Title: A lawyer's summation for a guilty client.
Review: Good idea, some good information, at times good dramatic pacing. But Winik has a bee in his bonnet and his arguments about the likelihood of guerilla warfare after Appomatox are paper-thin. "Critics and ethicists today argue that his scorched-earth policies violated all the strictures of . . . justice in warfare," he says of Sherman. His fawning over Jeff Davis is extraordinary. His language is often bombastic. Dresses in new clothes some of the old ideas - the war was really about states' rights, the slaves were treated benignly, the South had a noble heritage. History taken from primary sources belies these concepts. Argues the case, doesn't change the verdict.
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