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Thomas Lawrence Connelly (1938–1991)

Forfatter af Five Tragic Hours: The Battle of Franklin

12 Works 772 Members 13 Reviews

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Thomas Lawrence Connelly, professor of history at the University of South Carolina for many years, was the author or coauthor of numerous books on the Civil War

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Kanonisk navn
Connelly, Thomas Lawrence
Fødselsdato
1938-02-14
Dødsdag
1991-01-18
Begravelsessted
Santa Fe Cemetery, Santa Fe, Tennessee, USA
Køn
male
Nationalitet
USA
Fødested
Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Uddannelse
Rice University (PhD|History|1963)
David Lipscomb University
Erhverv
historian
university professor
Organisationer
University of South Carolina
Mississippi State University
Presbyterian College
Kort biografi
"He was a very private person, but he seldom turned down a speaking engagement. He sometimes chided southerners about being too regionally chauvinistic, but he always spoke with pride about being a child of Middle Tennessee. He relished traveling on the road with Tom T. Hall but was basically a homebody. He was proud of his many students and their accomplishments but sometimes found it difficult to share with them the glowing comments he wrote in recommendations to future employees. Tom Connelly's life mirrored the Army of Tennessee about which he wrote so eloquently. Quintessentially southern, tough, and courageous like that army of the lost cause, Tom Connelly struggled valiantly against all odds to defeat a formidable foe. And like that army, he lost."

--Walter B. Edgar, University of South Carolina

Medlemmer

Anmeldelser

He makes his point. Again, and again, and again. And again.
In the Epilogue he attempts a psychological biography of Lee that he claims has never been done. It’s a stretch and also repetitive. The best parts were the description of how Early and other Lost Cause myth makers exaggerated Lee’s achievements to cover up their own failures. I was hoping he would do a more in depth critique of Freeman but it was not very much.
 
Markeret
MarkHarden | 2 andre anmeldelser | Jun 23, 2022 |
Virtually impossible to do this topic justice in a book this short. The author provided as much detail as he could squeeze in about the major battles, but there were many things about the war in Tennessee he pretty much had to gloss over. I'm sure reading his "Army of the Heartland" and "Autumn of Glory" would be much more informative.
 
Markeret
MarkLacy | May 29, 2022 |
Though people often don't make the distinction, there is an important difference between history and the past. Simply put, the past is everything that happened before now, while history is how we interpret it. The past has happened and cannot be changed; how we interpret it, though, changes constantly. Sometimes this is because of different perspectives or a greater awareness of the effects or changing values. But there are also times when history changes because of the determination of a few to cement a particular interpretation that serves a specific set of goals.

At its core Thomas Connelly's book is about one such effort. In it he describes how a small group of dedicated people committed themselves to the goal of iconizing Robert E. Lee. Their very success is reflected in the enduring perception of Lee as one of the great commanders of military history, one whose ability might have enabled the Confederate cause to endure. As Connolly explains, such perceptions were far from universal in the immediate aftermath of the war, as figures such as Albert Sidney Johnston, P. G. T. Beauregard, and (especially) Stonewall Jackson were esteemed just as highly or even more so by Southerners. Upon Lee’s death in 1870, however, a small gathering consisting mainly of former officers of the Army of Northern Virginia and people associated with Washington College united in agreement to preserve Lee's memory, beginning a process that would define how Americans remembered not just Lee, but the entire Civil War.

Though many of the people involved in this effort did so out of admiration for Lee, Connelly highlights the self-interested motivations of many of the key participants. Foremost among them was Jubal Early, a former subordinate of Lee's and one of the leading proponents of the "Lost Cause." Connelly notes that Early's championing of Lee's reputation as a military commander not incidentally had the effect of bolstering his own stature, helping to gloss over his mistakes at the battle of Gettysburg. He and others became zealous defenders of Lee's reputation, campaigning for statues and producing laudatory descriptions of Lee's life and generalship while savaging any accounts which argued otherwise. One effect of this was to turn the Virginia theater into the decisive one of the war — a shift which reflected the Virginia-centric leadership of the Lee memorialization movement and which often came at the expense of the role of the other states of the Confederacy. By the turn of the century, Lee's image was undergoing a further transformation from a Southern hero into a national one, as a new generation romanticized his seemingly flawless personality and military genius, cementing his ironic status as an American hero. Though this image has since come under increasing criticism,their efforts endure today both in the republished books that embody this view and in the statuary prominently displayed throughout the country.

Though originally published four decades ago, Connelly's book remains a valuable study of Lee. His description of the posthumous sanctification of Lee provides a perceptive explanation of how the general became the preeminent symbol of the Lost Cause, eclipsing even the leader of the Confederacy himself. The recent controversy over Confederate monuments demonstrates just how relevant Connolly's analysis remains to understanding our nation today, as anyone seeking to understand it or the development of popular perceptions of the Civil War more generally cannot afford to ignore this important and unique book.
… (mere)
 
Markeret
MacDad | 2 andre anmeldelser | Mar 27, 2020 |
This is a relatively short, compact book filled with 34 pages of photographic images, numerous battle maps, and an appendix with an excellent Order of Battle summary. General Hood’s battle strategies are explained and analyzed pertaining to his reasoning or his rationale in expert detail.
The book served as my textbook and guide as I walked the battlefield, wondering of my great grandfather’s thoughts as he was shot in the head by a minie ball. He survived this carnage but never once spoke of that day on 30 November, 1864, or of any other day in his two years in battle as a 17 year old boy.
I would also recommend Wiley Sword’s book on Franklin, The Confedracy’s Last Hurrah, as a companion piece. Both deliver, if one has the courage to know the facts.
… (mere)
 
Markeret
farrargirl1. | 2 andre anmeldelser | Feb 23, 2018 |

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Statistikker

Værker
12
Medlemmer
772
Popularitet
#32,960
Vurdering
3.8
Anmeldelser
13
ISBN
22

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