Grant, Lee, Lincoln and the Radicals: Essays on Civil War Leadership

During the Civil War Centennial, four eminent scholars of the conflict - Bruce Catton, Charles P. Roland, David Herbert Donald, and Harry T. Williams - gathered at a Northwestern University symposium to debate and commemorate this transforming event in American history. Originally published in 1964, Grant, Lee, Lincoln, and the Radicals assembles their conference papers into one small volume that has become a giant in Civil War historiography. These historians’ essays explore the generalships of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, assert that Lincoln versus the Radicals is an oversimplification of Civil War politics, and theorize that the opposition of the Radicals was a defining factor in Lincoln’s presidency.