T. Harry Williams – författare

Evaluates Lincoln''s ability as a director of war and his influence on the development of a modern command system.From the Trade Paperback edition.

First published in 1955 to wide acclaim, T. Harry Williams' P. G. T. Beauregard is universally regarded as ""the first authoritative portrait of the Confederacy's always dramatic, often perplexing"" general (Chicago Tribune). Chivalric, arrogant, and of exotic Creole Louisiana origin, Beauregard participated in every phase of the Civil War from its beginning to its end. He rigidly adhered to the principles of war derived from his studies of Jomini and Napoleon, and yet many of his battle plans were rejected by his superiors, who regarded him as excitable, unreliable, and contentious. After the war, Beauregard was almost the only prominent Confederate general who adapted successfully to the New South, running railroads and later supervising the notorious Louisiana Lottery. This paradox of a man who fought gallantly to defend the Old South and then helped industrialize it is the fascinating subject of Williams' superb biography.

In Americans at War T. Harry Williams, author of Lincoln and His Generals, offers a concise historical survey of the methods by which the United States government has sought to organize and direct our military forces from the days of the Revolutionary War to the Atomic Age.In giving his interpretative view of the development of the American command system, Dr. Williams demonstrates convincingly that the American genius- even the genius for making mistakes- has found full expression in the various systems which have been formulated.During the Revolutionary War, for instance, it was never finally determined just who had the ultimate authority in mapping strategy, Washington or the Continental Congress. The War of 1812 resulted in at least a technical defeat for the United States, Williams says, because of incompetent civilian authority over the military. In the Mexican War and the Civil War, the United States profited from strong war-time presidents, but during the Spanish-American War and World War I the civilian authority left something to be desired.Military men and the historians will welcome this first attempt to give an overall picture o the American command system through all our wars.""I know of no man,"" one prominent military authority has stated, ""who is better qualified by knowledge, insight, and writing ability to discuss the American military experience.

This first collection of the essays of the late T. Harry Williams brings together some of the best shorter works of a man who was, by any standard, one of the finest historians of our time. Spanning the range of Williams' interests, this volume contains essays on the Civil War, Reconstruction, the ear of the world wars, military affairs, the craft of the historian, and the careers of Abraham Lincoln, Huey Long, and Lyndon Johnson.Williams' reputation rests on such large-scale works as Lincoln and His Generals and the Pulitzer-Prize winning biography Huey Long- exhaustively researched studies, monumental in their scope and ambition. Providing Williams with the chance to let his gaze probe beyond the fixed borders of such works, the essay was a flexible medium in which he could freely pursue some of the ideas that grew out of his daily regimen of writing and reading. He used the essay to examine large themes that spanned many areas of his interests as well as specific incidents in the course of American history, to reach both a popular audience and his fellow historians, to test ideas for books in the planning stage, and to assess the works of his colleagues.Among the essays brought together in this volume are That Strange Sad War, in which Williams examines the Civil War as the first truly, and tragically, modern war; Abraham Lincoln: Pragmatic Democrat, which sees Lincoln as the supreme example in our history of the union of principle and pragmatism in politics; and The Louisiana Unification Movement of 1873, which traces the short history of an ambitious attempt to bring about racial unity in Reconstruction Louisiana. In Interlude: 1918-1939- an essay published here for the first time- Williams analyzes the weakened state of American military preparedness before Franklin Roosevelt came into office and turned his attention to the growing threat of Hitler's Germany.In The Macs and the Ikes: America's Two Military Traditions, Williams contrasts the opposing types of military leaders in American history- those generals in the mold of Dwight Eisenhower who follow orders and submit to the power of the president and Congress, and the more fractious generals such as Douglas Macarthur, who view the military as an aristocracy of courage and genius and bridle at the reigns of civilian authority. Huey, Lyndon, and Southern Radicalism traces the common political roots of two men Williams considered among the most successful ""power artists"" of the century. And in Lyndon Johnson and the Art of Biography, Williams discusses his own plans to write a biography of Johnson and speaks of his unapologetic belief in a great-man theory of history.