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The Destructive War

William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans

Part of Vintage Civil War Library

Author Charles Royster
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Paperback
$24.00 US
Knopf | Vintage
On sale Jan 11, 1993 | 560 Pages | 9780679738787
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Winner of the Bancroft Prize
Winner of the Lincoln Prize
Winner of the Charles Sydnor Award

Through the biographies of two of the Civil War’ s most important generals, Royster explores the massive violence the war unleashed—a violence that went quickly and completely out of control and far beyond the expectations of its perpetrators on both sides. Reconstructing the bloody battles and such events as the burning of Columbia, South Carolina, Royster uncovers the belief, held on both sides, that a direct link existed between destruction and the attainment of political ends. He traces how rhetoric escalated to a willingness to indulge in unrestrained violence and to an obsession with war-making and an exalted faith that war would morally uplift the nation. He analyzes the misconceptions, evasions, illusions, and myths used to explain and promote the destruction. He also treats the postbellum efforts to validate the war as purposeful, intelligible, and right, and as a progressive undertaking that would benefit society. He demonstrates, finally, that the violence was more vast, more devastating, more uncontrolled than anyone had expected or than could ever have been justified in retrospect.

“An exhaustively researched, artistically written, brilliantly argued exposition of the primacy of violence in the American mind.” —The Boston Globe
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
  • WINNER | 1992
    Bancroft Prize
  • WINNER | 1992
    Charles S. Sydnor Award
  • WINNER | 1992
    Lincoln Prize
Charles Royster is a historian, a teacher, and an author. He served as the Boyd Professor of History at Louisiana State University and is the recipient of the Bancoft, Parkman, and Lincoln Prizes. His works include Light-Horse Harry Lee, The Destructive War, and A Revolutionary People at War. He lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. View titles by Charles Royster

About

Winner of the Bancroft Prize
Winner of the Lincoln Prize
Winner of the Charles Sydnor Award

Through the biographies of two of the Civil War’ s most important generals, Royster explores the massive violence the war unleashed—a violence that went quickly and completely out of control and far beyond the expectations of its perpetrators on both sides. Reconstructing the bloody battles and such events as the burning of Columbia, South Carolina, Royster uncovers the belief, held on both sides, that a direct link existed between destruction and the attainment of political ends. He traces how rhetoric escalated to a willingness to indulge in unrestrained violence and to an obsession with war-making and an exalted faith that war would morally uplift the nation. He analyzes the misconceptions, evasions, illusions, and myths used to explain and promote the destruction. He also treats the postbellum efforts to validate the war as purposeful, intelligible, and right, and as a progressive undertaking that would benefit society. He demonstrates, finally, that the violence was more vast, more devastating, more uncontrolled than anyone had expected or than could ever have been justified in retrospect.

“An exhaustively researched, artistically written, brilliantly argued exposition of the primacy of violence in the American mind.” —The Boston Globe

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

Awards

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

Author

Charles Royster is a historian, a teacher, and an author. He served as the Boyd Professor of History at Louisiana State University and is the recipient of the Bancoft, Parkman, and Lincoln Prizes. His works include Light-Horse Harry Lee, The Destructive War, and A Revolutionary People at War. He lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. View titles by Charles Royster

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Other Books by this Author

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