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Bloody Promenade: Reflections on a Civil War Battle (The American South Series)
by Stephen Cushman
Product Group: Book
Publisher: University of Virginia Press (2001-02)
ISBN: 0813920418
EAN: 9780813920412
Dewy Decimal #: 973
Paperback: 320 pages
SKU: S061085-2105-WS
Condition: New
Comments: New Book. New condition. Plastic sealed. Ships same day or next in a bubble mailer. Enjoy,
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
This title looks at on the Battle of the Wilderness, 1864. It tells a personal story and seeks to provide a critical gathering of the essential events of the battle and the accounts of it, early and late, in newspapers, memoirs, histories, novels and poetry.
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Customer Reviews
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Cushman's glass is half empty
Rating  (3)
Date: 2005-04-19
2 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
While this is a very unique and well-written book of one man's personal reflections on the battle of the Wilderness, Cushman has a tendancy to wallow in too much cynacism and self-pity, especially later in the book. The author does a masterful job of setting up the awesome and ominous battle of the Wilderness, but in the concluding chapters his reflections become unjustly negative toward the National Park Service and local residents. The NPS doesn't interpret obscure areas of the battlefield to Mr. Cushman's statisfaction, he portrays NPS employees as somewhat cluesless, and local residents are equally out-of-touch about the battlefied.
The simple fact of the matter is that the National Park Service does a spectacular job with what they have to work with and many of the local residents care deeply about the history that surrounds them and are members of the Friends of Wilderness Battlefield organization. Overall the book is very good, but Cushman's concluding pity-party was a real letdown.
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And Now For Something Completely Different
Rating  (5)
Date: 2000-07-17
8 out of 10 customers found this reveiw helpful
Just when it seemed that there could be nothing new written about the Civil War, along comes Stephen Cushman with this extraordinary book. Although Mr. Cushman focuses exclusively on a few days in one location during the Civil War and fills the book with fascinating minutiae about those days and that location, this book could be profitably read by someone with no interest in the Civil War or, for that matter, history. For the theme of Mr. Cushman's book is evidence, perception and comprehension: how do we know something? What information can we rely on? How can we believe what we see, read or hear? If this sounds boring, believe me it isn't, but it is crucial to consider these questions in this era where people will argue with a straight face that there are any number of truths depending on what the meaning of is is. Each chapter deals with a different source of information concerning the Battle of the Wilderness: everything from memoirs, diaries and letters to roadsigns, newsweeklies and reenactments. One comes to understand that there is a truth that is attained through many forms of flawed half-truths. This is brilliantly captured when, after many chapters of contradictory and confusing accounts of the battle, the author wraps up his book with a short, dispassionate account of what actually occurred. This is the most profound book which is actually fun to read that I know.
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Unique essays on the Civil War
Rating (5)
Date: 2000-04-24
6 out of 8 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is an interesting and accessible book for anyone interested in the Civil War. In a series of reflections on various aspects of the battle of the Wilderness, Cushman explores the nature of war representation and the fascination that the war continues to hold over a hundred years after Appomattox. He weaves in personal experience and primary documents, using prose that is both personal, even idiosyncratic, and fluid. He is a wonderful writer, and the book will make you think about the Civil War and its legacy in new ways.
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