No comments about Grant and His Campaigns: A Military Biography.

No comments about High Stakes And Hair Trigger the Life of Jefferson Davis.

3 comments about Texas Boys In Gray.

1. This book tells the real story of the brave men who fought and died for a cause they believed in. The author has done a great job of telling their story, a story that needs to be preserved. I enjoyed this book very much.



2. Evault Boswell's Texas Boys In Gray is based on a 1912 publication about Texans who fought for the South in the American Civil War. This compendium of anecdotal remembrances by those who were there is nothing short of fascinating for the Civil War buff. Sometime humorous, sometimes heartbreaking, these stories and reminiscences capture the patriotism, fear, confusion, bravery, desperate hunger, camaraderie, and hazards of those days. From the horrible prison conditions to the joyful reunions, Texas Boys In Gray reveals both the humanity and inhumanity of the times. Very highly recommended for students of Texas history as well as Civil War enthusiasts, Texas Boys In Gray is enhanced with an index of 158 hometowns and the men who contributed from each of them.



3. If you are looking for some selected passages pasted together by theme you might enjoy this book, otherwise avoid it.

   Among the faults of this book, and there are plenty, the most glaring are:

   1) LACK OF A REAL INDEX. The cities are indexed in alphabetical order, but not the men!!!! The units are not indexed, nor is anything else. Are you really going to find men who served in a battle or specific regiment by finding a small town in Texas? A Detailed Map Would Have Been NICE, but wouldn't an index of the names, places, events, etc. have been better?

   2) The quotes from the men have been shortened and/or deleted. The original work by Miss Yeary had sometimes long, but interesting stories. This booklet has a few stories, but mostly selected one or two sentence quotes. The men who served with the veteran and the battles and specific units are for the most part no place to be found.

   3) The Civil War was a large and costly conflict, but ONLY THREE BOOKS WERE USED AS REFERENCES. In other words, there isn't much depth.

   FAMILY HISTORIANS SHOULD AVOID THIS BOOK because it will make those researching their family, ancestor, unit, battle, etc. very angry.

   CHILDREN OR THOSE WHO WANT AN EXTREMELY LIGHT UNDERSTANDING OF A COMPLEX & DETAILED STRUGGLE MIGHT LIKE THIS POORLY CONSTRUCTED BOOK.

   THIS IS NOT FOR SCHOLARS!

5 comments about The Generals: Ulysses S. Grant & Robert E. Lee.

1. I'm a bit of a history buff, but would never have read this book without the prompting of a friend whom I respect. I struggled to get throught the first 50 pages, but after that I was hooked. Not only do I understand Grant and Lee better, but I feel I understand the USA better. A great story and a window on our nation. Recommended for anyone with the patience and time to peel back the layers of our past.



2. I'm surprised this book doesn't get more press. I found it very informative regarding Grant's and Lee's personal and professional lives, but I also learned a lot about 1800's American culture as well...and I'm hardly a novice when it comes to the Civil War-era. Seeing as one Anderson is a college professor and the other is a journalist, "The Generals" is immaculately written, an all-too-often rarity concerning history books nowadays. The fact that the book is such a smooth read puts it ahead of the other Grant/Lee bios out. The Andersons' are economical writers, communicating in a few hundred pages what other long-winded folks take volumes to say. As far as the mildly negative Library Journal review goes, I wonder if that has anything to do with the Andersons' refusal to pull punches when speaking of the frailties of both Grant and Lee. These long since dead men are idealized to such an extent today that it's hard to get a feel for the people they really were. After reading "The Generals," I feel that I know both Ulysses Grant and Robert Lee, triumphs failures and draws, as well as I'm ever going to. If you're tired of reading the same old stories about Honorable Lee or Stubborn Grant, and want to get a deeper understanding of two of the most important men in American Civil War, give "The Generals" a shot. Happy reading!



3. There is no other way of putting it: I found this book perfectly appalling. I had thought that Geoffrey Perret's biography of Grant was the last word in historical sloppiness, but the Andersons have managed to wrest that dubious prize from his fingers. I am not a Lee expert, so I cannot say how accurate that section of this book is, but their chapters dealing with Grant are a joke. (And why is it that both the Andersons and Perret felt the need to include snide attacks on Grant's wife, Julia? Although the woman was undoubtedly no beauty, she was, by all accounts, a perfectly delightful person who was a warm, loving, and immensely supportive spouse to her oft-troubled husband. When did it become popular among third-rate historians to slander her?)

   This book is so ludicrously inaccurate and fanciful that I would be amused if it were not for the fact that many unwitting readers are obviously led to unquestioningly accept this mishmash. Even a certain web site devoted to Grant has, I noticed, adopted a couple of this book's weirder claims (such as the bizarre, and completely fictional, idea that Julia accused Grant of adultery during the two years he spent on the West Coast,) and presented it as fact. It is frightening how much damage an inaccurate biography can do to the historical record.

   Avoid this book at all costs!




4. Let's make reference to the review printed below, which slams this book and claims it is baseless nonsense. Actually this book is readable, generally accurate and can introduce Grant and Lee to the broad range of people who know nothing about either of them. Is this historical biography of the highest realm? Hardly, but it lays no claim to that mantle. Instead, it's an entertaining book which does not slam Julia Grant, USG's wife, in the slightest. In fact, the book extols her support of her husband and focuses a great deal of attention on Grant's famously happy marriage. The sections on Lee are inferior to the chapters on Grant, but adequate. The format is rather crippling, as the authors seesaw between the two titans. One wonders why they didn't concentrate their forces on one instead of two?

   Finally, the website mentioned by the previous reviewer is mine. As for the "completely fictional" notion that Julia suspected USG of being enamored of other women while on the West Coast, the reviewer needs to consult some other works on Grant before making this absurd claim. Read Grant's letters from the period before attacking the Andersons for presenting facts. Did Grant cheat while separated from his wife? Never. Did she worry about it? You betcha, and that's what this book presents. Case closed.




5. I did not want to put this book down and I really liked the way the authors did a section on Grant then on Lee and would switch back and forth. It seemed like I was reading an adventure novel in that sense with the Civil War as the adventure and tragedy. It really presented the human sides of Grant and Lee and made them more real to the reader.

No comments about Co. Aytch: Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment: Or A Side Show Of The Big Show (1900).

5 comments about The Stone Wall.

1. A very interesting and factual account of the life of a rank and file soldier, including his personal life. Fiction fills in the gaps. Could not wait to turn the next page. I hated to finish the book. I wanted to read more of this family.



2. This is a very interesting book for those who like to read about the Civil War. This is not a book about grand stratagies or personalities of the leaders but instead brings to the reader a strong sense of individual involvement by the average soldier. More than any other book that I have read about the Civil War, this was the most personal. Mr. Smiley does an outstanding job in taking the reader on a journey to rural Virginia in the early 1860's. A very enjoyable and touching saga.



3. The author wrote this book based on some letters written by an ancestor of his. It's unclear to me whether the letters quoted in the text are those letters, or not; the language in them seems a little modern. In any case, Smiley clearly then went and read a large number of first-person accounts of the war in order to recreate the story of this ancestor. And that's the problem. Almost everything in this book is taken from a recognizable source: Hardtack and Coffee, Detailed Minutiae, Casler's book, etc. etc. If I drew a line next to every scene or line borrowed, with little if any change, from someone else, almost the whole book would be marked up. But writing fiction is about originality, not just research work. Another problem I have with this book is the generally pedestrian nature of the writing and the appalling editing -- major spelling and grammar errors persist throughout the work, and I'm not referring to dialogue. To the extent that this is a true story, it retains some emotional effect, and it's hard not to respect the amount of work that Smiley, neither a writer nor a historian, did; but in the final analysis this is not a successful novel.



4. I have had the pleasure and privlege to meet Brad Smiley. His book is one that comes from the heart,and is a labor of love.
   I read this book prior to a trip to the Gettysburg Battlefield.
   to truly appreciate "The Stone Wall" one must stand at the wall and feel the presence of the fallen soldiers.

   Mr Smileys book is a heartwarming story of lives lost and others found.

   I recommend this book to family and friends.




5. I read this book to my 4th grade son. Daniel Knight became important to both of us! Brad Smiley did an excellent job of helping us to imagine the daily life of a Confederate soldier and it fueled our interest in knowing more about the Civil War. We laughed and we cried. It's a book for the young, the old and everyone in between.

No comments about Military records of Schoharie County: Veterans of four wars.

No comments about Personal Memoirs Of John H. Brinton, Major And Surgeon U.S.V., 1861-1865.

No comments about General Officers Of The Confederate Army: Officers Of The Executive Departments Of The Confederate States, Members Of The Confederate Congress By States (1911).

No comments about The Union On Trial: The Political Journals Of Judge William Barclay Napton, 1829-1883.