Review of All Other Nights A Civil War Novel by Dana Horn

Dara Horn has written a novel set in the Civil War. We are given a view of the Jewish community of that time through well developed characters who are pulled and pushed by the conflict.

We meet Jacob Rappaport, our protagonist, at his father's New York city dinner table. Jacob has just reluctantly agreed to his father's demand that he marry the addled daughter of a rival businessman in order to cement a business deal. Jacob escapes by joining the Union army.

Jacob's superiors pull him out of the ranks and send him on an undercover assignment to New Orleans. Posing as a Confederate soldier, he is to find his way to the home of his uncle, Harry Hyams. It appears that there was sufficient evidence to prove that Mr. Hyams was planning an attempt on the life of Abraham Lincoln. Jacob's is welcomed there by his aunt and uncle.

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Book Review of Lincoln and McClellan: The Troubled Partnership Between a President and His General by John C. Waugh

Waugh's "Lincoln and McClellan" promised to be a study of their relationship that broke new ground. By extensively using McClellan's letters to his wife Nelly, I believe it accomplished what it set out to do.

The reader is also treated to a glimpse of the two men working together before the war. In 1857, McClellan was Vice President of the Illinois Central RR and Abraham Lincoln was the line's attorney. It might be said that Lincoln the lawyer, in fact worked for McClellan.

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Review of The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War by Donald Stoker

Of the thousands of books written about the conduct of the American Civil War, precious few have devoted any space explaining how each side sought to achieve its political objectives: the strategy employed to win the conflict. Donald Stoker devotes this study to fill that gap.

When a war breaks out, leaders of the belligerent powers must identify the political objective they desire: the why of the conflict. Once this is done, the stage is set to develop a grand strategy for success: a formula for achieving that political objective. This is followed by the identification of the specific military tactics needed to achieve that victory.
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Book Review of Henry Clay: The Essential American a Civil War Novel by David S. Heidler & Jeanne T. Heidler

David and Jeanne Heidler have applied their excellent scholarship to a biography of a giant political figure of the pre-Civil War era, Henry Clay. They begin their descriptive journey by leading us carefully through the geography of early Virginia and its western county of Kentucky.

Born there to a prosperous family, Henry Clay became an orphan early in his live. His mother remarried to a kindly man who placed Henry in a retail apprenticeship in the city of Richmond. As soon as a position opened he became a law clerk. As a young lawyer, he moved to Lexington, KY to join his mother new family in 1797. There he successfully became a competent and prosperous attorney. He not only gained the reputation of being an excellent orator and a determined attorney but also that of a gambler and a drinker. Nevertheless, he was able to arrange an advantageous marriage in 1799. Initially it might have been considered a marriage of convenience, but Henry and his wife Lucretia produced ten children and brought position and prosperity to the Clay family. The young family settled in a Lexington home he built and called Ashland. And so it would remain the Clay home for the remainder of his life.

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