[.ca] Railroads in the Civil War (ISBN 0807127264)

Disappointing and Irritating:
While the subject interests me and the author seems to have done a good deal of research, this book both disappointed and irritated me. The author's theme - that the Confederacy lost the Civil War by virtue of their lack of management skills, especially in regards to their mismanagement of their railroad network - is an thought provoking one, but Clark does not allow this theme to speak for itself. Instead, he beats on it like a drum, especially in the introduction and the concluding chapters, rephrasing and rejustifying it over and over. That's the irritating part. The disappointing part is because his idea is ultimately unconvincing. The author gives lip service to the limited resources of the Confederacy, and to the limitations imposed on the Confederate Government by its ideological and political basis, but never really accepts or understands just how great these were. He relies too much on hindsight to see what Davis and the rebels should have done, such as anticipate that the war would be a long one, or prepare for the Federals to impose an effective blockade. Perhaps the deficiencies of the author's point of view can best be shown by quoting him. On the Confederacy, he says "But it did not plan. It did not organize. It did not manage." One wonders where those Rebel armies came from! How they were fed and clothed and armed, even badly as they often were? And on the Federal movement of the XI and XII Corps, he says, "\oNorthern railway managers\c made it happen...and without a hitch, glitch, or error." Yet his own chapter on this movement - much the best written part of the book - showed a significant number of such hitches, glitches, and errors. They were redeemed, yes, by good management, but as much by vast Northern resources.

A Rebuttal to Mr. Gray:
On the one hand, I'm inclined to apologize to Mr. Gray for offending him for my book and its arguments, and promise to do better next time. On the other hand, his is the only negative review of the 15-20 I've read to date. Railroads in the Civil War is the most intensely researched book written about railroads in the last thirty years, and the first in-depth coverage of the Longstreet and 11th and 12th Corps movements. As I researched the subject, I became increasingly impressed with the skill of the northern railroad men and the ineptness of the Confederacy in organizing its railroads to support the war. Mr. Gray says I give "lip service" to the supply and resource problems faced by the Confederacy. To the contrary, I certainly acknowledged them, and I also pointed out that the Confederacy failed to take advantage of the resources it did have. One-fourth of its iron supplies, for example, went to the failed ironclad ship program because no one was in charge to determine a higher priority use for the iron. I also suggested the men who might have better organized the Confederacy to fight a modern war, a war of logistics, which the Civil War certainly became. Mr. Gray does not mention this information in his tirade. I also mentioned that the great northern advantage in resources would have remained a potential advantage only, but for superior northern management. Mr. Gray belittles a work that I spent several years in researching, writing, and editing. Several historians far better known than he have found the book of value to those interested in Civil War, railroad, and logistics history. He has done Amazon readers a disservice. John E. Clark, Jr.