Читать книгу A Civil General - David Stinebeck - Страница 3

To Jared, Catherine, and Jeffrey

for their love and extraordinary patience

The authors are grateful to Captains William Stineback and John Beatty for their wartime recollections, to Edward Mullaney, Dorothy Reo, Raymond Smith, and Larry Mohr for their guidance on the manuscript, and to Judy MacKenzie, Teri Strahlman, Debbie Brandt, Manny Carreiro, Shalom Endleman, and Mary and Bert Mullaney for their support. For the general reader, this novel is largely factual in its battles and settings and imaginary in its encounters among real and fictional characters. We have attempted to remain true on every page to what is known of General Thomas’ character.

The quiet, patient soldier, who from his first day’s service in Kentucky had never swerved a line from the strict performance of his duty to his Government, according to his oath, without reference to self, had now met his reward. His fame had steadily grown and rounded from the time he gained the first Federal victory in the West, at Mill Springs, up to the battle of Chickamauga, where he saved the Army of the Cumberland to the nation. He had always been the main stay of that army, holding the command of the centre—either nominally or actually the second in command. Upon his judgment and military skill every commander of that army depended, and no movement was made without his approbation. Yet so modest was he that his face would color with blushes when his troops cheered him, which they did at every opportunity…. His kind consideration for the feelings of others was one of his marked characteristics. With a pure mind and large heart, his noble soul made him one of the greatest of Nature’s noblemen—a true gentleman. The experience of Chickamauga ripened his powers and developed him to his full height. As the General who won the first victory in the West, who saved an army by his skill and valor, and who was the only General of the war on either side able to crush an army on the battlefield, George H. Thomas…stands as the model American soldier, the grandest figure of the War of the Rebellion.

—Henry M. Cist, 1882