The Longest Night : A Military History of the Civil War [BARGAIN PRICE] (Hardcover)

by David J Eicher (Author), James M. McPherson (Author), Lee Vande Visse (Author) "SERGEANT JAMES CHESTER could do nothing but walk out onto the parade ground and wait..." (more)
Key Phrases: South Carolina, United States, Bull Run (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The Longest Night by David J. Eicher aspires to become the standard reference in its field, and it very nearly succeeds. It is strictly a military history of the Civil War, which means it eschews all the political and social context setting that takes up so much space in James M. McPherson's heralded Battle Cry of Freedom (still the best single volume on the war) and focuses almost exclusively on the actual campaigns and combat. Eicher challenges a line of historians that includes Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote, whose own books on the war are classics. He is not quite as good a writer as either of these two, but he does bring something to the subject that Catton and Foote do not: An entire generation's worth of new scholarship. As Eicher himself points out, a big chunk of his sources only became available in the 1990s. This is not to suggest that he offers a dramatic reinterpretation. On certain fundamental topics he has familiar opinions: "I am convinced that the Confederate States of America could not have emerged victorious in the Civil War." Eicher can write with occasional verve, too. Of an obscure operation in New Mexico, he deadpans, "Though [Major General Harry Hopkins] Sibley's strategic goals were fuzzy, his military successes on the surface seemed pleasing, particularly to a commander who experienced much of his campaign under the influence of liquor."

Yet the real strength of The Longest Night is its intricate detail. Although few readers probably want to know how many different types of bronze smoothbore mortars were used in battle (11, according to Eicher), other facts and figures are fresh and fascinating: "Of the 246,712 wounded treated in Federal hospitals during the war, 922 causes were reported as traceable to wounds from edged weapons of any kind [i.e., swords, knives, and bayonets]. Most of those resulted from personal arguments or use by camp guards rather than by fighting on the field." The bulk of the book is chronological retelling of the war, starting with Fort Sumter and ending with the death of President Lincoln and the various Confederate surrenders. It is a strong entry on a subject that continues to fascinate readers everywhere. --John Miller --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
In a period when the study of campaigns and battles is considered old-fashioned if not misleading, the military side of the Civil War continues to receive a higher proportion of attention than any other modern conflict. Eicher (The Civil War in Books), associate editor of North and South and managing editor of Astronomy, manifests a corresponding degree of intellectual courage in offering this 900-odd-page operational history. The war's causes, the armies' composition, the soldiers' motivations all take second place to a straightforward account of the fighting of a war that has already produced shelves of excellent combat narratives by such outstanding scholars as Thomas Rhea and Harry Pfanz. Eicher does more than hold his own in distinguished company and establishes himself as a remarkable battle narrator. He does set pieces like the attack on Little Round Top at Gettysburg or the doomed Confederate charge at Franklin with the verve of Shelby Foote or Wiley Sword. His accounts of Antietam and Gettysburg, Stone's River and Chickamauga, are models of clarity and cohesion, correspondingly useful introductions to the detailed monographs that often lose readers in thickets of data and analysis. Eicher is no less successful on a larger scale. His presentation of the Vicksburg campaign will serve general readers and specialists alike as an overview of one of the war's most complex operations. Eicher offers no significant revisions of conventional wisdom on crucial issues nor does he seek controversy in a field that often invites it. This book, with maps by Lee Vande Visse and a foreword by James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom), succeeds above all in demonstrating that the Civil War offered no shortcuts to victory or defeat at the sharp end of battle. (Sept. 13)Forecast: While reenacters may rely on monographs devoted to their specific sites, this will be the word-of-mouth single-volume operational account for nonscholars. Expect correspondingly steady sales as the news spreads.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 992 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (September 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684849445
• ASIN: B00008RUMT
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,606,858 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Longest Read, March 7, 2002

By	allan bachman (austin, tx) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War (Hardcover)

David J. Eicher's "The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War" is more than a military history of the civil war, but unfortunately it is also less. The facts may all be there, the details meticulously researched, developed and reported for the reader, but from the very beginning he has a "my book is more accurate than their book" attitude about those who have come before him and this undoes the work. He seems to revel in being right, and repeatedly corrects the prior record with snide remarks and asides, which if left unsaid would have made this a much better book.

James McPherson who arguably wrote the best single volume on the Civil War, "Battle Cry of Freedom," says in the foreword that this work is an "essential starting point" on Civil War history. With the utmost respect I completely disagree and refer Mr. McPherson to his own work as more than worthy of that description. Eicher's book is for those who have read just about everything else on the subject and are looking for more battle detail, which the author does provide. This is not by any measure a linear narrative of the war; events aren't always smoothly tied together, and there is a lot of social and political history, which has been omitted, as it should be in a strict military history.

The maps are ample, clear and well detailed, though the author or the editors must have an orientation bias. All maps have north pointing to the top of the book; as a result there is never a need to turn the book to review a map. For battles/events with a north/south orientation this is fine, these maps cover the entire page. The maps which have an east/west orientation suffer however as they are reduced in size to about a third of the page to maintain their orientation with the top of the book. Lastly, the maps often make the armies difficult to differentiate, as the gray representing the south is often very dark.

What the author does in his introduction however is completely unforgivable. He critiques both Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote's excellent multi-volume works. He complains that both are biased in the reportage, Catton for the North, Foote for the South and goes so far as to apparently blame Catton for the lack of research materials which has surfaced since he wrote his two trilogies decades ago. He takes Foote to task for other biases, as well and each are wholly inappropriate and uncalled for. There is no place for such personal editorial material in a purportedly objective historical work.

In addition to this error of judgment, throughout the text he makes want one can only call catty references to what he refers to at one point "dusty histories of the Civil War..." (pg. 365). He feels compelled to correct the written record by stating that in previous written histories such and such was reported, but it really was not that way at all. Occasionally he offers no further proof as when he relates on page 473 that "the term for `hooker' as slang for prostitute most certainly existed long before Joe [Hooker] came onto the scene." The statement "most certainly" is proof of nothing. Lastly, his attempts to set the record straight becomes extreme and laughable when in retelling the rainy battle of Tullahoma he relates "The soldier's legend that Tullahoma was derived from the Greek tulla, meaning `mud' and homa, meaning `more mud,' was untrue." Eicher seems to miss the point that the soldiers were making a joke.

Finally because much of events in the Civil War overlap, the author occasionally gets his sequencing wrong. Most notably he relates Lincoln's assassination before he resolves Sherman's final triumph over Johnson. So Lincoln dies in mid-April and then we go back in time to March to Sherman's final pursuit.

If you have a driving need to read a book on the Civil War and have read everything else at least once (including McPherson, Foote and Catton) then if you must, read this. But it will be The Longest Read.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Take a deep breath!, May 20, 2002

By	Richard S. Parker (Germantown, Maryland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War (Hardcover)

As a "uniformed" docent at a museum in Frederick, Maryland devoted to the story of Civil War Medicine, I'm no slouch as far as the history of the war is concerned. Eicher's book, however, can be a little like slogging through the swamps around Vicksburg. Any reader should be warned that the books subtitle, "A Military History of the the Civil War" is exactly what you'll get; and, at times, you'll get more than you bargained for. Eicher will list every commander of every regiment just before the battle; he spends pages describing every piece of military equipment used by soldiers on both sides. Does anybody need this much information? One my re-enactor friends says, "Hey, it's good for you!" Perhaps, but it sure does slow down the narrative. I'm also a little confused by the weight given to some of the engagements. Antietam (certainly a major landmark in the war) gets a less detailed analysis than does a battle at Stones River which Eicher admits (in the chapter's title) was a "stalemate" and, inevitably much less significant than Lee's Maryland campaign. If you've read James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom or the Shelby Foote history, you've read the best. Eicher's book is for those with a very intense interest in the military details, but much of the war's human side has been lost in the process.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A long, tough slog, June 15, 2005

By	J. Allison (Southern California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War (Paperback)

First off, let me say that there is much to praise in Mr Eicher's book. There is a lot of detail here, and the author does an exhaustive job of covering every action of the Civil War. If you're interested in a battle of any consequence from this conflict, you'll find it described in here.

And that's how this book should probably be approached: as a reference. Reading it from cover to cover is a tough slog. The writing style is dry and forced, and calls to mind a high school essay, albeit a long one and one with impeccable research behind it. Part of this is simply due to the fact that Eicher lacks the writing skill of a Shelby Foote or Bruce Catton. Another part of this is the fact that material that could have and should have been put in a table or in an appendix is placed in the body of the text. So you are forced to trudge through long lists of brigade commanders, unit strengths, artillery descriptions, etc. This is good data, and likely well researched, but it brings the narrative to a grinding halt.

Finally, Eicher presents detail that I just find hard to credit. He will list unit sizes or city/town populations down to the individual, a practice that would just make me pause and think, "Were there really _exactly_ 2,876 people in Pensacola? Weren't people being born, dying, arriving, and leaving every day?" A nit, but the book is tough enough to get through without additional stumbling blocks.

Bottom line, this is a nice reference that appears to be thoroughly researched and that contains a wealth of information. The writing style makes it tough to get through.