Too Much the Lion

I’ll preface my review by saying I’m not a devoted student of history. That’s my husband’s area of interest and expertise. But I know Preston Lewis to be an excellent writer, I enjoy good historical fiction, and I always like the opportunity to learn about things I’m unfamiliar with. So I gladly picked up his latest book.

Too Much the Lion tells the story of the five days leading up to the Battle of Franklin, fought on November 30, 1864. The battle itself was brutal, bloody, and a devastating blow to the Confederacy. The period shortly before it wasn’t much better, at least not for the Southern forces.

John Bell Hood, the recently appointed commander of the Army of Tennessee, was convinced that only his brilliant tactical maneuvering would drive the Yankees out of Tennessee and turn the tide of war for the Confederacy. But he was pretty much universally disliked by the forces of which he was given command, and so full of himself it’s a wonder he could fit his head inside a doorway.

And bless his heart, he was a legend only in his own mind. He may have had courage (as attested to by the injuries he suffered and his continuing to serve even though those injuries could have easily given him reason to sit on the sidelines), but it was courage at moving his forces on the board of war. He never put himself in harm’s way, but he led from the back. Waaaaaaay back. As the Battle of Franklin raged and the men for whom he was responsible slogged it out in the equivalent of hell on earth, General Hood watched from a mile and a half away, and “consumed two cigars before the dropping temperatures forced him inside to the warmth of the widow’s home and another featherbed for the night.” He slept in comfort and ate at table, taking food from the mouths of women and children, while his soldiers slogged through muck and mud, with inadequate shoes and clothing for the cold weather and almost no provisions, doing their best to win a fight against a better supplied force based on the ever-changing whims of their commander. I wanted to reach inside the story and whap John Bell Hood upside the head. If he made his men as angry as he made me, I’m not sure how no one assassinated him before the battle ever took place.

The impact of Hood’s strategic decisions brought harm to almost everyone but himself, and Lewis gives us an unflinching look at Hood’s hubris and its effect on those in his sphere of influence. I don’t know if these are direct quotes from historical sources or authorial creations, but they clearly reflect the ever-lower opinion people held of Hood:

“I’m not talking about his physical injuries. General Hood’s a mental cripple, stunted by his own pride. ‘When pride cometh, then cometh shame; but with the lowly is wisdom,’ so says Proverbs eleven-two. The lowliest soldier in my brigade marching to do Hood’s bidding possesses more wisdom than our leader.”

“I heard one Georgian describe General Hood as a man with the heart of a lion and the head of a cigar store Indian.”

And my favorite:

“General Hood thinks he’s smarter than a tree full of owls, but we all know he’s dumber than a barn full of jackasses.”

In addition to soldiers of both high and low rank, Preston Lewis draws from varied sources to give us viewpoints of Southern homeowners like Fount Carter and his daughter Mary Alice Carter McPhail, trying to keep some semblance of normality in their lives and sheltering in their home as the battle raged around them; Reverend Charles Quintard, a chaplain with the Confederate forces; and even a teenager like Hardin Fuguers. These different perspectives make it clear that the war was a hardship on everyone in the South, not just the fighting men. General Hood took advantage of both to his benefit.

I’ve seen some reviews commenting about the antebellum speech patterns of Black characters in particular. Is it painful to read from a modern perspective? Absolutely. Henry B. Free, manservant to Reverend Quintard, was clearly intelligent, and his dialect, written out, hurt my heart. He was a character who was so much more than the circumstances into which he was born and in which he remained with no say in the matter. Is it historically accurate? Yes, at least as far as we can know without being there. And Henry had some of the best, most thought-provoking lines in the story. His questions often drove Quintard to contemplate whether the version of Christianity he served was the one Christ intended. When Henry asks Quintard what the Bible says about slaves, he quotes 1 Timothy 6:1: “Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.” Later, when Henry tells Quintard that he is the top rail, and Henry is the bottom rail, “de one folks steps on first when dey climb de fence,” Quintard is confounded:

“The passage from First Timothy did not ring as true now as when he had first recited it to Henry. The slave youth had a knack for lancing his conscience. Quintard wondered how an unlearned darkie could stump a lettered man such as himself, but then David had beaten Goliath. The clergyman questioned if God was trying to speak to him . . .”

Lewis also includes notes of what happened to the main characters in the aftermath of the battle and the war. Of Hood, it was said, “Throughout his career and even after his death in his posthumous autobiography, he always found reason to blame others for his shortcomings and failures.” Of Captain Samuel T. Foster, it was said, “when his brigade commander was re-buried the final time in Granbury, Foster chose not to attend the ceremony because he did not care to set foot in a county named for John Bell Hood.” That says a lot about the low esteem in which people held him.

I’ve seen some comparisons of Lewis’s work to Michael Shaara’s Killer Angels, with Lewis often coming up short next to Shaara’s masterwork. Never having read Killer Angels myself, I can’t agree or disagree with those statements. I can say that, to my reading, Too Much the Lion is well-researched and well-written, and offered me insight into a part of the Civil War about which I know virtually nothing. It engaged me, enraged me, brought tears to my eyes, and educated me about a part of our nation’s history.