The Horse Soldiers

Rating:
Summary: Not the John Wayne Movie!
Review: This book was the basis for the movie of the same title that starrred John Wayne and William Holden. The film, despite historical errors, is alright but the book is so much better.

Using the raid of Benjamin Grierson as the basis, Sinclair does a great job of fictionalizing this episode of the Civil War. With the influx of Civil War novels on the market now, including the Shaara works and Owen Parry I would suggest that anyone interested in this time period pick up a copy of this book before it goes out of print again.

Rating:
Summary: Not the John Wayne Movie!
Review: This book was the basis for the movie of the same title that starrred John Wayne and William Holden. The film, despite historical errors, is alright but the book is so much better.

Using the raid of Benjamin Grierson as the basis, Sinclair does a great job of fictionalizing this episode of the Civil War. With the influx of Civil War novels on the market now, including the Shaara works and Owen Parry I would suggest that anyone interested in this time period pick up a copy of this book before it goes out of print again.

Rating:
Summary: Riding, riding, riding
Review: This is a novelization of the astounding true ride of 1000 Union troopers from one end of rebel Mississippi to the other during the American Civil War. Through skill, surprise, and extraordinary luck they wildly succeeded in destroying every railroad they crossed. Sinclair captures the unstoppable and indomitable feeling of riding in a mass of horsemen, even while acknowledging just how fragile they were in battle. There is a minimum of hell-for-leather swashbuckling here, but plenty about the unwashed and hungry troopers riding along gritty roads in fear of attack. The slightly stilted old-fashioned prose focuses on the pseudonymous leaders and their qualities as they become increasingly exhausted during the dusty 17-day raid. The story is salted with wry jokes, racist comments, Yankee outlooks on the war, and the odd situations that every war throws up, much of it just putting words into the mouths of historical characters and a few exemplary soldier-types. It seems darn authentic, even to the men occasionally mispronouncing cavalry as the easier "calvary." The print has a slightly antique look. The edition I read was a British paperback published in 2000 by Birlinn. The publishers make nothing of any connection to the US movie.