<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing.
Review: PGT Beauregard was an interesting personality. In most general Civil War publications, the North and South both had generals who were in and out of favor with their superiors during the course of the war. Beauregard was one of those, though he was mostly on the outs. Yet he was one of only 8 full generals of the Confederacy. Interestingly, he held six independent commands and for a while he commanded the Army of Tennessee, one of the two principal field armies. His defense of Charleston was very good. The city was never taken by Federal frontal assault. It took Sherman's overland campaign to force Charleston's abandonment but each and every seaborne assault was rebuffed. So he must have been a capable general. But if he was capable, maybe even good at his craft, why wasn't he better utilized as a tool for Southern Independence? And if he was not useful to Jeff Davis during much of the war, why was he rushed back to service once Grant crossed the James? The answer is simple: Lee needed help and needed the best the South had available as the Civil War's end game played itself out. This is the stuff Mr. Williams' book is made of. As on all occasions where significant events take place, power politics was present and Jeff Davis just may have failed to recognize his Ulysses S. Grant.
Rating: 
Summary: The definitive biography
Review: This book must be the definitive biography on General Beauregard. I was highly impressed. William's uses 4 to 6 different sources for each quote and incident. This book tells more about Beauregard than many Civil War Buffs know. William's goes into the Beauregard and Davis feud that lasted not only the entire war, but to their dying days.
I feel it is unfortunate that the feud prevented Davis from employing Beauregard, rather than putting inferior Generals in Beauregards place.
Beauregard seems to be quite the inventor, with a sharp intellect. ( Beauregard once proposed the Confederate Army use Rockets with explosive war heads, a design he had figured out. The Confederate Government thought that idea was too radical, total nonsense, and disregarded it)
William's believes Beauregard performed his best battle in Petersburg 1864, and uses ample sources, and references to make that conclusion, which I agree with.
I've often thought Beauregard would have made a better President than Jefferson Davis, it seems that William's has this belief also.
I must say that William's seems to be a little hard on Davis, I don't know if all of that is justified, though I'm sure some certainly is.
I don't believe there is a better biographical book on P.G.T. Beauregard.
<< 1 >>
| 
