LINCOLN'S DARKEST YEAR IN THE WAR

Lincoln's Darkest Year In The War





The book is, as the tide states, about the decisions and actions surrounding the second year of the war: those made by President Lincoln, the generals and soldiers in the field and the Northern population at large. Marvel deftly weaves scenes between the White House and the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, between the battlefield and the home front. The focus is on how the war was executed, Lincoln's decisions, Maj. Gen. George Brinton McClellan's actions (or inactions), and the major and minor battles that shaped a dark year for the Union cause. William Marvel's new book is a continuation of his Mr. Lincoln Goes to War (2007). The focus of this potential series is President Abraham Lincoln's impact on the Northern experience of the Civil War. He especially emphasizes the eastern war theater and ordinary people, both civilians and soldiers. The opposing factions argued for either peace or continued prosecution, with one group judging the price too great for any potential results and the other reluctant to waste the investment already made. Tragically, victory and peace might have satisfied both parties fairly early, but those opportunities were lost through a closely connected series of blunders, some of which can be traced back to the conscious decisions of Abraham Lincoln, (Justin, 1997).

Marvel is an engaging, award winning writer and accomplished researcher. His last book, Mr. Lincoln Goes to War, was the first in a planned four-volume series on the Civil War, and focused on Lincoln's first year in office. Lincoln's Darkest Year is the second in the series. His revisionist approach to studying the war makes his books innovative and original - definitely not the same old Civil War study, and certainly a book that should be read. It gives the reader much food for thought, especially on Lincoln's successes and failures as president during this tumultuous time. Marvel's insistence on casting the war as unjust and Lincoln's presidency as inept and corrupt, however, smacks too much of ideology, rather than objectivity. Readers must be aware of this and keep their minds open; they shouldn't blindly accept every point Marvel makes. Marvel's sources are legion, and impressive. He found a number of letters, diaries, newspaper articles and other sources hidden in archives and never before used, and with these weaved a story of the war unlike any recently published. Marvel proclaims this to be revisionist history, which is why his sources are so abundant and well established. As he states in the book's introduction, "The presentation of contrary interpretations requires much attention to the contradictory evidence itself, in order to drive the new information home with enough force to crack the armor of established opinion (Justin, 1997)."

That is an admirable goal, and revisionism shouldn't necessarily have a negative connotation, as interpretations typically should be revised when new evidence comes to light. Revisionism can be taken too far, however (Emerson, ...