Rating: 
Summary: Spotty Scholarship
Review: While I consider myself something of a history buff, I've never really gotten the Civil War bug. This year my parents tried to draw me in with "April 1865". While I liked many of the Winik's observations and tangents, even a cursory scan revealed errors that a good fact checker should have caught. Compounding these simple errors were stilted classical allusions that seemed either incredibly obscure or incorrect. As a neophyte, I gained a fair bit of information on the War and the primary actors. I only wish that I could trust the strength of Winik's scholarship. As it is, I feel like I'll need to do follow up reading just to accept Winik's arguments. This is not what I would have expected given the warm praise on the backcover.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Read About Important Subject
Review: April 1865: The Month That Saved America by Jay Winik is an interesting account of a pivotal month of the Civil War. The author attempts to explain why the Civil War ended soon after April and did not discenagrate into a guerilla war that would have continued to tear the country apart. His central thesis is that such a guerilla was possible but as a result of the efforts of Generals Lee, Johnston and Grant was avoided. Winik's book should be read in conjunction with another one concerning the same subject - An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government by William C. Davis. Davis takes the opposite view regarding the possibility of the success of a guerilla war. Davis' argument is more persuasive in that Winik fails to take into account several factors. First, even during the height of the Civil War one of the most difficult problems for both sides was fraternization with the other side. On numerous sides, contrary to the express orders of officers, pickets entered into informal cease fires and traded goods. For the most part, the barbarity that is seen between armies in other civil wars was absent. In addition, Winik seems to minimize the effect that sheer exhaustion had on the Southern troops. By April the Confederate Army was simply bone tired. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who Winik argues would have been a leading Confederate guerilla leader, surrendered his Army not because he was forced to by the Union but because he was exhausted from the frightening. He turned down attempts to get him to retreat across the Mississippi to continue the war. Moreover, numerous Generals and soldiers disobeyed direct order from Jefferson Davis, who wished to cntinue the struggle. The above aside, the book is an important read for any student of the Civil War. Even given the Confederate Army's exhaustion it is amazing that the War ended as smoothly as it did. There was minimal residual fighting and the North was able to demobilize fairly quickly. The book is well written and is an easy read. It is a must for a complete perspective on the end of the Civil War.
Rating:
Summary: Nice Idea
Review: Thw author did a good job but he tries to cram too much material into one book. This work tends to drag out in points and is almost deviod of humor.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting premise; Bad book
Review: As several other reviewers have noted, the book's premise -- that the far-from-inevitbale chain of events of a single month had a tremendous impact on history -- is interesting, and Winik filled in some gaps in my knowledge of the end of the War (not having read deeply on the topic, I was rather uninformed going in). The execution is terrible. First, the writing was very lightly edited. The author's diction is often off-target, his prose is needlessly verbose, and (to borrow from another reviewer on this site) "relentlessly repetitive." Second, undercutting his own thesis about the importance of this one particular month, Winik completely disrupts the narrative of actual events in April 1865 to give background information on the key personages and past history of the war. That information is necessary to a complete understanding, but the long interruptions of the narrative flow make it difficult to form a sense of what the key month itself was like. Winik would have better served his own thesis by writing a *tight* chapter or two of necessary exposition. Third, the documentation is spotty, even for a work that is deliberately "non-academic." I recall in particular wanting to follow-up on what Winik presents as a direct quotation of Nathan Bedford Forrest (may he rot in hell). The notes for that page of the book, however, contain no source for the quotation. Instead, the notes cite to a number of secondary sources on NBF to cover a 15-page or so section of text. Sloppy and unhelpful scholarship. Finally, I would note that while I agree with the reviews that find the book disappointing, I do not agreewith most of the other negative reviews that consider it an apologia for the Confederacy. I myself was raised by liberal parents in the Northeast, and came of age with a one-dimensional view of the South as a place seething with hatred, inhumanity, and treason. By and large, I still hold to that view, and I find it distressingly accurate even for the South of 2002. Nonetheless, I recognize that the true story has more complexity to it than that, and I think Winik is quite objective.
Rating:
Summary: A New Look at the War Between the States
Review: Winik's book offers a fresh and different perspective into this fascinating time period that has caught the interests of so many history enthusiasts. His book's main theme indeed does focus on the possibility of guerrilla warfare after Lee's surrender to Grant. This is not a book about the different battles or strategies that both armies employed during the duration of the war, but rather it takes a serious look at a war that COULD HAVE been even worse. Naturally, this is another one of those big "what if" questions, but the threat was there and there is no doubt that the leadership and example set by men such as Lee played a big part in averting that nightmare. Winik offers a brief biographical sketch of Lee, Lincoln, Davis, Sherman, Grant and others who could have changed the course of history such as John Mosby, Nathan Forrest, and Joe Johnston. I did read a few reviews of this book and was interested in one of the reviewer's comments a few reviews down who expressed concern about some of the historical facts expressed in this book. I too think Winik may have been confused about Longstreet's real first name and his nickname "Pete". Stanton's quote on the event of Lincoln's death also looked strange in Winik's book as well. Nevertheless, Winik brings to this subject some very interesting insights and experience from other civil wars that did not have as near a peaceful or happy conclusion. His background adds great weight to his overall premise.
Rating:
Summary: Illuminating
Review: Winik's erudite prelude exposes the 18th and 19th centuries' secessionist traditions in American politics as finding their roots in a flawed Constitution. His argument is brilliant. His logic is impressive. The prelude, alone, justifies the cost of this book. Everything that comes after the prelude are additional gifts from the author. ...and there are so many gifts! Enthralling characters, mesmerizing strategic studies, exciting battle discussions, etc... If you are as interested in the improbable peace that followed the Civil War, as you are in the battles that led there, read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Great Premise, Disappointing Execution
Review: The premise of this book immediately caught my attention: that the smooth ending of the Civil War post-Appomattox was not inevitable. Winnik points out correctly that the period between Appomattox and Lincoln's assassination has received mostly cursory treatment in the major histories of the war. The prospect of an extended guerrilla war in the South was as fascinating as it was dreadful. But the book does not deliver on the promise of the idea. Beyond saying (over and over) that a guerrilla was was possible and beyond profiling various raiders/guerrillas/irregulars, little serious exploration of the premise is offered. Most of the book is taken with describing the end of the war (up to Appomattox) and profiling many of the principal figures. Both of these tasks have been done better elsewhere. The text is poorly organized, disjointed, and relentlessly repetitive. I found many statements of fact and characterizations of individuals that seemed inconsistent with a large body of other works and struck me as dubious. Finally, an unmistakable bias in favor of the Confederacy pervades the work. The language Winnik uses is telling: the throwaway descriptions, attributions of motivation, and assessments of ability are extreme and largely unsupported. The descriptions of Lee verge on hagiography. Grant and Sherman are dismissed and disparaged quite unfairly. Winnik even makes a rhetorical stab at making us believe that many of the Confederate leaders had long favored emancipation. It goes on and on. I did not expect this and was unpleasantly surprised. I am guessing that this book is targeted at new readers on the Civil War. McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom", Shelby Foote's Narrative (long but rewarding), and Bruce Catton's works are, in my opinion, better introductions. I was surprised at the blurbs given, especially by McPherson and Kearns-Goodwin. I can only imagine that this is book-biz and that they read only excerpts.
Rating: 
Summary: For Civil War Buffs & Non Buffs
Review: This is a wonderful book about the month in which the Civil War ended, Lincoln was assassinated, and John Wilkes Booth was killed. The author makes a strong case for this month as pivotal in American history. Lincoln's assassination was the first of many presidential assassinations. The country was convulsed but didn't fall apart. After what we suffered on September 11th, this book bears reading. The book is fluidly written. I whipped right through it.
Rating:
Summary: Great Idea - Highly Disappointing Work
Review: To be blunt, I was highly disappointed in this promising work on a very captivating time in our history. This is a work for a general or beginning reader of the Civil War, not something that seems as scholarly as it could be. I absolutely agree with reviewer Wayne Smith who states that the book feels thin. It feels like a rushed article that might appear in MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History and knowing this, Winik has tried to lengthen the subject by putting in short characterizations of the men that this work revolves around: Lee, Lincoln, Davis, etc. There seems to be quite a bit of the Southern apologist in Winik and I feel there is a bias that arises where Winik favors the Confederate cause. When reading history, I appreciate a balanced view that lets me draw my own conclusions and beliefs about what I have read. While he is fair to the treatment of Lincoln and wife Mary, Winik fawns over Lee and dismisses Grant quite too easily. In once instance Winik points out Grant [in Winik's opinion] (and Sherman along the way) was all too willing to destroy the homes, countryside, etc of the Confederates and Lee did not. Hmm -- Lee was fighting the majority of the time in Virginia -- I don't think he would burn and destroy his own beloved state. Yes, while in Maryland and Pennsylvania Lee did choose not burn and destroy, but Lee also wanted the citizens of those states to see the Confederates in a good light. Grant understood in order to win he had to destroy the hand that fed the mouth, while Lee knew that for him to secede among the divided citizens of Maryland he had to be cautious. Obviously one man was of the future, the other of a bygone age as Catton noted. I feel Winik is bumbling in area where he hasn't had too much experience and therefore label this work as I have: one for the general reader. I also am appalled by the endorsement of the book by both McPherson and Kearns Goodwin, two highly vaunted historians. It seems like they were caught napping, especially McPherson whose "Battle Cry of Freedom" was a true analysis of this critical era in US history. If you are just beginning to read about the Late Unpleasantness or you are a general reader, this book is fine -- but beware his inaccuracies and mistakes. Make sure to read further if you are interested in the Civil War to ensure you get a balanced and more fairly accurate view of what when on and just who shaped our nation as it is today.
Rating: 
Summary: So So Work
Review: Much of what is in this book is repetative. There are a number of factual errors and the author goes of on tangents, that while relevant, interupt the flow of the book Overall, very disappointing
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