Book Review: The Best General in the Civil War by Conrad Bibens

The Best General in the Civil War by Conrad Bibens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fictionalized yet riveting story of the life of General George Thomas and his service to the Union during its most critical times.

The Best General in the Civil War by Conrad Bibens is the fictionalized yet riveting story of the life of General George Thomas and his critical contributions in service to the country before, during, and immediately after the Civil War. The author has General Thomas tell his own tale from childhood to post-Civil War using the device of an imaginary writing of a memoir, as dictated to his wife, Frances Kellogg Thomas, in response to an inflammatory newspaper article five years after the end of the war. In truth, Thomas destroyed his personal papers prior to his death.

While the name of George Thomas has been overshadowed by that of Ulysses Grant and William Sherman, many historical observers and scholars of the war paint Thomas as the true reason for many of the Union’s critical victories. Readers are presented with the facts from Thomas’s perspective about his experiences during the war. His words are those of a proud and confident storyteller, giving voice to his successes and disappointments, many of which came at the hands of supposed friends and representatives of the government of which he served. I came away with a very different view of what this war was like, with details of dismissed strategies and missed opportunities, miscommunications, ineffective leadership, and poor decisions on both sides of the conflict. Battles are tense and exciting and described with a clear choreography that even I, unskilled and uneducated in such, could follow and envision.

The story is as exciting as any adventure tale, often evoking emotional responses to events long past, especially when discussing the gut-wrenching decisions our ancestors made to stay with the United States or secede. The tale brought to life the fact that these fighting men had all been classmates or had served together previously before facing each other from opposite sides. It is often pointed out that families were split apart, with brothers fighting brothers, but usually, this is intoned in very general terms. This book names names, families where this actually occurred, making this tragedy personal and all the more heartbreaking. I didn’t know that President Lincoln himself had a brother-in-law who sided with the Confederates and was killed in action fighting against Union troops. Thomas was separated from all but one of his brothers for the rest of his life and vilified by the people of his home state of Virginia for staying true to his military oath.

I recommend THE BEST GENERAL IN THE CIVIL WAR to readers of historical fiction, especially those interested in the Civil War.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from the author through Lone Star Book Blog Tours.

Content Warning: slavery, war, death, Ku Klux Klan

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