The anti-tobacco doctrine of the opening chapter gives place to a clear statement of the gathering and organizing of the great army; which is followed by descriptions of the Battles of Bull Run, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Shiloh, the Siege of Island No. 10, and the capture of Memphis.  The narratives are illustrated with diagrams which set the movements of the contending forces clearly before the eye.  No description of the first great battle of the war is superior to that here given.  It is a photographic view of the field and the combatants.  We see where the Rebels posted their divisions, how our forces were stationed, how we attempted to outflank them, how they left their original positions to protect the assailed outpost, how the battle raged and was decided around that point, and how a single mistake caused our first repulse, and, for lack of subsequent generalship, produced the shameful and disastrous rout.  Russell’s description is far less clear and concise.  “Carleton” confirms McDowell’s military scholarship, but not his generalship.  It is one thing to set squadrons in the field, it is another to be equal to all the emergencies of the strife.  He traces our defeat to a single mistake, not alone nor chiefly to the arrival of reinforcements.  He puts it thus.  Two regiments, the Second and Eighth South Carolina, get in the rear of Griffin’s and Rickett’s batteries.  Griffin sees them, and turns his guns upon them.  Major Barry declares they are his supporters.  Griffin says they are Rebels.  The Major persists in his opinion, and the Captain yields.  The guns are turned back, the South-Carolinians leap upon the batteries, and the panic begins.

The book is especially valuable as it describes from personal observation the first battles of General Grant.  It has no better war-pictures than the taking of Fort Donelson and the Battle of Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing.  These were the beginnings of Grant’s reputation.  In them are seen the elements of his character, writ larger in the more renowned deeds of Vicksburg and Chattanooga.  They are strangely alike.  In both he is surprised by the enemy at daybreak, and while his soldiers are asleep.  In both he is at first driven from his camp, losing largely of men and guns.  In both, after a repulse so severe that the Rebel generals fancy the day is theirs, and while their men give themselves up to the spoiling of his tents, Grant, abating no jot of heart or hope, rearranges his broken columns, and plants his guns in new positions, in both cases on a hill rising from a ravine, whose opposite summit is crowned with the Rebel artillery.  In each case the Rebels cross the ravine and attempt to scale the hill, and in each case are repulsed with horrible slaughter.  The parallel stops not here.  Grant in both battles, as soon as he has stayed the advance of the enemy, assumes the offensive.  The bugles sound the charge, and the Rebels are driven back through our despoiled camp, and within their own intrenchments.