Gone for Soldiers: A Novel of the Mexican War
Having chronicled the Civil War inGods and GeneralsandThe Last Full Measure, Jeff Shaara casts his eye on the earlier proving  ground of the Mexican War in his third novel,Gone for Soldiers. Although  it secured the Southwest for a nation emboldened by Manifest Destiny, this two-year conflict has nearly faded into oblivion, eclipsed by the  subsequent domestic dispute a dozen years later. Shaara's hallmarks--the  deliberations of leaders and the brutal facts of battle--illuminate his engaging diversion into an oft-overlooked struggle in which men who would come  to oppose one another fought under a single flag.The veteran major-general Winfield Scott and an upstart Robert E. Lee anchorGone for Soldiers. Headstrong, brilliant, and generally distrustful of his less able subordinates, Scott leads the U.S. troops slowly and inevitably toward Mexico City, imparting martial lessons  along the way. "The worst consequence of fighting a war is not if you  lose, Mr. Lee," he sighs. "The worst thing you can do is win badly." Lee distinguishes himself throughout the campaign, his meticulous scouting  and shrewd inferences winning both Scott's admiration and the jealousy of officers whose ambition surpasses their experience. Lee, too,  frequently assesses his place in the hierarchy, but he--like Scott--remains more bemused than seduced by the glitter of fame.This sympathy between the two men grows as Lee observes Scott embroiled  in the distracting politics of war: officers salivating for promotion,  enemies more preoccupied with saving face than lives, distant legislators  issuing directives. IfGone for Soldiersoccasionally bogs down during  its many lengthy battle scenes, unexpected and delightful small touches  arise nearly as often--the "capture" of Mexican leader Santa Anna's wooden  leg or the chance encounter between Lee and a young Ulysses S. Grant.  Duty-bound and humble, Lee cultivates a perpetual stoicism. "Now we're out here in some place God may not want us to be. It's hard to believe He is happy watching us fight a war," he muses, a sobering coda to the grim calculations of victory.--Ben Guterson