<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: "A frightful equilibrium in the trading of death."
Review: The end of 1862 ushered in a bleak New Year in which over eighty thousand men from the Union and Confederacy faced each other across battle lines outside Murfreesboro, Tennessee, sang "Home Sweet Home" in unison, and then loosed their guns and cannons at each other. Pitting Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans of the Army of the Cumberland against the infamous Gen. Braxton Bragg of the Army of Tennessee, this devastating battle, in which both sides eventually claimed victory, cost the lives of 25,000 men in just three days. Author Carter uses primary sources to recreate the minutiae of this horrendous battle, and he is precise in his discussion of troop movements, the order of events, and the real actions of real people. Classified as a "novel" because the author recreates conversations which were not recorded and provides insights into what the participants may have been thinking and feeling, the book feels more like a comprehensive re-enactment than fiction. There are no imagined subplots, no love story, and no great or fully developed hero (though Gen. Rosecrans comes closest). Real events become the plot, and real battle movements and counter-movements become the "rising action," with "suspense" depending on the reader's unfamiliarity with these events and the characters' destinies. By including as much personal background and information as is known about each real character, Carter humanizes the many generals on both sides who had often been classmates and friends from West Point, showing their soul-searching and personal relationships. Lower ranking officers and soldiers reveal the extent to which this was a "generals' war," with one soldier suggesting that all the soldiers on both sides "just go on home...leaving you officers to settle things among yourselves." The inclusion of Ambrose Bierce, a Union map-maker who later used his war-time experience in his writing, serves as a fascinating motif throughout, as Carter shows the particular events which appear in Bierce's work. By the time the novel is finished, the reader is emotionally spent. Friendly fire accidents, the carnage of death by cannon, the misfires of ordnance, and the need to fire shells over the heads of their own men reflect the bloody reality of this war, while the moments of kindness which soldiers often extended to each other put a human face upon it. The descriptions are so precise, the devastation so total, the accidents so disastrous, and the role of chance so all-encompassing that the horrors of this war linger. Carter's novel is a huge achievement which should provide Civil War buffs with hours of serious study. Mary Whipple
<< 1 >>
| 
