Booknotes: The Decision Was Always My Own, pb ed.

New Arrival:

• The Decision Was Always My Own: Ulysses S. Grant and the Vicksburg Campaign by Timothy B. Smith (SIU Press, 2025 pb edition).

After a quick glance through the front matter, I didn't see any indication that there were any prominent changes or additions to the text between editions, so I'll refer you to this page if you'd like to read the full site review of the hardcover first edition published back in 2018.

This book preceded the first installment of what would become a mammoth five-volume history of the Vicksburg Campaign by only two years, so it's probably safe to say that it played some part in organizing Smith's thoughts for what was to come. Presented entirely from the Union perspective, The Decision Was Always My Own is organized around what Smith's believes to have been Grant's key decisions beginning with the failed overland advance down the Mississippi Central Railroad in late 1862 and concluding with the post-surrender 'siege' and recapture of Jackson, Mississippi in July 1863. In addition to humanizing Grant through his family interactions, the book also emphasizes Grant's professional and political relationship-building skills (a notable exception being his persistently thorny association with ranking corps commander John McClernand).

From the description: "This volume presents a fast-paced reexamination of Grant’s decision-making process during the Vicksburg maneuvers, battles, and siege. Smith details the course of campaigning on military, political, administrative, and personal levels. The successful military campaign required Grant to handle President Lincoln’s impatience, as well as to deal with troublesome general John A. McClernand, all while juggling administrative work. In addition, Grant was more than a military genius—he was also a husband and a father, and Smith shows how Grant’s family played a role in every decision he made." Smith's The Decision Was Always My Own "shows how Grant’s decisions created and won the Civil War’s most brilliant, complex, decisive, and lengthy campaign."