Book Reviews - "Great Commanders - General Johnston", 1893

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Book Reviews

   Great Commanders - General Johnston
      Robert M. Hughes

   William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Papers, Vol. 2, No. 4. (Apr., 1894),
   pp. 280-281.

GREAT COMMANDERS - GENERAL JOHNSTON.  By Robert M. Hughes.  New York:  D. Appleton and
Company.  1893.

   Mr. Hughes is a great-nephew of General Johnston, and adds to extraordinary native power
and force as a writer the zealous interest of a near relative.  The author's familiarity with
military operations is very striking, and his graphic account of the scenes in which General
Johnston bore so prominent a part seizes at once upon the imagination and the understanding.
The fearful odds against which the South contended in the late war are vividly protrayed, and
the forceful effect of the author's history is much increased by the temperate nature of

his language and the care with which his facts are drawn from original documents.  It is 
probable, however, that Mr. Hughes has dwelt too much on Johnston's difficulties with Davis.
It is undoubtedly true that in spite of Davis's alleged hostility to Johnston, he gave him
command, in the outset, of the post where glory was most likely to be obtained - the Depart-
ment of Northern Virginia, entrusted with the defence of the Confederate capital.  It is also
true that the retirement of Johnston from the command of hte army of the Department of
Tennessee was greatly due to the popular clamor.  That the removal was a great error is
conceded by everybody.  Mr. Hughes does not seem to appreciate in any particular Mr. Davis's
difficulties, which must have been gigantic.  When one compares the operations of the United
States in the war of 1812 with the exertions of the South in the war of 1861-'65, the actions
of the former appear almost like the work of pigmies, though the white population much have
been about the same.  That the South could equip such splendid armies, and display such
prodigious enthusiasm, is one of the best vindications of its claim to independence.  It made
the war truly one of subjugation on the part of the North, and the term "rebellion" truly
farcical.  It was a war of nations.  Mr. Hughes might also have saved some of his praise of
Grant and Sherman for that noble Northern gentleman, George B. McClellan, who conducted war
in our midst in the way that rendered illustrious the Union name.  While he was in command
here, there was no burning of private residences, no destruction of private property; but his
whole march up this Peninsula was accompanied with all the humanity worthy of a great general
and the representative of a great people.  It was reserved for such men as Wild, Wheeler, and
company to convert the smiling face of the country into a howling wilderness of ruin.  Mr.
Hughes's knowledge of localities is intimate and correct.  Some little defects may exist, 
e.g., his calling Kingsmill plantation (named from the original proprietor, Richard Kingsmill,
a member of the Virginia Assembly,) "King's Mill", and his failing to bring out other features
of this section besides "impassable swamps", and "extensive creeks" emptying into the rivers.
It is equally true that between the creeks, crossing hte Pninsula riblike, the land is of a
high-table character (except in the Pocosin district), admirably adapted for cultivation and
an abundant population.  These little

Page 281.

matters, however, detract but slightly from the value of Mr. Hughes' work, which cannot be
over estimated.