THE SWORD OF LINCOLN: The Army of the Potomac

A Civil War historian distinguished for biographies of Longstreet and Custer, and for several campaign histories, now offers this excellent overview of the Army of the Potomac. Charged with the defense of Washington, D.C.—and therefore under the eyes of the politicians from first to last—the Army of the Potomac was blessed with a rank-and-file firmly committed to defending the Union. It was not so fortunate, Wert shows, in its high command. The charismatic George McClellan was an excellent organizer but an overly cautious commander who, the author argues, set the pattern for his successors' habit of avoiding defeat rather than aggressively seeking victory. The book is filled with portraits of the divided upper ranks—both heroes (Winfield Scott Hancock and Phil Kearney, the latter killed before he could realize his potential) and not (the author is absolutely scathing on Third Division Gen. William French). It is also filled with exceptionally vivid accounts of battles, some of them well known (Burnside's bloody fiasco at Fredericksburg) and others less so (the Spotsylvania campaign, particularly its climax at the "Bloody Angle"—trench warfare at its worst). Finally, Wert shows President Lincoln's bond with the army he saw more often than any other, and which felt a personal tie to him. Wert assimilates the half-century of research that has appeared since Bruce Catton wrote his classic trilogy and condenses this mountain of material into a single readable and accessible volume. Agent, Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group . (Apr.)