Customer Reviews:
Poland once ruled from Berlin to Moscow! Intrigued.......2006-01-21
The great Polish/Lithuanian empire ruled all of central europe at one point - from Berlin to Moscow. I'm betting most of you weren't even aware of that. I wasn't either until I started reading more of european history. In developing a friendship with some people of Polish descent they recommended this author and his nobel prize winning novels to me. I was daunted by its length and by the date of when it was originally written. However, I started reading and have been hooked on these books ever since. I have come to believe that Mr. Sienkiewicz is the father of the modern novel. This is not a stilted 18th century read!
It gives you history (from a polish perspective) with fictionalized characters and a compelling story behind the backdrop of the calamitous decline of a once proud and powerful empire. The characters are heroic, tragic, conflicted and wonderful to follow. You will love this book and the several sequels in this decades spanning story.
One doesn't win a Nobel prize in literature if they can't write and Mr. Sieniewicz earned his.
Outstanding literature.......2005-05-28
I have read "With Fire and Sword," "The Deluge," and "Pan Michael" ("Colonel Wolodyjowski") and I recommend all of them highly. The characters are memorable and well-developed, the heroes are likeable, and even the villains are understandable as people with very human motivations.
Restored Classic.......2005-05-23
Ask around a bit and you'll find no shortage of folks, men in particular, who became readers via their encounters in youth with class adventure tales: The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, Ivanhoe, the Lord of the Rings, etc. ask again and you'll find almost no one whose heard of half the Nobel Laureates in Literature, fewer who've read them, and none enjoyed many of them. All the more remarkable then that one of the great adventure authors of all time actually won a Nobel and somewhat tragic that so few have read him in recent decades. But Henryk Sienkiewicz has made something of a comeback and it could not be more welcome.
Sienkiewicz is the great author of Poland--indeed, to some extent his works are said to have created and helped to maintain the strong Polish identity that prevailed through the troubled 20th Century. When his books were first published -- mostly late in the 19th Century -- the English translations were done by Teddy Roosevelt's friend Jeremiah Curtin and, whether they were adequate for their time, they are are terribly dated now and have served to put off potential readers. Add in the fact that neither the Nazis nor the Communists had much interest in fostering Polish patriotism and you've the recipe for lost classics. But then, fittingly as the Iron Curtain was crumbling, Hippocrene Books commissioned a new translation of his greatest works, The Trilogy and Quo Vadis?, by the highly-regarded Polish novelist W. S. Kuniczak, and these eminently readable versions won Sienkiewicz a modern audience. New translations of other works followed, then a terrific film version of In Desert and Wilderness, and a massive Polish television adaptation of the Trilogy. Suddenly we've a surfeit of riches and some catching up to do.
If you're just starting out it might be wise to begin with Quo Vadis?, a stand alone tale of Christians in Rome that really deserves a fresh film treatment. But it's well worth your time to dive into the Trilogy, the first volume of which is the magnificent With Fire and Sword. Set in 1647, amidst a Cossack uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it tells the story of a young Polish patriot and hero, Yan Skshetuski, and his love for the beautiful Helen, who is also coveted the brutal Bohun, who fights with the rebels. Pan Yan's twin tales give us epic history and grand romance, while his compatriots offer comic relief. There's his wily servant, Zjendjan, whose semi-faithful service somehow keeps lining his own pocket. There's the mopey giant Pan Longinus, who has sworn a vow of chastity until he lives up to the example of his forebears and takes off the heads of three enemy soldiers with one swing of his massive battle sword. There's Pan Michal Wolodyjowski, whose bravery and feistiness belie his diminutive stature. And, best of all, there's the Falstaffian Pan Zagloba, who makes up in drinking capacity, gluttony, and biting wit what he lacks in zeal for battle, as he keeps his one good eye peeled for threats to his corpulent frame.
It'll take you a hundred to a hundred and fifty pages to orient yourself and get used to the odd names and nicknames, but the subsequent thousand pages go by far too fast. It's one of those stories you don't ever want to end.
A great book, but the translation could be better.......2003-12-23
I've read Kuniczak's translation of the Trilogy and greatly enjoyed it. It was my introduction to Seinkiewicz. However, while reading it, it seemed somehow incoherent, like something was missing. It also seemed impossible that the companions of Zagloba would be so credulous of his boasting.
I went and found a copy of the 1890 translation of the Trilogy by Jeremiah Curtin. What a difference! Though the language is somewhat archaic, the story flows so much better and the character of Zagloba is much more believeable. There is more context to his antics, and his companions are presented as far more skeptical of his boasting, making the story much more realistic.
Kuniczak seems to have omitted and simplified much that appears in the Curtin translation, to the detriment of the story. Many believe the Kuniczak version is superior, and maybe it is more accessible, but I recommend you find the old editon in the basement of the local library and read it first.
Beautiful Novel.......2003-11-19
This was one of the most sweeping epics I've ever read. It's over 1,000 pages, but it takes little effort to finish the book. I found myself white knuckled and breathless through many of the battle scenes. This was truly a good read for both men and women.
Book Description
The period embraced in this set is "one of the most dramatic and fruitful of results in European Annals - remarkable for work and endeavor, especially in the Slav world," the author writes. Among Western Slavs, the great events were the Hussite Wars and the union of Lithuania and Polant. The Hussite Wars were caused by ideas of race and religion (born in Bohemia.) The period of Bohemian activity began in 1403 and ended in 1434, with the battle of Lipan. Known for their great narrative power and contain vivid characterizations, Sienkiewicz' work includes the great trilogy of historical novels began to appear in 1883. It is composed of With Fire and Sword (1884), The Deluge (1886), and Pan Michael (1887-88). Set in the later 17th century, the trilogy describes Poland's struggles against Cossacks, Tatars, Swedes, and Turks, stressing Polish heroism in a vivid style of epic clarity and simplicity. Henryk (Adam Alexander Pius) Sienkiewicz (1846-1916) was a novelist, born in Wola Okrzejska, Poland. He studied at Warsaw, traveled in the USA, and in the 1870s began to write articles, short stories, and novels. His major work was a war trilogy about 17th-c Poland, beginning with Ogniem i mieczem (1884, With Fire and Sword), but his most widely known book is the story of Rome under Nero, Quo Vadis? (1896), several times filmed, notably in 1951 by Mervyn Le Roy (1900-87). He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1905. Translated by Samuel A. Binion, who was also the translator of Quo Vadis.
Customer Reviews:
one of the best historical novels ever.......2006-04-11
The first volume gives a powerful image of Medieval Poland and of the permanent strife between different ethnic groups in this part of Europe. Willing to liberate themselves from the Polish rule, the Ukrainian Kosaks ally with the Tartars of the Golden Horde against their masters. Taken by surprise by the force of the uprising, the Pollons are thoroughly beaten - but their spirit never broken, despite being forced to retire over and over again, they will dug in at Zbaraz and wait for the royal troups.
The young colonel Skrzetuski has completely renounced the hope to find his lover Helena alive - even more, he dreads finding her alive, for she'd certainly be raped and abused. This her lover thinks unsupportable (remember, this is a highly Catholic country, and the morals are very strict). Embittered and hopeless, he's waiting for his death at Zbaraz, for the king has no knowledge of his men peril and no one can go through the Tartar and Kosak siege lines. Famine and disease soon enter the city and the last defenders are reduced to praying for merciful death instead of a life of slavery.
Unknown to Skrzetuski, pan Zagloba - one who never does much if he can help it, but manages to be highly praised even for doing nothing - has learned of Helena's whereabouts. Even if he's scared to death of her captor, Bohun, Zagloba has grown to love the young woman as a father, and will face the greatest perils for her sake. He finds her again and takes her to join the queen's ladies of honor. Fearing Skrzetuski's sanity of mind if the girl would be lost again through some twist of fate, his friends keep all news of her secret from him... even if the young man's pain reaches out to all of them.
One last hope remains for the defenders of Zbaraz: if one man could break through the siege lines and carry a message to the king, the Pollon army could get there in time to save them. As the first one to volunteer is killed by the Tartars, Skrzetuski grabs the chance of a rapid death instead of starvation and offers to break through to the king... Too late his friends realise that knowing Helena is alive could've stopped him... Completely devoted to his honor, after giving his word to try to escape alive, Skrzetuski faces indescribable horrors and disappears for days - ill, dying, and starving - from the face of the earth - managing to reach the king and deliver his message. He's only half-healed when the siege of Zbaraz is lifted by agreement and his friends join him as he finally meets Helena again.
The Kosak uprising lost a lot of force due to internal battling and with the leaving of the hordes (satisfed with the gold they'd gathered), the Pollons managed to turn the fate of the war. Even if not all the historical facts are accurate, this is great literature and a picture in words of a half-savage world struggling towards real civilisation.
This is only the first in the historical trilogy (even if they can be actually read apart, and manage different time settings)that also includes "The Deluge" (possibly THE best historical novel written to date) and "Pan Michael". If you want to know what good, strong literature feels like, you won't miss this one. Get them both - get the whole trilogy. This is for keeps!
With Fire and Sword ý Henryk Sienkiewicz.......2003-03-21
If you are a fan of historic epics with a whirlwind plot, tons of bloody battle scenes, dueling lovers and fascinating characters then "With Fire and Sword" is ideal for you. This is the first part of the renowned Trilogy written by Nobel Prize winning novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz. The novel is a story of a romance between an officer and a young woman. The story is intertwined with the bloody peasant rebellions and Tatar wars which took place in eastern Poland in the 17th century. Sienkiewicz's main credit is the degree of depth which he bestows upon his characters. The characters are full packages of human emotion, desires, fears hate and paradoxes. Personally I vote for Zagloba as my favorite. The historic detail with which the book is written provides the audience an opportunity to witness the events in the eye of their mind. As he does with the characters, Sienkiewicz goes into great detail in describing the surroundings such as the interiors of the castles or battle scenes. The novel is not gory simply for shock effect, the author portrays the battles of the 17th century with brutal honesty. I've read the original Polish version as well as the English and found that the translated edition is very true to the original. The only flaw with the version available is the lack of illustrations, which would be useful for the novice reader.
Ignore the Ukrainian axe grinders, the book is great.......2003-02-22
This is a fantastic book that comes highly recommended, as you will see by reading the full set of 40+ reviews. There are about 3 Ukrainian-Americans, however, who have gone through every review and panned it out of ethnic axe grinding. A shame. Whatever you view on its historical accuracy (it's a novel folks), the values of true honor the book endorses are universal, and the story is a page turner with well-developed characters. Those people who wrote the reviews were highly motivated to write them by the book's excellence.
And as for the historical perspective, the fact is that the Polish rule of Ukraine, however harsh by Polish magnates such as those that Sienkiewicz describes, was nothing compared with the bloody repression of Ukrainian culture and language by the Czars. And the Soviet Union destroyed virtually all of Ukraine's religious traditions and starved and executed millions of its people under Stalin. For this the people of the Ukraine can thank Hymelnitsky, who by destroying the unity of the Commonwealth opened the door to the tragic rule of Ukraine by Muscovy. In the end, Sienkiewicz's view of history is vindicated.
Book Description
The period embraced in this set is "one of the most dramatic and fruitful of results in European Annals - remarkable for work and endeavor, especially in the Slav world," the author writes. Among Western Slavs, the great events were the Hussite Wars and the union of Lithuania and Polant. The Hussite Wars were caused by ideas of race and religion (born in Bohemia.) The period of Bohemian activity began in 1403 and ended in 1434, with the battle of Lipan. Known for their great narrative power and contain vivid characterizations, Sienkiewicz' work includes the great trilogy of historical novels began to appear in 1883. It is composed of With Fire and Sword (1884), The Deluge (1886), and Pan Michael (1887-88). Set in the later 17th century, the trilogy describes Poland's struggles against Cossacks, Tatars, Swedes, and Turks, stressing Polish heroism in a vivid style of epic clarity and simplicity. Henryk (Adam Alexander Pius) Sienkiewicz (1846-1916) was a novelist, born in Wola Okrzejska, Poland. He studied at Warsaw, traveled in the USA, and in the 1870s began to write articles, short stories, and novels. His major work was a war trilogy about 17th-c Poland, beginning with Ogniem i mieczem (1884, With Fire and Sword), but his most widely known book is the story of Rome under Nero, Quo Vadis? (1896), several times filmed, notably in 1951 by Mervyn Le Roy (1900-87). He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1905. Translated by Samuel A. Binion, who was also the translator of Quo Vadis.
Customer Reviews:
21st century American history written in advance?.......2007-01-05
Actually it's a trilogy: Fire and Sword. Deluge. Fire in the Steppes. You can read it as an epic historical novel about 17th century Poland, and what an epic it is! I don't think Hollywood with its cast of thousands and all its money could tell this story vividly as did Sienkiewicz using only the printed word. Believe me, from page 1 you are there.
But I wish this was the only reason to read this book.
Unfortunately, you can't help noticing parallels with Poland then and the USA now, which are many and disquieting. Two constitutional politcal systems; one a republic, the other an elective monarchy--both relatively pluralistic and tolerant in hostile and violent time. Circling foreign powers. Short sighted quarreling and wrangling among the leaders. A huge border problem; large and less than 100% loyal minorities. Holding all this in check are massively powerful militaries. In Poland's case, this wasn't enough. Poland so exhausted itself fighting internal rebellions and foreign invasions that it was easy prey for partitioning in the next century.
So it's a good old fashioned read and a very sobering read at the same time.
East-European History 101.......2006-08-17
For students of East-European history, a sort of thoughtful GONE WITH THE WIND with footnotes. This Victorian-era, historical romance belongs to an eminent tradition that begins with Walter Scott, a tradition that includes Victor Hugo, Dumas (here the main influence), Pushkin, Tolstoi, etc., etc. Of special note, for a fuller perspective on the subject--the unraveling in the 17c of the grand Polish empire ("commonwealth")--read Gogol's Ukranian perspective in TARAS BULBA (made into a silly Hollywood movie, naturellement, with Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis), Isaac Singer's Polish-Jewish lament in SATAN IN GORAY (calamities effectuate religious enthusiasm, or haven't you noticed?), Daniel Defoe's Anglo-gloating in MEMOIRS OF A CAVALIER, and even Isaac Babel's RED CAVALRY (does the horror of the plunder scene in Kosinski's PAINTED BIRD plunder the gleeful horrors in Sienkiewicz's narrative?; the latter never misses an impalement). The treatment, by the author of QUO VADIS?, will eventually inform Hollywood's world-view: super heroes, super damsels in eminent distress, super villains and sort-of villains (unlike Hollywood, the author follows the aristocratic tradition of granting a brave and skillful enemy his due), no sex (save "Tartar fashion"), and lots and lots of blood and guts (literally; after all, this is East Europe). As I said, Hollywood. Essential reading--along with THE DELUGE (mighty!! Sweden picks on sweet, peace-loving Poland) and FIRE IN THE STEPPE (the mighty Turk picks on peace-loving Western civilization)--for students of European history, especially of East European. The collapse of Poland in the 17c would lead to the rise of two great European powers--Germany via Prussia, and Romanoff Russia. In tone and theme WITH FIRE AND SWORD prepares the reader for 20c European history. Incidentally, tho written by a Polish patriot in the 19c, there is very little of the religious issue either as it may have been felt in Poland or as it helped precipitate the war (rebellion) in the Ukraine (the lords of Poland failed to show sensitivity to the religious sensibilities of Cossacks): a curious omission in a portrait of Eastern Europe in the 17c (but compare with the sequel, THE DELUGE, wherein the shoe is on the other foot). Another aside: Sienkowiewicz's persistent adoration of the decorums of feudalism as a 19c romantic imagined them, tho risible to a 21st century North American (and quite sinister and ominous, unless one trusts NPR), is somewhat in a European tradition that would endure until, and thro, the Great War (WW I); think of Tennyson's "kind hearts and coronets" or read the boys magazines published in England, 1914 - 1918 (or watch Masterpiece Theatre). To cite just one example from our author: on the eve of battle with Sweden's army (in THE DELUGE), the inert, effete Polish nobility (according to the author) suddenly pulse as one with that "inborn capacity of the nobles for war." (For an eminent rejoinder, read Conrad's LORD JIM.) As I said, somewhat risible but sinister and ominous from a contemporary perspective up here. (Have you watched Polish national television lately?) Rendered in a lively, brisk, popular style well suited to the magazine serialization that marked the book's first appearance (as with Dickens).
one of the best historical novels ever.......2006-04-11
If you've read only "Quo Vadis" (or not even that one) by Sienkiewicz, you must read this one. It's not set in the same time but much later, in the Medieval Poland, a strange mix of civilisation (it was the only real democracy in those times' Europe - even the king was elected by poll!) and savagery. The Chistian Pollons - the most fervent of Catholics even now - of the Middle Eve show alternate sensibility and cruelty, are capable of the most gentle love but could butcher carelessly an opponent, are trustworthy or the biggest liars - and all of them breathe in the pages of this novel. You might have problems with the names - but this is to be expected; you don't have to learn Polish in order to love this book...
Young "polkovnik" (equiv. colonel) Skrzetuski falls inlove with a panni (miss) he's only spoken to for a little time. The girl's guardians promise him the maiden's hand in marriage... But as soon as he's away , the Tartars destroy the mansion and all knowledge of the inhabitants is lost. Kept a prisoner by the Tartars, allied with the Kosaks, Skrzetuski is freed only to find his lover gone. The Kosak Bohun, also inlove with Helena, kidnaps the girl and carries her away. As much as he'd want to go to her rescue, Skrzetuski has military duties to fulfill and will go to war instead of finding his heart's desire. But as he desperately tries to put love aside (and never really succeeds) his loyal friends go in search of Helena. Pan Zagloba, the biggest braggart of all times, and young Michal Wollodijowski manage to rescue her from her keepers and even wound Bohun. But after they hide her in a monastery in a protected city, and give the good news to the delighted Skrzetuski, they learn that the city was overtaken by the enemies and the monasteries sacked, the maidens there raped and murdered. Devastated, the young colonel decides to try to find death as a hero or join a monks order, if he'll survive all battles...
this is only the mainline and could tell nothing of the beauty of the prose... You actually are transported back in time, all the characters have substance and are credible. You'll want more - and there are more of them. Just have one try... You'll never regret it.
Literature of the highest quality.......2004-11-10
Sinkiewicz is a genius with a pen. These stories are so complete, so indepth, the character development so real, the plots so intricate - this is writing of superb quality awaiting a miniseries
Book Description
An Award-Winning Historian Dramatically Re-Creates a Turning Point of the Civil WarIt was one of the most startling events of the civil war, the "hour of destiny" for the Union. Faced with the prospect of catastrophic defeat, the North's greatest generals--Ulysses Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, George Thomas, and Phil Sheridan--were commanding a battle fror the besieged city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Suddenly, as an aghast Grant and Thomas watched, the beleaguered federal tropps began a headlong, climactic, seemingly suicidal charge up the face of a six-hundred-foot-high mountain ridge overlooking the city, under ferocious fire from the Confederate infantry that held the ridge.The siege of Chattanooga and its stuffing turnabout form the core of Wiley Sword's lively narrative. Dozens of previously unpublished photographs, maps, and excepts from private journals, and letters enhance this vivid account. Written with novelistic flair and a historian's authority, Mountains Touched with Fire captures every side of this crucial Civil War battle whose aftermath sealed the fate of the South.
Customer Reviews:
Well told overview.......2005-11-04
I picked up this book after reading another Sword work, "The Confederacy's Last Hurrah", which I consider amongst my favorite books. I think Mountains Touched with Fire is not quite on that caliber, but is a well written and told overview of a somewhat unwritten about campaign. His writings on the dealings between Union General William Rosecrans and Pres. Lincoln were very interesting to me and almost led me to expand upon that topic for a college paper. His description of the "Cracker Line" and the battle for Lookout Mountain stood out to me as well. I also knew very little about the campaign before reading the book, but I feel I now have a good hold on the information. The book is very readable and enjoyable, but gets 4 stars from me because I feel it is a notch below some of Sword's other work and, as mentioned in other revies, the maps can be frustrating.
Accessible and Engaging Book on a Crucial Campaign.......2004-10-14
The siege and battle of Chattanooga presents a complex and difficult challenge to a writer. The action was spread out over more than a two-month period. It included the critical but inactive month long siege, when the Army of the Cumberland was besieged and nearly starved out of Chattanooga by Bragg's Confederates. Then followed a month of various actions, large and small, from the October 28 Brown's Ferry action that opened the cracker line, to Cleburne's rear guard fight to defend the fleeing Confederate army on November 27. This was all further complicated by both the politics that was altering the Union command, and the vicious political infighting among Bragg's high command that played a huge role in the eventual outcome of the campaign. Wiley Sword has done a masterful job of tackling the daunting task of weaving a clear, informative, and exciting tapestry from all of these various threads.
Sword begins with the bloody battle of Chickamauga. By devoting the first three chapters to this devastating defeat of the Union Army of the Cumberland that set up the conditions for the siege at Chattanooga, Sword wisely avoids opening his book with the long inaction of the siege. By necessity, a large section is devoted to the siege, and even Sword's fine writing sometimes fails to enliven this dull but crucial build up to the final crisis. He then expertly makes sense of the various and confusing military actions that started in late October, and did not end until the desperate rear guard action of the Confederates in flight on November 27. His account of Thomas' "demonstration" which turned into a full scale assault up Missionary Ridge and turned the tide of the battle is the most stirring of any that I have ever read of this amazing event.
Sword vividly paints Chattanooga as the most devilishly unpredictable of campaigns. Men with impressive reputations such as General Sherman and Confederate General Longstreet met with only failure and embarrassment here. The best plans of the Union's hero, General Grant, utterly failed, while actions planned only as diverting demonstrations turned into major victories at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. The action which against all odds swept the Confederates from their nearly impregnable position atop Missionary Ridge was based on a spur of the moment, ill-considered mistake made by Grant, and succeeded at least in part because it should never have been attempted. Sword shows a campaign won not by the generals, but by the vagaries of chance and the mettle of the men in the ranks.
Mountain Touched with Fire is not the last word on Chattanooga. There may be other works that go into greater detail, and it certainly could have had more maps. However, it is the most accessible, the most engaging book on the subject, and the best place to begin to understand this complicated and crucial campaign.
Theo Logos
More, and better maps would have been great!.......2004-04-14
I want to start off by saying that I loved this book, and this was the first book on the Siege/Battle of Chattanooga that I have read. There was one glaring inaccurarcy: while describing Sherman's movement from Memphis to Chattanooga (via the Memphis & Charleston RR), Sword misplaces the town of Colliersville as being in Mississippi, while, in fact, it is in Tennessee. I know this as I live within 20 miles of Collierville.
Sword, as usual, is very skillful in his writing. His book on Shiloh was, I believe, the best on that battle, and this book definitely doesn't dissapoint. The photo section of this book was great.
Why, you may ask, didn't I give this book five stars, then? The reason is that his book had very few maps, and those provided, while not bad, could definitely have been better. If there had been more maps, I most likely would have given this book five stars.
With all that said, I would recommend this book to anyone who has a sincere interest in the campaigns of the War Between the States. At the price Amazon.Com charges, I would recommend even more highly that you purchase it.
Lookout Mountain Wasn't Always A Tourist Trap!.......2002-07-12
This book concerns itself with the siege of Chattanooga in the fall of 1863 by the Confederates and the unexpected breakout by Union forces just when it seemed that they on the verge of suffering a major defeat. Historian Willey Sword weaves a brilliant narrative that reveals the behind-the-scenes infighting of the Confederate generals and the ineptness of many of the northern generals as well as the rise of Ulysses S. Grant (this battle helped to cement his reputation). But what I found most compelling about this book was the detailed descriptions of the incredible suffering that was sustained by the common soldiers.
Many people have a romantic image of the Civil War. But the reality is that the average soldier suffered hardships that cannot even be imagined today. For example, so starved were the troops on both sides during the siege that many were driven to such desperate acts as eating bark off trees or picking undigested corn from animal feces. For in those days, supplies to the battlefield often had to travel hundreds of miles on rail which were often sabotaged by the enemy. Even if the supplies made it to the nearest depot safely, they still had to travel dozens of miles by horse-driven wagons over muddy and often impassable roads. The sad truth is that most supplies ended up rotting or otherwise were destroyed before they even got to the troops, ensuring a constant lack of vital supplies and rampant starvation and illnesses.
By this stage of the Civil War, it was apparent that many of the rank-and-file soldiers were sick of the war and just wanted it to end. In fact, soldiers on opposing sides of the picket lines would often banter playfully with each other and trade such items as pocket knives and tobacco back and forth across enemy lines. But they would soon enough be engaged in bloody battle once again. The climactic battle makes for gripping reading and many unexpected (and unheralded) heros turn disaster into victory (for the Union).
The battle described in this book is typical of many Civil War battles. Lots of people were slaughtered and maimed. Many of them senselessly on account of ill-advised orders from their own officers. It is amazing how the United States was able to reunite at all after such a bloody conflict (over 520,000 Americans were killed), but that is a story for other books to tell. This book only concerns itself with the action at Chattanooga in late 1863 and the narrow focus of the book is an advantage as it does not bore the reader with a confusing tangle of battles and generals - the pitfall of many of the other Civil War books.
The only disappointment with this book (and keeping it from getting five stars) is that there are only a few maps and they are horrid and almost useless. This extremely well-written text deserves better situation maps and more of them so that the reader can better picture the action in his/her mind.
Better storyteller than most.......2001-03-31
Wiley Sword has a richly deserved reputation as a Civil War historian and a writer. Although the title indicates the book is about the battle of Chattanooga, the book is half gone before you start the fighting that occurred in Nov. 1864.
Sword starts with the Tullahoma Campaign, touches on the events preceding Chickamauga, and with the fires still glowing 12 miles south of Chattanooga, Sword begins to weave the tale of America's Scenic City late in 1863. The Union Army is stranded with little food and little hope of increasing its supply, Rosecrans is arrogently refusing to admit to his problem and General Grant is put in charge of a potentially disasterous situation.
Grant's first concern are the men trapped in this valley between two mountains. He is willing to overlook his distaste for George Thomas, who is, well, a Virginian in the Union Army. Once a supply route is secure and the rations begin to pour into the besieged city, Grant turns his attention to the problem at hand -- lifting the seige and driving the Rebels back. This he does in a series of four battles, Orchard Knob, the "Battle Above the Clouds," Missionary Ridge and Ringgold Gap.
The Confederates are being torn apart by the hatred of most of the generals for their commanding officer, Braxton Bragg. And as much a the book is a big hurrah for General Grant and Thomas, its an indictment of the beleaguered commander of the Army of Tennessee.
Sword's strength is his ability to tell a story without sacrificing historical accuracy. I suppose he could have gone into more detail, but I like it just the way it is. We don't need another Cozzens epic.
Customer Reviews:
You Can Almost Feel the Suffering.......2006-07-06
FIRE AND SWORD, ARKANSAS, 1861-74 (Horrors of War and Peace.)
Sadly, this is a "typical" story of the post-Civil-War hardships that overtook the South in the aftermath of the Lost Cause. Hardship hardly covers the matter of living with starvation always at the door and suffering marauding by lawless bands of the scum of the earth willing, often eager, to kill in order to rob, mobs that the close of the fighting inevitably turned loose in Arkansas and most other defeated states. Compounded with this mere criminal element were the murdering bands out for revenge on each other over wartime differences and incursions. Life was secure for no one. This is as good a primer on that as will be found in Civil War literature, and prospers as so many new histories do from digging into the micro-records of personal recollections, contemporary letters, news articles and other minute examinations of what life was like.
You get a feel for the time and place, the people and their most intimate beliefs. Names of historical characters seldom heard of pop up with frequency, and of course during the war there is the stock cast of military with whom Civil War Buffs are familiar.
The period prior to the Civil War set the stage for much of what happened as it did throughout the South. Arkansas was divided between rich planters of the east, southeast and south, in the river-bottom low lands, and primarily non-slave-holding small farmers of the uplands of the northwest. It is significant that cotton doesn't prosper above an elevation of 1,000 ft. above sea level, which accounted for most of the enclaves of pro-Unionism among many throughout the south. (In the most extreme example, West Virginia seceded from Virginia and formed a new state.) The red-hot secessionists were slave owners with an economic stake in the peculiar institution. The poor subsistence farmers owed nothing to the rich slave owners, who almost always managed to control politics. This had violent repercussions when the loss of the war temporarily put an end to the aristocracy's power. As events proved, there was little over which they would hesitate in order to regain it.
I will wager that few today think about the terrible - truly devastating - effects of our past domestic wars directly upon millions and millions of our forebears, and those who do so reflect, simply can't shrug into the garments of those long-gone Americans, and come close to appreciating the degree of their fear, apprehension, suffering and sacrifice.
The sense of bewilderment by those who lost everything, as the Tories in the Revolution, and the South after the Civil War, must have been overwhelming. Three wars were primarily on our own soil. The Revolution, upon which the nation was founded, the War of 1812, which could be considered a continuation of that war, and the Civil War (which in a sense of who the contestants were is often likened to a continuation of the English Civil War - Cavaliers against Round Heads, or as was said of the Civil War, the Chivalry against the Shovelry.).
All three of those wars were recognizably between brothers. The Americans who went into the Revolution considered themselves Englishmen who had been deprived of their rights. The War of 1812, between nations who spoke the same language and had the same common customs, was avoidable, but on the English side reflected a desire to rub the noses of their former minions in the gravel and teach them a lesson. But the grandaddy of the three was The War Between Brothers; our Civil War.
On the surface it appears like an avoidable tragedy, but was in fact, as William Seward dubbed it, "an irrepressible conflict." The moral and economic differences between North and South simply became too strained. Arkansas, and other states of the Confederacy were to be the principal victims.
Arkansas had a lot of Unionists, but almost all of them were Unionist with a couple of provisos: that the North keep their (should we say cottonpickin') hands off slavery, and that in the event some Southern states did secede, the North would make no effort to coerce them back into the Union. It was the latter proviso on which Arkansas finally passed an ordnance of Secession after it became obvious that Lincoln's government did, indeed, intend to coerce.
Arkansas had been a state only since 1836, only 25 years, when the war broke out. It had produced not a single famous name to be found in history books of the magnitude of Jefferson Davis, Roberts Toombs or Lincoln, or Seward and Stephen A. Douglas. Nor did it produce a lot of cotton compared to the other cotton states. Its population wasn't large enough to contribute mighty armies. Why did it get caught as it did in constant fighting back and forth if such was the case? Because it was "literally in the middle," as the saying goes. It was bordered on the north by Missouri where the Union had its principal military center in the West, St. Louis. Early the Southern government tried to hold Missouri and make it a state of the Confederacy. That didn't work. The Union by rapid action held St. Louis first of all, and ran the confederate government of Gov. Claiborne Jackson up the pike. Former Missouri governor, Sterling Price, until then a Union man, changed his mind and took a commission as General of the Missouri militia. He defeated Union General Nathaniel Lyon at Wilson's Creek in Aug. 1861, assisted by the Arkansas and Texas troops of Gen. McCullough.
Following Wilson's Creek, McCullough returned to Arkansas, and Price after raiding in Missouri, retreated to southwest Missouri and went into a winter encampment at Springfield. But he was determined to advance again and take Missouri for the Confederacy. This threat determined that Arkansas would "end up in the middle" for the whole period of the war.
The Union struck back with an army under Gen. Samuel Curtis, who ran Price out of Springfield, followed him into Arkansas, and defeated Price's forces, united with those of Gen. McCullough, both under the command of a joke of a Gen. Earle Van Dorn at Pea Ridge in March of 1862, A rematch occurred later that year at Prairie Grove, also a Confederate defeat. The Confederacy never mounted a serious threat to Missouri afterward. But Arkansas caught it because the Union wanted to neutralize and occupy it permanently to assure that the South didn't try another invasion from that base. They were reminded of this need, when Price wasn't saber rattling over a return to Missouri by raids by his subordinate Missourian generals, Jo Shelby and Marmaduke. (Both later to be elected governors of Missouri.) Price made one final stab at retaking his home state in late 1864 and lost his army after a comic opera campaign fizzled out. (For example, duelist Marmaduke was captured wearing a pair of overalls, and nursing a broken arm sustained in a fall with his horse)
The movements of both armies during the war kept the countryside denuded of supplies as they foraged for whatever they could find in the line of food for man and beast. It must have been a helluva time for a lone woman with children to feed, and her husband gone off to war. In fact it is unimaginable how they managed to survive.
The problem didn't abate with the end of the war. The land and its primarily agricultural economy were in a state of ruin. The slaves, now freed, were taken care of by the Union Freedman's Bureau, but were a tremendous problem in every way. They had no idea how to manage for themselves and it was necessary for the former slave owners to effect a means of now employing them to attempt to reestablish plantations and farms. The effort, in view of its insurmountable appearing obstacles was in time remarkably successful. The result was what we know as "share cropping," but it took experimentation to find this solution. In view of the lack of money to pay wages, such a system was probably inevitable.
The state, meaning its people collectively, was faced with another complication. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified Dec. 6, 1865, freed the slaves, but that was only the start of the problem. The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified on July 9, 1868, in effect, deprived anyone who had participated in the Rebellion, of the right to vote. This, coupled with the Fifteenth Amendment, which guaranteed Negro voting rights gave birth to what became known as Carpetbagging. In Arkansas, the prohibition of the right to vote of those who had participated in the Rebellions had already given the state a former Yankee general as governor. And what a hell of a governor he turned out to be. A man who controlled Arkansas politics until his 1914 death. Who was he? I'll bet not one in a hundred Civil War buffs can name this fellow who is characterized as one of the Union's most-successful cavalry generals. Read the book. The situation that enabled such a man to be elected governor, was what gave rise to the Ku Klux Klan, which this governor successfully opposed as far as its initial purposes were concerned, often by using black militia. (One can imagine how popular that was, and at least one attempt was made to assassinate the governor.)
You meet a cast of similar wildly improbable characters of whom you've never heard much, if anything. General Thomas Hindman who was so effective in making slackers measure up that even Arkansas petitioned the Confederate government in Richmond to send him elsewhere, which they did. He returned after the war and entered Arkansas politics with his customary pugnacity and effectiveness and was rewarded by being shot one night through the window of his home and killed. (You know why; the bastards that did it were afraid to face him from the front in broad daylight?) We also had Gen. Marmaduke who killed a fellow general in a duel. [No singular event, by the way; Union General, Jefferson Davis (no relation to the Confederate president) who was a significant participant at Pea Ridge shot and killed his commanding officer and walked.] And, of course Gen. Jo Shelby, a Southern tradition and later governor of Missouri, a general who welcomed into his ranks such stalwarts as Frank and Jesse James.
One thing that you gain from author Thomas A. DeBlack's research and writing is a feel for the time and place, such as you get from Mark Twain's Huck Finn as he traveled through this country. This was the land of personal honor where, as in Huck, an aristocrat shot down a mudsill for repeatedly "blackguarding" him.
You can also almost smell the `taters' frying, after they got some `taters' that someone didn't steal from them. It was a rustic, homey place, at root, and still is in the rural areas that haven't changed all that much.
A great book all around, complete with many good, pertinent photos of the people and places, plus a solid bibliography and index.
A candid and detailed retracing of crucial decisions.......2003-09-19
Thoughtfully written by Thomas A. DeBlack (Associate Professor of History, Arkansas Tech University), With Fire And Sword: Arkansas, 1861-1874 provides a scholarly examination of just how the events of the Civil War and the Reconstruction so heavily devastated the state of Arkansas, its population and its economy, that this southern state was never to fully regained the level of prosperity it had enjoyed prior to the war. A candid and detailed retracing of crucial decisions, their interplay, and their lasting legacy, With Fire And Sword is a welcome contribution to the growing library of Civil War literature and Reconstruction Era reference collections and reading lists.
Good, updated look at AR in the Civil War and Reconstruction.......2003-06-17
At first look, "With Fire and Sword: Arkansas, 1861-1874" appears to be an update to the 1994 Department of Arkansas Heritage project, "Rugged & Sublime: The Civil War in Arkansas", to which Dr. DeBlack was a major contributor.
WITH FIRE AND SWORD follows much the same outline and material as "Rugged & Sublime," and adds some new information and personal stories drawn from recent works on Arkansas and its role in the Civil War. Where WITH FIRE AND SWORD stands out, however, is in the extension of its coverage beyond the War years to the recovery of the state and its citizens after the War and the role played by Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction as well as local politics, leading up to the local "Militia Wars" and the "Brooks-Baxter War." These instances have not been addressed in readily available works in the past decade.
WITH FIRE AND SWORD stands as an excellent first reader or introduction to antebellum conditions, the Civil War, and Reconstruction in Arkansas; and provides not only an overview of events but also footnotes, lead-ins, and references to additional research for the reader who wants to look deeper under the surface in this fascinating area.
Average customer rating:
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Battle of Kings Mountain 1780, With Fire and Sword
Wilma Dykeman
Manufacturer: National Park Service
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 South Atlantic
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ASIN: 0912627530 |
Book Description
By Wilma Dykeman. Illustrated by Louis S. Glanzman. Publication measures 9 x 6 in. Describes and illustrates the land and the people for which the Battle of Kings Mountain was fought in South Carolina on Oct. 17, 1780. Contains unnumbered pages.
Book Description
This is volume two of a two-volume work, the sequel to "With Fire and Sword," a massive book called one of the greatest in European literature. "The Deluge" continues the sweeping saga of war and rebellion that threatened the kingdom of Poland and changed the face of Eastern Europe in the 17th Century. This historical novel of Poland, Sweden and Russia, is a masterful blend of history and imagination, filled with nonstop action and adventure. Sienkiewicz's work is the sweeping saga of a nation caught in the throes of a civil war, of a people struggling for survival, and of events that forever changed the face of Eastern Europe. Number two in his trilogy on the history of Poland, it tells the love story of a man and a woman tragically separated by foolishness, pride, confusion and the Swedish invation of Poland in the 1500s which divided a nation against itself and drew the best and worst out of its citizens
This authorized, unabridged edition was translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin.
Customer Reviews:
Dude... I cried at certain parts of this book..........2006-06-17
and that never happened before. I will confess I picked up this book because of the cover. I was waiting for a study group at the main library at Boston College. It was a new release and had on the cover a beatiful painting of charging polish hussars. I said to myself this looks real cool. I read the first chapter standing at the lobby because my stupid study group was late. I was instantly addicted. I borrowed and finished it in less than a week and then borrowed that second volume.
It was such a moving experience. Pan Andy, Fat Zagloba, and Mikey just leapt from the pages and off I went on a high adventure with these guys. This is better than Tolkien or any fantasy adventure ever written. I really felt like I was with these guys trying to free their country from oblivion.
Grand Entertaining Sweep of History.......2006-03-09
I own a ninety year old translation of With Fire and Sword. The translation is a bit stilted (as was our English back then),but the cover is falling off from my avid reading. When I found the Kuniczak translation of The Deluge, I couldn't wait to read more, and this does not disappoint. The fresh idiomatic English is mostly smooth, (although a few expressions stand out as more modern slang). Once again, Pan Zagloba roars across the pages and the "little colonel" Wolodyovski does his best defending the Motherland, and at the same time, to catch the eye of pretty girls. The drama and characters of 17th century Poland and Lithuania cannot help to inspire an interest in this area. I was amazed when I read the true story of the politics and shifting alliances of the region, and to imagine a powerful SWEDISH army (oxymoron these days). A true classic that never gets old.
Outstanding, with lessons for today.......2004-04-07
The stormy romance between Andei Kmicic and Olenka Billevich seems like an allegory of the relationship between the Polish szlachta and Poland itself. The petty squabbling, quarreling, and self-serving behavior of the szlachta alienates them from their country as Kmicic's headstrong and reckless behavior alienates him from the woman he loves. "It seemed to Kmita then that Poland and Olenka were one and the same, and that he had doomed them both and handed them voluntarily to the Swedes" (Kuniczak translation, p. 753). Sienkiewicz obviously wishes to leave a clear lesson here for the free people of any nation.
The story foreshadows two issues that emerged during the Second World War: the Germans who were "only following orders" and the Vichy French who collaborated with the Germans. What is one supposed to do when his superior orders him to do something that is obviously wrong? At what point does acquiescence to a victorious invader for the purpose of avoiding further harm to one's country become collaboration with an enemy? Can someone collaborate with the enemy for the purpose, as Janusz Radziwill claimed, of turning on him and overthrowing him at a more opportune moment? (The few colonels who went along with Radziwill were in a semi-feudal system in which a retainer obeyed his lord and the lord was supposed to obey the King. Radziwill's foreign mercenaries had no such dilemma because they owed their loyalty only to their paymaster.)
During the 1970s, the United States began to lose the manufacturing capability that led to victory in the Second World War. Our Congress has its own Opalinskis and Radziwills, people whose first priority is their own political success as opposed to service to the country. They are unwilling or unable to understand that wealth must be created through agriculture, mining, and manufacturing, and that it cannot be legislated into existence. The Senatorial filibuster is now used to block judicial appointments, as the Liberum Veto was once used to break up the Sejm. The jester Ostrozka showed how the handwriting was on the wall for the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth's ideological successor and heir, the United States, needs to take the same warning very seriously lest it suffer the same fate.
Lost in the Translation.......2002-06-09
By all means, buy this edition if it is your only way to enter the marvelous world that Sienkiewicz has given to Poland and to posterity. Discover why the Trilogy has been a best-seller in its native land for more than a century. Epic adventure, star-crossed love, villains, heroes, treachery, heartbreak and humor. Sienkiewicz wrote to lift up the hearts of his people, and if he doesn't lift yours, see a cardiologist immediately.
But beg or borrow if you can, and steal if you must, the translation by W.S. Kuniczak that was published in the early 1990s. Discover what happens when a novelist translates. Kuniczak is true not just to the sentences, but to the spirit of the work. He blows the dust out of the century-old writing and lets it shine. And for readers not on intimate terms with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th Century (admit it), he effortlessly drops in helpful hints.
Here's how Curtin starts:
There was in Jmud a powerful family, the Billeviches, descended from Mendog, connected with many, and respected, beyond all, in the district of Rossyeni. ... Their native nest, existing to this day, was called Billeviche; ... In later times they branched out into a number of houses, the members of which lost sight of one another. They all assembled only when there was a census at Rossyeni of the general militia of Jmud on the plain of the invited Estates.
And Kuniczak:
In the part of the old Grand Duchy of Lithuania that was known as Zmudya, and which antedated the times of recorded history, there lived an ancient family named Billevitch, widely connected with many other houses of Lithuanian gentry, and respected more than any other in the Rosyen region. ... Their family seat, known as Billevitche ... so that in time they split into several branches that seldom saw each other. Some of them got together now and then when the Zmudyan gentry gathered for the annual military census near Rosyen on a plain called Stany...
Honestly, which version would you rather spend 1700 pages with? The native nest or the family seat?
(And just by the by, when will a smart publisher sell the Sienkiewicz Trilogy alongside Tolkien? Why do they squirrel it away with the Serious Literature in Translation that mostly gathers dust? There's millions and millions of dollars in these books, lying around, waiting for someone to market them properly.)
Breathtaking!.......2001-04-12
This book, the second in the famous Sienkiewicz Trilogy, is not a two-volume set for show. The book is 1700+ pages long! As usual with Sienkiewicz, however, the pages are required to tell the story. This novel brings back the main characters from "With Fire And Sword" though they play a somewhat smaller role, especially Pan Yan and Helen. Two new main characters take center stage.
Andrei is a wild knight whose thoughtless, self-absorption mirrors the attitudes of the ruling class in Poland at the time. His attitude leads him down a terrible road and then forces him to make the hard, arduous climb back from nothing once he realizes his error. The skill with which Sienkiewicz intertwines Andrei's descent and redemption with the greater struggle of Poland against Sweden is brilliant! On the other hand, there's Olenka who is loved by Andrei. She seems to represent Poland itself and the ethics which are required to preserve something worth fighting for. She is the moral center of the novel even when she's not in the foreground of the action.
Their love story plays out in the midst of a tale of war that involves the invasion of Poland from three countries at the same time (the 'deluge' of the title). We meet the Kings of two countries, the nobles under them with their own agendas, and the soldiers fighting on as power shifts from one side to the other in an international game where the winners get crowns and the losers lose everything.
Just a sample of a few threads in the story: the siege of a holy shrine, a knight leading a small band of raiders against an army, a woman taken captive by a warlord and makes him regret iit, a country defeated not by the army of its enemies but by something more deadly from within, the plots of a noble family to rip apart an entire nation solely to rule a part of it themselves, the attempt to return an exiled King to his country through wild mountains full of enemy soldiers. This is just a sample! The scope of this novel is absolutely unsurpassed and, best of all, Sienkiewicz has the imagination, characters and events to keep it interesting for over 1,700 pages! You really do feel as though you've lived the two years that are encompassed by this novel. So much happens.
In less capable hands, "The Deluge" could have been just a boring history lesson. Sienkiewicz weaves all the history and political figures of the time with his own characters to crystallize a crucial point in a nation's history. In addition, he crafts a story that is unbelievably complex and yet thouroughly entertaining from first page to last.
And hats off to the translator! How many people would have the talent and stamina to translate something this long and do such a consistent and beautiful job? Not many, I imagine.
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