Evening star., 1952-03-23
Books in Review
A Stirring Chronicle Of the Cory Trail
From Fredericksburg to Gettysburg
GLORY ROAD
N. n ~kL.
'atton. Doubleday; $4.50,l
Reviewed by Carter Brooke Jones

+ Z :
It's rounding into the last
decade OF q century since the
tumult and the shouting Of
those old battle1ields in Virginia
and Pennsylvania faded. So
much has happened since.
so completely has everything
changed, that they might well
have been preserved only in
the stylized quaintness Of older
battles In the history books
Kings Mountain, Waterloo,
Blenheim.
But the campaigns of our Civil
War, for reasons not wholly
logical. not entirely to be ac-
counted for, remain almost as
close to us in interest as epi-
sodes in the wars we can re-
member. Romance and glamour
still cling to those exploits Of
long ago, despite all we have
learned in the intervening
years of the sayagery and waste
of war. This, perhaps, is be-
cause that war of the 1860s
saw the last vanishing gestures
of chivalry, of sportsmanship
and deeency in combat.
How many times have the
stories of. the three central bat
ties in. this book been told
Fredericksburg, Chancellors-
vile and Gettysburg? A scholar
of the period would be hard put
to estimate. And yet Mr.. Cat
ton has co-ordinated his extern
sive research SO thoroughly and
written so skillfuffy that his
narrative. seems fresh:
Army of the Potomac.
Mr.. Cation sees the crucial
campaign of 1923 through
the eyes of soldiers in the Army
of the Potomac. He begins at
Fredericksburg, showing that
Burnside's whole plan of at
tack, not a bad one, went
wrong because somebody. in
Washington probably, failed to
tell an engineer officer that
pontoons ordered for the Rap
pahannock must be delivered
Immediately. He took his time,
and when he did start the
wagons bearing the bridges,
they begged down in mud. They
were delayed many days and
the attack failed and waves of
Union troops beat futilely
against the impregnable Con-
federate position on Marye's
Heights, ebbing with fearful
losses.
The morale of the Yankees
was low. We find even such a
brave soldier as Capt. Oliver
Wendell Holmes, jr., later the
famous associate justice of the
Supreme Court, q veteran who
had been gravely wounded at
Antietam, writing home: "I've
pretty much made UP my mind
that the South have achieved
their independence and I am
almost ready to hope spring
viii see an end !"
COIOrful Touches.
The historic embers of Gettys-
berg have been raked over SO
often that it is doubtful If any
one could find anything new to
say about. that decisfve battle.
Mr.. Cation has done as well as
any one and he has added some
colorful touches not so generally
known. The Confederate gem
eral, Lewis Armistead. a hero
of Pickett's charge, as he lay
dying sent his watch and spurs
to the Federal general. Winfield
Scott Hancock. Armistead re-
called a farewell party he and
Hancock and other Regular
Army officers had attended in
the village Of Los Angeles in the
spring of 1861, the night before
some Of them were to go South
to offer their services to the
Confederacy.
Charlottesville is q shade
less well known and Mr.. Cation
has written the best account of
1t I ever read. We see and feel
the stunning surprise of Stone
wall Jackson's attack that