Last week there was some discussion around here about the Siege of Vicksburg. As I mentioned, the newspapers of the time touted Grant's victory as far more impressive than the three day slaughter at Gettysburg. That was an amazing fact given the incredible Eastern theater-centric reporting of the day. In that sense, nothing has changed, the big, but infrequent battles of the East are far more famous than the bloody war west of the Appalachians.
Anyway, I was walking through the bookstore at the mall last evening when I noticed Jeff Shaara has just published his second novel about the western front of the Civil War. A Chain of Thunder is about the siege of Vicksburg. By coincidence my wife had gifted me a gift card from Amazon, so I had the funds to score a Kindle copy when I got home.
Like all of the books by the Shaara family, I expect this book to be well researched and fairly accurate to the historical record. Jeff's novel of the battle of Shiloh, A Blaze of Glory, is a novel nearly equal to his father's Killer Angels, which is arguably the best novel of the Civil War ever written. If you want to argue that point in the comments, I will listen to reason as long as your choice is not that romantic tripe Gone With the Wind.
5 comments:
Well, I'll grant that Michael Shaara at least got it right that Armistead didn't die clutching the Union cannon he was trying to turn around after he made it over the wall.
Shelby Foote, on the other hand, who should have known better, made it sound like Armistead died on the spot.
Anyway, I just slogged through the book. It was a very tough read, possibly because I'd spent so much time reading the history of the battle and historical novels aren't really my cup of tea. I enjoyed the movie a lot more, even if it was produced by TNT and that commie Ted Turner.
I've never read Gods and Generals. Couldn't arse myself to do it.
The first half of the movie is crap. If one did not know better you would actually believe most of the Billy Yanks were fighting to free the slaves. You would think abolition was the paramount feeling in the North. I also find it hard to believe anyone obsessed over "the high ground" as much as the Union commanders did in the movie. Although after Marye's Heights they may have.
I have some re-enactor friends who did work on the movie. Turner actually is in the flick as MacArthur. Hanoi Jane showed up one day in costume and received such a vicious greeting she had to be ushered away by her body guards. Back in the 1980's and 1990's when I did re-enacting the ranks of many units were filled with Vietnam Vets.
For my money you cannot beat Bruce Catton for history of the Civil War
Just remember this, any of you Johnny Rebs out there: We real men of Ohio took away West Virginia from you, and we can give it right back any time we want.
I like the way Foote writes better than I do Catton, but I fear Catton is the better historian.
Foote, of course, was a great left-wing pacifist, which also somewhat colors his work. But as a novelist, he could really tell a story.
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