Martin Wickens

This is a review of the dual biography of Lee and Grant by Gene Smith, you can purchase a copy here: https://amzn.to/4pEkNcR

Smith’s book has 4.5 stars on Amazon and an average of 4.14 on Goodreads. So, it overwhelmingly gets good reviews. In his bibliography he has around 125 sources, many of them original documents. So, he has without question done his homework.

With that said, I struggled to read this book and it has taken me many months to get through it. I think this was for three reasons: (1) It is an almost completely new subject to me. (2) Smith includes a lot of detail, which is understandable given he was working from 125+ sources. (3) His writing style, perhaps combined with the previous two points, caused me to have re-read sentences frequently.

On that last point, one source demonstrated his style with this example:

Smith uses frequent appositives and parenthetical phrases. He inserts descriptions of people or places in the middle of a sentence, interrupting its flow. For example, instead of writing:

“Grant met Sherman, who would become his closest military ally.”

Smith’s writes,

“Grant, newly elevated in command and still uncertain of the administration’s confidence, met Sherman, whose loyalty and military judgment would prove indispensable throughout the coming campaigns.”

(Those aren’t exact quotes from the book, but illustrations of his style.)

As I dug into his style a little more, I found it described as periodic or interrupted syntax. It is an older style favored by the likes of Charles Dickens and Herman Melville. The style has it’s advantages. For example, Smith frequently dropped in new characters. Instead of giving a fresh mini-biography every time someone new was brought into the narrative, dropping an appositive mid-sentence allowed him to instantly summarize a person’s entire reputation or mindset right at the moment they met the main subject.

He asks the reader to hold several ideas in mind before reaching a conclusion.

With that understanding of his style, I am more inclined to give it a higher recommendation.

My struggle with his writing style may say more about me than about him. (I wouldn’t consider myself a lightweight, but… )

One other consideration is that some of his conclusions, statements of fact, and some omissions have caused me to wonder how trust worthy the book is overall.

Some of his anecdotes are questionable. He writes more favorably of Lee than Grant, whereas most today would favor Grant over Lee. The truth is usually somewhere in-between such extremes.

I would not know, but others have said there are few if any factual errors, but there are sometimes problems with his interpretation.

Style aside. His book has left me with a degree of admiration for both Lee and Grant, but also with criticisms of both. Further, having read his book I want to know more about both men. I think that says much about an author.

I think my favorite part of the book was the last half dealing with the way, and particularly the last few chapters dealing with their post-war lives.

Would I recommend it? If you’re already familiar with the civil war then yes. If you are new to the civil war, then I am guessing that other books on the subject would be more helpful, but then somewhere along the line I think Smith’s book is worthwhile.