Review: Furguson, Ashes of Glory (1996)

[truepenny]

Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War by Ernest B. Furgurson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Biography of Richmond, Virginia, during the Civil War. This is not as good a book as Nelson Lankford's Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital, but it offers a panoramic view of Richmond and a good sense of what the Civil War looked like from that geographic and political position. Most of Furguson's sources are, inevitably, white Richmonders and (at the end) white Yankees. I would have liked to have seen more discussion of Black viewpoints, even if only by unpacking more carefully what the white people wrote, but by and large Furguson is not really interested in unpacking what his sources say; his project is clearly to synthesize his array of sources into a coherent narrative.



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