Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Read
Review: Jeff Shaara out did himself on this novel. The perspective he provides on the players in the final moments of the War is truly amazing. He is able to bring a human face to Lee and Grant and bring you into their thought processes, pride, and feelings. Not only does he put a face on the upper echelon of the armies of Lee and Grant but he also provides a perspective from the front lines and the officers charged to command those troops.I would recommend this book to anyone, especially a younger individual. These men were men of courage and honor, their actions should be learned and studied.
Rating:
Summary: Poignant Finale to the Civil War Trilogy
Review: The Last Full Measure ends the Civil War trilogy of Gods and Generals and The Killer Angels. Jeff Shaara continues his father's work with a novel that is as heartwrenching as it is historically accurate. It was interesting, but when I first read the novel, I happened to be visiting the areas described like Spotsylvania, the Wilderness and Petersburg, and Shaara brings those fight vividly to life. This time he focusses on 3 main characters, Joshua Chamberlain, Robert E. Lee & US Grant, picking up right after Gettysburg. As the war rages on to its 3rd year, Shaara accurately plays out the desperation of the Confederacy and the despair of Lee as he struggles to equip an army without food or equipment available. He also shows Grant in the light that many had never seen before, showing him as both the military genius and capable of making mistakes. Yet it is his characterization of Chamberlain that is masterful, showing the schoolteachers final evolution from good officer to excellent general, and from battlefield commander to dreadfully wounded casualty. The Last Full Measure is a masterful work by an author who is taking the field of historical fiction by storm.
Rating:
Summary: The World Will Little Note What we Say Here
Review: Over 100 reviews of this work have been written to date - and many more relating to the other works of this trilogy - leaving not much unsaid. Nonetheless, The Last Full Measure stacks up well against Jeff Shaara's previous work in Gods & Generals. Like that work, this approaches the quality of The Killer Angels, which still stands alone in the area of Civil War literature. Also, similar to G&G, The LFM would have benefitted from the inlcusion of more maps.
Rating:
Summary: A most fitting conclusion
Review: After having read Gods & Generals and The Killer Angels, The Last Full Measure seemed to be the natural next step in concluding what was America's bloodiest war. I was expecting a somewhat predictable, and hence banal, scenario of Grant taking Lee to the woodshed as US forces are repeatedly bolstered while Lee's are repeatedly weakened. Well, suffice to say, it is anything but banal and predictable (despite, of course, the final outcome). One is introduced to the two dynamic, if not controversial, leaders of the latter half of the war that were instrumental in Grant's success: the impetuous, demanding, & fiery General Philip Sheridan and the unrelenting, aggressive, & uncouth General William T. Sherman. I would be remiss without having mentioned the most obvious new entry -- the only man ever able to match wits with Robert E. Lee: General Ulysses S. Grant. Was he a great strategist? Was he a raging alcoholic? How exactly was his relationship with Lincoln? - and with his subordinates (including Meade)? All of these and many more questions are answered in this wonderfully woven tale that masterfully takes the reader from the bloody aftermath of Gettysburg to the trying siege of Petersberg all the way to the solemn occasion at Appomattox Court House. The incredible heroism of Joshua Chamberlain, the tragedies of JEB Stuart & A.P. Hill, the genius of Lee, the savagery of Sherman, & the vastly contrasting leadership styles of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis are all on full display in The Last Full Measure. "War is for the participants a test of character; it makes bad men worse and good men better."
- Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
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