Review: Bearrs & Hills, Receding Tide (2010)

[truepenny]

Receding Tide: Vicksburg and Gettysburg: The Campaigns That Changed the Civil War by Edwin C. Bearss

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


So Edwin C. Bearss was the Chief Historian Emeritus of the National Park Service. His specialty was American Civil War battlefield history. This book is his discussion of Vicksburg and Gettysburg, which he says mark the point at which the Confederate tide of success started to recede, hence the title. It reads like someone who gave battlefield talks all their life---which is not a disparagement, that must be one of the harder possible historian jobs---with lots of specific names and little bits of anecdote. His discussion is chronological and includes a lot of the build-up to Gettysburg, so for most of the book he goes back and forth between the eastern and western theaters of the war. The book has good transitions between sites, is smoothly written and easy to follow, and provides a little bit of a play by play feel. Not that other books on these battles are not detailed and exhaustive, but they don't slip into the historical present tense as Bearss does.



View all my reviews