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Sherman's Other War: The General and the Civil War Press
Book by Marszalek, John F
- GenresCivil War
230 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1981
About the author
John F. Marszalek
37 books8 followersJohn F. Marszalek is Giles Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Mississippi State University. He has served as the Executive Director and Managing Editor of the Ulysses S. Grant Association and The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant project since 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Did Not Finish
August 14, 2023DNF
December 15, 2024
Wow, I'm the only person to have reviewed this here? Technically, there is another review, but it says only "DNF." Why? This isn't a new release, and it's not a bad book. It's not a great book, but it's worth reading.
I've read a lot about Sherman over the past year or two (as you'll see if you look up my other reviews), and while I'm not yet an expert (that would require reading primary documents myself) I can bring a bit of context to my reading. I can contrast and compare. And this book, while not being my favorite of the bunch, is one of the better ones in terms of the skill of its writing. There is less wrong with it.
The title is pretty descriptive. William Tecumseh Sherman had a personal animosity towards reporters as a class and did his best to exclude them from his sphere throughout the war. They tried not to be excluded. The resulting contest is this book's topic.
Marszalek does a good job of setting the stage for his play, explaining that Sherman was not the only person at the time who believed the freedom of the press ought to be curtailed during time of war, and that there was no legal guidance on the subject at the time. That left everyone in authority to figure it out for themselves. Sherman's version of figuring it out may have been the most hostile. The struggle also makes for a good story, since Sherman was a vivid, passionate person. Most things he did make for a good story.
Marszalek's account is less friendly to his subject than some of the other books I've read about Sherman. It's not a hit-piece, and it's accurate as far as it goes (there are a few details I question, but they may be legitimate issues of interpretation). In fact, this book shows aspects of Sherman's character that friendlier writers tend to skip over. Since I am interested in Sherman as a person, a whole person, I want to know the less-pleasant bits, too. But Marszalek in turn skips over the reasons a writer might be friendly to Sherman, his inherent lovableness, and that makes the book much less fun to read than I'd hoped.
I didn't dock the book a star for lack of fun, though.
Sherman's problems with reporters is the lens through which Marszalek shows us a bit of history. That is, he makes something central that other writers leave peripheral, giving us a view of the Civil War, and of W.T. Sherman, we don't usually see. That's a fine thing to do. But in so doing, Marszalek does overstate his case, at times making it seem as though the struggle with the press was actually central for Sherman as well. I have found no hint in my other reading that Sherman himself felt that way.
So that's one issue. The other is that I'm not really clear on what Marszalek is trying to do here. From the introduction and conclusion it appears that he is trying to say something about the First Amendment and the threat to it represented by repeated attempts at wartime censorship. However, Sherman doesn't seem to have been a true threat, not according to Marszalek's own account. Sherman didn't try to undermine existing law, he made up policy because he had to because Congress hadn't. And of course his policy prioritized military interests, he was a military man. He never wanted to be anything else. Marszalek never even claims that Sherman's antipathy to the press actually caused any problems--he made life difficult for individual reporters, but they got the important stories out anyway, and public discussion of the war seems not to have been impaired.
Marszalek presents Sherman's story as a cautionary tale of what could happen when power lands in the hands of someone with authoritarian instincts--but he doesn't make his case, because he never claims that anything bad happened or even came close to happening.
There is a story here, a story about the First Amendment and the military and what the various branches of government have or have not done over the years to shape that relationship, to the betterment or detriment of the country as a whole. But that's not the story Marszalek told, he merely hinted at it.
What he did instead was to tell another version of Sherman's story. And that's good, that's welcome. I wouldn't recommend this book as anyone's INTRODUCTION to Sherman, it's far too one-sided and unsympathetic, but as a follow-up to other sources it is certainly worth a read.
I've read a lot about Sherman over the past year or two (as you'll see if you look up my other reviews), and while I'm not yet an expert (that would require reading primary documents myself) I can bring a bit of context to my reading. I can contrast and compare. And this book, while not being my favorite of the bunch, is one of the better ones in terms of the skill of its writing. There is less wrong with it.
The title is pretty descriptive. William Tecumseh Sherman had a personal animosity towards reporters as a class and did his best to exclude them from his sphere throughout the war. They tried not to be excluded. The resulting contest is this book's topic.
Marszalek does a good job of setting the stage for his play, explaining that Sherman was not the only person at the time who believed the freedom of the press ought to be curtailed during time of war, and that there was no legal guidance on the subject at the time. That left everyone in authority to figure it out for themselves. Sherman's version of figuring it out may have been the most hostile. The struggle also makes for a good story, since Sherman was a vivid, passionate person. Most things he did make for a good story.
Marszalek's account is less friendly to his subject than some of the other books I've read about Sherman. It's not a hit-piece, and it's accurate as far as it goes (there are a few details I question, but they may be legitimate issues of interpretation). In fact, this book shows aspects of Sherman's character that friendlier writers tend to skip over. Since I am interested in Sherman as a person, a whole person, I want to know the less-pleasant bits, too. But Marszalek in turn skips over the reasons a writer might be friendly to Sherman, his inherent lovableness, and that makes the book much less fun to read than I'd hoped.
I didn't dock the book a star for lack of fun, though.
Sherman's problems with reporters is the lens through which Marszalek shows us a bit of history. That is, he makes something central that other writers leave peripheral, giving us a view of the Civil War, and of W.T. Sherman, we don't usually see. That's a fine thing to do. But in so doing, Marszalek does overstate his case, at times making it seem as though the struggle with the press was actually central for Sherman as well. I have found no hint in my other reading that Sherman himself felt that way.
So that's one issue. The other is that I'm not really clear on what Marszalek is trying to do here. From the introduction and conclusion it appears that he is trying to say something about the First Amendment and the threat to it represented by repeated attempts at wartime censorship. However, Sherman doesn't seem to have been a true threat, not according to Marszalek's own account. Sherman didn't try to undermine existing law, he made up policy because he had to because Congress hadn't. And of course his policy prioritized military interests, he was a military man. He never wanted to be anything else. Marszalek never even claims that Sherman's antipathy to the press actually caused any problems--he made life difficult for individual reporters, but they got the important stories out anyway, and public discussion of the war seems not to have been impaired.
Marszalek presents Sherman's story as a cautionary tale of what could happen when power lands in the hands of someone with authoritarian instincts--but he doesn't make his case, because he never claims that anything bad happened or even came close to happening.
There is a story here, a story about the First Amendment and the military and what the various branches of government have or have not done over the years to shape that relationship, to the betterment or detriment of the country as a whole. But that's not the story Marszalek told, he merely hinted at it.
What he did instead was to tell another version of Sherman's story. And that's good, that's welcome. I wouldn't recommend this book as anyone's INTRODUCTION to Sherman, it's far too one-sided and unsympathetic, but as a follow-up to other sources it is certainly worth a read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews