Nothing but Victory

Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861-1865. By Steven E. Woodworth. (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005)

Nothing but Victory is Steven E. Woodworth’s comprehensive examination of the United States military formation organized under the command of the Army of the Tennessee during the American Civil War. Woodworth examines this formation from its beginning as disparate regiments raised from various states across the old Northwest to their disbandment in Washington D.C. following the conclusion of hostilities. Woodworth argues that the unique nature of the army’s rank and file composition as well as the exceptional leadership of the army’s senior officer corps left an indelible mark on the Army of the Tennessee that caused it to stand out amongst the other armies of the Union.

The only consistently successful army raised by the Union, the Army of the Tennessee was a deciding factor in almost every major campaign in the Western theatre of the war. Further, Woodworth contends that the Western theatre was by far the most decisive, and with the evidence he presents it is hard to argue against him. The early loss of Forts Henry and Donelson near the Tennessee-Kentucky opened the Confederate heartland to constant threat and left the Confederacy on the strategic defensive for the rest of the war. Later, the loss of Vicksburg closed the Mississippi river to Confederate traffic and split the nation in two. Lastly, the Union campaign into Georgia and then up the Eastern seaboard sealed the fate of the Confederacy and ended the war. All of these campaign’s outcomes rested on the shoulders of the Army of the Tennessee.

Nothing but Victory does not just explore the fighting record of the Army of the Tennessee. Woodworth craftily intersperses accounts of daily life and social activities of the very day soldier while at the same time brining these seemingly minute events into a national and at times international context. Once can’t help but feel the stinging temperature of an abnormally cold Tennessee winter, or the constant nag of Louisiana mosquitoes and the rotting stench of the swamp while at the same time realizing how these conditions effected military operations and strategic results.

Insightful examination of the army’s officer corps also brings to light the politics of the Union army as a whole. Because of its distance from what many at first perceived to be the main theater of war, the Western Theatre received less direction from Washington D.C. and “questionable” generals. Ironically this hands off approach allowed qualified leadership to rise through merit much more easily, and as a result by wars end many western generals had been tapped by Lincoln to rehabilitate the struggling formations east of the Appalachian Mountains. This leadership, epitomized by Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman stood far less on formalities than on results. Indeed when portions of the Army of the Tennessee and Potomac meet outside of Chattanooga, TN soldiers of the Army of the Potomac criticized their Western brethren for looking unsoldierly. While lacking the spit and polish sheen of professionals, the Army of the Tennessee had done something far more important - consistently win battles.

Nothing but Victory is not only an insightful examination of the Army of the Tennessee as a military formation. Through the eyes of the soldiers of that army, Woodworth is able to explore the importance of the Western Theatre to the war’s outcome, the politics of the Union army as a whole, and the social history of the soldiers themselves. The only criticism that could be leveled against the work is its length possibly turning off potential readers, however to accomplish what it does in the depth it does this is probably unfair. If anything, the depth to which Woodworth examines each of the campaigns makes Nothing but Victory also highly recommendable as a primer for studying the various individual combats the Army of the Tennessee participated. Nothing but Victory is essential reading for understanding a number of aspects of the American Civil War.

Joe Stoltz Texas Christian University

Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861-1865. By Steven E. Woodworth. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. 760 pp.

The Union Army of the Tennessee, as Steven Woodworth notes in the introduction to this work, “won the decisive battles in the decisive theater of the war” (ix). Woodworth may very well have written the decisive history of this army. The author uses two distinct sets of sources to reconstruct the movements, battles, and collective mindset of the Army of Tennessee from its formation in April 1861, a year and one-half before its official creation, until its discharge in summer 1865. First, Woodworth uses published correspondence and official papers to reconstruct the usual flanking movements and artillery barrages one finds in innumerable Civil War monographs. More importantly, he also utilizes unpublished diaries and correspondence to recreate the emotions of corporals and privates. The latter sources, coupled with Woodworth’s intriguing writing style, provide a fascinating account of one of the most important armies in the Civil War.

Overall, Woodworth posits that General Ulysses Grant built the Army of the Tennessee in his own image, specifically “his matter-of-fact steadiness and his hard-driving aggressiveness” (ix). To prove his point, the author divides this work into three parts. In the first, Woodworth covers the period between Abraham Lincoln’s 1861 call for volunteers and the capture of Corinth in late 1862. During this period, Grant formed what would become the Army of the Tennessee from Midwestern farmers accustomed to hard work and long hours. Through battles at Belmont, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh), and Corinth, Woodworth finds that during this early phase of the war the men of the Army of the Tennessee enlarged the “native confidence they had grown up with as sons of the pioneer generation,” and specifically that their “courage, endurance, and patient sacrifice” would win the war (120).

In the second part of the book, Woodworth elaborates on Grant’s central Mississippi campaign, culminating in the July 1863 surrender of Vicksburg. While most of this section, and indeed the work, lauds Grant, Woodworth faults the general at least once: over his 22 May 1863 assault on General John Pemberton’s entrenched position at Vicksburg. Woodworth terms the bloody and aggressive but unsuccessful endeavor “the price the Army of the Tennessee had to pay for being Grant’s army,” (428) once again reiterating the theme that, despite this failure, the Army mimicked Grant’s tenacity and persistence.

In the final section, Woodworth chronicles the Army of the Tennessee’s movements east between July 1863 and the end of the war, through Chattanooga, Atlanta, Savannah, Columbia, and ultimately Raleigh. Even though Grant had left to command all Union armies from Washington, the Army of the Tennessee maintained its dogged pursuit of the enemy under William Tecumseh Sherman, James McPherson, Oliver Howard, and, for a few weeks, John Logan. By his discussion of the battles around Atlanta in summer and fall 1864, Woodworth’s narrative borders on hagiography, in that he writes that the Army’s “tactical virtuosity” (559), learned through its “experience, skill, and toughness” (568), supplanted by its “confidence in their commanders” (568) made it, “for its size, the most effective fighting force on the continent” (568). Nevertheless, after Atlanta, the Army never faced another large pitched battle, instead moving with Sherman’s Military Division of the Mississippi through Georgia and the Carolinas. Woodworth concludes briefly with the Army’s discharge, effectively completed by July 1865.

Woodworth writes an effective narrative. His use of the soldier’s voice intriguingly recreates the battles from outside the view of standard battle histories. Furthermore, Woodworth’s use of sarcasm makes the monograph enjoyable to read. For example, the author writes that, after the forceful declaration of Gen. Charles F. Smith at Fort Donelson that his men “volunteered to die for love of country,” the author asserts “the men may not quite have agreed with Smith as to the purpose of their enlistment” (110). In a similar fashion, Woodworth criticizes Gen. Henry Halleck innumerable times, once noting “instead of tomes on strategy he cribbed from the French to gain his reputation as Old Brains, Halleck really ought to have written a book on bureaucratic infighting” (128). Likewise, Woodworth notes that Halleck uselessly instructed Grant after Pittsburg Landing as if “Halleck had been exploring for an all-water route to the Orient” (205).

This work, then, serves as an intriguing survey of the Army of the Tennessee’s four years of service to the Union, both from above and below. If the reader could suggest any improvement, he would like to see battle maps. Twice, when discussing Edward’s Landing and Atlanta, the author tries to explain battlefield positions with symbols and detailed explanations. These serve, nonetheless, to confuse the reader and distract him from the main thesis of the book. Even so, this study is as worthy to readers as its subject proved itself on the battlefields of the Western theater.