Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy (Great Campaigns of the Civil War Series) by Richard M. McMurry ISBN: 0-8032-8278-8 Publisher: Bison Bks Corp Pub. Date: September, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Hood Was No Good, But Sherman Was Vermin
Comment: The author's stated goal in writing this book is to bring fresh perspective to well-covered material, and he certainly accomplishes that. This fairly short book provides a concise history of the campaign from Dalton to Atlanta, but at heart it is really more of an essay, arguing several points and re-examining things that have been too easily accepted.
McMurry reconsiders the military performances of Johnston, Hood, Sherman, and Grant, with no one faring particularly well in his review. He also re-examines Grant's overall strategy for 1864, the political and personal complications of Confederate President Jefferson Davis' working relationships with the armies in the fields, the ruinous personal politics of the Army of Tennessee, the effect of the Atlanta campaign on the 1864 presidential campaign, and the question of whether Nathan Bedford Forrest and his Critter Company could really have destroyed the Union rail lines by riding east from Mississippi. His examinations of these matters and many highly hypothetical issues are unusually lucid, well-conceived, and logical, and he argues his points so well it's hard to disagree.
The details of the campaign itself are, as always, difficult to follow with total understanding; the geography is challenging even to a local native. The book really excels in providing a broader historical context for the events it describes.
Rating: 4
Summary: Sherman before Atlanta
Comment: Richard M. McMurry is best known to me as the principle modern biographer of John Bell Hood. His book on that general was judicious and intelligent, if short, but Hood wasn't a particularly prominent character in the Civil War, at least for the first half of the war, so it seemed reasonable. Atlanta 1864 is as far as I know his second book, and while it's good, it's also very short and cursory.
The book covers the campaign in the spring and summer of 1864, when Sherman challenged first Johnston and then Hood for the city of Atlanta, which turned out to be decisive in the outcome of the war. The campaign has been controversial ever since, not the least because the two principle Confederate commanders engaged in a vicious debate for some years after the campaign, and only ceased when Hood died suddenly. Frankly, this aspect of the campaign would have been interesting to go over again, but the author only briefly deals with it, instead concentrating on the campaign itself, and the events that occurred in 1864.
Sherman has a very good reputation as a general, and much of that rests on the Atlanta campaign that is the book's focus. Johnston too has a good rep, and Hood, by contrast, has a very poor one as an army commander. Much of the author's attention is taken up going over the performance of these three men during the campaign, looking at the decisions they made in a strategic sense, whether they could have chosen to do something else more advantageous, and how their decisions fared. All three generals come in for some criticism, though Sherman gets by with the least. Johnston is criticized for a variety of things, and praised for little, while poor Hood appears to have been out of his depth, in the mind of the author.
The campaign itself is detailed only briefly, with battles occupying a paragraph or two, and strategic maneuvers a page or so. The decision to fire Johnston and replace him with Hood, made by Davis in the midst of the campaign, gets a whole chapter. The campaign is put into context with a couple of chapters that detail what was happening in other parts of the country, politically and militarily. Everything is laid out so that it's easy to understand, and the discussion is reasonable.
I don't agree with all of the conclusions of the book (for instance, I think Grant's Overland Campaign of 1864 was a success, not a failure) but the discussion is interesting, and nothing's particularly out of place or unreasonable. I would recommend this book to any Civil War buff. It's a very good book.
Rating: 5
Summary: MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA REVISITED
Comment: Richard McMurry writes an interesting account covering the1864 military and political events in North Georgia stating "Gettysburg had brought no alteration in the relative strength or position of the opposing armies or in the course of the war" noting that Union successes at Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Chattanooga boosted Northern morale and assured that southerners couldn't gain a military victory and secure Federal recognition of Confederate independence. The author outlines the responses of the Confederacy and Union to this strategic dilemma with a narration of Sherman's North Georgia campaign that ultimately resolved the problem.
Lincoln appointed Grant commander of the Federal Armies and Jefferson Davis appointed Joseph E. Johnston, a general he did not trust; commander of the Army of Tennessee and the text states "All the Rebels would pay a very high price for Jefferson Davis long-standing evasion of the command personnel problems in the West." The author makes the fascinating observation that " By 1864 two irrefutable facts about the conflict should have been clear....neither side was likely to win the war in Virginia. The Confederates were too skilled to loose, at least as long as Lee lived, but not strong enough to win.The Northerners...were too strong to lose the war in Virginia but not skilled enough to win it there."
McMurry notes that Grant having nearly achieved military victory in the West, Grant made two decisions that made a Northern victory costly while enhancing Confederate independence chances. The strategy in Virginia to defeat Lee and prevent moving Rebel troops elsewhere; and two, appointing Sherman in Georgia instead of Thomas. Both decisions resulted in "Ten of thousands of Americans --North and South-- paid for this misjudgment with their lives...." and "The outcome of the war remained doubtful much longer..." The author observes that Thomas finished the war as a general "who never suffered defeat on a battlefield where he was in command" concluding "On the basis of his record, Sherman did not merit such a promotion...."
Both Sherman and Johnston had command personnel problems. Johnston inherited a command muddle which one historian described as a "pit of vipers". The narrative and analysis of Sherman's campaign from North Georgia to Atlanta is informative. Sherman dependence on the Western & Atlantic Railroad limited his strategic options to only advancing toward Atlanta because that was where the railroad ran.
The writer makes the intriguing statement that Union General McPherson's seizure of Snake Creep Gap on May 7th probably "determined the outcome of the campaign." adding the fascinating opinion "....if Grant had allowed Thomas to succeed to the command of the Military Division of Mississippi by seniority, the 1864 campaign in Georgia would have ended two or three weeks after its opening with "....a crushing Federal victory that, for all practical purposes would have ended the war in the West....ripping open the entire center of the Confederacy" and "save many lives during the last eleven months of the war."
As the campaign proceeded, Johnston would fortify a strong position and hope Sherman would attack. Sherman was not going to launch a massive assault against strong fortifications and moved against the Confederate left and flanked them out of every prepared position including Dalton, Resaca, Allatoona, Kennesaw Mountain, and Smyra. On July 8 Sherman crossed the Chattahoochee and the battle for Atlanta was imminent.
Davis replaced Joe Johnson with Hood on July 18, 1864 and the text notes "Rarely has a general assumed command of an army under more inauspicious circumstances than those facing John Bell Hood.... His army was backed up to a city it had to hold" which limited his strategic options and maneuvering room. Hood reversed Johnston's conservative policy striking Sherman at Peachtree Creek, Atlanta and Ezra Church but failed to cripple or destroy the opposing force.
Sherman ,after trying artillery for several days, realized the only way to force Atlanta's evacuation was to cut off all rail traffic into and out of the city. Interestingly, the text also notes "Hood too, sought some means of ....forcing his opponent to give up his position at Atlanta." Hood initiated an unsuccessful cavalry raid on railroads supporting the Federals. Sherman finding cavalry ineffective against railroads used infantry to cut the Macon & Western Railroad isolating Atlanta and Hood forcing the Rebels to abandon Atlanta. The Rebels after opening government warehouses to anyone (military or civilian) to take food, clothing etc.the Rebels burned what they couldn't take with them including five locomotives and 28 freight cars containing ammunition which exploded leveling adjacent buildings in a scene well depicted in the movie Gone With The Wind. Hood's infantry cleared Atlanta by 01:00 AM, September 2. Shortly after daylight Mayor James Calhoun rode north of Atlanta and surrendered the city.
The author concludes with an excellent analysis of the generalships of Sherman, Johnston and Hood noting that Sherman as a field general was "probably not much above average". However, by 1864 Sherman had developed a grasp of the geopolitical-psychological strategy, matched by few, realizing that a war can be won "by destroying the enemy's society and its logistical-economic-social infrastructure and he put that doctrine into practice on a grand scale...." McMurry states Davis contributed to the Rebel command failures in Georgia through his failure to involve himself in western matters.
McMurry concludes "Grant's much-vaunted plan did not work" and "It was a Confederate policy....that kept Lee from sending troops to reinforce the Rebels in Georgia, not the pressure of Grant's assaults on the Confederates in Virginia." Failure of Grant's plan resulted in tens of thousands of casualties.
A strong point throughout this work are the brief parallel accounts given of military and political activities in other areas providing a balanced account of the situations facing both Northern and Southern governments and their commanders. The books ends with two appendices analyzing Grant's strategy and Johnston's railroad strategy plus two excellent appendices titled "Numbers and Losses" and "The Atlanta Campaign and the Election of 1864".
 |
Title: Atlanta Will Fall: Sherman, Joe Johnston, and the Yankee Heavy Battalions (American Crisis Series, No. 3) by Stephen Davis ISBN: 0842027882 Publisher: Scholarly Resources Pub. Date: January, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
Title: Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign of 1864 (Modern War Studies) by Albert E. Castel ISBN: 070060748X Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas Pub. Date: October, 1995 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: The Chessboard of War: Sherman and Hood in the Autumn Campaigns of 1864 (Great Campaigns of the Civil War) by Anne J. Bailey ISBN: 0803212739 Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr Pub. Date: June, 2000 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
 |
Title: Five Tragic Hours: The Battle of Franklin by James Lee McDonough, Thomas L. Connelly ISBN: 0870493973 Publisher: Univ of Tennessee Pr Pub. Date: November, 1983 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
Title: Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay in Confederate Military History by Richard M. McMurry ISBN: 0807845698 Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr Pub. Date: February, 1996 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
