May 20, 2011 ARCHIVES | Entertainment | COLUMNS Harold Holzer
Modern Library
ISBN 978-0679643647
1,230 pages
$38
Reviewed by Timothy R. Smith
Two decades after the battle of Gettysburg, Century Magazine began compiling a history of the Civil War in the words of the officers and soldiers who fought it. The project became "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," a four-volume history that may be the greatest collection of first-person military memoirs ever assembled. Its contributors included some of the most storied generals of the battlefield: Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman and James Longstreet.
To mark the 150th anniversary of the war's outbreak, the Modern Library has issued a one-volume abridgement of that sweeping work from 1888: "Hearts Touched by Fire," edited by the Civil War scholar Harold Holzer with contributions by Stephen Sears and James M. McPherson, among others. "Hearts Touched by Fire" covers the entire war, from Fort Sumter to Appomatox. Though three-fourths of the original work is missing, its essence is still to be found: each battle told by each side, a Confederate account and a Union account.
Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard recalls a cannonball landing in his fireplace while he was eating lunch; the crew of the C.S.S. Virginia (formerly the Union frigate Merrimac) expresses frustration with the boat's repeated mechanical difficulties and poor handling; and "Stonewall" Jackson's former aide still mourns the death of his beloved commander. Yet if one seeks a social, racial, economic or gender history of the war, neither "Hearts Touched by Fire" nor the original tome will suffice. The scope here is strictly military. Politicians were not asked to contribute because the editors at Century feared they would open unhealed wounds by discussing toxic subjects like slavery.
Ultimately, the editors sought to initiate reconciliation in a recovering nation. Holzer notes: "The editors of The Century Magazine sincerely believed that their extraordinary enterprise 'exerted an influence in bringing about a better understanding between the soldiers' who fought one another in the Civil War, contributing significantly to a 'new heritage of manhood and peace.'"
Timothy R. Smith can be reached at smitht(at symbol)washpost.com.
Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
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