Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 21, 1993 TAG: 9302210314
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by ROBERT HILLDRUP
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A PROVOCATIVE SPECULATION ON JACKSON AND THE CIVIL WAR
LOST VICTORIES: The Military Genius of Stonewall Jackson. By Bevin Alexander. Holt. $30.In a year that has brought book after book on Confederate hero Gen. Stonewall Jackson we now have one that delivers - and defends - a substantive thesis.
That thesis is simple: Jackson, not Robert E. Lee, was the Confederacy's military genius, and had Lee but followed Jackson's advice, the Confederacy might well have won its war for independence and won it early in the going.
All this is not totally new, of course. Lee's caution and conservation of forces has been noted at various times; Jackson's tactical brilliance is well understood.
But what Alexander contends is that Jackson on at least four occasions, even as early as First Manassas, tried to encourage swift expeditions into the North that would either capture or isolate Washington and other major cities, and thus force the Yankees to seek peace.
What might have been made clearer here is the difference between strategy and tactics; the offensive general and the defensive one. Then, too, Jackson was a killer; Lee, though perfectly willing to do so, was never as comfortable with the shedding of blood. Jackson cared not a whit if the Union were destroyed; Lee had no wish to do that. He wanted simply for the South to be able to go in peace.
Further, Lee had to contend with the politicians and logistics to a degree that Jackson did not.
Speculation, when it comes to history, is dangerous business. Alexander, a skilled and prolific Virginia writer, makes a strong speculative case for what might have been. In the end, things could hardly have turned out worse for the Confederacy. But speculation is still all we have, and as the emerging theory of Chaos is proving in physics, the whisper of a single wing can set off tornadoes of change that never can be fully anticipated.
This comes to mind because part of Jackson's genius was his unpredictability. Could Jackson have been used - or used himself - better at the Seven Days? Quite possibly. If he did indeed save the Confederate right at Fredericksburg, and thus the battle, as he surely did, could he not perhaps have better influenced the disposition of troops and avoided a grave risk? Disaster is just as possible as triumph.
Alexander's book is a delightful work; fascinating and provocative, and well written.
Robert Hilldrup is a Richmond writer and former newspaperman.