Customer Reviews

Prince John Magruder: His Life and Campaigns

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You certainly don't need to read this--his role in the war being minor enough to be mentioned offhand in great works like Shelby Foote's The Civil War--but you should. Magruder was a truely unique individual, and has long deserved a spot on history's shelf all his own. From his days at West Point and his subsequent service in the Mexican war, to his time on the penninsula, where his masterful mind tricks kept the Union at bay, and his banishment to Texas, which would be spared the horrors of Total War thanks to him and Kirby Smith, Magruder would earn a unique place in the grand of history, not only of Texas, but of the United States.

The book itself is a short read, written in a clear, concise style--with plenty of maps (useful when covering the attack on Galveston). Paul Casdorph doesn't judge the man for his flaws, nor does he build him into something he's not; no, his retelling of Magruder's life is unbiased and, refreshingly, non-political.

An account in To the Gates of Richmond by Stephen W. Sears (1992) of Prince John's tactics of illusion in the Penisula Campaign led me to seek a biography of Maj. Gen. John Bankhead Magruder. I found only one and was not disappointed: Prince John Magruder by Paul Casdorph (1996). There is not even a listing for him in my World Book encyclopedia. But the author gave a limited account of the important charade which substantially deterred Maj. Gen. George Brinton McClellan and his Federal army in its march toward the Confederate capital of Richmond. Magruder's flair, as descibed by the author, was perhaps unequalled, excepting Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, of course. All in all, Casdorph's attention to detail, based upon exhaustive research, is sure to please fans of this mostly overlooked Confederate general: the hero of the Battle of Galveston, where he fired the first shot. None of which I would have known without reading this marvelous biography.