examples are his information about the battle of Chancellorsville, the military importance of terrain and geography. He confuses rivers and direction of their flows and gets the specifics of some battles wrong, and then draws conclusions on this inaccurate information and lack of knowledge. He confuses some of the battles and has units in places they were not. Perret claims that Lincoln created his own currency for the Union which is not true. The Legal Tender Act was passed by Congress and Lincoln's participation was just to sign the bill since he was the president then. That act of Congress was constitutionally legal. Perret states that no black troops were raised in Kentucky when records show that 23,700 black troops were soldiers in Kentucky. Perret also writes that Lincoln was obsessed with the capture of the Confederate capitol, Richmond. Although capturing Richmond was one of Lincoln's overall three military strategies, the truth is that for at least a year Lincoln repeatedly told some of his generals that at least hurting or better yet, defeating Lee's army wherever it was engaged by Union military was his (Lincoln's) objective, not capturing Richmond. Perret also misunderstands Lincoln's strategy for emancipating slaves. In conclusion, Perret did shamefully sloppy research, and therefore his conclusions about Lincoln mean nothing since they are based on inaccurate information and the author's lack of knowledge of historical facts and realities during Lincoln's era. James M. McPherson who is considered by some to be America's most eminent Civil War historian, states that he found a minimum of 120 errors in Perret's book, LINCOLN'S WAR. If you want to read McPherson's review which is more detailed than my review, you can read McPherson's review at http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040614&c=1&s=mcpherson

Rating:
Summary: Junk History
Review: I rented the movie "Cold Mountain" the other day and was impressed with it's depiction of the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg, Virginia, in 1864. I was also reading Perrett's book at the time, so I flipped ahead to page 387 to compare his Battle of the Crater with the movie's. I Found: "Thousands of black soldiers found themselves pushed into a pit 30 feet deep."... "Hundreds were slaughtered and hundreds more captured." Actually General Grant had been stricken with a bad case of "political correctness" just before the attack and had replaced the black division, specially trained for the assault, with white troops unfamiliar with the objective. Grant hadn't wanted to be accused of uselessly sacrificing black troops. He wasn't. The Civil War has been over now for almost 150 years, but apparently Perret still hasn't gotten the details on this battle. Apparently the editorial reviewers also failed to notice the sloppiness in Perret's "research"- that was left up to the Amazon costumers. The book is also superficial with nothing new except the errors. I would like to say something good about the book but nothing comes to mind, so back to "Cold Mountain." Except for the battle scenes at the beginning, it might have been written by Perret-it's bland and boring. Whenever it got too boring a bunch of really nasty guys would ride in and rape, murder and/or torture, just for the pleasure of the viewing audience. If you liked the book you might even like the movie.

Rating:
Summary: Good book that highlights Lincoln's human side
Review: I've read the reviews below and McPherson's review, and yes there are errors in this book. It is clear that Mr. Perret does not know a whole lot about the Civil War, but does that mean he doesn't know about Lincoln? On the contrary, I found this book to be interesting and enlightening on Lincoln and I've read other books on our greatest President. Some of the interesting items that I learned from this book are as follows. Lincoln saved numerous soldier's who deserted from firing squads and by executive decree he saved a lot of men from this fate. He continually visited hospitals to talk to wounded soldiers. His focus and concern was with the individual soldier, and visited the army to meet them and talk to them. This book studied Lincoln not the Civil War. And, the input on this Lincoln study was from the perspective of the Library of Congress. So what if Mr. Perret didn't recognize that more than two regiments of sharpshooters beat the Confederates on July 2nd. This isn't a history of the Civil War. It is a historical telling of Lincoln's role in the Civil War. More importantly, to me, it highlighted what a good man he was. We were lucky to have him as President during this trying time. If you are interested in learning about Lincoln, I recommend this book. It is good at delving into his personality. If you are interested in learning about the Civil War, don't read this book. It is as simple as that.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable book
Review: Lincoln's War chronicles the leadership of America's greatest President during its gravest crisis. The author provides an account of how Abraham Lincoln held the Union together and led its military as commander-in-chief.

The book is neatly organized. There is a general progression from before the start of the war until its conclusion, but many-if not all-of the chapters are organized thematically. And these chapters are well written and highly engaging. Many readers and reviewers have complained about some historical inaccuracies concerning some of the details, how major battles and events are given little attention, or that the portrayal of U.S. Grant is all wrong. Perhaps they detractors are correct in those regard, but one has to keep in mind the book's overall focus upon Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief, and in that regard I believe this book succeeds. (Perhaps this book deserves 3.5 stars instead of four, but because the one-star ratings for this book are so undeserved, I'll stand by my four-star rating.)

Since much of Lincoln's time and energy was focused upon the Army of the Potomac and the struggle in the East, much of the book focuses upon that. However, ample attention is also paid to the war as it was fought in the West. A recurring theme (or assertion) throughout the book is that the Union's emphasis upon the East and marching the Army of the Potomac on the Confederate's capitol was misguided, and that more attention should have been paid to the Western front. This point is controversial, but at the very least the author does an adequate job in backing up this notion throughout the book.

The author's portrayal of Lincoln as a man and as a military leader comes across as very sympathetic and positive-quite deserved, in this reviewer's view. The war was a tragedy for the nation, and all of the death and destruction took a heavy, heavy toll on Lincoln. His struggles with intense pain and sadness are remarkable.

There was clearly a political dimension to Lincoln's role as Commander-in-Chief. After reading this book, I am further struck with how absolutely essential the political dimension was in prosecuting the war. Lincoln's political calculations were essential to keeping the borders states from joining the Confederacy and in keeping the voters of the North committed to candidates who supported the Union. One of the surest ways to dissolution would have been for the North to have elected a Democrat who would have sought a truce. Matters were further complicated by Lincoln's perpetual struggles with Union generals. The generalship problems appear to have persisted until near the end of the war.

A few chapters stand out in my mind, which I found personally insightful. One chapter was devoted to Gen. Winfield Scott's contribution to the Union cause while serving as General-in-Chief at the beginning of the war. Another chapter is devoted to the U.S.S. Monitor, and another focuses upon Lincoln's acute interest in military and weapons technology. (For some reason, I find the image of Lincoln wearing his stove-pipe hat and firing rifles rather amusing.)

I enjoyed reading this book.

Rating:
Summary: Lincoln & Grant - making sense of the civil war
Review: Perret has a knack for putting complex social realities into thoughtful context. He is not a traditional academic or military historian. Instead he writes well and pushes the reader to think new thoughts (and even learn a new word or two). My advice is to make the investment -- which is made easier because the writing is so good. Reading this digestible summary of Lincoln as the main force in the civil war was made even richer for me because I had read Perret's essential bio on U.S. Grant. In this period of nostalgia about World war II and doubts about Iraq, I also recommend that readers search for copies of Perret's "There's a War to be Won" (on WWII's army) and "A nation made by war" (on the important ways our nation's wars have had on US history.

Rating:
Summary: An absolutely terrible book
Review: Perret's books are frequently terrible and always atrocious. His book on Ulysses S. Grant was so bad I burned my copy. I also threw into the flames his books on MacArthur, Ike and Kennedy. This book on Lincoln is similarly bad and as always, he makes mistakes on just about every page. Never trust anything this man says or writes. His knowledge of Lincoln is extremely tiny and his writing style is something out of Jane Eyre, only worse. I'd rather eat glass than read anything Perret writes.