Book Review: More Important Than Good Generals: Junior Officers in the Army of the Tennessee

More Important Than Good Generals: Junior Officers in the Army of the Tennessee. By Jonathan Engel. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 2025. Softcover, 293 pp. $39.95.

Reviewed by Joseph Ricci

Jonathan Engel’s More Important Than Good Generals traces the U.S. Army of the Tennessee’s cadre of junior officers through the American Civil War. His is an effort to fill a massive void in the vast historiography of the conflict. While there are countless biographies of senior officers and “big bugs,” command studies fill the shelves of avid armchair historians, and an endless stream of regimental histories and intimate diaries and memoirs of enlisted men, little attention has ever been paid to field-grade officers. These men held an importance in camp and battle that matches their significant place in aiding our understanding of the Civil War.

Engel relies upon a sample of officers from the Army of the Tennessee, which was arguably the best led and finest fighting force within the U.S. Army during the war. The sheer scope of assembling this sample alone is nothing short of impressive. Challenged by the revolving door of regiments and unit formations attached to the Army of the Tennessee, Engel carefully compiled a list of 481 men who remained in the army through the war, or at least an extended period of time. Though the sample size may seem small when compared to the number of men who participated in the conflict, Engel’s selection provides a wide enough variety of backgrounds, experiences, and source material to represent the whole. Drawn from a wide variety of pre-war occupational, economic, social, and class backgrounds, the soldiers who came to comprise the junior officer corps of the Army of the Tennessee also drew on varied motivations to serve.

By 1861, the sectional tension over the politics of the institution of slavery broke the back of the nation, and following the secession of seven Southern slave-holding states, war came. Slavery, however, as Engel points out, may not have been the motivation for many of the army’s junior officers to fight, at least, not initially. Similar to the findings of James M. McPherson and Gary Gallagher, Engel argues instead that the primary motivation for these men to volunteer in the early days of the war primarily came from their idea of Union. As the war progressed, though, the issue of slavery, especially when witnessing the horrors of the institution across the Deep South, and the role of the army as a liberating force became a central theme for the officers and men of the Army of the Tennessee. Though difficult to classify as the ideal abolitionist, the officers within the ranks came to understand the moral quandary slavery presented to a nation inspired by the ideas of individual liberty and freedom. They also comprehended the end of slavery as a means to end the war by denying the Confederacy access to its slave-labor base and wearing down the disparate manufacturing and agricultural industries of the South.

Engel’s junior officers also offer insight into some of the war’s most iconic figures. It would be difficult to think of the Army of the Tennessee and not, inevitably, center on its senior leaders in Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, James B. McPherson, and Oliver Otis Howard. Not unlike readers today, the officers and men of the Army of the Tennessee traced the movements and behaviors of these general officers with great vigor and curiosity. While the junior officers may have held reservations about the army’s early days, as the war progressed and battle honor after battle honor was carefully added to the folds of their banners, a trust of their commanders grew organically. This growth, along with the development of fighting capabilities within the U.S. Army’s most successful force in the field, aided in the ultimate victory over the rebellion.

Engel’s More Important Than Good Generals provides Civil War readers with yet another uncovered gem and treasure trove of source material to consult. While this study is exhaustive, one hopes this will only encourage further examination of other army formations. As we strive to bring about a more total understanding of the war, studies like Engel’s only appreciate in value. When constantly faced with the question of how much more there is to know about the war, readers can point to this study as another example of the endless series of untouched aspects of Civil War historiography.