Crucible Of Command: Ulysses S. Grant And Robert E. Lee–The War They Fought, The Peace They Forged, by William C. Davis

William C. Davis is an able contemporary historian who has won notable awards for his even-handed writing about Confederate history, and this book is no exception to his usual excellence. It is a considerably sizable work at about 500 pages of core text, along with voluminous endnotes which demonstrate his usual strong attention to primary sources and his worthwhile suspicion of secondary accounts. The author’s aim here is a rather complex one, and that is a comparative discussion of the Civil War’s two most accomplished generals in their approach to leadership, a comparative biography of sorts that emphasizes the pivotal role of the Civil War in making the reputations of both. Not only does the author accomplish this task with considerable flair, showing a great deal of insight into the stresses that both felt in dealing with the confluence of political and military affairs, but the author also shows that the best way to deal with the problem of myths about both leaders is not to be heavy-handed about it but to present the historical truth and then use that portrayal as a means to correct mistaken ideas about Lee being a marble saint who never viewed the Union as “the enemy” or that Grant was a mere butcher who won through attrition and not through any genuine generalship.

This particular volume begins with a list of maps, a preface, and an introduction that comments on the status of Lee and Grant as icons who have had varying reputations based on the currents of the time. The book then presents Lee and Grant as parallel lives account in the manner of Plutarch, starting with the complicated relationship that both Grant and Lee had in dealing with the overwhelming influence of their troublesome fathers (1). This is followed by a discussion of their experience as students at West Point, where both attended (2). This is followed by a discussion of the experience of both men, who met once in Mexico (3), as well as their shared trials in the aftermath of that war as both faced financial difficulties (4). The author makes the sound point that the Civil War was the crisis that made both of their reputations (5), and that the beginnings of the War offered a strange contrast between Grant coming to the attention of a larger public and Lee being seen as somewhat of a disappointment (6). This is followed by a discussion of Grant’s initial triumphs and Lee’s frustrations (7) in early 1862, a pattern which is reversed in the summer of that year (9), along with a study of Shilo and the Seven Days Battles (8). The next three chapters show Grant’s long and slow process of conceiving of a way to strike at Vicksburg on the one hand while Lee defends at Antietam and Fredericksburg, wins on the offensive at Chancellorsville, and strikes out at Gettysburg (10, 11, 12). This is followed by a discussion of Chickamuga and Chattanooga and the ways that people started to hint at the inevitable clash between Grant and Lee that was about to take place (13), which was brought to pass when Grant was brought East to command the Union armies as a whole and began the Overland Campaign (14). As Lee correctly thought, the Confederacy’s days were numbered once Lee’s army was forced to defend Richmond and Petersburg in an increasingly difficult siege (15), which resulted in Lee’s surrender. The last three chapters then examine the postwar lives of both men, and their struggles to deal with the political aftermath of the Civil War while also maintaining their personal honor (16, 17, 18), a task the author views as being successful for both men. The book ends with notes, a bibliography, acknowledgements, and an index.

It is striking that for the shared importance that Grant and Lee both have as the premier officers of the Civil War on each side, that they only met in person four times over the course of their lives. Still, the author makes a convincing case that both of them had a lot of similarities in the importance both placed on the key role of logistics and their preference for indirect moves and flank attacks and seizing the initiative where possible. Grant appears to be the better manager of people and, in the author’s eyes, more in control of a more amiable and honest temper. Lee comes off as being far more cagey, far better at guile than the generally trusting Grant. Still, the author even manages to find that both had remarkably similar political instincts and a similar concern for following the principle of the subordination of military power in the United States to civil authorities, even if civil authorities were generally proud and prickly politicians. If this book is by no means the first of the last book on Grant and Lee, it is a worthwhile volume that will lead the reader to ponder the factors that forge people into greatness, and how even people of different backgrounds and personalities and temperaments can nonetheless share strikingly similar approaches to the art of war and to their general political philosophies. Even if the pairing of Grant and Lee as parallel lives shaped by the Civil War seems obvious (almost as obvious as the pairing of Presidents Lincoln and Davis), this book is no less accomplished if its concept is obvious.