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The Fredericksburg Campaign: Decision on the Rappahannock (Military Campaigns of the Civil War) Hardcover – March 20, 1995
| Gary W. Gallagher (Editor) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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This collection of seven original essays by leading Civil War historians reinterprets the bloody Fredericksburg campaign and places it within a broader social and political context. By analyzing the battle's antecedents as well as its aftermath, the contributors challenge some long-held assumptions about the engagement and clarify our picture of the war as a whole.
The book begins with revisionist assessments of the leadership of Ambrose Burnside and Robert E. Lee and a portrait of the conduct and attitudes of one group of northern troops who participated in the failed assaults at Marye's Heights. Subsequent essays examine how both armies reacted to the battle and how the northern and southern homefronts responded to news of the carnage at Frederickburg. A final chapter explores the impact of the battle on the residents of the Fredericksburg area and assesses changing Union attitudes about the treatment of Confederate civilians.
The contributors are William Marvel, Alan T. Nolan, Carol Reardon, Gary W. Gallagher, A. Wilson Greene, George C. Rable, and William A. Blair.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherThe University of North Carolina Press
- Publication dateMarch 20, 1995
- Dimensions6.5 x 1 x 9.75 inches
- ISBN-100807821934
- ISBN-13978-0807821930
- Lexile measure1430L
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All of the essays in The Fredericksburg Campaign are quite good. But for my money, the three best ones--and the ones that dramatically represent the new approach championed by Gallagher--are written by George Rable, William Blair, and Gallagher himself. All three might be seen as trying to make sense of that odd cry of exultation attributed to Lee after the massacre at Marye's Heights: "It is well that war is so terrible! We should grow too fond of it!"
Rable reminds us that the carnage from the vantage point of the soldier on the ground was nothing to crow about, and that even a momentary battlefield thrill is far outshadowed by the terrible reality of slaughtered men, wounds, amputations, sepsis, psychological trauma, and shattered morale.
Blair's essay, which deals with the effects of the shelling and routing of their town on Fredericksburg civilians, brings home the lesson that neither is there nothing in war to grow fond of from the noncombatant's perspective. Too often, military historians tend to overlook what today is fashionably referred to as "collateral damage." But in the Civil War, and especially in Virginia, civilians suffered horribly during and for years after the war.
Finally, Gallagher's essay points out that the famous Lee quote needs to be taken in context. Lee himself seems to have been extremely depressed by the Fredericksburg battle. The slaughter of Federal troops stopped the drive to Richmond, but it really gained the Confederacy (in Lee's estimation) no strategic advantage, and it hazarded artificially elevating Confederate self-confidence. Interestingly, Gallagher points out that Lee felt similarly about Chancellorsville: a "victory" that ultimately brought no advantage to the South.
All in all, an excellent collection of essays. Highly recommended.





