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The March

A Novel

By E. L. Doctorow

(9)

| Hardcover | 9780375506710

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Book Description

In 1864, after Union general William Tecumseh Sherman burned Atlanta, he marched his sixty thousand troops east through Georgia to the sea, and then up into the Carolinas. The army fought off Confederate forces and lived off the land, pillaging the Southern plantations, taking cattle and crops for tContinue

Critics

Rampaging through Georgia

E. L. Doctorow tackles mighty themes. He started out by revisiting the Western for his first book Welcome to Hard Times. This was by way of limbering up. He took on the Rosenbergs with The Book of Daniel, and 20th-century celebrity, adventure and inj ... (read full critics)

spectator published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

Rampaging through Georgia

E. L. Doctorow tackles mighty themes. He started out by revisiting the Western for his first book Welcome to Hard Times. This was by way of limbering up. He took on the Rosenbergs with The Book of Daniel, and 20th-century celebrity, adventure and inj ... (read full critics)

spectator published on Mon, 13 Sep 2010

2 Reviews

Magnificent! Moving! Mesmerising!

Sherman's march to the sea is well known and well documented, but here in this novel E.L. Doctorow brings together the suffering of the soldiers and the freed slaves as we move with the army on its epic march to defeat the remaining Confederate forces in the South. There is a multitude of small and ... (continue)

Sherman's march to the sea is well known and well documented, but here in this novel E.L. Doctorow brings together the suffering of the soldiers and the freed slaves as we move with the army on its epic march to defeat the remaining Confederate forces in the South. There is a multitude of small and large characters who appear on the stage of Doctorow's story: some stay the whole course, others fade away after a brief period. It is the small, minor, seemingly insignificant characters who captured my attention and interest as the story progressed. These are the ones I wanted to survive the ordeal that had been thrust upon them. There is Pearl, a 14 year old slave girl; Will, a soldier who just doesn't seem to fit in with army life, and Emily, the daughter of a Southern judge. Then there is doctor Sartorius: cold, calm, collected. Doing what he has to in order to save lives. He amputates limbs knowing there is nothing else he can do. He knows that most will dies through infection. He hopes some will survive, but he has no time to stop and worry about what he's done, as hosts of wounded Union and Confederate soldiers accumulate outside his operating tent. These are the lives of ordinary people caught up in a conflict of unimaginable horror. But then there are those others - the Generals - the leaders of the armies. Sherman doesn't like what he's doing but believes it is the only way to end the conflict. To put a stop to the slaughter. So he destroys everything in his path. Even so he is magnanimous when towns and cities surrender at his approach. So much so that the conditions he agrees with Joe Johnston at his surrender cause a stir in Washington and have to be changed. The feelings of anger between North and South over this war still reverberate today.

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GraJon said on Jun 2, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Follow Sherman's march

I am in no way proud of the fact that human slavery was a part of our history as a nation, but I was fascinated by this story of Sherman's march through Georgia and the two Carolinas. The characters demonstrated that there are human faces assigned to any war---Pearl, the white offspring of a slave a ... (continue)

I am in no way proud of the fact that human slavery was a part of our history as a nation, but I was fascinated by this story of Sherman's march through Georgia and the two Carolinas. The characters demonstrated that there are human faces assigned to any war---Pearl, the white offspring of a slave and plantation "massah" who nursed ailing soldiers of both sides; the buffoons Arly & Will, who changed in & out of Union and Confederate uniforms whenever it served their purpose; Miz Emily Thompson, a southern belle who took up with a Union doctor after she lost everything; and Sherman, the almighty Union General who machinated the destruction of the south, but cried when he got the news of Willie Hardee's death, son of Confederate Gen. Joseph Hardee. For anyone who loves historical fiction, this is a great read. I would've given it four stars, except about 3/4's way through the book it seemed to get a little bogged down in details of skirmishes that to my way of thinking were unnecessary. But over-all, a great book.

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Marion the librarian said on Mar 31, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback