Customer Reviews

The American Civil War: this Mighty Scourge of War

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There is in fact a misprint on the chronology page. It is not the fault of the authors, as it was correct in the original 4 book publication. After that though the book is pretty flawless in terms of printing, spelling and dates. This is a clear and concise history of the American Civil War. It is broken into 4 parts. The first half of the war east and west, and the second half east and west. Besides facts on the battles, it also contains interesting information on the leaders of each side, as well as the common soldier. Also are eye witness accounts of several civilians of life during this time. It gives enough details, but does not burden you with too much information. This is published by Osprey whose specialty is military history. If you crave more information, they published literally a hundred books about the American Civil War from weapons to uniforms to individual battles. All in all, a good resource book that has lots of interesting maps and pictures and excellent authors.

I was rather critical of the sister volume on the First World War, but this volume is better. Considering that most of the better-known actions took place in the east, it is worthwhile that nearly half the book is devoted to the western campaigns. But since, aside from the unified chronology and index, the four component books are presented in their entirety, one has the unusual situation of finding Lee's surrender at Appomattox described with nearly 100 pages yet to go!

The illustrations and maps are probably the best thing about the book, along with the "Portraits", one of a soldier and one of a civilian, found in each section. These help humanize what was, frankly, a rather inhuman war.

My main criticism is one shared with the WWI book: a lack of coverage of the naval war. The ironclad battle at Hampton Roads is barely mentioned, and Mobile Bay only appears briefly under a photo of David Farragut. The infamous cruise of CSS Alabama is not mentioned at all. And the railroads don't fare too well either; the celebrated "great locomotive chase" does not appear at all.

Still, for a fairly concise, one-volume work on the War Between the States, this book is hard to beat. And if the occasional too-British nature of some Osprey titles is off-putting, not to worry: all four authors are American, and three are professors of history.

Incidentally, the error in the chronology mentioned in the prior reviews has been fixed: in my copy, Lincoln is only assassinated once, on the correct date!