Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-10-28

He proved in his three volumes
MIR. Lincoln's Army" GLORY
Road" and "a Stiffness at APP
pomattox," the latter of which
won him the Pulitzer Prize and
the National Book Award
that he can write history with
a rounded perception of events
and a sensitive feeling for
words.
Now Mr.. Cation has summed
up that whole war. from the
Union side. in THIS HAL
LOWED GROUND. Double
day; $3.50
1t is a remarkable conden-
sation of a furious complex Of
events and persons in 400
pages. We finish a narrative
in turn hard-hitting and
poetic with the feeling that
we've had at least a long look
at the whole vast four-year
panorama.
Gathering Clouds
In a few pages the historian
sketches a prelude to the con-
flict, the way things were in
1856. A Senator, after de-
nouncing slave holders and
their apologistS, was attacked
in the Senate. chamber by a
member of the House and
beaten numerically. A town
in Kansas was sacked by pro-
slavery elf-styled Border Ruff
fans. An old man with the
penetrating eye of a fanatic
and his sons, hearing that five
free state men in Kansas had
been killed, sought out five
known slavery men and killed
them coldly. There were many
other signs fortelling that, de-
spite the country's phenome-
nal growth and unrushing
prosperity. the challenge of the
unsettled West, the clouds
we're gathering and the storm
soon would crash.
Then the curtain rolls up on
the war. Mr.. Cation brings
out a point that many histo-
rianS have missed-that the
first big battle, Bull Run, was
not lost to the North because
green troops ran away. In
fact, the Union soldiers fought
very well. but they were so
utterly unframed that they
didn't even know how to ma
neuver on a large scale and
few of their officers were any
better drilled.
Destiny Involved Unity
"Of all the misunderstand-
ings that had produced the
war;" Mr.. Cation writes, mo
single one had more tragic
consequences than this-that
the men of the South had
completely failed to realize
how deeply the concept of ma
tionality had taken root in the
North. The great wagon trains
had gone rolling West, a will
derness had been opened, new
towns and farms had sprung
up. limitless hopes and great
sacrifices had been invested in
the development of rich new
land. and out of it all had come
a conviction that the national
destiny involved unity"
We see the broad canvas of
the war unrolling. with few
personalities helping to shape
events. There was in the East
the dashing, romantic Gen.
Mcclellan, with whom Mr..
Cation dealt in much more
detail in Mr.. Lincoln's Army"
In the West was the flam-
boyant pathfinder" Fremont,
who, from his command post
in st. Louis, got things in such
a complicated mess that he
finally was relieved.
Unframed Men
mot even at Bull Rum" says
Mr.. Cation Of Shiloh, in 1862,
"had two more pathetically
unframed bodies Of men been
thrown into combat"
And he adds: They were
not really armies. although
that is what men called them.
They were just collections OF
very young men, most of whom
knew nothing at all about the
grim profession they had en-
gagged in. Day after to-
morrow they would be soldiers,
but now they were civilians,
gawky in their new uniforms.
each one dreaming that battle
would be splendid and exciting
and that he himself would sur
vive :"
The Big Campaigns
Mr.. Cation gives us a sharp
sense of the big campaigns and
the important battles. Neces-
sarily, though, he has had to
leave out a great deal, and
sometimes we emerge with only
a partial idea Of decisive mo-
-