James M McPherson

Evaluates Lincoln's talents as a commander in chief in spite of limited military experience, tracing the ways in which he worked with, or against, his senior commanders to defeat the Confederacy and reshape the presidential role.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom, a powerful new reckoning with Jefferson Davis as military commander of the Confederacy shows how Davis shaped and articulated the principal policy of the Confederacy with clarity and force and, like no other chief executive in American history, exercised a tenacious hands-on influence in the shaping of military strategy.