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Title: Railroads in the Civil War: The Impact of Management on Victory and Defeat by John E., Jr. Clark ISBN: 0-8071-2726-4 Publisher: Louisiana State University Press Pub. Date: December, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.95

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Average Customer Rating: 2 (1 review)

Rating: 2
Summary: Disappointing and Irritating
Comment: While the subject interests me and the author seems to have done a good deal of research, this book both disappointed and irritated me. The author's theme - that the Confederacy lost the Civil War by virtue of their lack of management skills, especially in regards to their mismanagement of their railroad network - is an thought provoking one, but Clark does not allow this theme to speak for itself. Instead, he beats on it like a drum, especially in the introduction and the concluding chapters, rephrasing and rejustifying it over and over. That's the irritating part. The disappointing part is because his idea is ultimately unconvincing. The author gives lip service to the limited resources of the Confederacy, and to the limitations imposed on the Confederate Government by its ideological and political basis, but never really accepts or understands just how great these were. He relies too much on hindsight to see what Davis and the rebels should have done, such as anticipate that the war would be a long one, or prepare for the Federals to impose an effective blockade. Perhaps the deficiencies of the author's point of view can best be shown by quoting him. On the Confederacy, he says "But it did not plan. It did not organize. It did not manage." One wonders where those Rebel armies came from! How they were fed and clothed and armed, even badly as they often were? And on the Federal movement of the XI and XII Corps, he says, "[Northern railway managers] made it happen...and without a hitch, glitch, or error." Yet his own chapter on this movement - much the best written part of the book - showed a significant number of such hitches, glitches, and errors. They were redeemed, yes, by good management, but as much by vast Northern resources.

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