Download The Real War Will Never Get in the Books PDF Book by Louis P. Masur
Inside this Book – Henry Adams always knew for whom he wrote. It was not for himself, or his friends, or his family, but for the ages. He was twenty-two when he informed his brother Charles that he “would like to think that a century or two hence when everything else about us is forgotten, my letters might still be read and quoted as a memorial of manners and habits at the time of the great secession of 1860.’” He could afford such grandiosity and, as it turned out, would live up to it as well. The great-grandson and grandson of Presidents, Adams expected himself to assume a position of intellectual and social influence. As he put it in the Education more than half a century later, no child “held better cards than me.” 2 His genealogy (back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony), his training (Harvard and Europe), and his finances (legacies from John Quincy Adams and Peter Chardon Brooks) meant independence and confidence. But it brought a burden as well. Descended from glory, Adams needed to make his own place in family history. He knew the Civil War was the defining event for his generation. Weary of serving in England as amanuensis to his father, he desired a more heroic and dramatic mode of participation. Time and again he decided to come home to the battlefield, and then he would hesitate. His letters to his brother, who seemed nearly monthly to be climbing into the higher ranks of military command, undulate with confused and forbidden desires. His place was on the field of action, yet England was where he could do the most good. He would seek a commission presently, but having survived scarlet fever as a child, his physical and emotional constitution forbade his going to war.
- Full Book Name – The Real War Will Never Get in the Books
- Author of this Book – Louis P. Masur
- Language – English
- Book Genre – War
- Download Format – PDF
- Size – 27 MB
- eBook Pages – 316
The Real War Will Never Get in the Books by Louis P. Masur PDF Book
- Download The Real War Will Never Get in the Books PDF Book by Louis P. Masur Inside this Book – Henry Adams always knew for whom he wrote. It was not for himself, or his friends, or his family, but for the ages. He was twenty-two when he informed his brother Charles that he “would like to think that a century or two hence when everything else about us is forgotten, my letters might still be read and quoted as a memorial of manners and habits at the time of the great secession of 1860.'” He could afford such grandiosity and, as it turned out, would live up to it as well. The great-grandson and grandson of Presidents, Adams expected himself to assume a position of intellectual and social influence. As he put it in the Education more than half a century later, no child “held better cards than me.” 2 His genealogy (back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony), his training (Harvard and Europe), and his finances (legacies from John Quincy Adams and Peter Chardon Brooks) meant independence and confidence. But it brought a burden as well. Descended from glory, Adams needed to make his own place in family history. He knew the Civil War was the defining event for his generation. Weary of serving in England as amanuensis to his father, he desired a more heroic and dramatic mode of participation. Time and again he decided to come home to the battlefield, and then he would hesitate. His letters to his brother, who seemed nearly monthly to be climbing into the higher ranks of military command, undulate with confused and forbidden desires. His place was on the field of action, yet England was where he could do the most good. He would seek a commission presently, but having survived scarlet fever as a child, his physical and emotional constitution forbade his going to war.
- Full Book Name – The Real War Will Never Get in the Books
- Author of this Book – Louis P. Masur
- Language – English
- Book Genre – War
- Download Format – PDF
- Size – 27 MB
- eBook Pages – 316
