Men of Fire: Grant, Forrest and the Campaign That Decided the Civil War

I found this book to be well written and interesting. The author obviously is a good writer with lots of experience. His writing style is refreshing, and easily read and understood. I did not learn much about the main characters, Grant and Forrest that I did not already know therefore this book might be more useful for the novice student of the civil war than to the hard core enthusiast who has read extensively on the subject. I would buy Jack Hurt's other book on N. B. Forrest to read just because this one was so well written.

Great book..... a little more of a military analysis than I was ready for....but still a great read. Good insight into Grant, Foote, Forrest and the other players in the Western theatre........

MEN OF FIRE: GRANT, FORREST, AND THE CAMPAIGN THAT DECIDED THE CIVIL WAR details the two-week campaign Grant led against four flawed Confederate generals, documenting how this battle changed the course of the Civil War and the career of two major military leaders. From defensive mindsets and strategies to moment-by-moment encounters, MEN OF FIRE is a top pick for any military collection, especially those strong in Civil War history and biography. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

"Men of Fire" was everything that it was obviously supposed to be : a detailed account of the actions of two great leaders of the Civil War , one for the North & one for the South , during their first major Battle ,early in the Civil War and each being "basically untried & unknown" ! Of course I'm talking about the two principles of the book , U. S. Grant and Nathan Bedford Forrest ! This book accomplishes this main task , very , very well ! It gives "background material" on both great men , that I had never read before ! It really brought these two "legends & heros" into very clear view ! It shows , in this very early battle , thier motivations , their courage , their basic tactics , their vision , their learership , their greatness , their energy , their strengths , their disgusts with the folly & fools around them ! What it did in addition , that I thought most outstanding , was the clear way that it showed the "disorganization , the in-fighting , the jelousey , the politics , the poor planning , the lack of vision" of both sides in this vast conflict , shown so clearly , esp. at the very top of the leadership ladders ! Because of this clear evidence of the "truly medocore and untalented and stupid" majority of politically modivated leaders on both sides and especially at this very significant , early battle ; U.S. Grant and Nathan Bedford Forrest emerge as giants ,as noble warriors ,as dedicated leaders ,who are focused on only one thing : Victory for their cause ! They know what is at stake for their sides and they go at the truly terrible endeavor of a war ,that has been committed to take place , with one unyielding purpose : To achieve absolute victory , at all costs ! This was a great book , about two great men , deeply involved in a most horrible conflict !

In Men of Fire, Jack Hurst, a Nashville-based author and former journalist who has written for the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Tennessean, has penned a comprehensive, graphic narrative of a Civil War campaign that split the Confederacy in two. Some 75 miles northwest of Nashville, on the Cumberland River near the hamlet of Dover, Tennessee, was Fort Donelson, and 12 miles farther west, on the Tennessee River, was Fort Henry. In February,1862, Union forces commanded by Brigadier Gen. Ulysses S. Grant (army) and Flag-Officer Andrew Hull Foote (navy) led an expedition to capture these Confederate forts. Marking the first major Union victories of the Civil War, their capture opened two strategic waterways that pointed like twin daggers at the heart of the Confederacy. Hurst focuses on Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, and Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877), born in Chapel Hill, Tennessee. Although different in many ways, these men were alike in one important respect: both were fighters. These "men of fire" detested defensive warfare; they aggressively sought to hit the enemy and hit him hard. First to be attacked was the more vulnerable Fort Henry, constructed injudiciously on shallow land often flooded by the Tennessee. Pummeled by revolutionary new ironclads led by Foote, the garrison soon evacuated the fort and fled to the more secure Fort Donelson. Pursuing the Southern troops on a balmy, spring-like day, Union troops blithely discarded their overcoats and blankets, and left behind their tents. The next day an arctic blast hit the area, dropping the temperature to 15 degrees. During the night, many soldiers were frozen to the ground where they fitfully tried to sleep. A horrendous battle for the more heavily fortified bastion on the Cumberland, gateway to Clarksville and Nashville, ensued on February 15. After being invested by Grant's forces, Gen. Gideon Pillow, the de facto commander of Fort Donelson, made a desperate, and apparently successful, attempt to break out and retreat to Nashville. Then, for some inexplicable reason, Pillow made a horrendous blunder: he ordered his troops back into the rifle pits and fort. Disgusted by such a cowardly retreat, Forrest determined to lead his cavalry in a second attempt at a breakout. He succeeded, and led his men to Nashville. Pillow also escaped from the fort via steamship, leaving the fort's surrender to Gen. Simon Buckner. "The best estimates," writes Hurst, "are that from 16,500 to 17,500 Confederates [were surrendered]," the largest capitulation that had ever made on the continent. Hurst calls this "the campaign that decided the Civil War." Such a claim, after only ten months into the war and with more than three years remaining, is exaggerated, for many blood clashes remained: in the Western theater, the battles of Shiloh, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Stones River (Murfreesboro), Vicksburg, Atlanta, Franklin, and Nashville; and in the E