Customer Reviews

Never Call Retreat: Lee and Grant: The Final Victory (Gettysburg)

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Never Call Retreat is the third and final book of an alternative Civil War history, co-authored by Newt Gringrich and William Forstchen. This book continues the exciting and well thought out trilogy that is the new pinnacle for the small but growing mini-genre of Civil War fiction.

The book continues in the exact same style as its predecessors, accentuating character relationships between the top generals of both sides (Lee, Grant, Longstreet, President Lincoln, etc). We also get the standard two or three other characters from both sides who are given major chapter time and are interesting everyday characters who are caught up in the action. The other major strength of the book is the fictional tactical moves both sides make and the description of the action. You can tell a lot of homework was done prior to this series.

Overall this was a fantastic series and I enjoyed equally as much as Shaara's series even though it's tough to compare since one is alternative history while the other is a fictional account of actual events. Most importantly, Gingrich and Forstchen clearly have a love and respect for the history of the Civil War and it shows through in the actions and stoicism of his characters and setting. They create the awe and grandeur that is associated with great Civil War media and they are clearly fanatical about all the major characters.

Bottom Line: Obviously should not be read without reading the prior two. A fantastic conclusion to the series.

NEVER CALL RETREAT is the concluding novel of Newt Gringrich and William Forstchen's trilogy about an AH timeline in which Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia effectively destroys the Union's Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg.

The historical question NEVER CALL RETREAT addresses is whether or not a great Confederate tactical victory at Gettysburg would have been a strategic victory of sufficient magnitude to enable the Confederate States to win the Civil War. Gingrich and Forstchen answer: "Not necessarily." After all, the North still has a huge superiority in population and resources, and in the aftermath of the Gettysburg defeat Union General U.S. Grant has been summoned from the West to take command of the Eastern Theater a year earlier than he otherwise would have been.

If there is a weakness in the book, it is lack of attention to the political realities of the war. The rout of the Union Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg would have had a shock value many times more intense than the Tet Offensive did in Vietnam. Could the North, already tiring of the war, have possibly maintained the political will to continue it in the aftermath of a debacle at Gettysburg? Gingrich and Forstchen do not address this political reality.

Nevertheless, NEVER CALL RETREAT is an excellent read not only because it addresses some of the AH issues of a Confederate victory at Gettysburg, but also because it is well researched and written. Even if you don't agree with all the AH extrapolations you will find it to be thought-provoking and entertaining.

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Btw. I've written my own novel Fire in the Heartland that explores the political aspects of the Civil War. It's a strong complement to "battlefield" novels like Newt's Gettysburg series.

William R. Forstchen and Newt Gingrich continue and end the marvelous Civil War alternate-history trilogy in the same style and sensitivity shown in the previous two volumes. As with the previous two, battle scenes can sometimes be compared to a Steven Pressfield novel, and the emotion and drama is more potent and straining than the previous two novels.

After all but destroying the remnants of the Army of the Potomac along Gunpowder River, Lee is alerted to the Army of Susquehanna under Grant moving from Pennsylvania and attempting to enter Virginia. Rapid maneuvering brings the Army of Northern Virginia to cut them off near Frederick, Maryland, more specifically on the banks of Monocacy Creek.

What transpires is a week-long battle that would make the two month earlier battle of Gettysburg-Union Mills look like a bloody skirmish.

Several well-known American heroes end up dying in the battle who would not have in real history, and others surviving, but each one is done in a surprising, never needless manner. George Armstrong Custer sacrifices his life to seeing the bridges over Monocacy Creek destroyed, severing the Confederate's chance to storm into Frederick unopposed.

While the battle is unfolding, many obstacles stand in the path of a clear victory for Lee, including an unknown saboteur sabotaging locomotives outside of Baltimore, needed to rush the Army of Northern Virginia to Frederick, as well as the removal of the Washington Garrison, now commanded by Winfield Scott Hancock, to march along the Potomac and secure the river to prevent Lee from escaping into Virginia, and the remaining 10,000 of the Army of the Potomac snatching back Baltimore while Lee is fully engaged at Monocacy Creek.

Since it's no secret that the book ends with Lee's defeat, I should say that that defeat does not come anywhere near lightly. The final scene on the battlefield is a heartwrenching one in which the surrounded Army of Northern Virginia, in one last desperate attempt to break free, aims to attack Grant head-on and escape through the Cacoctin Mountains. Just as they are about to charge, Grant's infantry move aside, to reveal fifty artillery cannons pointed directly at Lee's army. He has no choice but to surrender.

From start to finish, heroes are recognized on both sides of the conflict, and in battle lulls, there are times when Confederates and Federals behave more like long lost friends than enemies, just as in history. Heroes are made out of Confederates and Federals alike, including US politicians like Elihu Washburne, CS politicians like Judah Benjiman, and others.


Even if it weren't alternate history, this book and the other two would have been classics in Civil War literature. I am certain of that.

This is the sort of review that I didn't anticipate writing for a Civil War series that I had immensely enjoyed -- up to book three. I rate it a "2," not for it polish -- the prose and the skill of the authors for writing military action and characters are in fact high. My problem is with the way the story is developed and concluded.

Interestingly, I found my copy going for clearance in a used book store when the book was still in the stores. After I had read it, I realized why someone who might have enjoyed the first two books would have wanted to have it out of his house on the double quick, despite his investment in its price.

I'm not spoiling anything when I say that this is a book about how if Lee had won the Gettysburg campaign it would only have led to disaster, since Gingrich is determined to have him bungle away the chance he's given the South for a political victory -- a victory that would have come through a morale collapse on the Union side. That Lee would have done that is not impossible, but that he would have is probably less likely than that a stray cannonball would have taken out General Grant (or even Lincoln during the siege of Washington, where Gingrich has him carelessly exposing himself).

Having read a great deal of Civil War history and I don't fault the book (as some reviewers do) for purported military errors. The action seems plausible enough to me. It is something else, the peculiar ideas behind the book, that bothers me. What was Gingrich trying to say is stunningly simpleminded -- that the best victory can be spoiled if it is followed up by a wrongheaded determination to do absolutely nothing right. While Lee and Davis are acting clownishly incompetent, Gingrich endows Grant and Lincoln with incisiveness and clear-headed insights. In fact, Grant seems more like an error-free game-playing computer than a real human being. Historically U.S. Grant was a risk-taker and, time and time again, his recklessness might have ruined him. He looked better than he was because he was up against the third-rate Pemberton and Bragg in the West. In the East, his advance on Richmond in 1864 showed little brilliance, but a great deal of bullheadedness. He simply wouldn't be daunted by a scale of losses that would destroy a military career today, when we agonize more over the loss of a single man than our ancestors bothered with the ruin of an entire regiment. Grant was arguably defeated repeatedly on the Richmond road, and nearly got half his army trapped at the North Anna, a situation that the tired and depleted Confederates couldn't move quickly enough to take advantage of. Drama suffers when one character is made a paragon and the other is left merely human. Both Lee and Grant were flawed men. Lee's weaknesses are built upon to make the novel come out the way the authors intend it to; Grant's weaknesses are concealed for the same reason.

In Gingrich's campaign, the Union troops seem to be able to get away with anything they try while the Confederates wallow and dither and can't bring off the simplest maneuver. Much of what the story presents could easily have gone the other way. But Gingrich is bound and determined to flip the coin against Lee to achieve his defeat a year before his historical surrender. At times the story does not seem so much plotted as programmed.

Unlike some reviewers, I respected Newt Gingrich as a political leader. He ultimately failed to make a difference because he decided to court popularity and win over people who opposed him instead of seeking victory for the people who were inspired by him. Instead of going with his strengths, he tried to do the undoable and so failed to achieve even half of what lay within his grasp. In this he is like his character General Lee. Maybe by showing a lack of sympathy for those who fought for limited government he was seeking to win over people who'd never read a book by him. Or was he trying not looking like an unreconstructed Confederate so he'd come out more appealing to those who viscerally despise him? Or maybe Newt Gingrich was just too much of a Washington politician to be comfortable with envisioning a world where federal centralization does not hold sway.

I don't think this will be a memorable book in the long haul, and its weaknesses pull down the trilogy as a whole. Who was N.C.R. written for? People who enjoy alternate history usually read such stories because they want to root for a lost cause, to see its ideals win and then extrapolate how this acrimonious and sordid world could thereby have been made better. In the first two books Gingrich hinted he would give much, but in the end he didn't properly serve his constituency. That's a failing that will keep both a politician and an author from being the best he could be.

Nonetheless, alternate history done right makes for good reading. For people interested in considering how a little better run of luck or a changed reaction here or there might have won the war for the South, I recommend DIXIE VICTORIOUS, edited by Peter Tsouras.

Through three novels, Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen have told the story of a Civil War that might have been. It started with Gettysburg, where Robert E. Lee withdraws from the field of battle in Pennsylvania and forces the Army of the Potomac to fight a battle on his terms, with devastating results. Then, in Grant Comes East., Lee is forced to deal with the unknown as a new General, Ulysses S. Grant, begins to build a new Army near Harrisburg, though Lee still manages to capture Baltimore and inflict what would seem to have been a death blow on the Army of the Potomac.

In Never Call Retreat. Gingrich & Forstchen bring their Civil War trilogy to a close with a tale of the clash of two titans -- Lee and Grant -- in a battle that will decide the fate of the Union, and end the war, in September 1863 rather than April 1865.

Everything that made the first two volumes of this trilogy so good are here in the final volume as well. The historical research is impeccable, and the writing once again makes you feel like you're reading accounts of an actual battle, rather than a story about one that never took place.

The ending, which I won't reveal, may strike some as implausible, but I don't think it is. Even in 1863, the enmities that the Civil War created had not grown deep. All of the main players -- Lincoln, Grant, and Lee -- said more than once in their own words how much they hated war in particular, and the death and destruction of that war specifically. Given the chance to end it earlier, on terms that might not have caused such divisiveness in the post-war era, I think they all would have jumped at it.

In the end, Gingrich & Forstchen have created a work of historical fiction that deserves to be read, and re-read, for a long time to come.

I thoroughly enjoyed this series and strongly recommend it for anyone who enjoys historical fiction. I also recommend the audio version of this book, which is narrated exceptionally well. I was sad for the series to end and to leave the characters behind. Well done.

This trilogy of "what if" history, ending with "Never Call Retreat", is so well written, attributing logical alternate courses of action to historical characters, that if readers do not have a firm understanding of what actually happened, they may be convinced that the events described are factual.

This is the third book of Gingrich and Forstchen's alternate history of the Civil War, focusing on the changed outcome of Battle of Gettysburg. Only one day of the three day battle is fought as Lee sees a greater opportunity by following Longstreet's suggestion to withdraw and flank the Union Army, by so doing the battle for Little Round Top and Pickett's Charge are not written in this history. I found the maneuvering to be brilliant and very plausible. The writer's "what if" scenario portrayed accurately the personalities of the generals who guided the armies in conflict, leading to maneuver and counter maneuver that has Lee's army victorious but sorely afflicted by attrition from each subsequent battle.

The overwhelming resources of an industrialized country, which seemingly mends its wounds effortlessly, correctly characterizes the Union by focusing on the seemingly unending supply of goods, arms, railroads, industrial capabilities and manpower. With such resources it seems inevitable that the South would surely lose in any type of protracted conflict. The writers masterfully create this atmosphere.

The South, on the other hand, more than makes up for the ample resources of the Union through its spirit to persevere and through its superiority in leaders in its Army, with Lee being the standard for which generals of both sides strive to attain. Even with a flawed moral directive, which was based in the institution of slavery, the sheer personality of its generals and fighting spirit of its soldiers carries the Southern efforts to victory time and again.

However, it is `time' which is the enemy in this scenario. Both sides stand to lose the cause because of the passage of time. Although endowed with unlimited resources, the Union is riddled with political strife and division between its political parties. The losses on the battlefield erode the will to continue as the opposing parties use each loss as leverage to condemn the other and concede to enter into peace negotiations with the South. Lincoln finds himself in the unique position of knowing he can win the war but realizing the political opposition and public opinion are unwilling to pay the price for such a victory, regardless of the overwhelming advantage of the North's unlimited resources.

Lee on the other hand finds himself virtually victorious on the field of battle but losing the ability to sustain the campaign because of the dwindling of manpower resulting from his victories. What good is it to win all the battles and in the end have no army left to claim the final victory.

In addition, the writers were masterful in accounting for the battles and maneuvers of the armies, bringing personalities to life and illustrating the horrendous manner in which war was waged in 1865. In today's age where even the loss of one soldier is newsworthy, and the loss of 1,000 brings a clamor of public opinion that can turn the tide of support, battles were measured in losses in the tens of thousands. For example, the Battle of Antietam is estimated to have had over 23,000 casualties in a single day.

The writers masterfully present a plausible accounting of horrifying fighting and complex maneuvering in battle after battle. Eventually, the cost of such great conflict brings the story to an end that is indeed plausible and, in my opinion, accurate. This is an alternative history that should cause any Civil War history buff to wonder. I'm glad I chose to read the book. However, it is critical that you read all three of the books of the trilogy to appreciate this work.

The mental Battles between Grant & Lee was unbelievable. Two chess masters trying to outsmart the other. Battles jumped off the pages making the reader believe that they were in the middle of the battle. Gingrich & Forstchen nail the mind set of the people that they were talking about. Great Book. Read and enjoy.

In this concluding book of an alternative history trilogy the authors continue and then conclude in their story which is based on the supposition that the South, rather than the north won the battle of Gettysburg. In the first book, the authors change history to what I (an armchair general) thought should have happened, i.e. don't fight at Gettysburg, but go south towards Washington, pick good ground and make the Yankees attack you. As the technology of the time greatly favored the defense, it is likely that they could have won. That would have definitely have changed the course of the war.

After the first book, the authors are having to propose the consequences. And I think they did a good job. Where would Lee have taken his Army? What would Lincoln have done? And the further Lee got from his base in Virginia the harder time he would have had in getting supplies, or in getting home as the Yankees moved ever larger armies around him.

A very interesting point is that in this senario, the authors have the war ending a year early. In actual fact, the last year of the war was very bloody. It is impossible to say, of course, but changing the outcome of one battle might have saved the lives of a hundred thousand men.

OK, Drs. Gingrich and Forstchen, you've done an excellent job on the Civil war. Now lets move on to World War I or II and do another trilogy.