Fields of Honor: Pivotal Battles of the Civil War [Paperback]

Edwin C. Bearss (Author), James McPherson (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 5, 2007

Few historians have ever captured the drama, excitement, and tragedy of the Civil War with the headlong elan of Edwin Bearss, who has won a huge, devoted following with his extraordinary battlefield tours and eloquent soliloquies about the heroes, scoundrels, and little-known moments of a conflict that still fascinates America. Antietam, Shiloh, Gettysburg: these hallowed battles and more than a dozen more come alive as never before, rich with human interest and colorful detail culled from a lifetime of study.

Illustrated with detailed maps and archival images, this 448-page volume presents a unique narrative of the Civil War's most critical battles, translating Bearss' inimitable delivery into print. As he guides readers from the first shots at Fort Sumter to Gettysburg's bloody fields to the dignified surrender at Appomattox, his engagingly plainspoken but expert account demonstrates why he stands beside Shelby Foote, James McPherson, and Ken Burns in the front rank of modern chroniclers of the Civil War, as the Pulitzer Prize-winning McPherson himself points out in his admiring Introduction.

A must for every one of America's countless Civil War buffs, this major work will stand as an important reference and enduring legacy of a great historian for generations to come.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Bearss presents the story of the Civil War as he has in the battlefield tours he has conducted for many years. A former chief historian of the National Parks Service, he chronicles 14 crucial battles, including Fort Sumter, Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Sherman's march through the Carolinas, and Appomattox, the battles ranging between 1861 and 1865; included is an introductory chapter describing John Brown's raid in October 1859. Bearss relates the details of terrain and tactics and of personalities and command decisions; he personalizes generals and politicians, sergeants and privates. The text is augmented by 80 black-and-white photographs and 19 maps. A chance to tour battlefields without leaving home. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Every epic deserves a Homer. In Ed Bearss, the Civil War may have finally gotten one." —The Washington Times

"[Bearss] evokes almost hallucinatory sensations on the battlefield" —The Wall Street Journal

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: National Geographic (June 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1426200935
• ISBN-13: 978-1426200939
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.2 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #84,280 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On the Ground, May 21, 2006

By 

Christian Schlect (Yakima, Washington/USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fields of Honor: Pivotal Battles of the Civil War (Hardcover)

A special book for those with a military bent of mind and an interest in our Civil War. Written as if spoken to you directly on each battlefield by a guide of immense knowledge of both the movement of troops and the local terrain. Every young officer in the current U.S. military should read and learn from Edwin C. Bearss, an extraordinary career employee of the U.S. National Park Service.

As for battles, I learned the most from the chapter on The Wilderness. The author brought me a much better understanding of this important battle than I had prior to taking up his "Fields of Honor."

Finally, the selection of the limited number of photographs presented in this volume was done by someone with a gift for this sort of thing.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get some mud on your boots...from the comfort of home, August 7, 2006

By 

A. B. Powers - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fields of Honor: Pivotal Battles of the Civil War (Hardcover)

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good terrain walk on a civil war battlefield. Transcribed from tapes of former National Park Service Chief Historian Edwin Bearss' battlefield tours, "Fields of Honor" provides a chronological, operational overview of the American Civil War by discussing two or three battles from each year of the war.

As I read I could take a break, close my eyes and easily imagine myself at Gettysburg or Shiloh, a cool breeze drying the sweat on my face as I hiked up to a point of interest with a small group, ready to hear Mr Bearss' insights on the fight.

This book is a great primer for anyone new to reading about the war as it covers the better known battles and places them in context, and maintains a decent balance between the Eastern and Western theaters. It is also a treat for the more experienced student to accompany Ed Bearss, albiet virtually, as he teaches the reader to look at familiar ground in a new way.

The highlight of this book is the chapter on Mr Bearss' involvement with raising the USS Cairo from the Yazoo River. Its greatest drawback is the (all too common in books about battles) lack of detailed maps. Keep a good Civil War atlas or your Trailhead Graphics maps handy.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smell the field...stomp in the mud!, May 17, 2006

By 

Dr. W. B. Rogers (Tyler, TX.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fields of Honor: Pivotal Battles of the Civil War (Hardcover)

I am a member of Blue and Gray Educational Society. I have been waiting for over a year for this book to come out. For those of us that have been in the field with "the grand old man," Ed Bearss, the book will take you there. You can hear the gruff old voice as he walks back and forth on "the lovely ground." I spent 4 years touring every field of the Ed Bearss Essential Civil War tours. This book is a must read! From the wooded hills at Little Round Top where the echoes of the guns of the 20th Maine can still be heard (for those with ears to hear) to the rolling ground of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, Mr. Bearss will make it come alive again. There is a sense of romantic involvement here...but there is nitty gritty history as well. Our group had descendents of both the Federal and Confederate fighting men. At Chancelorsville, a fellow physician and I debated the historical effect of "Fighting Joe Hooker's" likely head injury that cost the Army of the Potomac the field (and the victory that was clearly in their grasp). At Vicksburg, we climbed the sweaty way up to the top of what is left of Champion Hill (where we found a tattered Confederate flag hanging from a makeshift pole)and we "saw" with Ed the view across to what was "fortress Vicksburg" some 20 miles away. We had professional and amature historians on our tours, we had descendents of veterans tracing their ancestors histories, we had producers of the films Gettysburg and Gods and Generals, and more than anything else, we had Americans in search of their heritage. This book is a compendium of the verbatim interpretations of the battles made by the historian emeritus of the National Park Service himself.

As for the mud: ask Charlotte from Cape Cod about the mud in Antietam...we were hip deep and loving it.

Get the book. Read it. If you are a historian of the Civil War, for heaven's sake, get into the field with Ed Bearss while you still can. You won't regret a minute of it.