Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War

Edmund Wilson produced this classic look at civil war literature more than forty years ago and it remains essential reading for anyone professing an interest in the great American conflict. Wilson brought much to the table: a beautiful, restrained writing style and a prodigious understanding of the civil war and its primary players. His magnificent analysis of Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs remains the best and most often-quoted ode to these books. Wilson's tribute to Grant's memoirs is the crux of the book, but his ancillary analysis of other civil war works is also riveting and instructive."Patriotic Gore" is not only great literature, it's truly one of the best books I've ever read. It deserves a place on any serious civil war historian's bookshelf.

I am knowledgeable about the Civil War and its literature. In fact, you would think I'd be heartily sick of the subject by now. I sometimes feel that I have over-grazed this favorite topic. However, Wilson is simply wonderful in this book. He makes the whole antebellum era and the war years live again. His opinions are orignal and well stated. He has picked both famous and obscure books/authors to discuss at greater or lesser length depending on what he has new to say about them and on whether or no the subject in hand has, through disuse, disappeared from the knowledge of man. If you are interested in this period but are tired of the same old things, Wilson can point you down paths you could never find by yourself.I found the introduction a little too ideological to my taste but otherwise the book is darned near perfect.

I'm surprised no one more learned than I in the literature of the American Civil War has yet reviewed this book. I came to it in an attmept to get a sense of the literary quality of the various memoirs and writings left by prominent participants in that momentous struggle, after being surprised that U.S. Grant's memoirs are held in high regard by critics. Wilson's book is a very compelling read (so far - I haven't yet finished it), giving the reader a vivid impression of the ideologies of the time and the pervasive and somewhat high-strung religiosity that influenced their development. Wilson's style is a pleasure, the product of a highly attentive intelligence informed by deep, but lightly-worn, learning. It's surprising how recently this book was written, since Wilson's voice resonates to these ears (educated in the jargon and vulgarities of the late-20th-century university) with the timbre of another, more civilized age.