Uncertain Glory: Lee's Generalship Re-Examined

By John D. McKenzie

Critique's the Civil War general's battlefield tactics, strategic vision, staff organization, and logistic planning, looking at his shortcomings in the context of restrictions placed on him by... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0781805023
• ISBN13: 9780781805025
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Hippocrene Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.0" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Provocative analysis.

Southern historians, the author feels, have had it all their way, denigrating Union leadership and enshrining Lee in a mythos of superb generalship he doesn't deserve. In this trenchant analysis of the Confederate defeat, McKenzie's criticisms of Southern arrogance, disorganization, corruption, military errors, and dubious ideology are difficult to refute, but considering the 5:2 manpower and 10:1 industrial advantages of the North, his belief that a defensive strategy and greater Southern dedication might have prevailed is less persuasive. With bibliography, a good index, and wonderfully clear action-maps which lack only scale to be perfect, McKenzie's work is recommended as a highly readable, if tendentious catalyst for further discussion. (The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not willingly "score" books.)