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Lee, Grant and Sherman: A Study in Leadership in the 1864-65 Campaign. By Alfred H. Burne. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000 [1938]. ISBN 0-7006-1073-1. Maps. Notes. Index. Pp. xxiii, 226. $16.95.
I have long admired the historical works of Lt. Col. A. H. Burne. Commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1906, he served on the Western Front in the First World War. In 1934 he retired to become a professional writer. My copy of the 1939 American edition of this book published by Scribner's, with an Introduction by Douglas Southall Freeman, is much marked and annotated. It is this version that the University of Kansas Press has used for its welcome new edition, replete with a sharp Foreword and additional endnotes by Albert Castel. Although perhaps not among Burne's very best work, Lee, Grant and Sherman has many striking qualities. It embodies the best features of military history written by a former officer: firm tactical grasp, common sense about what is and what is not practicable in the deployment of armies, shrewd judgement in regard to debates over the merits of commanders, and a provocative edge. The whole is composed in a...