Grant Comes East

Rating:
Summary: pure fantasy
Review: Its difficult to take the book seriously. A "what if"
situation concerning Gettysburg is interesting in theory, but
the line the book (and the previous one) adopt are too far
at odds with reality to be taken very seriously.

The book is infected with old discredited confederate
over-estimations of the strength of Lee's army. No matter
what happened at Gettysberg, Lee's army wasn't ever going to
be a serious threat to Washington by that point in the war.

It also seriously misunderstand the problems confronted by
Lee's army on the offensive. Lee never had the sort of material
or manpower advantages that the union armies had and which
allowed the union armies to stay on the offensive.

If Lee had acted as described in this novel after a victory
at substitute-gettysberg, his army would have been cut off
and forced into attacks on unfavorable ground. The army
of Northern Virginia would eventually have been isolated
and destroyed. And it would not have taken a Grant to do it.

The book also totally misrepresents the ideas of the Confederacy
mostly along old familar lines. The misrepresentation is rather
odd for Gingrich considering that the North of the 1860s is
more in line with his own politics and personal ideals than the
south. Under the ideals of the old south, someone like Newt
Gingrich would never have had a political career anyway.
For all his love of aristocracy, he never seems to have realized
that he could never have fit into that world. He has more of
a old-style Yankee Republican mindset than a southern one.

In brief, taken for what it is...escapiest fantasy, its not a
bad book. But its grasp of political, military and historical
issues from the era is poor.

Rating:
Summary: Don't like author's politics but he wrote an AWESOME BOOK!!!
Review: Mr. Gingrich writes one heck of a good book. I am listening to the unabridged CDs and just have a hard time turning the car off. Kudos Mr. Gingrich, when is the third book coming???

Rating:
Summary: Politics creeps in
Review: This book isn't nearly as good as Gettysburg. The first was good, fact-based speculative fiction. This, much less so. Knowing at least one of the writers' politics, I find it hard not to believe that that had something to do with Lincoln being portrayed as almost a saint, and the New York Democratic Party hack turned General, being portrayed as verging on the devil.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book on the war between the states
Review: This is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the war.
Most mainstream books on the war are liberal propoganda
which distort the causes of the conflict. But this one is
squarely on the side of presenting accurate history.

The so-called Civil War was, for the southern states, about
restoring God and the true constitution against those who
were destroying it. God, the rights of states, free trade
and protection of private property were far more important
to the war than the side-issue of slavery.

As the book rightly says, Lincoln and others used Slavery as
a fake issue to create a moral high ground for themselves to
fool Americans into fighting the war and to keep the natural
allies of the southern states in europe from assisting them.

There are three main points I took away from the book:

- The first mistake the southern states made was not realizing
that the war had to be fought to the death of either one culture
or the other. The leaders of the northern states were fighting
because they knew that their godless corrupt system could not
survive living next to a country that was their opposite.
Like the soviet union and america during the cold war, one
system had to die. Unfortunatly, during the war between
north and south, the south elected a Mondale/Gore/Kerry rather
than a Reagan to lead them in their war of survival.

- The second mistake southerners made was in not realizing that
they needed a strong moral leader with a hard heart who would
do what was necessary to destroy the north. Davis was too
weak and controlled by a small circle of men who were slavery
fanatics. Lee was just too moral a man who do what was
necessary. Sometimes, stupid, immoral brutality is necessary
to win wars. Lee was no Grant or Sherman. Even in this book,
he hesitates from bringing the pain of war to the northern
states.

- The final mistake the southern states made was in not solving
their problems in the most obvious way. That way being allowing
the slaves to fight for their homeland. As the book rightly
says, this would have exposed the phony issue of slavery in
the northern states, given the south the men it needed to
equal the armies of the north and opened up european trade
which would have given the south through the virtues of free
trade the goods that it did not (in peacetime) have economic
need to produce.

I can't wait for the next book and the final confrontation
between Lee and Grant with the fate of both countries on the
line. Will Lee or possibly another army leader topple Davis
and become a Reagan-like wartime reformer of the southern states?
Or will the weakness of Lee and Davis doom this alternate history
to end mostly in the same way that our history did....
...with the evils of reconstruction, the destruction of the
constitution, high taxes, anti-God government, no free trade
and southerners made to fight each other rather than northern
corruption.

The small change in one battle in the trilogy has already shown
has already spared the southern states Sherman's march. Its
left now to the writers to show us if the southern leaders have
the moral courage to change the image of their government
in the world and win the war.

Gingrich, a Doctor of History, has a unique gift for finding
the true lessions of history and showing them through this book
in a way that we can apply to our own cultural civil war right
now. Five Stars well deserved.





Rating:
Summary: Much Better Book than its Predecessor - Gettysburg
Review: This is a much better book than its predecessor, Gettysburg, but still has some flaws. First, I'll focus on the good elements of this book. Then, highlight its' flaws.
Unlike the first book, there is a level of plausibility to it, except in a couple of instances which I'll highlight later. The attempt to take Washington, DC and the capture of Baltimore are all represented in a believable manner. Also, Lee doesn't come across as being infallible. Second, the way that the book represents Lincoln, Grant along with Lee is very believable. There are a couple of excellent scenes with Lincoln. The one that will stay with me for awhile is when Lincoln is with the dying Confederate soldier (pages 123-125) and his presence right behind the line of soldiers during an attack, risking his life. (There was a somewhat overly melodramatic scene after that with the 54th Massachusetts and Colonel Robert Shaw, the focus of the 1989 movie Glory, but I'll leave that to the reader so not to ruin the story.) The discussion between Lee and the Rabbi in Baltimore is an interesting one also, very believable given Lee's known perspectives on slavery and how generals should handle politics. These scenes and others make this a somewhat memorable book.
On the negative side, does Newt truly believe that Sickles was that stupid? At the battle of Gunpowder River (interesting name, huh?, but there is actually a place with that name), Sickles is set up by Lee and he falls into it like a fool. Maybe this was necessary to set up the battle between Grant and Lee which, by the way, doesn't come until the next book (hopefully). Second, the bias towards the Confederacy continued at the end of the book. Sickles losses his leg just like in Gettysburg. But..., does Armistead die? No, in spite of the fact that most of his command is destroyed. Does Hood get wounded? No, but he really isn't in the thick of it. I suppose Newt tries to resolve this with what happens to one of the cavalry leaders of the Confederacy, but it doesn't seem plausible, at all (I'll leave it to the reader to determine which one). In fact, Longstreet pulls his pistol and kills a Union soldier, when the Union infantry charges the Confederate line but doesn't get hurt, even scratched. Are these guys, supermen, Newt?
Anyhow, in spite of all this, this book is a worthwhile read, although, due to the need to read Gettysburg first, it won't be as memorable as that great book, The Killer Angels.

Rating:
Summary: Liberals will hate this book because its true
Review: This is a really great work of historical fiction on the
so-called Civil War. Historian and Military expert, Newt
Gingrich brings a breath of fresh air to a period of our
American History that had been rewritten by liberals.

Gingrich and his assistant capture the truth of the Confederacy.
That it was a noble God-Centered Freedom-Loving country defended
by men whose values would be alien to many of the people in
this godless corrupt country we have today.

Our America today was born of two fathers. The first being
the God-centered freedom loving Confederacy. And the other
being the corrupt, profane anti-God north-eastern liberal
tradition.

As the book clearly lays out, the war was not about slavery.
Slavery was the concern of a few men around Jefferson Davis,
but not of the country as a whole. The war was about God
and the fundemental rights of property against the corruption
of liberalism.

As this book is only the second part of a three book story, we
don't know yet how it will end. Will, as in our world, the
Southern States be destroyed. Or will Lee fight back against
the Davis Clique and do the things necessary to show the real
reasons for the war to the world.



Rating:
Summary: A great book
Review: This is a really wonderful book. Its the second in a series
that shows what might have happened had things only gone
a little different at Gettysburg.

With northern defeat at the battle, the magnificent officers
of the Southern States lead their men on a continuation of the
campaign to destroy the remains of the northern armies. And
then prepare for an attack on Washington. A victory in
Washington would lead to the defeat of the north and freedom
for the Southern States.

Gingrich captures the personalities of both sides
tremendously well. The honor, glory and nobility of the
Southern Officers versus the corrupt drunken incompetence of
their northern adversaries.

The best part of the book (I will not spoil it) is when General
Lee sits down to dinner with a great man in Baltimore and is
given advice that could change the whole nature of the war.

The advice was to take away the moral problem of Slavery and
call upon the help of these ex-slave southerners to help save
the south. Without Slavery to hide behind, the northern cause
would likely have collapsed. And the natural allies of the
Southern States like England would have rallied to their side.

Slaves were southerners too. They had no desire to see
northerns ruin their homes, scatter their familes and destroy
the whole culture of the south. We will have to wait for the
final book to know how things will turn out.

My only regret in the book is that history didn't turn out that
way. The great evil of reconstruction could have been avoided.
The Southern States could have set an example for the world
as a high culture, purpose-based and a God-centered free-market
property respecting country. The socialist corruption of the
northern states would have been exposed for what it was and
contained. Its ironic that its taken us nearly 150 years to
even begin to restore America to the virtues of the pre-war
south (really the ideas of the founding fathers).

You can see why the Defense Department turns to Mr. Gingrich for
advice. He has a military mind better than most serving
soldiers and he understands battle to an amazing extent.

Liberals will hate it. Because it tells the truth about the
war and what the northern states were really like.

But all in all its a magnificent achievement. I can't wait
to see Lee fighting Grant the way it should have been in the
final volume.





Rating:
Summary: Another well written & researched tale that entertains
Review: Well written, well researched, well plotted. Second in what must be at least a trilogy leaves you waiting breathlessly for book 3. I enjoy alternate history very much and this one was one of the best I've read. I recommend you read "Gettysburg" by these authors first so as to understand where "Grant Comes East" starts at, but it can certainly be read on its own. Now I just wait (im)patiently for book 3

Rating:
Summary: A Great Number 2, Pleas Hurry with No. 3
Review: You wouldn't have thought that two Ph.D. types could write such good stuff. Perhaps it's because of the Ph.D.'s that make these books so well researched as to be quite believable.

In the first book, one very simple decision - "we're going to move so that they have to attack us rather than us attacking them." is indeed likely to have changed history. Choosing to fight at Gettysburg was, in my opinion, his one big mistake - he didn't think so at the time, but it was the turning point.

Lincoln had a hard time finding a good general that was the equivalent of Lee. But after Vicksburg, he had Grant, and he knew what he had.

This story, the second in the trilogy turns further from real history. After all, when you change the course of the war at Gettysburg, Lee is still in the North with an intact army while the Army of the Potomac is basically shattered, it wouldn't play out the same.

I also liked the treatment of Dan Sickles. From what I've read he appears to have been just as nutty as he is treated here.