Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman

Considered by various contemporaries to be insane, ruthless, and brilliant, William Tecumseh Sherman is a hard man to pin down. Here, O’Connell (The Ghosts of Cannae) expresses his concerns about unreadable academic histories and shallow popular histories by journalists “who often lack the background to see deep trends and long-term causation,” and instead focuses on Sherman as a strategist, soldier, and family man. However, the relationships O’Connell draws between activities in Sherman’s life feel forced, as with his likening military strategy to surfing: “Big waves and battle leave little room for piggishness.” Similarly, O’Connell employs rather idiosyncratic imagery, noting that Sherman was a “visual vacuum cleaner,” and that he and his wife were “mated like geese.” This manner of shaking the dust off Sherman’s story distracts from the portrait that O’Connell builds. Details like Sherman’s involvement with the discovery of gold in California in 1849, his genuine heartbreak when the South seceded, and even his apparent blindness to the horrors of slavery seem overshadowed by the writer’s techniques. O’Connell’s delivery of Sherman’s story is frustrating, especially because of the richness of the subject. (July)