On 5 and 6 May 1864, the Union and Confederate armies met near
an unfinished railroad in central Virginia, with Lee outmanned and
outgunned, hoping to force Grant to fight in the woods. The name of
the battle--Wilderness--suggests the horror of combat at close
quarters and an inability to see the whole field of engagement,
even from a distance. Indeed, the battle is remembered for its
brutality and ultimate futility for Lee: even with 26,000
casualties on both sides, the Wilderness only briefly stemmed
Grant's advance.
Stephen Cushman lives fifty miles south of this battlefield. A
poet and professor of American literature, he wrote Bloody
Promenade to confront the fractured legacy of a battle that haunts
him through its very proximity to his everyday life. Cushman's
personal narrative is not another history of the battle. "If this
book is a history of anything," he writes, "it's the history of
verbal and visual images of a single, particularly awful moment in
the American Civil War." Reflecting on that moment can begin in the
present, with the latest film or reenactment, but it leads Cushman
back to materials from the past. Writing in an informal,
first-person style, he traces his own fascination with the conflict
to a single book, a pictorial history he read as a boy. His abiding
interest and poetic sensibility yield a fresh perspective on the
war's continuing grip on Americans--how it pervades our lives
through films and songs; novels such as The Red Badge of Courage,
The Killer Angels, and Cold Mountain; Whitman's poetry and Winslow
Homer's painting; or the pull of the abstract idea of the triumph
of freedom.
With maps and a brief discussion of the Battle of the Wilderness
for those not familiar with the landscape and actors, Bloody
Promenade provides a personal tour of one of the most savage
engagements of the Civil War, then offers a lively discussion of
its aftermath.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!