BOOKS ON THE AMERICAN WAR.*
THESE books on the American War come within the category of contributions to history, but in different degrees. Colonel Fletcher, having resided Some time in America, having lived in the camps of both sides, and having collected a mass of informa- tion, comes before us as the first English writer who has at- tempted to produce a standard history. How he has performed his task we shall show hereafter. The volume which bears the name of Captain Chesney is a continuation of his former excel- lent commentary on the campaigns of Lee in Virginia, by far the best military narrative of that part of the stupendous conflict which has yet appeared ; for it is clear, vigorous, instructive, and as impartial as can be expected under the circumstances. Mr. Pollard gives us a sketch of the war in 18634, as it is seen from the point of view of a Richmond editor, earnest in the cause of the South, and hostile to Mr. Davis in a degree only less than he is hostile to the North. Mr. Pollard's book is worth reading, mainly because it is the work of a Southern man, and of course it would be foolish to look for anything like im- partiality from that quarter. Yet amid much heated misrepresen-
• History of the American War. By Lieutenant-Colonel FletcLer, Scots FusiLer Guards. Vol- L First sear of the War. Richard Bentley.
Campaigns in ViriKnia and Maryland By Captain Chesney, Vol II. Sinit,, Elder, and Co.
The War in America. 1863-94. By Edward Pollod. Saunders and Otley. MeCiellan and t,e Yorktown Campaign. By F. Milne, Edge. Trebner and Ca. The1,4merican Csnfl wt. l77tt-1862. Vol. f. By Horace Greek:. Recoil and Co.
tation there is considerable information on matters of fact, while the tone and temper of the writer fairly reflect the passions of his side. Mr. Edge reprints with additions certain letters which as sole English correspondent with McClellan's army in 1862 he con- tributed to a morning paper. He is an eye and ear witness, and his contribution to the story of the disastrous peninsular campaign is, from that point of view, of real value. Of Mr. Greeley's book, if space permitted, we would speak more at length, not because it has any high literary merits, but because it professes to be only a compilation for the use of the future historian, and because its first two hundred pages form a most valuable compehdium of that part of the history of America in which lie the germs of the American conflict. There is besides about the conception something less inartistic than is to be found in other compilations, and also in the execution that vitality which an actor in any great events who possesses only moderate ability is certain to impart. Mr. Greeley has done for the Northern side, but more ably, what Mr. Pollard has done for the Southern side. Both writers are honest after their kind. The book is well printed aud well illustrated, but the plans of battles might have been clearer and neater.
Of all these boaks that by Captain Chesney is the best in every sense. It has the advantage of compactness, lucidity, and liveliness over the others, and although it is only the story of a fragment of the war, yet the writer has contrived to make it interesting.
The "history " of Colonel Fletcher is an ambitious attempt to put before us the story of the whole contest. It begins with an exposition of what, in the author's opinion, were the causes of the war, and then proeeeds to narrate the events in chronological order. But the reader has net got deep into his pages before he sees that the author has undertaken a task far above the reach of his ability. The style is meagre, wanting in force and compact- ness and dignity. The general arrangement is defective, while the jumble of different subjects in one of Colonel Fletcher's pro- tracted paragraphs annoys when it does not bewilder the reader. But it is in the conception of his subject that the author has most signally failed. He might have conceived it as a vast political convulsion brought about by the working of complex and conflict- ing elements ; he might have probed its origin to the depths, tracked, step by step, the growth of the elements of conflict, laid bare the motives of men, estimated the force of events acting and reacting on each other, and so have led us up to the great explo- sion of passions, the great strife of principles, and on this broad foundation he might have built up a mingled narrative of war and politics, holding, as becomes a historian by whose labours we are to profit, an even balance. Or he might have depicted the strife from a dramatic point of view, and taking his stand in the South, have made us feel what grandeur there is even in the heroic efforts of a community of slaveowners to win independence for them- selves, and to found a military confed !racy on the basis of slavery. Or he might have given us a purely military history of the struggle, blending with it only so much of polities as woul I serve to make the realer understand the wherefore of certain operations, and the reasons for their success or failure. Colonel Fletcher has adopted none of these modes of treating his subject. Neither in con- ception, nor style, nor arrangement does he rise above the level of the Annit21 Register, not the Annual Register of the days of Burke, but the production of our time. This arises front defective insight, and literary faculties respectable but insufficient. Had Colonel Fletcher written an unpreteading account of his per- sonal experience in America, we have no doubt it would hare been a far more valuable contribution to the history of the war than the book he has produced. We have spoken out on the subject, be- cause the narrative from its prate isioa challenges criticism, and we feel bound to say where and how it falls short of any high standard of history. On the other hand, we are equally bound to mention its good points. Colonel Fletcher is laborious, and un- questionably honest, determined to tell the truth according to his. lights. He is not a partizan, like Mr. Pollard or Mr. Greeley, but an instructed soldier, and a thoroughly honest English gentleman, who though he has tried and, as we think, failed to be an historian, has yet collected and thrown into some shape a large mass of information, which is of value because the author has so evidently striven to be accurate and just.
As to the causes of the war, Colonel Fletcher, while he feels bound to look for some, did not think it necessary to go one inch beneath the surface. As a military historian he might have con- tented himself with the barest reference to causes, and have stated them in the most dogmatic form. But when he decided to reason upon them, and to attempt an explanation, he was bound to go deep into Ain mina history. Indeed. the interest of this great conflict for mankind in general lies the emphatic illustration it affords of the incompatibility of two such hostile elements as are represented by free and slave institutions both seeking for empire. From Colonel Fletcher you would never learn the fact.
that the object of the leading Confederate politicians was to found
a Slave Empire, although he might have learned as much even from the book. of Mr. Spence, which he has quoted as an authority. There is no attempt to set forth, even in a few plain, sentences, the origin, development, and final outcome in an internecine strife, of a quarrel which is nearly as old as the re- public itself. There is no account of the growth of the slave, power and the free power, and, so far as you can learn from this book, instead of seeing in the combat between the two carried on openly and secretly, by craft and force, for half a century, the origin of the war, you see its source in the caprices and passions of the existing generation. In his brief analysis of the parties in the United States, Colonel Fletcher is inaccurate as well as de- fective.; and he could not well be otherwise when he is of opinion that the democratic party is " conservative " of anything but slavery, and that at the commencement of the war it included nearly all the Smith, and what may be termed the higher orders of. the North." He forgets what large numbers voted for Bell and for Douglas who were not Democrats per sang, and that in his higher orders of the North we must find a place for Fernando Wood and exclude James Wadsworth. But when a man gives himself up to a course of Spence on the American Union, ex- periment alone will show into what depth of error he will plunge.
When he quits politics, where he is not at home, to narrate campaigns, irregular and regular, Colonel Fletcher, who is him- self a good soldier and a credit to the Guards, does not succeed much better. Here is the greatest convulsion which has occurred in the world since the French Revolution, and yet the author of the work before us has not been able to make out of its rich and varied elements an interesting story. Not that he fails to com- prehea3 the military incidents, but he does not know how to impart to them that dramatic force wanting which history is noug'it. Not that he is unjust or partial, but that he is cold and superficial, and in short dull. This is our complaint. He wades painfully through the details of campaigns, but never lights them up with one touch of genius or infuses into them one spark of life. There are no lights and no shadows, and consequently nothing is in relief. Even the descriptions of the chief events, the battle of Bull Run, the battles near Pittsburg Landing, the capture of New Orleans, and the opening scenes of McClellan's campaign of 1862, in the midst of which the volume ends, might be taken as specimens of the dull-level of common-place narration. The reason of this is to be found in the fact that the author has al3t, been able to enter into the spirit of the contest, but has look d upon it coldly from the outside. In future volumes he may warm to his subject, and as he warms to it may understand it and describe it better ; but if the future volumes are not very dif- ferent from the present, the book will be one of the poorest ever written on a great theme.
Were it not that this volume of the first year of the war breaks off just as General McClellan had begun his enterprise against Richmond, we should be disposed to enter on an examination of his merits as a commander, and on the causes, military and politi- -cal, of his failure. But as Colonel Fletcher was, we believe, present durin; the campaign, we prefer to wait for his testimony, (which, however poorly set forth, from a literary point of view, is sure to be honest and worth having) before we ven- tare on such an inviting theme. In the meantime we may be allowed to express a hope that Colonel Fletcher will *cure himself of one fault—that of hasty generalization. For instance, became General McDowell justly complained that the army he commanded could not march, Colonel Fletcher informs us -that "Americans have not good marching qualities," a gene- ralization which applies equally to Northern and Southern troops, and which every campaign since 1861 has proved to be false. It would be as reasonable to assert that there is an "absence of good marching qualities" in Englishmen because the Guards were done up in a short march from Devna to Varna, as to predicate the same thing of Americans because McDowell's men in 1860 were equally done Up in their first trial. Again, after narrating the battles of Pittsburg Landing, our author says, "As in most battles in America, there was little direct supervision of the commanding generals on either side,"—a remark which was true up to the beginning of 1862, but not true after that date. Then we are told that, "although a Federal army is easily disorganized and dis- pirited, it as quickly recovers itself." In this there is also a spice of truth, but it is just as true of a Confederate as of al'eders1 army, and although strictly true up to the date of the events recorded by Colonel Fletcher, is not true any loneer, so farastthe application of the word " easily " to the process of disorganization is concerned. Finally, and with this remark, we close our unpleasant task, Colonel Fletcher is of opinion that Mr. Lincoln's views of hileown policy, were in 1861 vague and indefinite. Mr. Lincoln only said "the Union must be preserved." We shall be really grateful if Colonel Fletcher can point out anywhere a more rigid, definite, emphatic, and comprehensive declaration of policy by any statesman in the New World or the Old.
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