Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee-The War They Fought, the Peace They Forged

by William C. Davis

Overview

A dual biography and a fresh approach to the always compelling subject of these two iconic leaders—how they fashioned a distinctly American war, and a lasting peace, that fundamentally changed our nation

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306822469
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	05/01/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	690
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

William C. Davis is the author or editor of more than fifty books in the fields of Civil War and Southern history, as well as numerous documentary screenplays. The only four-time winner of the Jefferson Davis Award, he is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and serves on several other consultative bodies. He lives in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Table of Contents

List of Maps
Preface
Introduction: Icons
1. Sons and Fathers
2. School of the Soldier
3. Fighting on the Same Side
4. Times of Trial
5. A Crisis Made for Them
6. “What Has Become of Gen. Lee?”—”Who Is General Grant?”
7. Lee Frustrated and Grant Victorious
8. Shiloh and Sevens
9. Lee Victorious and Grant Frustrated
10. “What have we to live for if not victories?”
11. Two Rivers to Cross
12. July 1863
13. Hints of the Inevitable
14. “If defeated nothing will be left us to live for.”
15. “A mere question of time.”
16. Meeting Again
17. Grant and Lee in 1868
18. The Last Meeting
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Crucible of Command
Winner of the 2014 Jefferson Davis Award
"Brilliant...smoothly written and...scrupulously even handed."Wall Street Journal
"This meticulously researched, well-written book greatly enriches our understanding of each of these extraordinary figures."Publishers Weekly
"Here we have something genuinely new in Civil War Scholarship."James McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the New York Times bestseller Battle Cry of Freedom
"The best, and certainly the most readable, account...fresh and engaging."Journal of Southern History
"An ambitious and well-executed book by a distinguished Civil War historian."Civil War Book Review
"Magical and magisterial."Harold Holzer, author of Lincoln and the Power of the Press
"A fresh look at the sources and a careful eye to leadership and character places this book high atop the list of recent Civil War histories."Kirkus Reviews
Kentucky Forward, 8/2/16
A dual biography of two legendary leaders: how they fought a bloody, brutal Civil War then forged a lasting peace that changed our country. The author explores their personalities, their character, and their ethical, moral, political and military worlds.
"

Praise for "Crucible of Command"
Winner of the 2014 Jefferson Davis Award
"Brilliant...smoothly written and...scrupulously even handed.""Wall Street Journal"
"This meticulously researched, well-written book greatly enriches our understanding of each of these extraordinary figures.""Publishers Weekly"
"Here we have something genuinely new in Civil War Scholarship."James McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the "New York Times" bestseller "Battle Cry of Freedom"
"The best, and certainly the most readable, account...fresh and engaging.""Journal of Southern History"
"An ambitious and well-executed book by a distinguished Civil War historian.""Civil War Book Review"
"Magical and magisterial."Harold Holzer, author of "Lincoln and the Power of the Press"
"A fresh look at the sources and a careful eye to leadership and character places this book high atop the list of recent Civil War histories.""Kirkus Reviews"
Kentucky Forward, 8/2/16
A dual biography of two legendary leaders: how they fought a bloody, brutal Civil War then forged a lasting peace that changed our country. The author explores their personalities, their character, and their ethical, moral, political and military worlds.
"

From the Publisher

★ 2014-12-21
"The cheering proved to be our folly." Thus said Robert E. Lee, chiding Southern vanity at the outbreak of the Civil War, the setting for this thoughtful study of command.Recognizing that plenty has already been written about the generals who led the Civil War on both sides, Davis (History/Virginia Tech Univ.; The Rogue Republic: How Would-Be Patriots Waged the Shortest Revolution in American History, 2011, etc.) takes an interesting approach, using secondary sources and correcting them where applicable and relying on first-person, contemporary accounts of Lee and his formidable adversary, Ulysses S. Grant. The men had met in the field in the war with Mexico but had traveled in different orbits, Grant in particular having a flair for, if not always success in, business. Both, however, inclined to the depressive and carried the burden of the literally countless men who died in their service. Lee, writes the author, was opposed to secession and, by his account, was a reluctant slaveholder; moreover, he professed that his country was Virginia, a sentiment radical South Carolinians returned by suspecting Lee of lukewarm devotion to the cause. Yet Lee was a faithful lieutenant to the Southern government, and Jefferson Davis in particular, even though his "mistrust of politicians kept him aloof from the political morass." Grant was less aloof, carefully gauging political mood swings, though Lee was no slouch, either, as when he instructed his Virginia troops in battle in Maryland to pretend "to be Marylanders holding their own ground," thus rallying their allies and evidencing "a neat bit of political and diplomatic camouflage showing Lee's subtlety in areas other than military." Indeed, one of Davis' chief contributions in this accessible, well-written study is to show how thoroughly politicized the war was—as was its aftermath, revealed by a charged but by no means unfriendly meeting the two had in 1868, when Grant was in the White House. A fresh look at the sources and a careful eye to leadership and character places this book high atop the list of recent Civil War histories.

Kirkus Reviews