The Age of Lincoln Review

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(More customer reviews)The Age of Lincoln" by Dr. Orville Vernon Burton is an insightful , hard headed , clear eyed look at the roots of the American Civil War , the path that led to eventual victory and the utter failure of Lincoln's successors to "win" the peace as decisively as he had won the war. This book is a stunning feat of original thinking, scholarship, and research. The depth and the breadth of the research is revealed in the many details of what was taking place in the political , social , religious and economic strata of American life during this tumultuous time. The weaving of these disparate elements into a cogent tapestry is a testament to Dr. Burton's scholarship. Dr. Burton's mastery of his voluminous research and his skill in writing a riveting narrative only enhances his standing as an American historian of the first order.
As Dr Burton shows the "original sin" of our founding fathers to face the question of slavery as a blot on the face of humanity in "The Declaration of Independence" and ""The Constitution" sowed the seeds that produced the bloody harvest of the Southern Rebellion. The evolution of President Lincoln's thinking of "The Emancipation Proclamation" as a strategic war maneuver to an act of basic humanity reflects Lincoln's antipathy towards slavery and his changing feelings on the equality of the races. While Lincoln was still evolving in his recognition of the equality of African Americans to the white's of America his legacy of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution ultimately redeemed the promise of the founding fathers.
Dr. Burton's book illustrates that just as slavery's darkest shadow lays across the trinity of our most precious documents, the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and the Bill of Rights Bill for almost a hundred years, the dark shadow of the Jim Crow era would eclipse the bright promise of Lincoln's legacy to mankind the 13th, 14th and15th amendment of the Constitution. Because of Lincoln's successors failures to stay the course with Reconstruction and the ultimate perversions of the Restoration and the Jim Crow era another hundred years of lynching, murder, degradation, economic slavery and forced migration faced African Americans most egregiously in the American south.
Dr. Burton's book also pounds the stake into the heart of the argument of the Civil War being fought over any thing but slavery. Over shadowing and intruding into all aspects of life during the arc of the age of Lincoln was slavery,slavery.slavery. This book resonates with the passion that the American public had for public affairs during "The Age of Lincoln." This passion for the governance of their affairs was an on going concern not just a concern during the election cycles. This book could serve as a cautionary tale. The American public could do well to see past the "Roman Circus's" of sports , celebrity pap, unreal reality shows, egocentric pursuits of "me" and reevaluate some of the basic values so wisely enumerated in "The Age of Lincoln".
"The Age of Lincoln" is a very important book that would be a rewarding reading experience for anyone.



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Men of Fire: Grant, Forrest, and the Campaign That Decided the Civil War Review

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(More customer reviews)In Men of Fire, Jack Hurst, a Nashville-based author and former journalist who has written for the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Tennessean, has penned a comprehensive, graphic narrative of a Civil War campaign that split the Confederacy in two.
Some 75 miles northwest of Nashville, on the Cumberland River near the hamlet of Dover, Tennessee, was Fort Donelson, and 12 miles farther west, on the Tennessee River, was Fort Henry.
In February,1862, Union forces commanded by Brigadier Gen. Ulysses S. Grant (army) and Flag-Officer Andrew Hull Foote (navy) led an expedition to capture these Confederate forts.
Marking the first major Union victories of the Civil War, their capture opened two strategic waterways that pointed like twin daggers at the heart of the Confederacy.
Hurst focuses on Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, and Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877), born in Chapel Hill, Tennessee. Although different in many ways, these men were alike in one important respect: both were fighters. These "men of fire" detested defensive warfare; they aggressively sought to hit the enemy and hit him hard.
First to be attacked was the more vulnerable Fort Henry, constructed injudiciously on shallow land often flooded by the Tennessee. Pummeled by revolutionary new ironclads led by Foote, the garrison soon evacuated the fort and fled to the more secure Fort Donelson.
Pursuing the Southern troops on a balmy, spring-like day, Union troops blithely discarded their overcoats and blankets, and left behind their tents. The next day an arctic blast hit the area, dropping the temperature to 15 degrees. During the night, many soldiers were frozen to the ground where they fitfully tried to sleep.
A horrendous battle for the more heavily fortified bastion on the Cumberland, gateway to Clarksville and Nashville, ensued on February 15.
After being invested by Grant's forces, Gen. Gideon Pillow, the de facto commander of Fort Donelson, made a desperate, and apparently successful, attempt to break out and retreat to Nashville. Then, for some inexplicable reason, Pillow made a horrendous blunder: he ordered his troops back into the rifle pits and fort.
Disgusted by such a cowardly retreat, Forrest determined to lead his cavalry in a second attempt at a breakout. He succeeded, and led his men to Nashville.
Pillow also escaped from the fort via steamship, leaving the fort's surrender to Gen. Simon Buckner. "The best estimates," writes Hurst, "are that from 16,500 to 17,500 Confederates [were surrendered]," the largest capitulation that had ever made on the continent.
Hurst calls this "the campaign that decided the Civil War." Such a claim, after only ten months into the war and with more than three years remaining, is exaggerated, for many blood clashes remained: in the Western theater, the battles of Shiloh, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Stones River (Murfreesboro), Vicksburg, Atlanta, Franklin, and Nashville; and in the Eastern theater, the battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Cold Harbor.
The true villain of Hurst's chronicle is Grant's immediate "superior," Henry Halleck, who commanded the Union's Western armies. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton branded him a man "destitute of principle" and "the most bare-faced villain in America."
Hurst points out that the Machiavellian Halleck, seeking to have Grant replaced because of his past history of alcoholism, "now proceeded to show just how utterly unfair, mean-spirited, and maliciously dishonest he could be." He did everything in his power to slander Grant's reputation.
Grant's victory, however, dramatically infused his shaky reputation with an aura of power, and he was promoted to Major General. When asked to relieve Grant of command, Lincoln replied, "I can't spare that man. He fights."
Civil War buffs know the rest of the story. Grant went on to preside over the surrender of two more huge Confederate armies: at Vicksburg and at Appomattox Court House, and to become President of the United States. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former owner and seller of slaves, became a prime organizer of the Ku Klux Klan.
Having done an admirable job of research, Jack Hurst presents detailed specifics about intricate troop movements, paints fascinating portraits of the principals involved, and presents an unforgettable impression of the grim realities of battle. Men of Fire is a captivating account of the first significant Union victory of the Civil War--a book that seems destined to become a classic.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jack Hurst is a former journalist who has written for newspapers including the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and The [Nashville] Tennessean. He is the author of Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography. A descendant of both Union and Confederate military officers, he currently lives with his wife outside of Nashville, Tennessee.

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Lost Rights: The Misadventures of a Stolen American Relic Review

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(More customer reviews)Lost Rights is an enjoyable read. When the Declaration of Independence was first proposed to the original 13 states North Carolina objected stating that it didn't go far enough to protect personal freedoms. This led to the Bill of Rights which secured those freedoms. It was adopted and one of three government clerks wrote out a copy for each state and a 14th copy for the Federal government. During the Civil War one of Sherman's soldiers stole North Carolina's copy and took it back home to Ohio. He quickly sold it and it was handed down through three generations of one family for the next 134 years. That's the Cliff Notes version but Howard provides a very detailed, sometimes almost too detailed, account of the document's journey back to North Carolina. There's a salty cast of characters who play their parts along the way. Howard gives us a behind the scenes take on the world of rare documents buying and selling. I was saddened to read that far too many state and federal documents have been lost, destroyed by accident, war, and carelessness and worst of all stolen, sometimes by the people charged with protecting them though for the most part that's an anomaly. Ironically in order to provide the provenance of this particular Bill of Rights several seemingly valueless documents were required. A careful documents clerk's distinctive markings clinched it as North Carolina's copy.Howard emphasized that though this physical object is important more important are its words and what they mean for us as a country and individuals. He includes a quote from a fellow journalist, Mark Bowden, who said, "Any nation is, at heart, an idea."

I recently read Wittman's book "Priceless" about his career in the FBI specializing in stolen art objects and his account of his part in recovering this Bill of Rights dovetails with Howard's though Howard's is far more detailed.


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Fields of Honor: The Golden Age of College Football and the Men Who Created It Review

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(More customer reviews)Every coach, college football history fan should read this book. This is a manual for every coach on how to coach and act. The best college football history book I have read. You can learn a lot about how to live life, coach, and work.

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