The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 54, July 1950 - April, 1951 Page: 125

Book Reviews

reconstruction of the battle as it occurred. He carefully details
the tactics and analyzes the leadership, often finding fault with
the leadership. In most instances he reinforces and supplements
his own account of the tactics with lengthy quotations from
previous primary sources. These reproduced excerpts are an es-
sential element of his volume. It is typical that eight of twelve
pages devoted to the "Blue Navy vs. Gray Army" (Fort Donel-
son) are quoted extracts. He is meticulous in citing and in quot-
ing these accounts.
Louisiana State University Press has scored with another at-
tractive book, but a rather high-priced edition. The volume has
considerable general reader interest and is usable by researchers.
It assembles former accounts between two covers, and it affords
a retired naval officer an enjoyable outlet for a still busy mind
to present his investigations to those concerned. There is no in-
dex, but none is really needed.
J. HORACE BASS
A. & M. College of Texas
Lincoln Finds a General. By Kenneth P. Williams. New York
(The Macmillan Company), 1949. Volume I, pp. xviii+
443; Volume II, pp. ix+457. Illustrations. $12.50.
Lincoln Finds a General is a work that attempts to do for the
Federal Army of the Potomac what Douglas Freeman's Lee's
Lieutenants did for the Army of Northern Virginia. In these
two first volumes of what will ultimately be a four volume
work, Professor Kenneth P. Williams, a mathematician turned
historian, has begun the story of General Ulysses S. Grant's rise
to prominence in Federal military circles. He starts with the
action in the Wilderness in 1864, and then goes back to explain
how Grant came to be directing the Union forces in the final
Virginia campaigns.
When Grant assumed general direction of Federal military
operations, the main Union army facing General Robert E. Lee's
Army of Northern Virginia had suffered at the hands of various
commanders. It had been beaten on the Virginia peninsula,
under the indecisive George McClellan. It had been beaten under
the able, but unfortunate, John Pope at Second Manassas. Again

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