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Touched with Fire: Five Presidents and the Civil War Battles That Made Them

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This is simply a wonderful book about a hitherto uncovered subject, namely the so called ?gray bearded? president and the battles that helped make them heroes. Most have forgotten that Garfield, Hayes, Harrison and Mckinley were civil war leaders and most were generals for the North who were brave and dashing in their youth. Garfield, Hayes and Harrison have been swept into the ?dustbin of history? of late but this book revives them and tells the tale of their lives during the great cataclysm, the civil war. When it comes to Grant not much is new here, and one would be better to pick up an individual biography of Ulysses. The rest of the book is superb and one of a kind.

The author does a wonderful job in the brief biographical sketches of these future presidents and the book does an excellent job painting the picture of battle during the civil war, and the effect that singular heroism can have on events. A wonderful study. Any civil war buff will enjoy this account as will anyone with an interest in post civil war politics and American history. This book makes an excellent gift and a fabulous read. Not to be missed!!!

In his latest book, Touched With Fire: Five Presidents and the Civil War Battles that made them, James M. Perry has given us a glimpse into the wartime efforts and heroics of five men who later occupied the Oval Office of the White House.

Presidents Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Harrison, and McKinley were all soldiers in the Civil War, and all had exposure to enemy fire at some point during the war (Hayes was wounded four separate times during the course of the war, though none of his injuries was life-threatening).

In my opinion, Perry has given us a good reading of Civil War history, including an introduction to some battles that are not often heard of (such as Garfield's involvement at The Big Sandy Valley battle in Kentucky). However, Perry gives short shrift to U.S. Grant, who was the only professional military officer to become President, and to McKinley, who was but an 18 year old Private when he enlisted at the outbreak of the war.

Perry's writing is lively, and gives the reader a nice vision of what was going on not only on the battlefield, but also in the minds of these five men. He closes the book by giving us a brief glance into the political careers (however short, bland or corrupt their administrations may have been) of these men as well.

I enjoyed reading the recounts of the battles and the actions taken by these men immensely, and I would highly recommend the book to anyone that is looking for a good understanding of the military years of Garfield, Hayes, or Harrison. With the shortcomings given to Grant and McKinley, I think that a more exhaustive biography would better provide an adequate picture of their wartime activities.

This is a delightful little book (309 pages) that deals basically with five Union Army officers - all from Ohio - who saw a lot of combat action in the Civil War in which they all proved under fire that they were capable leaders, loyal, brave, and courageous. These five were Ulysses S. (?Unconditional Surrender?) Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, William McKinley, Benjamin Harrison and James A. Garfield. All were extremely lucky to survive their wartime experiences - given the number and intensity of the battles in which they participated (in one month of May, for example, Harrison participated in more battles than his famous grandfather, William Henry (?Tippecanoe?) Harrison and Andrew Jackson ever did - combined!) - but they did survive and each eventually became president of the United States in that post-Civil War era known as the ?Gilded Age? (1865-1901).
The Gilded Age was that time - to cite Mark Twain - when everyone in the country was trying to get rich - ?legal if possible, but not necessarily?. It was an era when the country was confronted with great changes and important issues - like reconstruction (physical and psychological) of the restored, war-torn union, expanding industrialization, growing foreign trade - ergo, tariff issues, hard (gold) vs. soft (paper and silver) money policy, economic depressions, feisty Indians in the west who always seemed to be occupying lands coveted by new white settlers, race issues arising from ?emancipation?, U.S. expansionism - domestic and foreign, etc.. The Gilded Age began with the assassination of one president (Lincoln) and ended with the assassination of another (McKinley) and these five Ohioans, all Lincoln Republicans, led the nation through most of those years. In fact, only two Democrats (Johnson and Cleveland) held the office of president during this period.
In any event, this abbreviated tome provides very interesting reading about this era and about these personalities, each of whom has himself been the subject of one or more books, and four of whom (Harrison excluded) even wrote books of their own. The author provides a good picture of where each came from (ancestors), of their immediate families, of their pre-war achievements, of their successes and failures and their peak and lowest moments while serving in the army, and also brief summaries of their rise to the presidency , their performance in that capacity, and their post-presidency lives.
James M. Perry, the author, has to be sure bitten off a pretty big chunk of U.S. history in this little book, but he?s done a great job, I think, nevertheless. The book contains a wealth of information on 19th Century American life, on U.S. Civil War generals, issues, strategies, battles and personalities, the Gilded Age and a few U.S. presidents. I recommend it.

I am a big fan of Civil War histories. I have more than 75 fiction and non-fiction Civil War books on my bookshelf (mostly non-fiction) so I am hardly a newbie to this area. When I comment that this is a new angle, I an really saying something.

It's not that James M. Perry has uncovered new documents or new information, but he has re-shuffled the "same old" information into a new pattern. In this case, he has focused on the five Presidents that fought in the Civil War. Perry includes a modest pre-war biography of each of the men and then goes into greater detail on their war experiences. The level of detail is neither skimpy nor excessive - he strikes a nice balance.

As a group, they all had many things in common. To a man, they all became competent officers of brevet Major or higher, they all had extensive combat experience in the Western theater (although Hayes and his men were transferred to the Eastern theater) and they were all Republican (Perry does point out that the Democrats did run Civil War veterans, but none were successful).

Mercifully, Perry does not cover the entire career of U.S. Grant since his Civil War biography would essentially be a re-telling of the war itself and his war biography would dwarf those of the other four combined. Instead, he begins with Grant at Forts Henry and Donelson and only chooses to include him again when he interacts in the lives of the other four. The other four are hardly a homogeneous group, despite all being Republicans. Their temperaments range from stoic and quiet to loud and openly scheming. Their ages range from 18 to 38 and previous military experience range from a West Point education to none at all.

Perry includes a chapter at the end telling the post-war political history of each of the five men which is also a basic history of Gilded Age politics. Perry points out the powerful influence that Civil War veterans groups such as the Grand Army of the Republic had.

Interesting. Easily accessible. Worth the read by Civil War buffs and devotees of the Presidency.

James M. Perry's "Touched With Fire" is a highly readable popular history of the wartime service of the five U.S. Presidents who were veterans of the Civil War. The story of U.S. Grant is well-known, but Perry performs a real service for Civil War fans in illuminating the careers in uniform of Rutherford B. Hays, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley. With the exception of Grant, a West Point graduate with prior service in the regular Army during the Mexican War, each of the other four was caught up from civilian life by the outbreak of war, served in volunteer Midwest infantry regiments, and turned out to be brave and reasonably competent officers. McKinley initially enlisted but earned a battlefield commission. Each was noted for bravery and battlefield leadership. Of each it could be said that their wartime service was critical to their post-war political careers. Of the five, only McKinley was a successful President, although in fairness, Garfield served only a few months before being assassinated.

What may be of topical interest for the present day reader is Perry's commentary on how deeply the prosecution of the war divided the North. A significant fraction of Northern politicians and their followers opposed the war effort, whether on grounds of sympathy with the Confederacy, partisan rivalry with the newly ascendant Republican Party, a distaste for the liberation of slaves, or exhaustion over the high cost in blood and treasure of combat. The desperate political infighting necessary to push to completion President Lincoln's agenda of reuniting the country and freeing the slaves translated into a post-war landscape in which the Republicans waved the "bloody shirt of rebellion" at the Democratic Party to win all but two Presidential elections between 1868 and 1908. Like any other era of politics, power tended to corrupt, and the "Gilded Age" of the late 1800's was renowned for its corrupt political practices.

"Touched By Fire" is easily accessible to the general reader; Perry's narrative is entertaining and backed by solid if generally derivative scholarship.

I have read most accounts of the major players and battles that occurred during the civil war period.. The author has done a great job connecting the lives of five men who became president who emerged as leaders has a result of their experiences during the civil war. I can, as a relate to this account of to what these five men experienced and learned as a result of their service to their country as it parallels my own experience upon entering the US military in my early 20's.
James Perry has produced a most accurate and surprisingly riveting account of the battles each man faced during the war and the characteristic of leadership that emerged in men that became US Presidents within the following two decades of our county's history. Other Historians have given us a wonderful full picture of US Grants achievements both during the war period and his presidency. The author brings us fresh accounts of battles faced by Grant as well as Rutherford Hays, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison and William McKinley. The men that emerged under this baptism of fire were changed. This is the story of the birth of the great personal leadership qualities that were wrought!

As one of the previous reviewers has stated, the writing on Grant was not great, but the experiences of Hayes, Garified, Harrison, and McKinley were good. I did not know the courage and heroism of these individuals. All were brave men, who put their lives on the line for their country. Hayes stands as a very fine example of leading his men from the front. Garfield was a little devious. McKinley, even though a cook, showed front line heroism when he delivered food to the front lines. Harrison showed the courage of his grandfather.

This is a good book about the soldier exploits of five of our post Civil War presidents. They were common men, with extraordinary courage. No wonder the population voted for these men in their era.

Most of this book is very interesting but there are a few slow areas. Even so it is worth the read. A wonderful glimpse into the military lives of our Civil War Veteran presidents, from the General to the private.

This is a book we Civil War fans needed. Grant,Hays,Garfield,Harrison and Mckinley. I think Chester Arthur also served but he wasn't in any battles. Being from Cumberland Maryland it's interesting to note that Mckinley and Hays were both in town the night Crook and Kelly were captured by McNeils rangers. Hays is probably the most combat experienced, himself being at South Mountain and The Shenandoah. Harrison was with Sherman in Georgia but was at the Battle of Resaca a pretty intense battle itself. Garfield saw some fighting in Kentucky and Chickamauga and Mckinely was at Antietam and Shenandoah. But you should read the story it's quite good and i guarantee adventure on every page.