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Industry: Email Alert RSS FeedFredericksburg! Fredericksburg!
Military Review, March-April, 2004 by D. Jonathan White
FREDERICKSBURG! FREDERICKSBURG! George C. Rable, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2002, 671 pages, $45.00.
Sandwiched between the more famous battles of Sharpsburg and Chancellorsville, the Union debacle at Fredericksburg receives relatively less attention. George C. Rable rectifies this shortfall.
Rable's approach is unusual in some ways, as he takes pains to establish the political context of the battle. He also devotes a great deal of attention to the experiences of the common soldier leading up to the battle. This approach has drawbacks, however, as Rable relates repetitive tales (from both sides) of bad food, cold weather, and exhausting marches during the weeks before the battle. After dealing so extensively with the political context and the experiences of common soldiers, Rable devotes only 80 pages to the actual fighting of 13 December 1862.
When Rable does focus on the actual combat at Fredericksburg, the results are excellent. His narrative is detailed, yet comprehensive. The courageous, yet hopeless, Federal assaults against Marye's Heights is inspiring. Rabel's narrative is similar to the opening of the film Saving Private Ryan (DreamWorks, Glendale, CA, 1998) with soldiers wearing blue instead of green. The soldiers of Fredericksburg deserve to have their story told; Rable tells it well.
LTC D. Jonathan White, USA,
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
COPYRIGHT 2004 U.S. Army CGSC
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
