At The Edge Of Glory (February 1962 | Volume: 13, Issue: 2)

At The Edge Of Glory

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Authors: Bruce Catton

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February 1962 | Volume 13, Issue 2

One of the fascinating subchapters of history is the story of the man who did not quite make it—the talented man, richly deserving, who rises very near to the top and then, in a sudden moment of crisis, sees all that he has gained slip away from him. Looking back afterward we may see clearly that his solid achievements greatly outweigh his failures. Taken all in all, his career has been a success. Yet the real pinnacle eludes him, and instead of coming down in history as one of the country’s giants, he is remembered simply as a good competent man who lacked something—good fortune, perhaps, or the capacity for doing precisely the right thing at a time of extreme pressure.

Sometimes, with such a man, a full reappraisal is called for. History can render faulty verdicts; now and then a man is fully entitled to a sort of posthumous promotion. In other cases history’s verdict seems fair enough, but we are left with the tantalizing realization of the part that luck can play in the life of a man or a nation.

The Edge of Glory: A Biography of General William S. Rosecrans, U.S.A., by William H. Lamers. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. 499 pp. $6.95.

The American Civil War is especially rich in cases of this sort, partly no doubt because it saw so many obscure men placed in the center of the stage with incalculable values depending on their actions. Their contemporaries rendered judgment on them while the heat was still on; they looked for concrete results, and they did not always bother to make an objective examination of the way those results were achieved.

One of the most interesting of all the Civil War soldiers is William S. Rosecrans, major general in the United States Army, a solid soldier and also a man of genuine brilliance, who—if things had gone just a little differently—could conceivably have gone on to occupy the place U. S. Grant finally occupied. His story is examined in detail by William M. Lamers in a spirited biography, The Edge of Glory .

Rosecrans is worth knowing: a burly, red-faced man, jovial, well-liked by his soldiers, devoutly religious but gifted with a sure command of profane idiom, loyal to the Union, refusing to play politics—all in all, a good man. His military record was excellent. As McCIeIlan’s right-hand man he was largely responsible for McClellan’s successful campaign in West Virginia in the first year of the war. He served with distinction under Grant, winning the battles of Iuka and Corinth and having a bitter falling-out with Grant afterward: these two battles fell just a little short of the sweeping success that both men wanted, and they argued over who was at fault. Rosecrans took over the dejected Army of the Cumberland after Don Carlos Buell was removed, restored its morale, and fought and won the Battle