Customer Reviews

The Battle of Belmont: Grant Strikes South

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For many Americans the Civil War consisted of battles at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Manassas, Antietam, Shiloh and a few other major battles. What is often overlooked are the smaller engagements than provide the glue that strings together the major battles. It is also in early small battles that generals like Grant, Lee and Jackson learn valuable lessons that pay dividends in subsequent battles.
The Battle of Belmont is one such battle. As the other reviewers have noted this battle is best known as Grant's first battle of the war. It would prove a training ground for Grant and his men. Grant learned much from this battle.
In some ways, Belmont is a smaller version of Shiloh with the sides reversed. Like at Shiloh, an army was surprised and their camps captured while the men fled to cover along the river bank. Like at Shiloh the attackers failed to drive the defenders into the river and win a clear cut victory. Like at Shiloh the defenders then went on the offensive and drove the attackers back.
Given the similarities between these two battles, what did Grant learn at Belmont that would help him at Shiloh? 1) Grant learned that being caught by surprise and being pushed back to a river did not necessarily mean defeat. 2) Grant learned the importance of rallying your troops and counter attacking. 3) Grant learned the importance of following up on an initial success and aggressively pursuing your opponent. These lessons would serve Grant well at Shiloh and future battles as he continued to learn from his mistakes. However, Grant did not learn all the lessons that could have been learned at Belmont - eg. his surprise at Shiloh.
Mr. Hughes has written a fine book that makes sense out of the chaos of combat. The text is easy to read and there are helpful maps.

This is an excellent synopsis of the Battle of Belmont. Belmont was a relatively small battle on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River. Though small, Belmont was important, partly because it was the first battle fought by General Grant. The writing style of the book is clear and easy to follow. There are 10 high quality maps, 7 that cover the battle itself. It is easy to correlate the maps and the text to keep track of units and their movements.

Hughes writes in an interesting style. Instead of describing the battle from start to finish in a linear fashion, he switches back and forth between the Union and Confederate perspective. That is, he covers one part of the battle from the Federal point of view, then switches to the Confederate point of view and describes the events again. This approach could easily have come across poorly or been confusing. Instead, it leads to a very balanced and in depth account of the battle. I highly recommend this book to Civil War enthusiasts.

This book offers the reader a well researched and presented account of the Battle of Belmont, the first battle in the Western Theatre and one of the first battles fought by Ulysses S. Grant. The book covers Grants attack on the Southern forces under the command of Leonidas Polk and Gideon Pillow at Belmont on the Mississippi River in Missouri on the 7th of November 1861. The maps in the book are easy to understand and guide the reader through the fighting, the narrative runs smoothly and offers a good overview of this battle. There is extensive notes and bibliography to assist the reader with further studies. Overall a decent book covering this battle of the American Civil War. An enjoyable read.

Armies have to learn to fight as more than an armed mob. Officers have to learn how to fight their command too. Missing these classes makes all the drill worhless and a defeate possible. US Grant understood this and Belmont is his first training class for himself and his army. This small battle is either overlooked, ignored or used as an example of Grant being beaten on the field. All of those ideas are the wrong approach to understanding this battle. Was it important to the war? Not really. Was it important for giving semi-trained troops a taste of combat and instilling in them the habit of victory? Yesand this was Grant's objective. When he had accomplished his objective, he pulled back. Did everything go well? No, some officers didn't control their men, some men went off on tangents, orders were missed and a series of small problems made for a harder day than planned.

All of the above makes for a good story and Nathaniel Hughes Jr. tells it well. After laying a good foundation, he takes us through each phase of the battle telling us what is going well and what isn't. Move and counter move occupy the book as Polk & Pillow, move to first stop and then try to destroy the Union invader.

A series of good well placed maps allow us to follow the action. A series of illustrations place faces to the names. Coupled with good clear writting make this an enjoyable and informative reading experience. This is a very good book about one of the small battle of the Civil War.

This book is one of those that combines clear fact, with interesting narrative and extremely useful maps. The book quickly sets the stage and highlights some of the more unknown aspects of the early years of the war for control of the north central Mississippi River. The reader quickly learns the importance of Cairo, Illinois to the course of the war as well as the CSA defenses in Columbus, Kentucky (which is one of the few remaining areas of the original battle that one can visit).

And of course, this is U.S. Grant's debut. He conducts a pretty tight little campaign until victory in the CSA camp causes his troops to run amok (Jubal Early would experience a similar problem at Cedar Creek). The quick reinforcement of fresh Confederates from the Kentucky side puts Grant to rout back to his small flotilla and back to Cairo.

The Battle of Belmont is a fascinating study of combined arms, logistics and some pretty good tactical movements. Certainly, there aren't too many battles in the Civil War where both sides win and lose and where both land troops from the river.

Ultimately this is an engaging and interesting read about a little known battle that taught some valuable lessons to U.S. Grant.

For the more serious Civil War buffs, it is also one of the first excursions of the union gun boats, Lexington and Tyler, both of which will see more well remembered service at Shiloh.

This short book details the small battle of Belmont in southeast Missouri in late 1861. This early battle was the first battle where Ulysses S. Grant commanded Union forces and displayed many of his leadership attributes that he used to such success throughout the war. (take the offensive, close with and attempt to destroy the enemy, combined army/naval operations, and coolness and lack of fear in a tight spot.) On the Confederate side we are introduced to Southern Generals Leonidas Polk and Gideon Pillow. (It can be strongly argued these two men did more to defeat the Confederacy in the Western theater than even general Grant!) The writing style is good and it is easy to follow the opening moves that set the stage, the campain leading upto the battle, and the battle itself. I found the maps to be good and they were also an aid in following the story. I highly reccommend this book for anyone interested in the Western/Mississippi Valley theater of the Civil War who wants to understand the early moves by both sides that set the stage for the bigger campaigns and battles that followed. (Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh)

I bought this book because I did not know much about Belmont, Grant's first action in the Civil War. This book moves in a logical pattern and is easy to follow. There is good development of the major players, both Union and Rebel generals and their backgrounds. There are quite a few maps in the book but they seem to appear several pages after the action is described in the text. There are lots of photos of the principle officers and a few contemporary drawings of the battle. The book answered all the questions I had about Belmont, which is usually described as an attempt by Grant to capture a fort at Belmont across the Mississippi River from the Confederate fortress at Columbus Kentucky. To the author, Belmont was a raid, part of a larger plan to keep Polk, the Confederate commander, off balance. Grant had multiple columns moving across Missouri and Kentucky to confuse the Confederates. This was Grants first offensive action with eager untested volunteer troops coordinated with troop transports and naval gunboats. The Federals easily pushed the rebel troops back to their camp and then out against the riverbank. Flushed with victory the troops celebrated their triumph looting the captured camp in full view of the Confederates across the river. Polk sent reinforcements across the river, which attacked the disorganized Federal troops and chased them back to their transports. Grant took a lot of criticism from his failed attack but gained valuable experience in the capture of Fort Henry and Donelson three months later.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Civil War in the West, especially if they are interested in the early action.