"I have never read a better, more vivid, more understandable account of
the savage battling between Grant's and Lee's armies.... Foote stays
with the human strife and suffering, and unlike most Southern
commentators, he does not take sides. In objectivity, in range, in
mastery of detail in beauty of language and feeling for the people
involved, this work surpasses anything else on the subject.... It stands
alongside the work of the best of them."-- "New Republic"