Rebels and Yankees: Commanders of the Civil War

by William C. Davis

An account of the lives of the commissioned officers during American's war of secession. Including a remarkable collection of photographs of historical and personal memorabilia.

Genres: Civil War, History, Military History, American Civil War, Nonfiction, American History, Reference

256 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1990

About the author

Currently professor of history at Virginia Tech, William C. Davis has written over fifty books, most about the American Civil War. He has won the Jefferson Davis Prize for southern history three times, the Jules F. Landry Award for Southern history once, and has been twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

For several years, he was the editor of the magazine Civil War Times Illustrated. He has also served as a consultant on the A&E television series Civil War Journal.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Steven Latour · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second book in this amazing series. A focus on not just the major important generals of each army, but also a in-depth look at the training (such as it was) and experiences of all levels of officers in the Army and Navy (and Marines). With actual photos from the time period as well as modern photos of articles of clothing and gear used during the war.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

One's enjoyment of a book like this depends largely on the way that this book is approached.  By no means a scholarly work, this book does have some insights into various aspects of the war and is gorgeously illustrated.  It does not contain as much information about particular commanders of the Civil War, but rather it looks at officers in the Civil War from a somewhat broad perspective and provides information about the uniforms of officers, at least in the ideal sense, in a way that seeks to balance the blue and the gray.  After all, the material poverty of the Confederacy meant that in practice a vast majority of officers wore less fancy clothing than the best that Union officers had to offer.  Given the way that this book focuses so much on the appearance of troops, it is striking and somewhat odd that there are great insights to be provided about certain sorts of soldiers here as well, particularly naval and marine forces as well as prisoners of war, which are not always the sorts of soldiers that Civil War books pay the most attention to, and this is worth appreciating.

This book consists of heavily illustrated pages of a large size that sum up to around 250 pages in material.  This material is divided into several sections.  First the author introduces the material briefly and then discusses the old army before the Civil War where most of the higher officers in both armies got to know each other (1).  After this comes a discussion of the officers and gentlemen that made up the armies of the Civil War, especially in the south (2).  After this comes a discussion of what it was like to be in the stress of being under the marquee when it came to pressure and attention (3) as well as a discussion of the armies that were led in both North and South (4) and the test of leadership in those armies (5).  There is a discussion of the Civil War as a classroom of conflict for officers, many of whom were learning on the job (6) as well as a discussion of those who served at sea (7).  There is a discussion of the thousand generals of both armies (8), some of whom are very obscure, and also a look at the service of doctors and other more obscure figures (9).  After that comes chapters of officers behind bars (10), the dash and elan that some leaders showed (11), and a discussion of the end of the war for those who were peacemakers for posterity (12), after which there is a short appendix, index, and bibliography.

It cannot be emphasized enough how gorgeously this particular book is illustrated.  In fact, the illustrations of this book are so wonderful, even if most of them were likely only this glorious for the purposes of parading or at the very beginning of the war, when Zouves were appreciated as something as more than colorful targets and war had a sense of romance that it did not later.  Indeed, it may be said that the aesthetic focus of this particular book and the way that it makes the soldiers of North and South look so glorious is somewhat at odds with both the text and how it portrays the war in its more gruesome and unpleasant aspects as well as the nature of the Civil War in general.  Yet the Civil War has often found itself in an ambivalent situation where the brutality of the war and how it was fought has been at odds with the way way that it has been remembered for lost and nonexistent glory, especially on the part of those who are partisans of the Confederacy.

[Vanessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did a scan of the book since I needed to return it to my friend along with 5 other books on the Civil war. Great information. I did not like the way it was organized. For example, instead of a chapter on Robert E. Lee, the author put information about Lee in each of the chapters dealing with specific battles. Hard to get all you wanted to know on one or two commanders you wanted to study.

[Chad Lamb · Rating 2 out of 5]

A little dull of a book--would have liked to see it organized more like individual biographies and not in chapters about leadership, their armies, what kind of a classroom battle was, etc. Got tired of all the photos and illustrations of Civil War uniforms, weapons, etc. The title was a bit misleading.

[Victor Orozco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. Full of full-color as well as black and white pictures of Civil War Memorabilia as well as beautifully drawn pictures of the great leaders of the men who fought in the Civil War. B+.