Book Review - Warrior Generals: Combat Leadership in the Civil War

• Author: Major John M. Bickers
• Pages: 06

159 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 158

WARRIOR GENERALS

COMBAT LEADERSHIP IN THE CIVIL WAR1

REVIEWED BY MAJOR JOHN M. BICKERS2

"The tens of thousands of books written about the Civil War can daunt the researcher."3

Thomas B. Buell, author of The Warrior Generals: Combat Leadership in the Civil War, does not note them, but two other perils face such a researcher. Faced with yet another addition to those tens of thousands, a reader must inevitably ask what this book contributes. Specifically, one is bound to ask why this book was written, and how it differs from its myriad predecessors.

Buell answers the first question boldly. The quality of existing scholarship disturbs him: "[M]uch of the war's history is biased and distorted."4 With an unfortunate tendency to broad generalization, he argues that the "misconceptions are pervasive and widespread, even among those who are in a position to know better."5

To right wrongs is a noble but difficult goal. A brief, narrative-heavy book will not end the battles that rage about the meaning of the Civil War. In his attempt to do just that, Buell adopts an unusual style for illuminating the war. He focuses on the lives and careers of six generals, three from each side. By limiting his inquiry to six men, Buell presents a microcosm of the conflict that he hopes will shine light into the darkness of historical error.

He chose his subjects well. In Ulysses Grant and Robert E. Lee, he has the obligatory presence of the senior military commander of each side. In the slightly less well-known George Thomas and John Bell Hood, he

adds officers at the tactical level who rose to operational command by the war's end. In the still less notorious Francis Barlow and John Gordon, he presents men without military background who rose to senior tactical commands on the basis of amply demonstrated ability.

To bring them into more stark relief, Mr. Buell then assigns these men to archetypes. Lest the reader misidentify them, he identifies the generals both in the introduction and in the captions to a series of portraits that open the book. Thus Grant becomes the Yeoman, while Lee is the Aristocrat; Thomas is a Roman, and Hood a Knight-Errant; and Barlow, the Puritan, squares off against Gordon, the Cavalier.

This series of mini-biographies provides Warrior Generals its greatest strength, and, paradoxically, its predominant weaknesses. Buell worked hard with original source documents to paint pictures of these six men, yet scholarly flaws haunt the book. He spends considerable effort to revise commonly held views, but he frequently misfires or overstates his case. His archetypes serve as effective and illuminating guides for the war, but several of them fit their subjects only through procrustean manipulations. Finally, these archetypes never illustrate anything important about the nature of leadership.

Buell researched diligently to construct his portraits. Yet that very research left him vulnerable to conspicuous errors and an undue trust in self-serving statements. Researchers must always account for the bias of their original sources. As an example, Gordon needed to obtain supplies for his hungry soldiers during the 1863 Pennsylvania offensive. Warrior Generals uncritically repeats the southern general's report that "under the orders of the Confederate commander-in-chief both private property and non-combatants were safe," and that his men would "give any price" for the bread, milk, and other supplies they needed from the local citizens.6 Buell fails to note that the Army of Northern Virginia possessed no money of any value to the local citizenry. Gordon's men "paid" for supplies from Pennsylvania farmers with useless Confederate bills. Not the goodness of Gordon's soldiers, but the fear they inspired, was responsible for this commerce.7

Small-but distracting-errors abound. In one instance, Buell identifies both Joseph J. Reynolds and John F. Reynolds as the commander of the Army of the Cumberland's Fourth Division at Chickamagua.8 Joseph commanded the division; John had died two months earlier at Gettysburg.9 Interestingly, Buell attempted to inoculate himself from charges of slip-shod scholarship with this rather remarkable manifesto:

My approach to research on a given topic is to identify the valid sources of information, examine all of those I can readily access, and then draw reasoned inferences and conclusions from the data. My research on a topic ends under one or more of the following conditions: (1) when creditable multiple sources...