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Exclusive Author Essay

Why Write a New History of the War?
By one estimate, the Civil War literature has swelled to more than 70,000 books, fueled by a nearly insatiable desire of Americans to read about their most defining national event. So why write another history of the war? Prior to The Longest Night, the best general battle histories were those of Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote: Going on 40 years old, they represent an earlier stylistic generation, and contain quite a few ideas and assertions that Civil War scholars now consider outdated. The best recent one-volume histories of the war, notably James McPherson's stellar Battle Cry of Freedom, are all-encompassing works that treat all aspects of the conflict: politics, causes, the economy, social history, and all manner of other subjects. A modern narrative battle history of the war didn't exist, I discovered, when reading through the literature for the scholarly bibliography I wrote in the early and mid-1990s, and so I decided to write a book that would describe some 450 battles and skirmishes. I would not only be able to write modern accounts of the major battles -- Gettysburg, Antietam, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, and so on -- but also focus attention on the Western Theater, the Trans-Mississippi, the many naval actions on rivers and along coastlines, and many other aspects that earlier one-volume histories have brushed over lightly.

"A Thousand Voices Cry Out to be Heard"
In searching through many collections of archived letters, diaries, and journals of the wartime period for The Longest Night, it was staggeringly obvious that vast amounts of untapped interesting material on the war lie in repositories across the country. Even at 70,000, the count of Civil War books is in no danger of screeching to a halt. To tell the battle history of the war in an entertaining way, I used as much fresh manuscript material as I could from the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the U.S. Military History Institute, and many other collections, allowing the voices of the participants to tell much of the story in first-person, primary sources. The result was that some 1,000 excerpts from participants -- soldiers, sailors, politicians, nurses, doctors, and civilians caught in the forefront of battle -- are scattered throughout the story.

Among the most striking are the thoughts of Susan Blackford, a Lynchburg, Virginia, resident who found herself near the action at First Bull Run; African Americans who took up the cause and fought for themselves and for emancipation in U.S. units, including the celebrated 54th Massachusetts Infantry; the confused officers on both sides of the tumultuous battle of Gettysburg who on Little Round Top, in the Wheatfield, and along Seminary Ridge left a record of the chaos that unfolds when a battle accelerates; and the intimate letters of army officers and naval participants stationed in countless places who wrote their wives and sweethearts, telling them exactly what they thought about their comrades and their experiences, never expecting their words to be shared with future generations.

What Surprises Lie in Store for Civil War Readers?
Many, even for experienced Civil War buffs, and I will not here give them all away. Let me mention one area of particular surprise that I found consistently throughout the collection of Generals' Papers at the National Archives, and included many examples of it in the book. The simple fact is that the Union Army (and the Confederacy, too) contained numerous general officers who were frequently arguing with each other, attacking their superiors or subordinates, attempting to go on leave, and acting with such disharmony that it's amazing either side ever won the war.

For example, Joseph J. Reynolds, a Union major general who served gallantly in the Western Theater and won accolades for Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge, repeatedly wrote the War Department asking for a leave of absence or an end to his commission so he could return to Indiana in order to save his brother's grocery store from financial ruin. This, in the midst of an active civil war! James B. McPherson, a much-liked major general who was killed at the battle of Atlanta, had to occasionally fend off charges that his sentiments were pro-Secessionist, even as he led Federal troops in battle. In St. Louis, Justis McKinstry, a Union colonel who had been entrusted with authority as the military department's quartermaster, was cashiered from the service after being caught stealing numerous supplies and falsifying his records. His pleas of innocence, even after being caught red-handed, somehow connect to today's media exposes of well-known people. Dozens of such stories reveal the human side of the armies and their commanders, stripping them of their mythology, which is often how histories have portrayed them in the past.

Did the Confederacy Stand a Chance of Winning?
It would have been exceedingly difficult, to say the least. When Jefferson Davis's original strategy of defending all Southern territory along an enormous battle front failed (with the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson), he concocted a new plan. The Rebels would fight a "defensive-offensive" war that would concentrate troops wherever they were most needed and occasionally lash out on the offensive, as Congress and selected officers were frequently prodding Davis to do. Among the major offensive raids were the two incursions by Robert E. Lee that led to the Antietam and Gettysburg campaigns, and Edmund Kirby Smith's penetration into Kentucky.

As the Federals regained more and more territory, however, the Confederate strategy needed to shift again, this time to a hope that Northern civilians would grow tired of the cost of the war and move toward peace. This was the "winning-by-not-losing" strategy, and it might have worked, except for the nature of the Confederacy.

For many years, Southern politicians and militarists such as Davis and his vice president, Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, had preached the importance of states' rights, separatism, and anti-Federalism. This was one philosophical maxim of the Confederacy. Yet after Davis was elected provisional president of the Confederate States, he immediately asked for and formulated a strong national government, in direct contradiction to state's rights. The resulting dysfunction, lack of cooperation, and hoarding of men and materiel for the best interests of the states made a smooth Confederate nationalism impossible, and this certainly prevented the South from acting as efficiently on the battlefield as it might have. Did this make the difference in winning or losing the war? We'll never know, but it certainly didn't help.

How Does the Scope of the Civil War Translate to Today?
The Civil War touched every family in mid-19th-century America. Some 623,000 boys and men were killed during the four years, of a total population of 31.4 million. The same percentage of war dead today would translate to a staggering 5.5 million dead Americans, making it easier to appreciate the depth of how the war shocked Americans North and South. Beyond those who were killed, many thousands were wounded, both physically and psychologically, for life. Whether or not your family had sent a son off to battle, it was virtually certain that you had received funeral notices for relatives or at least knew of families that had lost members in the war. Because regiments and companies were usually local, a unit experiencing savage fighting --and therefore high losses -- could result in the wiping out of scores of a community's young men at once.

And the soldiers and sailors in the Civil War armies were far younger, thinner, and dirtier than most of the reenactors who portray them in movies and on television today. The Civil War was largely fought by teenagers -- my own great-great-grandfather, an Ohio private, was an old-timer in his regiment when he enlisted at age 25. For most of these boys, the war started as an unparalleled adventure. When it was over, no one could forget the fundamental event that had shaped their lives, scarring many and leaving behind a generation that was, as Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "touched with fire." The Longest Night brings the story of that generation to the current generation of readers. (David J. Eicher)