Men of Fire

June 18, 2007
The bloody February 1862 Union victory at Fort Donelson on Tennessee’s Cumberland River is remembered as the Union’s first big success—and as the battle in which Ulysses S. Grant held firm for Confederate unconditional surrender. Former journalist Hurst (Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography
) attempts to make the case that Grant’s western theater victory at Donelson indelibly shaped his military career, as well as that of Confederate Lt. Col. Nathan Bedford Forrest, and that the battle turned the tide of the Civil War unalterably in the North’s favor. Writing forcefully and engagingly, Hurst does a thorough job of reconstructing the military aspects of the battle and never shies away from illuminating the war’s horror. His focus is on Grant, the Confederate generals who faced him (John Floyd, Gideon Pillow, Simon Buckner and Bushrod Johnson) and the ever-aggressive Forrest, best known for his battlefield viciousness and his postwar role in creating the Ku Klux Klan. It’s a stretch, though, to postulate that the 1862 victory at Donelson propelled the Union to victory more than three years later. Certainly, as Hurst says, western theater action often is overlooked in assessing the Civil War. But one can’t ignore the impact on the war’s outcome of the massive battles of Antietam, Gettysburg, Wilderness and Cold Harbor that came after Donelson.

August 1, 2007
This Civil War battle history recounts the Union capture of Forts Henry and Donelson in February 1862, a major strategic victory for the North. Hurst, biographer of the ferocious and controversial Confederate cavalry officer Nathan Bedford Forrest, calls out villains and cowards, an inclination to render judgment on events and characters that will resonate withbuffs. They will know in advance that this affray featured an infamous skedaddle by Confederate commanders, who let Simon Bolivar Buckner face his friend U.S. Grants soon-to-be signature demand for unconditional surrender. Hursts rendition of Confederate councils demonstrates his comprehensive grip on sources, as well as his ability to convert research into dramatic storytelling. On the federal side, Hurst focuses on Grants rise not only on the battlefield but also within officer politics. With palpable outrage, Hurst narrates insinuations of intoxication against Grant by Henry Halleck, contrasting the latters ignoble jealousies with the battlefield miseries of soldiers fighting in winter mud. Speculative and opinionated Hurst can be, but his style hardly handicaps readers who love debating details of Civil War battles.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)