Edward G. Longacre

The title of this book is an accurate summation, as David Gregg was a consummate professional with little taste for the spotlight, an admirable quality which was of little personal value in a military where promotion often depended on a good press and good political connections. Still, coming off his professional zenith at the battle of Gettysburg, one is left with the question of why Gregg saw fit to resign from service in January of 1865. Longacre believes that family business, increasing ill health, and poor personal morale (by this point in the war Gregg was mostly a place-holder on an organization chart) are the most likely explanations. Set aside are more lurid theories such as an unwillingness to serve under Phil Sheridan (unlikely considering the post-war good relations of the two men), or being out of sympathy with late-war politics (a little more likely). Reading between the lines myself, one could speculate that Gregg might have lost the confidence of George Meade and some of the other corps commanders of the Army of the Potomac, due to a number of fights where Gregg can be interpreted as lacking a certain amount of "grip;" the ascendancy of Grant and Sheridan might well have saved Gregg's career, if not his promotion potential.

Apart from that, besides being a military life of Gregg, this book also works quite well as a focused analysis of the command politics of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac; the quality that lifts this study above being just another biography of a little-known general (otherwise I would have only handed out 3.5 stars).… (mere)

First off, George Armstrong Custer has never been someone I particularly admired, or felt that much need to learn about. But when I noticed that Edward Longacre, probably the leading expert on cavalry in the U.S. Civil War had a book out on Custer's service during the late unpleasantness of the 1860s, I felt that I'd get an accurate assessment of the man. So, the big dichotomy here is how a man who apparently made a mission of skating through West Point with as little effort as possible, turned into such a determined careerist once he was actually on active service. Longacre really doesn't have a great answer to that, except to note that he doesn't find Custer to be an especially complicated individual, as opposed to being a bundle of contradictions. Perhaps the answer is that when actual responsibility was thrust upon Custer he realized that he had to live up to the moment and, in an army dominated by men past their prime, raw drive and energy counted for a lot.… (mere)