The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans

by Charles Royster

Overview

From the moment the Civil War began, partisans on both sides were calling not just for victory but for extermination. And both sides found leaders who would oblige. In this vivid and fearfully persuasive book, Charles Royster looks at William Tecumseh Sherman and Stonewall Jackson, the men who came to embody the apocalyptic passions of North and South, and re-creates their characters, their strategies, and the feelings they inspired in their countrymen. At once an incisive dual biography, hypnotically engrossing military history, and a cautionary examination of the American penchant for patriotic bloodshed, The Destructive War is a work of enormous power.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679738787
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/11/1993
Series:	Vintage Civil War Library
Edition description:	1st Vintage Civil War library ed
Pages:	560
Product dimensions:	5.15(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Charles Royster is a historian, a teacher, and an author. He served as the Boyd Professor of History at Louisiana State University and is the recipient of the Bancoft, Parkman, and Lincoln Prizes. His works include Light-Horse Harry Lee, The Destructive War, and A Revolutionary People at War. He lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface

1. The Destruction of Columbia

2. The Aggressive War: Jackson

3. The Aggressive War: Sherman

4. The Anomalous War

5. The Death of Stonewall

6. The Vicarious War

7. The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain

8. The Destructive War
—Part I: The Last Year
—Part II: The War and the Future of the Nation

9. The Grand Review

Editorial Reviews

"Royster's intriguing analyses fill every page with new information and offer a fresh interpretation of our bloodiest conflict...exhaustively researched, artistically written, brilliantly argued."

— Boston Globe



"Parts of The Destructive War are as good as anything written...during the last generation...a masterful narrative."

— Washington Post Book World

"A fascinating history of the ideas held by the people who fought the war...fresh, intriguing, philosophical." — Detroit Free Press

"An illuminating interpretation." — Wall Street Journal

Winner of the Lincoln Prize

From the Publisher

Royster captures the implacable ruthlessness of two opposing generals who shattered ethical restraints during the Civil War. Photos. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This complex but fascinating exploration of the impact William Tecumseh Sherman and Thomas ``Stonewall'' Jackson had on public thinking about the military conduct of the Civil War is drawn from an exhaustive study of contemporary letters, diaries, and publications. While this work ranges from detailed battle narratives to almost psychoanalytic studies of the two central characters, the author is at his best in showing how Sherman and Jackson personified the kind of war that both Northerners and Southerners came to believe was necessary to achieve victory. Royster's conclusions about the legacy of the Civil War are particularly noteworthy in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm. Recommended for college and university libraries.-- Lawrence E. Ellis, Broward Community Coll. Lib., Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

Library Journal