April 1865: The Month That Saved America (P.S.)
by Jay Winik

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Book Reviews of April 1865: The Month That Saved America (P.S.)

Book Review: Interesting History but Overlong and Overblown
Summary: 3 Stars

Winik excels at recreating on there ground,"you are there" moments, especially the evacuation of Richmond, the surrenders of Lee and Johnson, and the death of Lincoln. Unfortunately this comes at at a cost, as Winik indulges in breathless, overstated prose throughout the book, never using one adjective when three will do the same work. The sloppy writing results in many of his ideas being repeated several times throughout the book. Winik appears to have done an excellent job of research, although he's clearly writing outside his field of expertise (as the errors othes have pointed out attest to). In order to bolster the "counterfactual" side of his argument, he seems to have exaggerated the Confederate capability for prolonged guerilla warfare. And to bolster his "great man" ideas, he seems to have largely bought into the Robert E. Lee mythos. To fill out the book, he includes lengthy sketches of important men of the time, such as Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Lee, Jefferson Davis, Joe Johnston, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Booth, and so on. While interesting, they interrupt the flow of the narrative and more properly belong as sidebars. There are all kinds of other digressions throughout the book, that, while interesting, have no direct bearing on Winik's thesis.

In the end, the book must be commended for bringing some lesser-known events of the time to light, fleshing out some of the better known ones, and generally emphasizing their chronological proximity. One only wishes Winik was better able to restrain himself in recounting the history (throughout the book, people and events are the "most," "best," "worst," "unequaled" and so on), and less prone to accepting the Lee mythos at face value. A kind of interesting book to read along with it would be Tony Horowitz's Confederates in the Attic.

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