The First Modern Commander In Chief Chapter Summary

The First Modern Commander in Chief The American Civil War was the deadliest war in American History. No other war since then has taken as many American lives as the Brothers’ War. One of the most difficult responsibilities in this war was that of the president: to successfully end the war, stomp out the confederate rebels and restore the Union. This in no way would be an easy task, even for the brilliant civilian strategist Abraham Lincoln. Although he did not know it at the time, Lincoln would soon set the precedent for how all other presidents would exercise the power of Commander in Chief in all future wars. The book I read was Lincoln and His Generals written by one of the greatest historians in modern history, T. Harry Williams.

T. Harry Williams does an amazing job describing the plans and actions taken by Lincoln in his role and Commander in Chief. He explains how Lincoln revolutionized the role of a president by closely working with his generals and helping plan and strategize what to do with the Union’s forces. One criticism I have about Williams’ writing is that he goes into such extensive detail about the planning, that it is easy to get lost in the text. He provides only two maps throughout the whole book so it became increasingly difficult for me to visualize what was going on without having to look up maps online and even then I was often still confused. The author also seems to side with Lincoln on almost all matters, even when a consensus of experienced generals of the time disagreed with the President. This made me question his objectivity as many of the plans that Lincoln disagreed with were usually fundamentally sound but were only revealed to be worse plans in hindsight. Other than those two things I believe Williams did an excellent job at describing the actions of Lincoln in the war and how he interacted with his generals. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone inquiring about how Lincoln revolutionized the role of Commander in Chief or anyone that is interested in Lincoln’s presidency. If one is looking for strictly a book about the military history of the Civil War, this is not the book for them however it is a very interesting read and gives the reader a better sense who Lincoln really was and what he did to win the