Book Review

Over Lincoln's Shoulder: The Committee on the Conduct of the War. By Bruce Tap. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. xii, 319 pp. $39.95, isbn 0-7006-0871-0.)

These two books have nothing in common, other than thorough research, excellent writing, and something worth saying. None of this should be undervalued, but their contrasting subject matter does complicate life for a reviewer. Joseph L. Harsh takes a fresh, not to say controversial, look at Confederate war aims during the first sixteen months of the Civil War; Bruce Tap offers the first comprehensive assessment of a powerful political force in the Northern war effort. Both authors deal with factors that shaped military strategy, but only Harsh pitches his tent on the battlefield.

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Harsh believes that Jefferson Davis played a more important role in planning Confederate military strategy than historians have appreciated. Whereas Robert E. Lee generally gets the credit—or the blame—for insisting on a more aggressive strategy than the "offensive-defensive" favored by the president, Harsh says Davis was just as aggressive as Lee, a point that also shows Lee and Davis to be more kindred in spirit than is generally allowed. Davis had always intended to carry the war onto Northern soil, says Harsh, but he lacked the opportunity and the proper field commander to do so. Indeed, Harsh even suggests that Lee's offensive instincts were less finely tuned than those of his commander in chief during the first year of the war, and that the Virginian's "understanding of the nature of the contest and what it would take to achieve Confederate victory . . . evolved gradually." Not until Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862 did he fully appreciate the desperate nature of the contest, and "from his desperation evolved his willingness to take great risks," including the invasion of Northern territory.

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