Just going from a prospective page length nearly double that of the second edition, I would imagine that Harold Knudson's The Confederacy’s Most Modern General: James Longstreet and the American Civil War, which was announced earlier this month in publisher Savas Beatie's February newsletter, will be a substantially expanded version of the author's earlier study of the same title, which first appeared in 2007 and was revised and expanded in 2010. I have not read either of the existing iterations, which argue that Longstreet was an important and underappreciated tactical innovator whose influences could be traced all the way up to modern twentieth-century military practices. According to the description of Knudson's upcoming book, Longstreet's generalship also demonstrated "progressive applications with artillery, staff work, force projection, and operational-level thinking." The new book "draws heavily on 20th Century Army doctrine, field training, staff planning, command, and combat experience, and is the first serious treatment of Longstreet’s generalship vis a vis modern warfare."
Colonel Knudson contributes the foreword to the other upcoming book, Cory Pfarr's Longstreet at Gettysburg: A Critical Reassessment (McFarland, Spring 2019), which is promoted as "the first book-length, critical analysis of Lieutenant General James Longstreet's actions at the Battle of Gettysburg." Out of all the thousands of Gettysburg-related books that have been published, how can it be that no one has produced a standalone study of this highly controversial topic before? From the description: By closely studying the three-day battle, and conducting an incisive historiographical inquiry into Longstreet's treatment by scholars, this book presents an alternative view of Longstreet as an effective military leader, and refutes over a century of negative evaluations of his performance."
Drew: I'll be interested in seeing how the Knudson book addresses such matters as Longstreet's inexplicably poor performance at Seven Pines/Fair Oaks, the badly-planned and -conducted assault at Fort Sanders, and the inept march/counter march on July 2 at Gettysburg. Hopefully both authors will shy away from the "Longstreet Flanking Genius" stereotype given to us via Shaara, et al. I'm always skeptical of drilling down too far into modern military doctrine analogies to the ACW, although it's a legitimate exercise to a point. There is little doubt that in subordinate command Longstreet achieved some significant successes and that the Lost Cause agenda to blame Longstreet for just about everything needs to be tossed away - but so must some of the countervailing assumptions.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Tucker do this in "Lee and Longstreet at High Tide" (title approximate)?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder, Jim. Now that you've jogged my memory, I recall buying it with "High Tide at Gettysburg" but unloading it much later at a used bookstore without having ever taken it out of the original shrinkwrap!
DeleteJames: I guess I'd say "sort of", in his newspaper reporter's "popular history" style. As I recall, he spent a lot of space on the controversy itself rather than on a strict professional assessment of Longstreet's tactics, etc. The book is also 50 years old. I'd have to pull it off the shelf to confirm my recollections.
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