Customer Reviews

Gate of Hell: Campaign for Charleston, 1863

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Gate of Hell is a decent study of the Union's Campaign for Charleston, SC in 1863. Stephen R. Wise's history adequately describes the many attacks the Union attempted that summer to capture the cradle of the Confederacy. It is a broad overview of the campaign, focusing on the relationships between the army and the navy of the United States as they try to cooperate in reducing one of the most important ports of the Confederacy. Wise does a good job describing the attacks on Morris Island, with special emphasis on the 54th Massachusetts assault on the works of Battery Wagner. However, he seems to spend too much time telling us what type of artillery was used on both sides in all of these assaults, instead of focusing on the soldiers who attacked and who defended. While this book is a good outline for what happened on the sun drenched beaches of South Carolina in the summer of 1863...for the Civil War student, as I am, you are left wanting more. I'm still waiting for a definitive study on the attack led by the 54th, and although Wise's book attempts to describe the action, unfortunately he falls short. Overall a good book if you are only interested in an overview of the campaign.

If you are a student of history, or a Civil War buff or have an interest in Charleston, then this is the book you have been waiting for.

Very precise and detailed, Dr. Wise writes with a style that makes one believe they are reading a novel rather than a historical account. He brings life to the participants and explains the struggles from both sides.

Too often writers of CW histories either interject their own predjuces or romantasize the events all out of porportion. In this book the author does neither.

The ability to clearly explain the often chaotic events in an easy to understand manner is worth the price of the book alone. I would rate this with the best of works on the CW.

This is a workman-like, very scholarly account of the significant battles around Charleston South Carolina in 1863. The author views this year as the main act in the siege of the city in which the Civil War started, and so this is where he puts his focus. The book spends a lot of time discussing various personalities invovled, especially on the Union side where the admirals (duPont and Dahlgren) and the generals (principally Gilmore) are discussed at great length, so that I knew a bit more about them than I had previously.

The author starts out by recounting for you the situation at the beginning of the year, and giving a brief account of the events prior to the start of the year. He then wades right into the attack on Battery Wagner, which of course culminated in the famous assault depicted in the movie "Glory". The author spends a lot of time going over things that are often thought mundane, everything from the various methods of siege warfare in the mid-nineteenth century to the design of the monitors of the era. He stitches it all together reasonably well, though his prose isn't the second coming of Hemingway or even Shelby Foote.

That being said, I liked this book and enjoyed it, and I'd recommend it...but only to people who are already interested in the Civil War.

I love this book. As I big civil war history buff, especially with special interest in the Civil War battles around or in Charleston, I love this book and recommended to anyone who wants more information (or I should say who wants specific information). This is a must!