Customer Reviews

Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War

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Edmund Wilson produced this classic look at civil war literature more than forty years ago and it remains essential reading for anyone professing an interest in the great American conflict. Wilson brought much to the table: a beautiful, restrained writing style and a prodigious understanding of the civil war and its primary players. His magnificent analysis of Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs remains the best and most often-quoted ode to these books. Wilson's tribute to Grant's memoirs is the crux of the book, but his ancillary analysis of other civil war works is also riveting and instructive.

"Patriotic Gore" is not only great literature, it's truly one of the best books I've ever read. It deserves a place on any serious civil war historian's bookshelf.

I am knowledgeable about the Civil War and its literature. In fact, you would think I'd be heartily sick of the subject by now. I sometimes feel that I have over-grazed this favorite topic. However, Wilson is simply wonderful in this book. He makes the whole antebellum era and the war years live again. His opinions are orignal and well stated. He has picked both famous and obscure books/authors to discuss at greater or lesser length depending on what he has new to say about them and on whether or no the subject in hand has, through disuse, disappeared from the knowledge of man. If you are interested in this period but are tired of the same old things, Wilson can point you down paths you could never find by yourself.

I found the introduction a little too ideological to my taste but otherwise the book is darned near perfect.

I'm surprised no one more learned than I in the literature of the American Civil War has yet reviewed this book. I came to it in an attmept to get a sense of the literary quality of the various memoirs and writings left by prominent participants in that momentous struggle, after being surprised that U.S. Grant's memoirs are held in high regard by critics. Wilson's book is a very compelling read (so far - I haven't yet finished it), giving the reader a vivid impression of the ideologies of the time and the pervasive and somewhat high-strung religiosity that influenced their development. Wilson's style is a pleasure, the product of a highly attentive intelligence informed by deep, but lightly-worn, learning. It's surprising how recently this book was written, since Wilson's voice resonates to these ears (educated in the jargon and vulgarities of the late-20th-century university) with the timbre of another, more civilized age.

Wilson was probably the preeminent American critic of the 20th century because he brought to his writing a great breadth and depth of learning, a sure critical sense, and a powerful, flexible and polished prose that is always suited to his subject. Moreover, when Wilson tackled a subject (as he did elsewhere, say, with Dickens) he really mastered not only his subject material, but also the history, biography and other writing that illuminated and placed it into context. Wilson brought all these exceptional qualities to this fine book, the interest of which may, however, be limited by its subjects, namely a host of authors whom we barely know and almost never read. This is not a knock on Wilson or the book; however, if you are not a dedicated student of the period, you might think twice before embarking on this obscure journey.

As Wilson states in the Introduction (a fascinating glimpse into Wilson's personality and politics), Patriotic Gore deals with about 30 individuals who left a lasting record of their experiences of or involvement in some aspect of the Civil War. Of course, he treats the memoirists, like Grant and Sherman, and the lesser known Mosby and Taylor. Notably, both Grant's and Sherman's memoirs recently have been re-issued by Library of America, both make excellent reading, and Wilson's comments on all are most insightful. Similarly, and partly due to the Ken Burns series, Mary Chesnut and her enormous diary have become reasonably well known to this generation, and Wilson's chapter on three southern woman diarists is equally strong.

In fact, Wilson's skills never flag. He has a wonderful chapter that more than does justice to Harriet Beecher Stowe and might even drive one to attempt Uncle Tom's Cabin. He also does as much as can be done with John De Forest, George Cable, Sidney Lanier, and a host of lesser lights. As always, Wilson is informed (he seems to have read everything these folks ever wrote), perceptive, entertaining, and skillful in mingling excerpts of his subjects' writing, telling biographical and historical detail, and his own analysis and commentary. The excerpts are especially useful because almost no one will have read much, if anything, by most of these writers. And therein lies the one weakness of the book. Wilson has done a remarkable job. He has reviewed, summarized and made sense out of a generation of writing that today is largely (and, on artistic grounds, often justifiably) ignored, and he has made it all as interesting as possible. To steal a line from another reviewer, he has read it so we don't have to. Actually, this is a little harsh. I enjoyed this book greatly and from it compiled a list of volumes that, given an eternity, I'd like to read, but probably won't. This is a pretty high recommendation. My only caution is that you either have to love Edmund Wilson, be a dedicated student of the Civil War period, or be desperately searching for a Ph.D. thesis subject to read about such luminaries as Thomas Nelson Page or Albion Tourgee.

Compelling bios of Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Holmes and company, but mostly Edmund Wilson read all of John De Forest's books so we don't have to.