Confederate General R.S. Ewell: Robert E. Lee's Hesitant Commander

Rating:
Summary: uneven writing; sloppy analysis
Review: Curious as to why someone would write another biography of Ewell so soon after the publication of Donald Pfanz's definitive work, I picked up Casdorph's offering. From the first pages, it's obvious that the author began the project with preconceived notions of Ewell as a hesitant and indecisive general -- an opinion formed from long-discredited popular understandings of the Gettysburg and Overland campaigns -- and then used them to inform his entire study. To Casdorph, Ewell was a psychologically cripple unable to take the initiative -- regardless of what the evidence he uncovered suggests. Every time Ewell is aggressive, the author labels it an abberation (after a number of such occurances, the thoughtful reader will start to wonder about the logic of calling them "abberations"). Whenever Ewell shows discretion or caution, the author jumps on it as a failing. Further, Casdorph lacks a basic understanding of his own source materials, frequently hurling charges against Ewell that are contradicted by quotations offered in the sentence -- sometimes even the clause -- previous.

The work combines ill-informed opinions with mishandled and selectively chosen evidence. The University of Kentucky Press needs to reconsider the qualifications of whatever peer reviewer recommended this effort as worthy of publication.