to the public in a shape that does great credit to the publishers, whose imprint is almost synonymous with good workmanship.  Of the literary skill, or want of it, on the part of the author not much need be said:  he is evidently zealous in his anxiety to do honor to the memory of General Thomas, and to do justice to all who served with him; but he is sadly lacking in the art of suitably clothing his ideas with fitting words, and much of his elaborate composition is badly wasted in trying to find extravagant language for the recital of important events.  In some cases, where the official reports printed at the close of each chapter recite in simple words the actual occurrences, the text of the book is overlaid with unusual words and involved sentences, in which the statement of the same facts is lost in a cloud of phraseology of a very curious and original kind.  “Primal success,” “the expression of a stride,” “the belligerence of the two armies,” “philosophy of the victory,” “palpable co-operation,” “the expression of an insurrection,”—­these are some of the odd inventions of the author; and for instances of passages just as odd, but too long for citation, we refer to the description of the battle of Shiloh—­a weak imitation of Kinglake’s worst style—­where we are told that “change is the prophecy of unexpected conditions.”  Fortunately, the second volume is much less marred by such faults, and the great event of Thomas’s career, the battle of Nashville, is told with clearness and in full detail.

Although Thomas is the hero of the book from the time when he took command at Camp Dick Robinson in August of 1861, it was not till October, 1863, which brings us to page 394 of the first volume, that he succeeded to the command of the Army of the Cumberland, after Rosecrans, who had followed Buell and Sherman and Anderson.  Under the other generals Thomas had served with marked ability and fidelity, and his dealing with them is fairly reflected by the author of this work, for he rarely criticises either of Thomas’s commanding officers—­for the most part merely records the operations of the army, and puts in most prominence Thomas’s own services, just as his military journal no doubt supplied the material.  Of all that long and dreary marching and countermarching through Kentucky and Tennessee the account is full and clear, and we find Buell and Halleck saying that they know nothing of any plan of campaign in the very midst of their operations.  At last with Halleck, and still more with Grant in authority, there were movements ordered that had some relation to each other and a general plan of operations, and then the overwhelming strength of the North began to turn the scale.  Thomas was called on by Rosecrans, as he had been by Buell, for advice, but he was obliged to act independently too; and then, as at Stone River, he showed an energy and a capacity that ought to have secured his earlier promotion.  At Chickamauga he was actually left in command by Rosecrans, and while the latter was