‘Hymns’ captures Civil War’s final year

No era in the history of the United States has been so scrutinized as the four years when brother fought brother over the issues of self-government and slavery. So it’s fair to ask whether journalist S.C. Gwynne’s new book, “Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War,” is really necessary.

My answer is yes. Too many Civil War books drill so deeply into the conflict that one can lose sight of what it all means. That’s not the case with Gwynne’s lucid and gripping account, in which he strings together a series of vignettes and profiles of wartime figures in novelistic fashion to tell the story of the war’s tumultuous closing months, through Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and Jefferson Davis’ humiliating capture in Georgia.

Gwynne won his Civil War spurs for his acclaimed 2015 biography of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson, whose brilliant career was cut short by friendly fire in 1863. In this book, the author picks up the narrative a few months later, when Ulysses Grant arrives in Washington.

As related by Gwynne, the year was punctuated by bloody turning points. In April, Confederate soldiers shot black Union troops rather than allowing them to surrender at Fort

Pillow, Tenn., outraging Northerners and strengthening their resolve. The following month, after a series of Union disasters in the tangled Virginia woods, Grant continued to move south rather than retreat. Union soldiers were dumbfounded — and grateful. They were finally going to press the rebels.

William Tecumseh Sherman’s capture of Atlanta overnight bolstered Lincoln’s re-election prospects, reversed Northern pessimism about the war and ensured it almost certainly would end in a Union triumph.

Gwynne is especially good at taking a step back from the narrative to flesh out some of the war’s most compelling figures, and not just Lee and Grant. He sketches officers of varying competence, such as Union Gen. Ben Butler, who was better at preparing for attacks than making them, and the indomitable Clara Barton, who wasn’t allowed to fight and thereupon mounted her own relief agency to tend to those who could.

Gwynne has said next book will be on Reconstruction and titled “How the South Won the Civil War.” Another Civil War book? If it lives up to the promise of the first two that Gwynne has written, why not?