Sherman's March - Softcover

Bass, Cynthia

3.49

41 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553375474 ISBN 13: 9780553375473

Publisher: Bantam, 1995

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Autumn, 1864, and the Civil War has ground to a bloody stalemate. Frustrated by its slow and costly advance, the North looks for a way to cut the South in two and bring the war to an end. Told from the unique perspective of three participants, this novel brilliantly captures the personal tragedy and costly heroism which followed in the wake of General William Tecumseh Sherman's infamous march from Atlanta to the sea. Nicholas J. Whiteman is a Captain in Sherman's army, a history buff caught in the maelstrom of history in the making. He is the conscience of an army that had lost its conscience, pillaging and burning its way across the South, and a witness to the dark heart of war--and humanity--in a moment of searing emotional intensity that will change him forever. Anne Saunders Baker lost her husband at Shiloh and her modest home to the looting of the advancing Yankee army. Now she wanders through the scarred and devastated landscape, a woman alone, hoping to defend all she has left--her life--with a soldier's iron will. And, finally, there is the General himself: harsh, outspoken, uncompromising, who dared to take upon his shoulders the burden of a mission that will both glorify and condemn him to history and leave him one of the most misunderstood figures of the war--a man whose unparalleled brutality had one goal: to save lives. Never before has this fateful crossroads in our history been rendered in such intimate detail and with such exquisite honesty. Sherman's March takes its place among the greatest novels of the Civil War and introduces Cynthia Bass as a powerful new voice in American fiction.

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From Kirkus Reviews:

This first novel examines General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea from the perspectives of a Union captain, a Southern widow, and Sherman himself. The general issued Special Order Number 120 in November 1864, instructing the Union army to move across Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah, ``forage liberally on the country,'' and ``enforce a devastation more or less relentless.'' Bass looks at the effect on the Confederate people through the eyes of Annie Saunders Baker. Though familiar with ``every burning, every hanging, every torture, every rape'' inflicted by the North, Annie is caught alone and unprepared by troops who arrive to ``forage'' but become intoxicated by their power and burn her house down. She becomes a refugee and, in an unlikely twist, finds the excitement of ``throwing it all away, of starting anew...Hey: it didn't sound so bad.'' Captain Nicholas J. Whiteman, a Yankee soldier with a conscience who believes his general is a genius, refuses to take food from a poor woman and makes friends with a Confederate soldier. His version of the march proves it is not all fun and games. Finally, Sherman lends his own voice--actually, two voices. The first provides vivid descriptions of wartime experiences like visiting a field hospital where the air has the sickening smell of ``lemonade left to steep in the sun'' and the blood ``has the color and ooze of raisins.'' The second revises popular history, as when Sherman insists that he never said, ``War is Hell,'' but rather ``there is many a boy...who looks on war as all glory. But boys, it is all hell.'' He concedes later, ``It's hard to become immortal without being misunderstood. Look at Christ.'' A clunky m‚lange of fact and fiction. Special order? Cease and desist. -- Copyright �1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

The end of the Civil War, according to Bass's powerful debut novel, began in November 1864, when General William Tecumseh Sherman signed Special Order Number 120. Underlying that order, which contained "explicit and careful instructions for the March to the Sea," was Sherman's conviction that civilians in the South had to suffer all the ravages of war before they could be persuaded to give up the Confederate cause ("Harder war, stricter war, crueller, deeper . . . until the people themselves sample its sting"). Bass firmly roots this conviction in Sherman's complex personality, revealed through the general's narration, which occupies a third of the novel. Two contrasting voices follow Sherman's: Union captain Nick Whiteman speaks of the conflict's tedium and savagery, and Confederate widow Annie Baker limns the grinding, yet curiously freeing, experience of the refugee. Bass's depiction of how Sherman's order brought out the murderous beasts in once-honorable men is convincingly horrific, but scenes dealing with casual betrayal of freed slaves by both sides seem contrived merely to lend some justification to the brutal March. Sherman sees his March as the only way to peace--but, as circumstances bring the three narrators together, it's left to the reader to decide whether peace is worth obtaining at such a terrible cost. Sherman is a powerful creation--so persuasively drawn, so vital, that when he's off the page the story flags, however slightly. This impressive novel should attract not only Civil War buffs and fans of historical fiction but others interested in quality fiction.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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