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Title: Campaigning With Grant by Horace Porter ISBN: 0-914427-70-9 Publisher: William S. Konecky Associates Pub. Date: 15 March, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.98 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Engrossing.
Comment: These are the personal reminiscences of Horace Porter, Aide-de-Camp to General Grant. He joined Grant April 4, 1864 and served with him for 9 years, 1864-1872. So by definition expect Federal bias and a father like depiction of Grant. That said, this is a very good Civil War learning tool, insightful as only the reflections of someone who was privy to the highest councils of Union command could be.
From his promotion to General-in-Chief until the end of the war, Grant had to make many tough decisions. Porter reports a number of these in this book. But he also reports on Grant, General of the Armies. My comments to come are not intended to in any way denigrate Robert E. Lee. Let's face it, Lee's performance was awesome. However, Grant's performance was much better, if for no other reason than Grant's authority was greater than Lee's. Until the very last days of the war, Jeff Davis acted as his own General-in-Chief. For all but 3 weeks, Lee only commanded the Army of Northern Virginia. Grant, however, commanded all Federal armies. Thus, as biased as Porter's work necessarily is, Porter does give us the first and best look at a true modern general. Grant's political awareness, his understanding of logistics, close coordination with the navy, handling multiple armies, ability to improvise, understand and forge new methods of warfare such as Sherman's march, "mark him as the exceptional general of the nineteenth century".
Porter book gives us a unique view of how Grant's abilities evolved. Equally important we get in-depth reviews of a variety of Union participants everyone from Lincoln, to Hancock, Dana, Meade, Sherman and Sheridan just to mention a few. These personal reflections are quite worthwhile.
This is one interesting book, written by a well positioned observer. It is a book that adds greatly to understanding the Union participants of the Civil War.
Rating: 2
Summary: Partisan writing shrouds the truth
Comment: Porter writes as if the North was never wrong, its commanders never fooled or mistaken, its armies never disspirited, and that the Union campaigns always succeeded. We all should know better. According to Porter, every time the Confederates didn't hold a field they were "repulsed handsomely." Every time the Union didn't hold the field, they were merely "compelled to retire." You will see these gross aberrations throughout this stale and shoddy work. His characterizations add nothing fresh about the famous personages surrounding him, and certainly his military perspective offers less in quality of insight than the diary of any Union private. There are many great books on the Civil War by the figures who fought it: this one can wait until you've exhausted everything else.
Rating: 5
Summary: The next-best-thing to Grant's "Memoirs"
Comment: I read Grant's "Memoirs" on the recommendation of a cigar-chomping friend. It was a revelation. I began reading with ambivalence about Grant. By the time I was finished, he became a hero for me, for entirely unexpected reasons -- the clarity of his writing, for one; his modesty and straight-forward manner, for two others. I followed it with other volumes about Grant (including Bruce Catton's set) but it wasn't until another friend whom I discovered shared my feelings for Grant's genius recommended Horace Porter's "Campaigning with Grant" that I discovered an equally satisfying successor. Horace Porter's "Campaigning With Grant" is the next best thing to Grant's "Memoirs." Again, the clarity of writing, the descriptions of Grant's decision-making process, the anecdotes from the Wilderness Campaign on through the sieges of Richmond and Petersburg, and on to Appomatox come as a revelation -- at least, in part, when you realize this is one of those "source documents" all the great historians of the era have relied upon.
Apparently Porter assisted Grant in writing his "Memoirs" although there is not much (if any) dispute that Grant wrote them himself. While this may explain some of the similarity in style and substance, it probably says more about "like minds" than anything else. No matter. This is well worth the read and very rewarding.
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Title: Three Years With Grant: As Recalled by War Correspondent Sylvanus Cadwallader by Sylvanus Cadwallader, Benjamin P. Thomas ISBN: 0803263694 Publisher: University of Nebraska Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman (Library of America) by William Tecumseh Sherman ISBN: 0940450658 Publisher: Library of America Pub. Date: 01 September, 1990 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Personal Memoirs: Ulysses S. Grant (Modern Library War) by Ulysses S. Grant, Geoffrey Perret ISBN: 0375752285 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 01 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865 by Brooks D. Simpson, Brooks D. Simpson ISBN: 0395659949 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 21 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Sheridan: The Life and Wars of General Phil Sheridan by Roy Morris ISBN: 0517580705 Publisher: Random House Inc Pub. Date: 01 May, 1992 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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