Emory M. Thomas

A good, short, engaging account of the first year of the war. The most intriguing part is Thomas's attempt to divine the inner workings of the minds of Lincoln and Davis.

An excellent, dense history of what passed for Confederate nationalism and the fracturing of the Southern ideal under wartime pressure.

"Travels to Hallowed Ground" is a nice combination of Civil War history-lesson and the personal recollections of Emory M. Thomas about his visits to several battlefields and sites in the mid-eighties. I was a bit surprised to see that someone as well-versed in Civil War history as Mr. Thomas was found it almost as difficult as I did to locate points on some of the battlefields that were not part of the main "driving tour." I enjoyed reading the author's personal thoughts as much as his show more recaps of what happened at the places he visited, as it gave the history a "personalized" feel. Too, one has to remember that this book was published in 1987, some 27 years ago, and some of what Thomas describes of his trips probably no longer exists...even though, he was already lamenting, in some cases, the commercial buildup around some of the places he visited. I particularly enjoyed the last chapter of the book, "Peace at Bennett Place," because I knew considerably less of this site than the others described in the book. Now, I have "the Bennet Place" on my places to visit next time I find myself anywhere around North Carolina. show less

Good book. Shows how the principles on which the Confederacy was based - even slavery - got watered down and whittled away by the concrete necessities involved in the fighting of the Civil War. Then the Confederacy lost - and suddenly the principles were everything again. Makes you think.