Blood, Tears, & Glory: How Ohioans Won the Civil War [Hardcover]

James H. Bissland (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1933197056 | ISBN-13: 978-1933197050 | Publication Date: October 2007

It's the greatest untold story of the Civil War...

...and one of the newest. For 150 years, the battlefields of Virginia, Gettysburg, and Antietam were what Americans thought of first when they thought of the Civil War. Wrong. While Easterners were battling to a bloody stalemate, Midwestern farmers, shopkeepers, and country lawyers fighting elsewhere were shaping the war's outcome. Dismissed by haughty Easterners as "armed rabble" or "drunkards," these citizen-soldiers, white and black, often were poorly trained and poorly equipped--but they were tough, confident, and supported by strong women who found their own ways to get into the fight. And the Midwesterners included most of the Union's top generals. From brilliant, if flawed, commanders to feisty enlisted men who were hard to discipline but hard to scare, Blood, Tears, & Glory tells powerful stories of the war, many for the first time, and all from a new point of view.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 588 pages
• Publisher: Orange Frazer Pr Inc (October 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933197056
• ISBN-13: 978-1933197050
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,472,656 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A real treasure!, October 15, 2007

By 

R. L. Partin (Hendersonville, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood, Tears, & Glory: How Ohioans Won the Civil War (Hardcover)

This is a superb, work -- in league with the best historical writers of our day in both substance and style. Bissland has done his homework in crafting a spell-binding glimpse of Ohio's significant role in the Civil War.

I found his character descriptions to be most insightful and colorful. The depictions of Grant, Steedman, Rosecrans, and John Brown were especially riveting. His short bios of the main players were rich with detail and fresh anecdotes. They were never dry and plain -- always juicy and enticing. I loved the alliterative description of Brown as " an avenging angel on assignment from God. I didn't wanting to stop reading in the midst of any new character description.

The author is almost poetic in his economical painting of snippets, often catching the reader off guard, e.g., "small conflicts flickered on the horizon like heat lightening" and my favorite: depicting Foote's gunboats as "enormous Hostess Twinkies with quills."

The work is well-researched and appropriately documented, using an array of fascinating primary sources, including many diaries and early newpaper accounts. While the book subtitle suggests a narrow geographic view, I highly recommend this book to those beyond the midwest.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Page-turner from start to finish, December 19, 2009

By 

Stephen Clapp "Steve Clapp" (Reston, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood, Tears, & Glory: How Ohioans Won the Civil War (Hardcover)

"Blood, Tears and Glory" is the most enjoyable non-fiction book about the Civil War I have ever read. The focus on Ohio enables the author to tell a series of fascinating stories about the central figures in the war, including John Brown, the leading Union generals and President Lincoln himself. It was a page-turner from start to finish.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Read for Ohioans, November 20, 2007

By 

90th OVI - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood, Tears, & Glory: How Ohioans Won the Civil War (Hardcover)

I have at least four ancestors who fought in Ohio regiments, so I was excited to pick up this book. It provides a wonderful overview of the people (military, civilian, politician) and places that became important before, during, and after the Civil War. The book covers a lot of ground so there are no in-depth descriptions, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. It has many citatations from newspapers, diaries, first-person accounts, and other original sources. I appreciate the Web page references that end chapters. It has lots of illustrations and an easy-reading style. It's 600 pages but the text is large and widely-spaced.

It suffers problems that I'll attribute to lackluster editing from the small publisher. I found some page numbers missing... not the text, just the page numbers (page 90 has no number, and there are no pages marked 91 and 92). An island in the Mississippi is called "Island Number Tenth" and then later "Island Number Ten," and isn't listed in the index at all. The brief phrases used to tag various people are often repeated, sometimes in separate chapters and sometimes on the next page. For example, page 347, "with Meade only nominally in charge..." and page 348, "Meade would remain head--nominally--of the army..."

In spite of these issues, I'm enjoying this book and I'm glad to have it.