Rating: 
Summary: The Best Study of the Battle of Chickamauga
Review: After reading Cozzens' book I can safely say this is the best study of the Battle of Chickamauga in existence today! Before getting into the battle itself Cozzens lays the foundation leading up to the titanic struggle. He describes the Tullahoma Campaign in which Rosecrans brilliantly outmanuevers Bragg and the political atmosphere surrounding the North and South in August/September 1863. Instead of a dry rehashing of troop movements, Cozzens peppers the text with several biographical descriptions of the officers and enlisted men who fought there. The author also includes several anecdotes in the battle descriptions. Some of the more interesting: An intense prayer meeting in the 11th Ohio before the regiment went into battle, a clash between the 4th Texas and 15th Wisconsin around a schoolhouse, the uncertainty and tension surrounding Cleburne's Confederate Division during a late afternoon/early evening attack in the Winfrey Field, and the death of Richard Kirkland of the 3rd South Carolina (a year earlier he had won the respect and appreciation from the Union troops at Fredericksburg by giving water to enemy troops after the doomed Union attacks against Marye's Heights). Whenever I visit a battlefield I like to visit the place where a particular engagement took place, visualize, and absorb what it may have been like. While the National Park Service does a good job of interpreting major Civil War Battlefields, they often only mention the hight points and the major tour roads do not include many important actions. Books such as Cozzens' provide interesting and touching anecdotes that help fill in the gaps and help you understand the many personal tragedies and intense fighting that happened during Civil War battles. The major complaints I have about the book are the lack of maps and photos of the participants. While the maps in the text are excellent (well drawn and detailed), about 5-10 more maps would have made it easier for me to keep track of troop movements. As mentioned in earlier reviews, I also believe that photos of the major players (Rosecrans, Bragg, Cleburne, Polk, Longstreet, Wilder, McCook, Crittenden, etc.) would have added an additional personal touch. Had photographs and more maps been included, I would have given the book a 5-star rating. All in all, an excellent read and the most informative study of a Confederate victory that could have turned the tide of the war!
Rating:
Summary: The Best Study of the Battle of Chickamauga
Review: After reading Cozzens' book I can safely say this is the best study of the Battle of Chickamauga in existence today! Before getting into the battle itself Cozzens lays the foundation leading up to the titanic struggle. He describes the Tullahoma Campaign in which Rosecrans brilliantly outmanuevers Bragg and the political atmosphere surrounding the North and South in August/September 1863. Instead of a dry rehashing of troop movements, Cozzens peppers the text with several biographical descriptions of the officers and enlisted men who fought there. The author also includes several anecdotes in the battle descriptions. Some of the more interesting: An intense prayer meeting in the 11th Ohio before the regiment went into battle, a clash between the 4th Texas and 15th Wisconsin around a schoolhouse, the uncertainty and tension surrounding Cleburne's Confederate Division during a late afternoon/early evening attack in the Winfrey Field, and the death of Richard Kirkland of the 3rd South Carolina (a year earlier he had won the respect and appreciation from the Union troops at Fredericksburg by giving water to enemy troops after the doomed Union attacks against Marye's Heights). Whenever I visit a battlefield I like to visit the place where a particular engagement took place, visualize, and absorb what it may have been like. While the National Park Service does a good job of interpreting major Civil War Battlefields, they often only mention the hight points and the major tour roads do not include many important actions. Books such as Cozzens' provide interesting and touching anecdotes that help fill in the gaps and help you understand the many personal tragedies and intense fighting that happened during Civil War battles. The major complaints I have about the book are the lack of maps and photos of the participants. While the maps in the text are excellent (well drawn and detailed), about 5-10 more maps would have made it easier for me to keep track of troop movements. As mentioned in earlier reviews, I also believe that photos of the major players (Rosecrans, Bragg, Cleburne, Polk, Longstreet, Wilder, McCook, Crittenden, etc.) would have added an additional personal touch. Had photographs and more maps been included, I would have given the book a 5-star rating. All in all, an excellent read and the most informative study of a Confederate victory that could have turned the tide of the war!
Rating: 
Summary: Powerful!
Review: If you want to know more about Chickamauga, you cannot do any better than this. Chickamauga is the pivotal Civil War battle for the central South. Here the South literally wins the battle while subsequently suffering a series of calamitous defeats, the ultimate loss of Chattanooga all the way down to and including Atlanta. If you are a detail freak who still wants to smell the powder and hear the battle, this is for you. If you are not, skim the incredible detail, this is still for you. Cozzens style IS different: He gets it right. His are the most detailed accounts I certainly have ever read. Yet, while he delivers the most incredible detail, he delivers the battle as well, hour by hour and minute by minute. And this was an awesome battle, one of the worst ever fought on the North American continent. Out are the then current leaders Rosecrans, Bragg and Halleck. The South's continuing, and truly horrid villain is Jefferson Davis. The ascending stars are ultimately Grant and Sherman, and they have not even appeared on this scene yet. The Union hero of the day is George Thomas, a Virginian, who is subsequently treated very poorly by his country. Lincoln proves vigilant and resilient as always, adjusting the Union game plan with excellent decisions. If you want to know more about one of the most pivotal and vicious fights between North and South, make time for this excellent work. While a brilliant Southern victory, it was the South's best earned, long term tactical defeat. While a humiliating Union battlefield catastrophe, it just may have resulted in one of the Union's finest hours.
Rating:
Summary: Every important detail about this battle is in this book
Review: The author has managed to thoroughly detail every event and person that is important to this battle within this book. Yes, some parts of the book are laborious and boring, yet, the author's attention to the details of strategic placement and movement of the two armies, and the time devoted to explaining the significance of many facets of the battle, no doubt make this book the best there is about the Chickamauga campaign. Cozzens provides a number of interesting and emotion-gripping stories of the human tragedies that occurred on the battlefield. Cozzens also helps the reader understand the thinking of Bragg, Rosecrans, Thomas, Polk, and other commanders in dealing with the dissention among themselves in staging the battle and the confusion and utter chaos that takes place on the battlefield. The author includes adequate, although somewhat difficult to read, maps of the movements of the armies at various stages of the battle. In the end, the Confederate Army of the West wins, but Bragg fails to follow through to ensure a complete defeat of the Union forces. There will be times when the overwhelming details presented in this work will put you to sleep, but stick with it and you'll find every important fact worth knowing about Chickamauga contained in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Expert treatment of the ACW turning point in the West...
Review: The year 1863 was truly a seminal one for the American Civil War...the famous battles at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Vicksburg have all been imminently researched and expounded upon with many very excellent histories published throughout the years. The same unfortunately cannot be said for the equally pivotal and provocative battle at Chickamauga Creek in northwest Georgia (Spetember 1863). Peter Cozzens, then, has added greatly to the abundance of published Civil War histories with "This Terrible Sound", a modern study of this battle that correctly places it in it's proper context as a major turning point for the Western theatre and indeed the entire war.
Following the Federal victory at Vicksburg, President Lincoln sensing a momentum swing to the Northern effort, places his next great emphasis on the Union Army of the Cumberland, stationed at Murfreesboro, Tennessee following the Federal "victory" at the battle of Stones River (essentially a standoff with the Confederates retreating following the battle). William Stark Rosecrans' Federal force is "encouraged" to attack and subdue the rail center at Chattanooga...with the ultimate goal of using it as the base for further invasion efforts in the South. Defending the roads to Chattanooga, is Confederate General Braxton Bragg, the much maligned and, at the time of Chickamauga, the very ill leader of the rebel forces. Cozzens establishes both a physical and mental picture of both Generals that is neither favorable or complimentary. Regardless, Rosecrans establishes the immediate advantage with a detailed and complex troop movement that faces off with and defeates the Confederates at Tullahoma. Outnumbered and in disarray, the rebels retreat to Chattanooga and await Rosecrans next movement. The Federals continue with the complex manuevers and outflank the Confederates, driving them out of Chattanooga and to the southwest into Georgia, where they settle and await the inevitable Union advance. Rosecrans, sensing that he has the Confederate army on the run, allows his troops to squander valuable time negotiating and reconnoitering the mountainous regions south of Chattanooga. The Confederates, meanwhile, reinforce their troops with forces from Mississippi and the Army of Northern Virginia. The armies thus converge and ultimately meet in the dense forest West of Chickamauga Creek in norhtwest Georgia. Cozzens expertly coveys both this initial overall strategy and individual soldier perspective as he sets up the ensuing battle.
Braxton Bragg's intelligence forces inform him that the Federals have advanced southeast into Georgia...giving him the obvious recourse to attack the Union left flank and cut them off from retreat back to Chattanooga. This is the strategy that Bragg sticks with throughout the struggle and the one whereby he proves to be the most inflexable. Cavalry engagements at Jays Mill on the Western side of Chickamauga Creek start the battle and it immediately degenerates into a disorganized and largley unsupervised slugfest. The action rolls to the southwest with major first-day encounters at Winfrey and Brock Fields...ultimately ending with the Federals still in control of the major roadway out of the battlefield, the LaFayette Road and major breastworks established around this road in the Kelly Field. Cozzens deftly describes these engagements in sometimes excruciating detail as brigade and company level strategy is discussed. He also continues to convey the everday soldier perspective with many journal and diary entries that give true meaning to the atrocities of the battle.
The second day's struggles start with an abortive Confederate attack that ensues three hours late. The rebel army's high command continues to be in disarray and Bragg continues to push for the attack to focus on the Federal left. The initial battle around the Kelly Field breastworks results in major destruction for the Confederate forces, but an erroneous brigade movement opens up a hole in the Federal lines that ultimately proves to be it's undoing. James Longstreet's command from Virginia fortunately charges this opening at the same time that it is established and pushes the right side of the Union army to retreat...only a small and determined force under Union General George Thomas stays on the field and holds off the Confederate advance long enough to allow the balance of the Federal army to retreat back to Chattanooga and ultimately earning him the sobriquet "the Rock of Chickamauga". Cozzens again is precise and expository in his descriptions of these encounters...he really has a talent for integrating detailed troop movements with these soldier perspectives that give immediacy and feeling to the reader that the soldiers certainly must have felt. The second day bloodshed was worse then the first day's and Cozzens manages this balance brilliantly.
With the end of the second day, Thomas retreats his force back to Chattanooga and the Confederates own the field. Cozzens again details the lack of forward thinking on Braxton Bragg's part as the natural strategy then would be to pursue the Federals and defeat them in detail...Bragg chooses to wait and is villified by the Confederate command. Rosecrans is releved following the defeat with Thomas commanding the Army of the Cumberland and Ulysses Grant given overall command of the Western Army...a command that turned the tide ultimately in the Union favor with the ensuing victory at the battle of Chattanooga and the William T. Sherman drive from Chattanooga to Atlanta and beyond.
Prompted by a recent visit to this distinguished battlefield (the National Park Service is to be commended for beautifully maintaining this field), I undertook this work to supplement my battlefield tour experience. This book certainly is a detailed look at the battle and I'm sure that my glowing review was slightly slanted by the fact that I was able to picture the terrain that Cozzens so comprehensively describes. Notwithstanding the abundance of detail, this work should undoubtedly stand as the historical standard by which this battle was described and should be on the shelf of anyone interested in the Civil War western theatre.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as bad as "No Better Place to Die"
Review: This history of the battle of Chickamauga moves with a pace and a style that is reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn's August 1914. It chronicles the Union Army's plunge forward into the woods of northwest Georgia, to find that a Confederate Army that had been fleeing was not only no longer fleeing--it was counterattacking and was now larger than its erstwhile pursuers. The descriptions are the most vivid and the telling of the story the best that I have ever read in 40 years of reading Civil War material. By the time one is finished reading, one has come to know almost as personal acquaintances not only the great figures of the battle--Bragg, Rosecrans, Longstreet--but others one might not otherwise have known. Hans Heg in particular, the Norwegian immigrant from Wisconsin whose brigade was left virtually alone to face the onslaught of Longstreet's attack, becomes such a sympathetic character that I became misty-eyed as he met his death. Union generals Lytle,Wilder and Willich are likewise memorable figures, as are on the Confederate side Helm and Liddell. Less sympathetic figures are future president James Garfield, political observer Charles Dana and Confederate general Billy Bate, who emerge as pompous, self-promoting blowhards. This battle, and the failure of the Confederates to exploit their partial success, may have been more of a turning point of the Civil War than was Gettysburg. It was not at Gettysburg but at Chickamauga that the First Corps, best in the Confederate Army, made its last great attack, and it succeeded only to watch Braxton Bragg fritter away success. This is the best account of that battle that you will read.
Rating:
Summary: History that reads like a novel
Review: This history of the battle of Chickamauga moves with a pace and a style that is reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn's August 1914. It chronicles the Union Army's plunge forward into the woods of northwest Georgia, to find that a Confederate Army that had been fleeing was not only no longer fleeing--it was counterattacking and was now larger than its erstwhile pursuers. The descriptions are the most vivid and the telling of the story the best that I have ever read in 40 years of reading Civil War material. By the time one is finished reading, one has come to know almost as personal acquaintances not only the great figures of the battle--Bragg, Rosecrans, Longstreet--but others one might not otherwise have known. Hans Heg in particular, the Norwegian immigrant from Wisconsin whose brigade was left virtually alone to face the onslaught of Longstreet's attack, becomes such a sympathetic character that I became misty-eyed as he met his death. Union generals Lytle,Wilder and Willich are likewise memorable figures, as are on the Confederate side Helm and Liddell. Less sympathetic figures are future president James Garfield, political observer Charles Dana and Confederate general Billy Bate, who emerge as pompous, self-promoting blowhards. This battle, and the failure of the Confederates to exploit their partial success, may have been more of a turning point of the Civil War than was Gettysburg. It was not at Gettysburg but at Chickamauga that the First Corps, best in the Confederate Army, made its last great attack, and it succeeded only to watch Braxton Bragg fritter away success. This is the best account of that battle that you will read.
Rating:
Summary: Attention to detail to the max
Review: This is the most detailed retelling of the battle of Chickamauga I have ever read. This may be good, it may be bad. It took me about 100 pages to get used to Cozzens style, and even after that I was still overwhelmed with detail. Was it the 23rd Tennessee in Brock Field or the 19th Illinois at Snodgrass Cabin? You will know for sure after reading this book. The problem is that Mr. Cozzens pounds you with such detail that you might miss some of the best parts of the book. Early on, Gen. George Thomas has sent Col John Croxton to flush a Rebel brigade. Croxton runs headlong into Forrest's cavalry, then is attacked by Claudius Wilson's Georgians. He wires Thomas "Which of the four or five brigades in front of me should I flush out"? And Cozzens portrayal of Bragg as a mind-numbed leader and Rosecrans as a ranting lunatic is somewhat off-base. And while this was truely a soldier's battle, Cozzens frequently ends up giving short shift to the generals. If you want to read this book, here's how to get through it. Download the entire series of maps of Chickamauga from www.loc.gov. As you are reading the book, study the maps. Also buy Chickamauga:A Battlefield Guide by Steven Woodworth as a study guide. You'll make it through it. I did.
Rating:
Summary: Great, super-detailed story of an epic battle
Review: To those reviewers who criticized Peter Cozzens' writing: What, exactly, were you reading? Cozzens does a marvelous job of bringing history to vivid life. "This Terrible Sound" is well-written, well-organized and reveals marvelously complete research. Yes, it is detailed, but the book is 675 pages long! What did you expect? Admittedly, there are times in the middle of the book when the story is confusing, and a few photos of the participants certainly would have been welcome, but overall this is the kind of Civil War history I love. I want detail. I especially love the many quoted sources here; I want the participants to tell the story as much as possible, and Cozzens allows that. This is a big step forward from the still-good "No Better Place to Die." But read on; "The Shipwreck of their Hopes" is better yet.
Rating:
Summary: Great, super-detailed story of an epic battle
Review: To those reviewers who criticized Peter Cozzens' writing: What, exactly, were you reading? Cozzens does a marvelous job of bringing history to vivid life. "This Terrible Sound" is well-written, well-organized and reveals marvelously complete research. Yes, it is detailed, but the book is 675 pages long! What did you expect? Admittedly, there are times in the middle of the book when the story is confusing, and a few photos of the participants certainly would have been welcome, but overall this is the kind of Civil War history I love. I want detail. I especially love the many quoted sources here; I want the participants to tell the story as much as possible, and Cozzens allows that. This is a big step forward from the still-good "No Better Place to Die." But read on; "The Shipwreck of their Hopes" is better yet.
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