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His "helpers" invariably sought to portray the general in the most favorable light. Henderson's book approaches hagiography. Frank Vandiver's Mighty Stonewall certainly ranks among the best of the most recent efforts to plumb the depths of Jackson's character and personality.
When Jackson, barely 39 years old, died of wounds after the battle of Chancellorsville, he was already arguably the most famous general in the Confederacy, though Robert E. Lee eventually earned that distinction. Struck down at the height of his fame, Jackson justly earned his enduring reputation as a skilled and daring combat leader. After all these years, it is still true that Jackson is among the most often cited examples of the best military leaders the nation has produced.
Nearly every soldier and would-be general knows well Jackson's exploits; the prodigious marching of his "foot cavalry," his brilliant Valley Campaign, and his flank march at Chancellorsville, the key to Lee's greatest victory. How many times has one seen upon the wall of one leader or another who fancies himself a trainer the memorable Jackson quote, uttered to an aide as the army endured one of many grueling forced marches: "Colonel, I yield to no man in my sympathy for the gallant men under my command; but I am obliged to sweat them tonight, that I may save their blood tomorrow.
He was, as Robertson so meticulously notes, a religious man, a pious man, who believed he was doing God's work when he made war against the Yankees. He was a Virginian who saw Virginia as the key to the success of the Confederacy's quest for independence and he was a man, to quote Israeli general Moshe Dayan, who believed the road to victory ran through the enemy's camp. Jackson was a fearless fighter who was transformed by battle.
Normally quiet, shy, retiring, and awkward in manners and speech, Jackson became a Joshua when the trumpets sounded and the cannons boomed. Yet in many ways Jackson remains an enigma. Just how good a general was he?
His disdain for logistics nearly drove his quartermaster crazy. An accomplished artillerist who knew this arm perhaps better than anyone, he at times failed to fully exploit his artillery or to position it where it could support his attacks. His battle plans were often sketchy at best, and when combined with his legendary passion for secrecy, the result was a recipe for confusion and chaos. Worse yet, his interpersonal relations with subordinate generals were awful. It is among these men, those charged with following the general's orders, that detractors are to be found.
Perhaps it was all a matter of misunderstandings. Because Jackson governed his own life with an absolute discipline, it is not surprising that he would demand unquestioning obedience and strict adherence to orders by subordinates. Mere mortals that they were, often their conduct fell short of the mark, with unfortunate consequences. At one time or another, nearly every one of his principal subordinates was under arrest pending court-martial charges for failure to obey Jackson's orders, even when the orders were fragmentary or unclear.
Richard Garnett, for example, earned Jackson's wrath for failing to hold an untenable position at Kernstown in , even though Jackson's battle plan was flawed and Garnett was under extraordinary pressure from attacking Union forces. Without knowing Jackson's intent, Garnett ordered a withdrawal to save his force even as Jackson was ordering up reinforcements.
And how ironical it was that A. Hill, whose forced march saved Lee's army at Antietam, was at the time under arrest and awaiting courts-martial for a perceived infraction of Jackson's orders during the march into Maryland. Robertson treats his subject with an even hand. Jackson's strengths and weaknesses are laid bare for the reader to judge. The accounts of battles are particularly well written and even the most complicated events are clearly narrated. As the story unfolds, one has the sense of sitting behind Jackson and watching as the general works his magic.
It is difficult to believe that the Lee-Jackson relationship spanned hardly 11 months, so great are their accomplishments. Little wonder generations of students on the war have contemplated alternative outcomes of the war had Jackson lived. Together, the two were an enormously powerful and effective force, for Lee's genius matched and sustained Jackson's daring.
Would Jackson's strengths have eventually been overwhelmed by his shortcomings? No less an expert on the matter than Douglas Southall Freeman opined that Jackson, by virtue of his character and temperament, was unsuited for army command. Jackson inspired confidence in the soldiers he led, though he drove them hard and used them hard in battle. One wonders if his officers, who knew him better, would not have drifted away in search of different leadership. Andrew Wardlaw, 14th Carolina, summed up Jackson's exploits for many with the observation, "I must admit that it is much pleasanter to read about Stonewall and his exploits than to serve under him and perform those exploits.
When will the tide recede? When will interest in the war be supplanted by some new conflict? As long as it can be mined for insights on the profession of arms, insights on subjects of enduring interest such as generalship and the human dimension of warfare, the Civil War will have a following and its books will sell.
The end of Civil War history is not in sight. Catton, Bruce. New York: Viking Press: Hess, Earl J. Luvaas, Jay, ed. McPherson, James. Robertson, James I. New York: Macmillan, Woodworth, Steven E.
The Reviewer: Colonel Leonard J. He is a graduate of the University of Dayton, holds an M. A ssessments of the Middle East during the past year produce a number of salient impressions:. The United States has lost a great deal of respect and clout in the Middle East, not only among the inhabitants of the area but also among "outside" states with important regional interests, particularly the Europeans.
The so called "dual containment policy" to fence in the rogue states of Iran and Iraq is in tatters but lingers on as US policy because no one seems to have more workable ideas. Iraq continues to grab the headlines but Iran is fast becoming a powerhouse in the region, pragmatic but unrepentant for past policies, viewing the United States more with indifference than malevolence.
The passion of the Islamic revolution has mutated into a typical Middle Eastern bureaucracy, institutionalizing religious elites in power with Islamization being superseded by Iranization.
Culture continues to be the usually overlooked but most important factor of the political-military environment of the Middle East. The cold reality of the cultural divide has displaced the Pollyannish optimism which has attended the Arab-Israeli issue since the Gulf War.
Stalemate is due less to the intransigence of Bibi or the duplicity of Yasir than to the deep cultural and religious chasm which previously had been bridged by photo-ops for regional and domestic US consumption. The Middle East is approaching another era of increased internal strife as old leaders pass from the scene, but it is increasingly less likely to originate with the once feared Islamic resurgence. The latter has largely degenerated into anarchic terrorist movements or has been co-opted by savvy ruling circles.
Nothing could be more illustrative of that change than the differences between the ill-fated Doha economic conference and the nearly simultaneous meeting of the Organization of Islamic Countries in Teheran. The United States had put considerable effort into the Doha conference, which among other things was supposed to bring Israel into the Middle East community of cooperative states. Despite great American pressure and a last-minute tour of Gulf states by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to garner support for the conference, it was a bust.
Only four Arab states attended, which paled in comparison to the well-attended Teheran conference. The outcome added another measure of confidence and respect to the Islamic Republic. The lack of support given Washington in the January-February contest with Iraq should be a clear sign of what to expect in the future.
Blackwell and Michael Sturmer, is prescient and clear in his exposition of the widening gap between US and European interests and policies in the Gulf.
He describes the European perspective as follows:. The weak US response to the Iraqi incursion into Kurdistan in , and the current US sensitivity to casualties makes a Desert Storm redux improbable, and air attacks are ineffective in achieving the desired effect on Iraqi behavior. American attempts to forge a grand united strategy to deal with the Middle East are "doomed to failure. The best the United States can achieve strategically is coordination on specific endeavors. The United States faces a dilemma: To remove US forces from the Gulf, as some advocate, would signal disengagement and ultimately lead to chaos, yet keeping them in countries with some of the most traditionalist Islamic societies will inevitably lead to the same problems the British faced in South Yemen in the late s.
In other words, the US presence will act as a magnet for trouble rather than as a stabilizing force. Some of France's "independent" regional policy is based on hard-headed assessment of its Middle East interests, producing a pro-Arab and anti-Israeli policy, not unlike De Gaulle's.
But contrariness, not a new French attribute, is also involved here. Satloff points out that French leaders do not see France as a second-rate power and maintain their view that the French knowledge of the Middle East is superior to that of any other Western country. In a recent article in Foreign Policy, Fawaz A. Gerges makes the point that the Clinton Administration inherited from the Bush Administration a promising political landscape in the Middle East, but has essentially squandered US regional political capital. Gerges sees anti-American sentiment as on the rise, the peace process in "tatters," and efforts to isolate Iran and Iraq as having "backfired miserably.
Colonel Augustus Richard Norton in an article in the January issue of Current History makes somewhat the same points but emphasizes to a greater degree the Israeli factor, stating that "most serious observers in the United States agree that no American administration has been as partial to Israel as Clinton's.
Milton Viorst, in a book review in the January issue of Middle East Policy , takes a contrary view in assigning responsibility for the problems in the Gulf, one which is popular with the far left: equating Bush with Saddam Hussein and speculating that "many experts have wondered whether Bush deliberately set a trap for Saddam. Moreover, by most accounts one of the few modern periods of stability in the Gulf was in fact under the raj. Bush-bashing, however, is not confined to the left; others believe that President Bush was too accommodating in his pre-war attitude toward Iraq.
Brigadier Aharon Levran, a retired Israeli officer, takes the Bush Administration to task for ignoring "cautionary voices raised in Israel and Congress. As for Congress, a delegation of US senators visited Baghdad shortly before the occupation of Kuwait and found Saddam Hussein agreeable to their low opinion of the press.