By Derek D. Maxfield.
El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2023.
ISBN 978-1-61121-599-1.
Illustrations. Appendixes. Notes. Pp. viii, 161.
$16.95.
Derek Maxfield’s Man of Fire, an entry in Savas Beatie’s Emerging Civil War series, offers an introductory overview of a topic in Civil War history. As the title here suggests, this topic is William Tecumseh Sherman’s life and then service during the Civil War. Like other works in the series, this is not for those who want a deep dive into Sherman’s career, or for those who are already very familiar with the general. This is for readers who may be familiar with Sherman, and interested in either him or the Civil War, but only in broad strokes. The book’s length, at less than 170 pages, is eminently digestible for an afternoon read. It is replete with photographs and illustrations of Sherman’s campaigns, of his family, and of the other officers he served with.
Man of Fire covers Sherman’s childhood through to the end of the Civil War. The book ends rather abruptly, and whether by design or by accident, certainly leaves the reader wanting to know more of Sherman’s role in Reconstruction, his opinions of the Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant presidencies, and his violent prosecution of the Indian Wars. The fact that there is so much more ground to cover in the second half of Sherman’s career leads one to expect a second work covering Sherman’s post-Civil War career, which given the first work’s quality would be welcome. While the book is excellent in helping readers understand Sherman’s motivations for professional advancement and how he thought of family, it does little to help the reader understand the man’s deep-set racism and his (even for his era’s) barbarism towards American Indians. Readers truly will only have half the picture of the man without further background on those topics.
While billing itself as looking solely at Sherman in the Civil War, this is not entirely correct. The book details his childhood and education and pays close attention to the dynamics between Sherman and his pseudo-adoptive family, the Ewings, particularly to the relationship between Sherman and his eventual father-in-law Thomas Ewing. This relationship is (likely correctly) seen by Maxfield as a massive driver in the young Sherman’s decision-making and even motivates him later into the Civil War years. Maxfield’s focus in this work is finding the character of Sherman and what makes him tick, and that comes across readily enough to readers as they flip each page and get further insight into the mind and motivations of Sherman.
As a short work, the focus on the character of Sherman sacrifices other aspects of the man’s life. As such, those interested in a deep understanding of the at-times brotherly and at-times adversarial relationship between Grant and Sherman may be disappointed. Additionally, the details of campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas are treated with just a handful of pages. Aside from a prologue that thrillingly details the high-import meeting between Generals Grant and Sherman, President Abraham Lincoln, and Admiral David Porter in March 1865 at City Point, Virginia, there are relatively few points covering the high-politicking that dominated a part of Sherman’s career. Nevertheless, there are plenty of other monographs covering those campaigns and the relationships between Sherman and his contemporaries. The focus here is more of a personal nature on Sherman and his family.
Maxfield does an excellent job in that respect. Despite Man of Fire’s short length, readers come away with an image of a man they do not quite understand, but they perhaps get why he was so mercurial and tough to truly pin down. Readers looking for a thrilling account of battles, or a book laden with personal correspondence, or one looking to offer a completely original or controversial take on Sherman, then this is probably not the book for them. Man of Fire may interest any Civil War enthusiast seeking a departure from the typical monographs covering singular battles or campaigns for something different and more personal.
Nick Reynolds
Acton, Massachusetts
