The Last Full Measure: A Novel of the Civil War - Couverture rigide

Shaara, Jeff

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0345404912 ISBN 13 : 9780345404916

Editeur : Ballantine Books, 1998

Synopsis

The Last Full Measure In the classic "The Killer Angels", Michael Shaara created the finest Civil War novel of our time and an enduring bestseller. In its prequel, "Gods and Generals", Shaara's son Jeff brilliantly sustained his father's vision. Now Jeff brings this legendary father-son trilogy to its stunning conclusion in a novel that brings to life the last two years of the Civil War. Full description

A propos du livre

Extrait :

By July 1863 the Civil War has been fought over the farmlands and
seacoasts of the South for better than two years, and is already one of
the bloodiest wars in human history. It is a war that most believed would
be decided by one quick fight, one great show of strength by the power of
the North. The first major battle, called Bull Run in the North, Manassas
in the South, is witnessed by a carefree audience of Washington's elite.
Their brightly decorated carriages carry men in fine suits and society
matrons in colorful dresses. They perch on a hillside, enjoying their
picnics, anticipating a great show with bands playing merrily while the
young men in blue march in glorious parade and sweep aside the ragged band
of rebels. What they see is the first great horror, the stunning reality
that this is in fact a war, and that men will die. What they
still cannot understand is how far this will go, and how
many men will die.

In the North, President Lincoln maintains a fragile grip on forces pulling
the government in all directions. On one extreme is the pacifist movement,
those who believe that the South has made its point, and so, to avoid
bloodshed, Washington must simply let them go, that nothing so
inconsequential as the Constitution is as important as the loss of life.
On the other extreme are the radical abolitionists, who demand the South
be brought down entirely, punished for its way of life, its culture, and
that anyone who supports the southern cause should be purged from the
land. There is also a great middle ground, men of reason and intellect,
who now understand that there is more to this war than the inflammatory
issue of slavery, or the argument over the sovereign rights of the
individual states. As men continue to volunteer, larger and larger numbers
of troops take to the fields, and other causes emerge, each man fighting
for his own reason. Some fight for honor and duty, some for money and
glory, but nearly all are driven by an amazing courage, and will carry
their muskets across the deadly space because they feel it is the right
thing to do.

From the North come farmers and fishermen, lumberjacks and shopkeepers,
old veterans and young idealists. Some are barely Americans at all,
expatriates and immigrants from Europe, led by officers who do not speak
English. Some are freedmen, Negroes who volunteer to fight for the
preservation of the limited freedoms they have been given, and to spread
that freedom into the South.

In the South they are also farmers and fishermen, as well as ranchers,
laborers, aristocrats, and young men seeking adventure. They are inspired
first by the political rhetoric, the fire-breathing oratory of the radical
secessionists. They are told that Lincoln is in league with the devil, and
that his election ensures that the South will be held down, oppressed by
the powerful interests in the North, that their very way of life is under
siege. When the sound of the big guns echo across Charleston harbor, when
the first flashes of smoke and fire swallow Fort Sumter, Lincoln orders an
army to go south, to put down the rebellion by force. With the invasion
comes a new inspiration, and in the South, even men of reason are drawn
into the fight, men who were not seduced by mindless rhetoric, who have
shunned the self-serving motives of the politicians. There is outrage, and
no matter the issues or the politics, many take up arms in response to
what they see as the threat to their homes. Even the men who understand
and promote the inevitable failure of slavery cannot stand by while their
land is invaded. The issue is not to be decided after all by talk or
rhetoric, but by the gun.

On both sides are the career soldiers, West Pointers, men with experience
from the Mexican War, or the Indian wars of the 1850s. In the North the
officers are infected and abused by the disease of politics, and promotion
is not always granted by performance or ability. The Federal armies endure
a parade of inept or unlucky commanders who cannot fight the rebels until
they first master the fight with Washington. Few succeed.

In the South, Jefferson Davis maintains an iron hand, controlling even the
smallest details of governing the Confederacy. It is not an effective
system, and as in the North, men of political influence are awarded
positions of great authority, men who have no business leading soldiers
into combat. In mid-1862, through an act of fate, or as he would interpret
it, an act of God, Robert Edward Lee is given command of the Army of
Northern Virginia. What follows in the East is a clear pattern, a series
of great and bloody fights in which the South prevails and the North is
beaten back. If the pattern continues, the war will end and the
Confederacy will triumph. Many of the fights are won by Lee, or by his
generals--the Shenandoah Valley, Second Manassas. Many of the fights are
simply lost by the blunders of Federal commanders, the most horrifying
example at Fredericksburg. Most, like the catastrophic Federal defeat at
Chancellorsville or the tactical stalemate at Antietam, are a combination
of both.

By 1863 two monumental events provide an insight into what lies ahead. The
first is the success of the Federal blockade of southern seaports, which
prevents the South from receiving critical supplies from allies abroad,
and also prevents the export of raw materials, notably cotton and tobacco,
which provide the currency necessary to pay for the war effort. The result
is understood on both sides. Without outside help, the Confederacy will
slowly starve.

The second is the great bloody fight at Gettysburg. While a tragic defeat
for Lee's army, there is a greater significance to the way that defeat
occurs. Until now, the war has been fought mostly from the old traditions,
the Napoleonic method, the massed frontal assault against fortified
positions. It has been apparent from the beginning of the war that the new
weaponry has made such attacks dangerous and costly, but old ways die
slowly, and commanders on both sides have been reluctant to change. After
Gettysburg, the changes become a matter of survival. If the commanders do
not yet understand, the men in the field do, and the use of the shovels
becomes as important as the use of muskets. The new methods--strong
fortifications, trench warfare--are clear signs to all that the war has
changed, that there will be no quick and decisive fight to end all fights.

As the Civil War enters its third year, the bloody reports continue to
fill the newspapers, and the bodies of young men continue to fill the
cemeteries. To the eager patriots, the idealists and adventurers who
joined the fight at the beginning, there is a new reality, in which honor
and glory are becoming hollow words. The great causes are slowly pushed
aside, and men now fight with the grim determination to take this fight to
its end; after so much destruction and horrible loss, the senses are
dulled, the unspeakable sights no longer shock. All the energy is forward,
toward those men across that deadly space who have simply become the
enemy.
Robert Edward Lee

Born in 1807, he graduates West Point in 1829, second in his class. Though
he is the son of "Light-Horse" Harry Lee, a great hero of the American
Revolution, late in his father's life Lee must endure the burden of his
father's business and personal failures more than the aura of heroism. Lee
is devoutly religious, believing with absolute clarity that the events of
his life are determined by the will of God. On his return from West Point,
his mother dies in his arms. The haunting sadness of her death stays hard
inside him for the rest of his life, and places him more firmly than ever
into the hands of his God.

He marries the aristocratic Mary Anne Randolph Custis, whose father is the
grandson of Martha Washington, and whose home is the grand mansion of
Arlington, overlooking the Potomac River. The Lees have seven children,
and Lee suffers the guilt of a career that rarely brings him home to watch
his children grow, a source of great regret for him, and simmering
bitterness in his wife Mary.

Lee is a brilliant engineer, and his army career moves him to a variety of
posts where his expertise and skill contribute much to the construction of
the military installations and forts along the Atlantic coast. He goes to
St. Louis and confronts a crisis for the port there by rerouting the flow
of the Mississippi River. In 1846 he is sent to Mexico,and his reputation
lands him on the staff of General-in-Chief Winfield Scott. Lee performs
with efficiency and heroism, both as an engineer, a scout, and a staff
officer, and leaves Mexico a lieutenant colonel.

He accepts command of the cadet corps at West Point in 1851, considered by
many as the great reward for good service, the respectable job in which to
spend the autumn of his career. But though his family is now close, he
misses the action of Mexico, finds himself stifled by administrative
duties. In 1855 he stuns all who know him by seizing an opportunity to
return to the field, volunteering to go to Texas, to command a new
regiment of cavalry. But even that command is mundane and frustrating, and
there is for him nothing in the duty that recalls the vitality and
adventure of the fighting in Mexico. Throughout the 1850s Lee settles into
a deep gloom, resigns himself that no duty will be as fulfilling as life
under fire and that his career will carry him into old age in bored
obscurity.

As the conflict over Lincoln's election boils over in the South, his
command in Texas begins to collapse, and he is recalled to Washington in
early 1861, where he receives the startling request to command Lincoln's
new volunteer army, with a promotion to Major General. He shocks
Washington and deeply disappoints Winfield Scott by declining the
appointment. Lee chooses the only course left to an officer and a man of
honor and resigns from his thirty-year career. He believes that even
though Virginia has not yet joined the secessionist states, by organizing
an army to invade the South, Lincoln has united his opponents and the
southern states, which must eventually include Virginia. Lee will not take
up arms against his home.

In late April 1861 he accepts the governor's invitation to command the
Virginia Militia, a defensive force assembled to defend the state. When
Jefferson Davis moves the Confederate government to Richmond, the Virginia
forces, as well as those of the other ten secessionist states, are
absorbed into the Confederate army. Lee is invited to serve as military
consultant to Davis, another stifling job with little actual authority. In
July 1861, during the first great battle of the war, Lee sits alone in his
office, while most of official Richmond travels to Manassas, to the
excitement of the front lines.

In June 1862, while accompanied by Davis near the fighting on the Virginia
peninsula, commander Joe Johnston is wounded in action and Davis offers
command of the Army of Northern Virginia to Lee. Lee accepts, understands
that he is, after all, a soldier, and justifies the decision with the fact
that his theater of war is still Virginia. Defending his home takes on a
more poignant significance when Lee's grand estate at Arlington is
occupied and ransacked by Federal troops.

Lee reorganizes the army, removes many of the inept political generals,
and begins to understand the enormous value of his two best commanders,
James Longstreet and Thomas Jackson, who at Manassas was given the
nickname "Stonewall." Using the greatest talents of both men, Lee leads
the Army of Northern Virginia through a series of momentous victories
against a Federal army that is weighed down by its own failures, and by
its continuing struggle to find an effective commander. Much of Lee's war
is fought in northern Virginia, and the land is suffering under the strain
of feeding the army. The burden of war and of the Federal blockade spreads
through the entire Confederacy and inspires Lee and Davis to consider a
bold and decisive strategy.

In September 1862, Lee moves his army north, hoping to gather support and
new recruits from the neutral state of Maryland. The advance results in
the battle of Sharpsburg--known as Antietam in the North--and though Lee
does not admit defeat, the outrageous carnage and loss of life force him
to order a retreat back into Virginia. But his army is not pursued by the
Federal forces, and with new commanders now confronting him, Lee begins a
great tactical chess game, and accomplishes the greatest victories of the
war.

In December 1862, at Fredericksburg, Virginia, his army maintains the
defensive and completely crushes poorly planned Federal assaults. In May
1863, at Chancellorsville, Lee is outnumbered nearly three to one, and
only by the utter audacity of Stonewall Jackson does the huge Federal army
retire from the field with great loss. But the battle is costly for Lee as
well. Jackson is accidentally shot by his own men, and dies after a
weeklong struggle with pneumonia.

Lee and Davis continue to believe that a move northward is essential, that
with weakened confidence and inept commanders, the Federal army need only
be pushed into one great battle that will likely end the war. In June
1863, Lee's army marches into Pennsylvania. He believes that a great fight
might not even be necessary, that just the threat of spilling blood on
northern soil will put great pressure on Washington, and the war might be
brought to an end by the voice of the northern people. The invasion of the
North will serve another purpose: to take the fight into fertile farmlands
where Lee might feed his increasingly desperate army.

Some in Lee's army question the strategy, raising the moral question of
how to justify an invasion versus defending their homes. Others question
the military judgment of moving into unfamiliar territory, against an
enemy that has never been inspired by fighting on its own ground. There
are other factors that Lee must confront. Though he is personally
devastated by the death of Jackson, Jackson's loss means more to his army
than Lee fully understands.

As the invasion moves north, Lee is left blind by his cavalry, under the
flamboyant command of Jeb Stuart. Stuart fails to provide Lee with
critical information about the enemy and is cut off from Lee beyond the
march of the Federal army, an army that is moving to confront Lee with
uncharacteristic speed. The Federal Army of the Potomac has yet another
new commander, George Gordon Meade, and if Lee knows Meade to be a careful
man, cautious in his new command, he also knows that there are many other
Federal officers now rising to the top, men who are not political pawns
but in fact hard and effective fighters.
The two armies collide at a small crossroads called Gettysburg, a fight
for which Lee is not yet prepared, and the fight becomes the three
bloodiest days in American history. As costly as it is to both armies, it
is a clear defeat for Lee. He had believed his army could not be stopped,
and begins ...

Présentation de l'éditeur :

In the Pulitzer prize–winning classic The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara created the finest Civil War novel of our time. In the bestselling Gods and Generals, Shaara’s son, Jeff, brilliantly sustained his father’s vision, telling the epic story of the events culminating in the Battle of Gettysburg. Now, Jeff Shaara brings this legendary father-son trilogy to its stunning conclusion in a novel that brings to life the final two years of the Civil War.
 
As The Last Full Measure opens, Gettysburg is past and the war advances to its third brutal year. On the Union side, the gulf between the politicians in Washington and the generals in the field yawns ever wider. Never has the cumbersome Union Army so desperately needed a decisive, hard-nosed leader. It is at this critical moment that Lincoln places Ulysses S. Grant in command—and turns the tide of war.
 
For Robert E. Lee, Gettysburg was an unspeakable disaster—compounded by the shattering loss of the fiery Stonewall Jackson two months before. Lee knows better than anyone that the South cannot survive a war of attrition. But with the total devotion of his generals—Longstreet, Hill, Stuart—and his unswerving faith in God, Lee is determined to fight to the bitter end.
 
Here too is Joshua Chamberlain, the college professor who emerged as the Union hero of Gettysburg—and who will rise to become one of the greatest figures of the Civil War.
 
Battle by staggering battle, Shaara dramatizes the escalating confrontation between Lee and Grant—complicated, heroic, deeply troubled men. From the costly Battle of the Wilderness to the agonizing siege of Petersburg to Lee’s epoch-making surrender at Appomattox, Shaara portrays the riveting conclusion of the Civil War through the minds and hearts of the individuals who gave their last full measure.
 
Full of human passion and the spellbinding truth of history, The Last Full Measure is the fitting capstone to a magnificent literary trilogy.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Ballantine Books
• Date d'édition: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0345404912
• ISBN 13: 9780345404916
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 576