Rating: 
Summary: Not What We've Been Waiting For
Review: "Old Fuss and Feathers", Winfield Scott, is one of the most important soldiers in American history. He was breveted a Brigadier General during the War of 1812, his shadow passes across all of the American Army's actions during the first half of the 19th Century, and before retiring he came up with "The Anaconda Plan" as a strategy to win the Civil War.But there is no decent biography of this great historic figure. And AGENT OF DESTINY falls far short of the mark. Sure, it is meticulously researched. In fact, it is more researched than written. Eisenhower wrote SO FAR FROM GOD about the Mexican War; AGENT OF DESTINY seems to be an expansion of that research project. The presentation is very episodic. They read like they were all written separately, and no real cohesive thread runs through the book. There is just no real sense of proportion. A Scott court martial is covered in little more than a page, with the juicy details buried in footnotes, and then it goes on forever with the intriguing and fueding for positions. And a critism that applies to much modern military history -- there are way too few maps.
Rating:
Summary: Not What We've Been Waiting For
Review: "Old Fuss and Feathers", Winfield Scott, is one of the most important soldiers in American history. He was breveted a Brigadier General during the War of 1812, his shadow passes across all of the American Army's actions during the first half of the 19th Century, and before retiring he came up with "The Anaconda Plan" as a strategy to win the Civil War. But there is no decent biography of this great historic figure. And AGENT OF DESTINY falls far short of the mark. Sure, it is meticulously researched. In fact, it is more researched than written. Eisenhower wrote SO FAR FROM GOD about the Mexican War; AGENT OF DESTINY seems to be an expansion of that research project. The presentation is very episodic. They read like they were all written separately, and no real cohesive thread runs through the book. There is just no real sense of proportion. A Scott court martial is covered in little more than a page, with the juicy details buried in footnotes, and then it goes on forever with the intriguing and fueding for positions. And a critism that applies to much modern military history -- there are way too few maps.
Rating: 
Summary: Brief biography of America's foremost antebellum general
Review: Before I read Agent of Destiny I knew of Winfield Scott only as the old man in a uniform at the beginning of the American Civil War. John Eisenhower introduced me to a man unlike any I have known in American annals. A generals stars through 13 presidents, 50+ years of service, the hero of the Mexican War of 1846-48. I agree with John Eisenhower . . . The greatest American General!
Rating:
Summary: Deserves more in depth treatment
Review: Eisenhower does an adequete enough job relating the details of Scott's campaigns, but that is about all that can be said for this biography. A "life and times" it definitely isn't, since there is no attempt to examine in depth the political or social climate in which Scott was operating.
His personal life is curiously absent from this book, as though his family was strictly a peripheral matter. I am not even sure that his daughters are all listed by name in this book. One has no inkling what ever happens to any of them, or what Scott's relations were with them.
None of this helped in any way by Eisenhower's rather wooden prose. He simply does not have a flair for making a book more readable, and with a larger-than-life character like Winfield Scott, this is a shame. It would be nice to see a biographer like Robert V. Remini tackle this subject.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent biography of an unjustly overlooked hero.
Review: Eisenhower has made an important contribution to American historical biography in this overdue story of the life of Winfield Scott. It was astounding to read about the wide range of events in which Scott played a major role from 1812 through the Civil War. Whatever the justification for the Mexican War, his campaign from Vera Cruz to Mexico City, after severing his lines of supply and communication and with a force the fraction of the size of the opposition, was one of the great feat of arms of any era. Eisenhower is succinct and exciting in his description of that campaign.
Rating:
Summary: Close but no cigar
Review: Eisenhower's attempt at a biography of General Winfield Scott misses its mark somewhat. He provides the reader with an excellent insight to the political manueverings and sentiments of the era, but we miss the details of Scott's personality that led him to the decisions he made.
I also agree with one of the previous reviewers that the lack of discussion of Scott's tactics and the mindset behind these tactics was a great disappointment. I picked up this book thinking it would delve into Scott's masterful use of tactics and was left disappointed.
This book is a good read for an overall review of the antebellum era and the events that shaped the country prior to the Civil War, but it lacks the depth of inquiry I was hoping to find in regards to General Scott.
Rating:
Summary: A fine biography of a fascinating man
Review: Like some of the other reviewiers, I only knew Scott as an aging soldier who had to be eased out very quickly when the civil war got going. This is one of those biographies that finds a great, little known tale and tells it well. The War of 1812, the War with Mexico, several almost wars that were averted; this book brings alive American military history between 1800 and 1860. Simply a delightful read.
Rating:
Summary: A fine biography of a fascinating man
Review: Like some of the other reviewiers, I only knew Scott as an aging soldier who had to be eased out very quickly when the civil war got going. This is one of those biographies that finds a great, little known tale and tells it well. The War of 1812, the War with Mexico, several almost wars that were averted; this book brings alive American military history between 1800 and 1860. Simply a delightful read.
Rating:
Summary: A Mediocre Biography of an American Hero
Review: This biography of General Winfield Scott is lacking from a number of perspectives. First, there is a total lack of military analysis - the author merely states what Scott did but never in much depth and without an assessment of his strategy or tactical abilities. We never learn how Scott evolved from a lawyer into a soldier - what was his military education, how did he evolve as a soldier over a 40 year career. How did he view new technologies like railroads and rifled artillery? Second, Scott appears as a cardboard character here with little or no personal depth. What were his views on subjects such as slavery, tariffs, the Indians? His family relations are virtually ignored - why did his wife spend so much time in Europe? Instead, the author spends far too much time on Scott's political ambitions and his intra-service rivalries and bickering. This is not what he is remembered for and should not be the primary focus for a military biography. Scott was probably one of the best generals the United States has ever produced, particularly in light of the superb Mexico City campaign, and his generalship should be center stage in a biography, not low-level barracks intrigue. Finally, the notion that Scott was the agent of manifest destiny is unsupported; he was a dutiful soldier, not an imperialist. Maps were inadequate to follow Scott's battles.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating Personality.
Review: This man's life is very much worth knowing about. Serving 14 Presidents, 13 as a general officer, he is the person who executed the military policies and directions of his civilian superiors. He became a military officer almost by accident. He did this at a time when the United States was a mere concept, a thought process whose liberties and freedoms were undeveloped, untested and subject to interpretation by men who were not completely sold on the United States as a unified country. His time coincided with the concept more popularly known as Manifest Destiny and he lived to see the United States evolve from an aggregation of discordant, fractious, sovereign States to a Nation that filled a continent. He was a man that avoided more wars than he fought and when he fought them you had best get out of the way. The military was his life, the tool through which he made his contribution to America. Because he made his contributions in our country's formative stages, he has largely been forgotten. But he once strode across the evolution of the American stage with very big boots, a set of shoes which very few military men have since been able to fill. John Eisenhower's book is a long overdue thank you.
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