Review: Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War by S. C. Gwynne

To read an interview with author S. C. Gwynne click here.

Gwynne begins his narrative of the final year of the Civil War with the arrival of General Ulysses S. Grant to Washington, D.C. in March 1864 after his promotion to command of all Union armies and finishes with Clara Barton raising the flag over the new cemetery at Andersonville and the liberation of the slaves. These bookends demonstrate the broad scope of Gwynne’s telling of 1864-1865. Hymns of the Republic brings the readers through the military campaigns of 1864 and 1865 and weaves them together with the political events of that year, the impact of slavery on the war and the increasing role of USCT on the battlefields, and some of the impact of the fighting off the field. The strength of this book is Gwynne’s ability to craft a compelling narrative and engage the reader by building the stories of people and events. His storytelling makes Hymns of the Republic a good book for a general reader interested in the Civil War. Gwynne’s work does not offer much new scholarship, but does synthesize current scholarship into his narrative to include the military campaigns of course, but also matters off the battlefield, politics, women, and the role of African Americans in the final year of the war. The focus is mostly on the military campaigns, and largely the east, but he does weave some of these other perspectives through his narrative.

For me, the last third of the book was the strongest. The first part of the work was choppy and filled with long “asides” on different individuals. After the introduction, the first few chapters bounce from Fort Pillow to the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, to hospitals and Clara Barton, and back to the Overland Campaign. Often, when introducing a historical figure, Gwynne gives elaborate backstories of their past that take up most of the chapter, with less information about the topic at hand. Many of these biographies come across as a little biased, because the Union generals were usually failures before the Civil War while the Confederate generals were all brilliant, and the biographies break up the cohesive chronology of the narrative. As a book for the general public, I understand the need for introductions to figures the reader may not be knowledgeable about, however they often took up the majority of a chapter that was supposed to be focused on an 1864 topic. I was also surprised that Gwynne took a more negative tone towards the Overland Campaign, interpreting Grant’s movement south as more of a failure to defeat Lee than part of the continuing pressure and war of attrition that marks 1864 combat. Typically, the 1864 Virginia Campaign is interpreted as a series of stalemates and a more aggressive strategy from the North (compared to previous 1862 and 1863 campaigns) that put pressure on Lee’s army until he broke after the siege of Petersburg. Gwynne paints it as a big failure for Grant.

I also wish there had been a more cohesive overarching narrative to tie all of these events together and explain why 1864-1865 was different or important compared to the other years of the war. With his introduction beginning with Grant’s promotion to commanding all Union armies, I was missing an full explanation of Grant’s overall 1864 plan that could tie together all of the military maneuvers that year, instead of only looking at his strategy in Virginia. 1864 is a change in the war largely due to Grant’s strategy of cohesive movement south for all Union armies in the field and the turn towards a war of attrition against the South, and that could have made a stronger umbrella narrative. Much of the focus in the book remains on the eastern theater of war, with little coverage of the west except Fort Pillow. The chapter on Fort Pillow was a necessary one and gave Gwynne a good opportunity to talk about the role of slavery in the war and the Union’s changing goals towards emancipation, but it was a lone representative of the more western campaigns and it felt a little out of place as the start of the book.

This changes in the last third of the book, which was the strongest and most enjoyable part to read. Here the narrative becomes more cohesive as Gwynne examines Sherman’s campaign, the end of the Overland Campaign, and the final campaign to Appomattox. His interpretation is more balanced and presents counterarguments against common misconceptions or stereotypes about the war (such as Sherman’s March to the Sea). He does not end at Appomattox and continues his narrative to the assassination of Lincoln, Davis’ last attempts to keep the Confederacy alive, the surrender of Johnson, and some of the aftermath of the war for the country. This was refreshing because so many general narratives present Lee’s surrender as “the end” of the war and the Confederacy, and Gwynne give at least little continuation into the extended end of the conflict.

In many places Gwynne did a good job offering a balanced narrative. I was happy to see him include more recent scholarship and interpretation about the transition towards emancipation as a goal for the Union, how white supremacy had a role in atrocities such as Fort Pillow, the debate about using black soldiers in the South and what it revealed about slavery as the cause of the war, and the actual level of destruction that came out of Sherman taking Atlanta. In these ways, Hymns of the Republic is a good update to many of the older synthesis narratives that only covered military affairs and were more biased. However, there are several points where his interpretation came off as unbalanced or leaning into popular stereotypes about the war or certain individuals. As mentioned before the long biographies that he gave of military figures often painted Union figures as failures before or during the war, while Confederate figures were seen as more brilliant. Gwynne includes almost an entire chapter on Robert E. Lee titled “The Man Who Lost Everything” and paints a very sympathetic picture of the Confederate General. His next chapters on Ulysses S. Grant began with “Grant was drinking. Or he wasn’t drinking. Or he was drinking some of the time, or all of the time, or only at moments when the fate of the Union was at stake” (Chapter 12). This was the second portrait of Grant in the book that leaned into the trope of a drunk Grant and only much later in the book did he provide counterevidence about Grant’s drinking.

Gwynne is a great storyteller and this would be a pretty good introduction book for a general reader that wants to learn about 1864-1865. My hope though would be for readers to then continue reading other works of scholarship to balance out some of the more unbalanced areas of Gwynne’s work. While the narrative was well-written it was not a completely enjoyable read for me because I could pick out the inconsistencies, and it took me longer to get through it than it should have because of that. In conclusion, I would recommend this book as a good introduction for a general reader or someone new to the Civil War but with the caveat to keep an eye out for bias and use the book as a springboard to read other works on the topic to get a fuller interpretation on the last year of the war.

Dr. Kathleen Logothetis Thompson earned her PhD in Nineteenth Century/Civil War America from West Virginia University, and also holds a M.A. from WVU and a B.A. from Siena College. Her research is on mental trauma and coping among Union soldiers and she is currently working on her first book, tentatively titled War on the Mind. She currently teaches history at several colleges and university and leads tours of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. Kathleen was a seasonal interpreter at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park for several years and is the co-editor of Civil Discourse.