Secret Lives of the Civil War: What Your Teachers Never Told You about the War Between the States
O'Brien's slight but entertaining follow-up to Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents and Secret Lives of the First Ladies is best for those who like their history light. O'Brien profiles 26 figures-13 from each side-who consist mostly of military figures, plus the two Presidents and their first ladies, a few spies and the black leaders Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass; he proves most fascinating in the attendant anecdotes (James Longstreet fighting the Battle of Antietam in his slippers, William T. Sherman's two shipwrecks in a single day). Trivia abounds, including all the nicknames of each subject, astrological signs and characteristic quotes ("The moment a grain of black pepper touches my tongue, I lose all strength in my right leg," said Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, a "notorious hypochondriac"). Unfortunately, the Civil War does not easily lend itself to irreverence or overview; O'Brien has no choice but to slog through battle after battle in order to put the details in context, forsaking in large part such topics as slavery, international relations, munitions and life on the home front. If, in fact, your teachers never told you about these secrets, it's probably because they had bigger fish to fry.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.