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The Destructive War

William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans

Part of Vintage Civil War Library

Author Charles Royster
$13.99 US
Knopf | Vintage
On sale Sep 14, 2011 | 9780307760593
Sales rights: US, Canada, Open Mkt
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From the moment the Civil War began, partisans on both sides were calling not just for victory but for extermination. And both sides found leaders who would oblige. In this vivid and fearfully persuasive book, Charles Royster looks at William Tecumseh Sherman and Stonewall Jackson, the men who came to embody the apocalyptic passions of North and South, and re-creates their characters, their strategies, and the feelings they inspired in their countrymen. At once an incisive dual biography, hypnotically engrossing military history, and a cautionary examination of the American penchant for patriotic bloodshed, The Destructive War is a work of enormous power.
  • WINNER | 1992
    Bancroft Prize
  • WINNER | 1992
    Charles S. Sydnor Award
  • WINNER | 1992
    Lincoln Prize
List of Illustrations
Preface

1. The Destruction of Columbia

2. The Aggressive War: Jackson

3. The Aggressive War: Sherman

4. The Anomalous War

5. The Death of Stonewall

6. The Vicarious War

7. The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain

8. The Destructive War
—Part I: The Last Year
—Part II: The War and the Future of the Nation

9. The Grand Review
"Royster's intriguing analyses fill every page with new information and offer a fresh interpretation of our bloodiest conflict...exhaustively researched, artistically written, brilliantly argued."

-- Boston Globe



"Parts of The Destructive War are as good as anything written...during the last generation...a masterful narrative."

-- Washington Post Book World

"A fascinating history of the ideas held by the people who fought the war...fresh, intriguing, philosophical." -- Detroit Free Press

"An illuminating interpretation." -- Wall Street Journal

Winner of the Lincoln Prize

About

From the moment the Civil War began, partisans on both sides were calling not just for victory but for extermination. And both sides found leaders who would oblige. In this vivid and fearfully persuasive book, Charles Royster looks at William Tecumseh Sherman and Stonewall Jackson, the men who came to embody the apocalyptic passions of North and South, and re-creates their characters, their strategies, and the feelings they inspired in their countrymen. At once an incisive dual biography, hypnotically engrossing military history, and a cautionary examination of the American penchant for patriotic bloodshed, The Destructive War is a work of enormous power.

Awards

  • WINNER | 1992
    Bancroft Prize
  • WINNER | 1992
    Charles S. Sydnor Award
  • WINNER | 1992
    Lincoln Prize

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface

1. The Destruction of Columbia

2. The Aggressive War: Jackson

3. The Aggressive War: Sherman

4. The Anomalous War

5. The Death of Stonewall

6. The Vicarious War

7. The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain

8. The Destructive War
—Part I: The Last Year
—Part II: The War and the Future of the Nation

9. The Grand Review

Praise

"Royster's intriguing analyses fill every page with new information and offer a fresh interpretation of our bloodiest conflict...exhaustively researched, artistically written, brilliantly argued."

-- Boston Globe



"Parts of The Destructive War are as good as anything written...during the last generation...a masterful narrative."

-- Washington Post Book World

"A fascinating history of the ideas held by the people who fought the war...fresh, intriguing, philosophical." -- Detroit Free Press

"An illuminating interpretation." -- Wall Street Journal

Winner of the Lincoln Prize

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