Product Description James McPherson, a bestselling historian of the Civil War, illuminates how Lincoln worked with?and often against? his senior commanders to defeat the Confederacy and create the role of commander in chief as we know it.
Though Abraham Lincoln arrived at the White House with no previous military experience (apart from a couple of months spent soldiering in 1832), he quickly established himself as the greatest commander in chief in American history. James McPherson illuminates this often misunderstood and profoundly influential aspect of Lincoln?s legacy. In essence, Lincoln invented the idea of commander in chief, as neither the Constitution nor existing legislation specified how the president ought to declare war or dictate strategy. In fact, by assuming the powers we associate with the role of commander in chief, Lincoln often overstepped the narrow band of rights granted the president. Good thing too, because his strategic insight and will to fight changed the course of the war and saved the Union.
For most of the conflict, he constantly had to goad his reluctant generals toward battle, and he oversaw strategy and planning for major engagements with the enemy. Lincoln was a self-taught military strategist (as he was a self-taught lawyer), which makes his adroit conduct of the war seem almost miraculous. To be sure, the Union?s campaigns often went awry, sometimes horribly so, but McPherson makes clear how the missteps arose from the all-too-common moments when Lincoln could neither threaten nor cajole his commanders to follow his orders.
Because Lincoln?s war took place within our borders, the relationship between the front lines and the home front was especially close?and volatile. Here again, Lincoln faced enormous challenges in exemplary fashion. He was a masterly molder of public opinion, for instance, defining the war aims initially as preserving the Union and only later as ending slavery? when he sensed the public was at last ready to bear such a lofty burden.
As we approach the bicentennial of Lincoln?s birth in 2009, this book will be that rarest gift?a genuinely novel, even timely, view of the most-written-about figure in our history. Tried by War offers a revelatory portrait of leadership during the greatest crisis our nation has ever endured. How Lincoln overcame feckless generals, fickle public opinion, and his own paralyzing fears is a story at once suspenseful and inspiring.
Can A Reader With A Limited Civil War Background Enjoy This Book? Yes! November 23, 2008 My background on the Civil War is pretty much limited to my three visits to the Gettysburg battlefield in Pennsylvania, and it took me a while to "get into" this book. However, for those readers who share my limited knowledge of the war I would recommend this book to you. President Abraham Lincoln learned on-the-job when being at the helm of this war, and he often expressed his frustrations with his "indifferent generals" for their "imbecility" and "inefficiency" in contrast to his "good, brave soldiers." Lincoln especially expressed his frustration with General George Meade who defeated Lee at Gettysburg, but then allowed Lee to escape across the Potomac. Ulysses Grant was named general-in-chief near the end of the war, but Lincoln allowed Meade to remain as commander of the Army of the Potomac with General Sherman in command of the West. Lincoln stressed that Lee's army, and not Richmond (the Confederate capital), is the goal. The Spencer seven shot repeating rifles turned out to be the best shoulder weapons of the last fifteen months of the war. I also found it interesting that Lincoln is the only president to have held a patent. In 1849 he patented a device for lifting steamboats over shoals. Not that the Civil War translates into the war in Iraq, but I do find that President Bush has tried to pattern himself after Lincoln's behavior in the Civil War. This book stresses Lincoln's role as commander of the Union army, so there is no lengthy descriptions of the various battles of the war. I learned about the Civil War from this book, and it held my interest despite my limited background. I would suggest other such readers would also enjoy it.
Superb but short work on the greatness of Lincoln's role as commander in chief November 22, 2008 A wonderful, brief look at how our nation's greatest President led the North's armed forces during the Civil War. Though it may cover territory other historians have mined in longer efforts, James M. McPherson's "Tried by War" is essential reading for those not extremely well versed in matters concerning the War Between the States.
Having not read any Civil War history in a number of years, I found myself engrossed from the first page, and thankful that author McPherson has given his many fans a fairly short work on President Lincoln's time as commander in chief of the nation's military.
Highly recommended for all readers.
McPherson's Neglect November 19, 2008 0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Professor McPherson has written an elegant book about Lincoln as the strategist of the Civil War. He is wonderfully terse, reasonable, convincing, and clear in his opinions, only occasionally leaving out important events. (Grant's crossing the James River to attack Petersburg seems not to be mentioned for example, nor is the surrender of Joe Johnston to Sherman.) What this book is not about, however, is its subtitle "Abraham Lincoln, Commander in Chief".
The most important task of a commander is his choice of subordinates. The civil war is no exception in the South or the North. The choices of Lee, Johnston, Bragg, and Hood had decisive effects in the South. The choices of McClellan, Pope, Hooker, Burnside, Sherman, and Grant were just as important in the North.
McPherson's book has essentially no discussion of why Lincoln chose whom he did, why he did not interview junior officers who almost certainly would have done much better than their seniors (e.g., Reynolds or Hancock) as Sheridan did, despite their age. The central question is how can a man like Lincoln so revered for his way with people have not even tried to evaluate the talented younger general officers in the North?
McPherson is great but this is just a warmed over work November 17, 2008 0 out of 2 found this review helpful
James McPherson is a great historian and writer and with out a doubt has written the greatest single volume history of the Civil War in "The Battle Cry of Freedom." Sadly this is not McPherson's best work and could probably be best described as a highlights of Battle Cry of Freedom. It doesn't really offer any new insights and aside from focusing on Lincoln's involvement in the war effort. The rest is well worn and well covered ground.
If you like James McPherson read this book for your own enjoyment. But be warned it's not among his best work and looks like he did this one for the advance.
Conventional History Oblivious to Constitutional Facts November 16, 2008 3 out of 18 found this review helpful
ON STRIKE UNTIL AMAZON STOPS DELETING FAVORABLE VOTES FROM FANS AND COUNTING NEGATIVE VOTES FROM THOSE WHO HATE THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE BOOK BEING REVIEWED MORE THAN THEY CARE ABOUT THE REVIEW.
I will not buy this book, nor should any citizen that actually wants to understand the truth of our history after 1860 when states' rights were unconstitutionally destroyed by force. They are emergent again, praise God.
Lincoln did not have the right to conscript forces or to wage war on those States that exercised their continuing right of secession. A "Civil War" is a war between two parties for the whole. The war was an illegal war by the North against the undiminished right of every state in the United STATES of America to secede, and that is why Dick Cheney loves Lincoln so much. Lincoln is the president that suspended habeas corpus, unleashed immoral capitalism on the south at a time when slavery was already on its way out (the South itself ended importation of slaves upon withdrawing), and needlessly slaughtered an entire generation of fighting men of honor on both sides, one side fighting for its honor, the other because they were incited and lied to for financial gain by the few.
The author is a distinguished historian, but he offers up conventional history that fails to actually inform the public. President-elect Obama would do well to read the books on secession I list below (or my reviews), in as much as he will be facing multiple crises of both nullification and secession in the near term at the same time that certain States sponsor referendums that demand that their Senators and Representatives refer all votes to public ballot in the home state--thus do we break the backs of the two criminal parties that have betrayed the public trust.
I made the same mistake as this author in my own (high school) advanced placement study of the causes of the "Civil War" which should more properly be called the War Against Secession. Below I offer up ten books, each of which has a summative review of mine offered in the public interest.
NEWS FLASH for Barack Obama: we are NOT "one nation" or even "one people. We are 50 sovereign states that signed a compact to create a federal corporation to administer services of common concern, and that enterprise is now corrupt to the core (dysfunctional and overstretech executive, Congress in violation of Article 1 and corrupt, judiciary clueless about our Constitutional legal roots and states rights) and run amok. I desire to keep the USA together and restore the Constitution as well as the effective representational balance of power among the three branches of the federal corporation, but no one, including "the one," can do that without three Deputy Vice Presidents (my own preferences in parenthesis):
DVP for Education, Intelligence, and Research (Colin Powell) DVP for National Security (Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Sam Nunn) DVP for Commonwealth (Hillary Clinton, Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney)
For details see Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography). As with all books I sponsor, it is also available free online.
It is time for every American to stop digesting and regurgitating pabulum, and begin thinking independently. CNN turned out to be hot air and low theater. They bluster and pretend, and not once did they challenge either candidate to produce a balanced budget, name a cabinet in advance, or address any of the ten threats or twelve polices with any coherence. All of our institutions are broken. Lincoln is an example of what NOT to do. I support the right of secession as a means of demanding truth and reconciliation. Our federal government is out of control. Leadership of genocide and slaughter and regional looting is not something we should be proud of, nor is it something to emulate today.
Books on secession relevant today: Constitutional History of Secession Is Secession Treason? Secession: How Vermont and All the Other States Can Save Themselves from the Empire One Nation, Indivisible? A Study of Secession and the Constitution
Books on History Lost and Fogged: Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past Fog Facts : Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin (Nation Books)
Books on Current Government and Two-Party Spoils System Corruption: Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders
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