David PesciAugust 12, 20091min
No Quarter, the new book Richard Slotkin, Olin Professor of English Emeritus, recounts a tragic Union blunder during the Civil War at Petersburg, Virginia, that cost the lives of thousands of soldiers. The plan and its execution was damned in part because the Union troops were "incompetently led and ill prepared." Slotkin not only explores the tactics and implementation of the plan, but the broad political implications generated in the wake of its failure. The reviewer in The Boston Globe, Michael Kenney, says the book is among" the first rank of Civil War histories."