War So Terrible

War So Terrible: Sherman and Atlanta. By James Lee McDonough and James Pickett Jones. (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987. Pp. xx, 385).

General William T. Sherman’s plan of engagement during the final months of the Civil War was to “make war so terrible” that the Confederacy would realize the futility of continuing to fight (xxi). James Lee McDonough and James Pickett Jones offer a comprehensive study of Sherman’s Atlanta campaign, providing both description and analysis of the terrible events that occurred during the months of engagement. Although they focus primarily on important generals, strategy, and battles, they also attempt to depict the human side of war by including vivid descriptions of the landscape and conditions in which soldiers lived and fought. McDonough and Jones maintain that Sherman’s campaign was the more important of the Union’s two-pronged strategy of crushing the South through constant pressure. Sherman faced a difficult task deep within enemy territory and proved to be an excellent military leader. Using an impressive array of sources—including unpublished manuscript collections, letters, diaries, unit histories, newspapers, and memoirs—the authors recount the story of the Atlanta campaign from the perspective of both the North and the South.

The first several chapters of the book provide the background and context of the Atlanta campaign. McDonough and Jones, stressing the importance of the western theater, include overviews of key campaigns earlier in the war including Shiloh, Forts Henry and Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga. They also recount briefly the military careers of Union and Confederate commanders, especially Sherman and Joseph E. Johnston. The balance of the book is a narrative of the Atlanta campaign from May to September of 1864 that traces Sherman’s advance from Dalton to Atlanta and beyond. Although they provide a thorough account of the war, McDonough and Jones admit in their preface that they had to do some picking and choosing of material, determining that space in the book given to a particular person or event “generally should be proportionate to overall significance” (xix). The final product, then, is a digestible yet complete account of the campaign.

War so Terrible is largely a straightforward narrative of the Atlanta campaign, but it does provide some analytical commentary that makes it a valuable addition to Civil War historiography. Perhaps the greatest contribution of the book is its attention to the railroads. McDonough and Jones assert that the campaign was “a big railroad war” and conclude that railroads were “indispensable for Sherman’s Atlanta campaign” (249, 328). In the authors’ assessment, Sherman appreciated the value of the railroads more than the Confederacy did, and he successfully used them to his advantage. Emphasis on railroads sets this work apart from other studies on Sherman’s Georgia campaign. McDonough and Jones also challenge the conventional notion that the South had superior generals. This, they determine, “is largely a myth” (52). Confederate high command was fractured and “festered with misunderstanding and distrust,” they opine, and General Joseph E. Johnston lacked decisiveness or a clear plan (72). While McDonough and Jones bestow praise on Sherman’s leadership and strategic skills, they suggest that Johnston was not an impressive general, and John B. Hood even less so. Until his replacement by Hood, Johnston did not seem to have a plan, only reacting to Sherman and continually falling back and refusing to engage.

McDonough and Jones make a strong case for the significance of the Atlanta campaign in helping end the Civil War. They stress the growing importance of Atlanta as a railroad hub and production center (the “turntable” and “workshop” of the Confederacy), showing that its loss proved to be a great logistical blow to the South. They also observe the psychological implications of the campaign, noting that the Confederate loss humbled the South and boosted morale in the North. Finally, although they do not want to overstress this point, McDonough and Jones acknowledge that the campaign helped secure Lincoln’s reelection in November 1864.

Several features of the book make it accessible to both popular and scholarly readers. Maps and photographs of the region and battlefields provide a visual context of the campaign. A critical bibliography offers a useful overview of the sources that the authors used, though it does not make up for the exclusion of footnotes in the text. Finally, an epilogue on the historical accuracy and influence of Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone With the Wind—and the film adaptation—on popular memory of the Atlanta campaign may be of interest to some readers, though it is rather out of place and awkward in its relation to the rest of the book.

Jensen Branscombe

Texas Christian University

War So Terrible: Sherman and Atlanta. By James Lee McDonough and James Pickett Jones. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987. Pp. 385. Preface, critical bibliography, index.

In a collaborative effort by two established historians, War So Terrible: Sherman and Atlanta presents the vilified Union campaign which resulted in the fall of Atlanta. James Lee McDonough, formerly of Auburn University, and James Pickett Jones of Florida State University argue that the campaign overwhelmingly influenced both the future of the Union military effort and the survival of the Lincoln administration. Without a decisive victory by the Union army before November 1864, Lincoln’s re-election remained doubtful. McDonough and Jones explain that their research and balanced presentation of Sherman’s march to Atlanta considers both the Federal and Confederate experience asserting that the military campaign had not received the attention that it deserved by historians prior to their 1987 publication.

After an embarrassing performance at the First Battle of Bull Run, General William Tecumseh Sherman endured the fate suffered by many a Civil War officer who disappointed their commanders in the East—go west young man. Fortunately, Sherman’s rise to command outside of Virginia allowed for two important factors. First, his consistent performance and increasing military leadership allowed him to develop his skills as a commanding officer prior to May 1864 and the eve of the Atlanta campaign. Second, during this time, Sherman worked closely with Ulysses S. Grant, a commonly disregarded soldier due to previous struggles with alcohol. Sherman’s experience in the West and his close working relationship with General Grant provided the groundwork for the successful campaign, a four month ordeal that resulted in the taking of Atlanta, the “turntable of the Confederacy” (73). As the manufacturing, commerce, and most significantly, the railroad center for the South, the collapse of the city greatly thwarted the Confederate ability to wage war. Sherman hoped to not only foil Southerners capacity to continue but to “make war so terrible that they will realize [its futility], however brave and gallant and devoted to their country . . .” (xxi).

McDonough and Jones initially attempt to present an even handed account. The authors provide an introductory chapter followed by two chapters from different perspectives, first from Sherman’s viewpoint and then an account through the eyes of Braxton Bragg and Joseph E. Johnston. The subsequent eleven chapters, however, focus largely on the success of Union forces from Sherman’s standpoint. The authors explain in the introduction that they began their research with a more positive view of Johnston than they finished with while their opinion of Sherman only improved during the same period. The result is an unbalanced account of the Atlanta campaign and appears as an idolization of Sherman as a modern warrior and the only soldier who comprehended the necessary reality of total war.

McDonough and Jones end the book with an epilogue entitled, “Frankly, Margaret Mitchell Did Give a –amn” (333). This chapter presents the crossroads of popular history versus scholarly history through the most successful literary account of the Civil War. Mitchell, a native Georgian, spent much of the 1920’s researching and writing Gone With the Wind as she worried to an obsessive degree about being criticized by scholars for a lack of historical accuracy. Prior to its publication in 1936, it seemed only Georgians cared about the invasion of the South and the taking of the railroad hub. After the release of the book and the subsequent cinematic interpretation of the novel, a process Mitchell refused to have anything to do with, the entire world, from Atlanta to Paris, experienced with Miss Scarlet the passing of an era.

The final chapter of the book seems out of place in context with the rest of the study. Although interesting, the authors provide little transition or reasoning for the epilogue. The chapter provides the reader the best, and perhaps only, analysis of the campaign, as promised in the introduction, as well as the most original work. War So Terrible appeared in 1987 but the New York publishing house W. W. Norton withdrew the work from publication after the authors faced serious lifting accusations by fellow historians. The fact that the authors use quotation marks at will and footnotes rarely provide even more reason for scholars to raise an eyebrow. The inclusion of a “Critical Bibliography” does not satisfy these mishaps (353).

McDonough and Jones provide a successful narrative for Sherman’s Atlanta campaign that is accessible to scholars and the general public alike. Clearly, the work is well-researched although the synthesis of the final product has been questioned. The account is well-written and provides the groundwork for future historians to consider the same campaign with a more analytical eye and more original pen.