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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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Intimate Strategies of the Civil War: Military Commanders and their Wives.Intimate Strategies of the Civil War: Military Commanders and their Wives.
Edited by Carol K. Bleser and Lesley J. Gordon.
Index, notes, bibliography, 292 pp., 2001. Oxford University Press Inc., 198 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016, $30 plus shipping.
Historians have only recently begun to analyze the relationship between the home front and the battle front during the American Civil War. Civil War scholarship has often separated the home front and the battlefield and, as Gary Gallagher has pointed out, these have been examined in isolation. Historians Carol Bleser and Lesley J. Gordon, well-known in the field, have assembled an impressive group of scholars to explore the marriages of six Confederate and six Union commanders. The book is a collection of 12 essays. Part one focuses on the South. Bleser opens the series with a detailed examination of the Confeder-acy’s first couple, Jefferson Davis and Varina Howell. They clashed early in their marriage. Varina Davis initially rebelled at playing the obedient, timid wife to her husband, some 18 years her senior. Bleser maintains that the war actually brought the couple closer together. Varina substituted for her husband on numerous occasions, especially during his frequent illnesses. Davis’s imprisonment at war’s end and the notoriety of being the Confederacy’s ex-president put new strains on their rela-tionship. Shortly before the death of the wealthy widow Sarah Dorsey, Varina and Jefferson Davis reconciled. Part two shifts to the North. It begins with an analysis of the Grants by John Y. Simon. Simon de-scribes in detail how the marriage of Ulysses and Julia Grant withstood financial problems, accusa-tions of alcoholism, sectionalism, war, and unwanted fame and notoriety. On the surface, their mar-riage seemed quite compatible. It matched the son of an abolitionist with the daughter of a slave holder. Simon states that by assuming new responsibility for their children and family financial matters, Julia Grant also provided her husband with a stable relationship that enabled him to function most effectively as a commander. In addition to Davis and Grant, there are essays on Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, George E. Pickett, Richard Ewell, Josiah Gorgas, William T. Sherman, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, George Custer, John C. Fremont and Samuel Phillips Lee. The various contributors reveal that, for many of these men, the matrimonial bond was the most important relationship in their lives, and one that influenced their military career. Intimate Strategies delivers fresh and useful material to historians and general readers. The objective of this book is to examine in detail the interaction between marriage and the military lives of 12 prominent commanders. It has succeeded. The Civil War marriage provided many obstacles and roadblocks in the relationship between hus-band and wife. On the Union side the marriage of Joshua Chamberlain and on the Confederate side that of the Chief of Confederate Ordnance, Josiah Gorgas, were regarded by the essayists as happy ones. Each essay contains selected references and footnotes that are helpful in establishing various points. This volume represents an important and fresh contribution to Civil War scholarship.
Harris D. Riley Jr.
Harris D. Riley Jr. is a pedi-a-trician and Professor of Pediatrics at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and the Children's Hospital of Vanderbilt. He is interested in all aspects of the Civil War, particularly medicine.
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