BOOK REVIEWSI53 Leadership During the Civil War. The 1989 Deep Delta Civil War Symposium : Themes in Honor of T. Harry Williams. Edited by Roman J. Heleniak and Lawrence L. Hewitt. (Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane Publishing, 1992. Pp. xiii, 196. $1995) Douglas Southall Freeman on Leadership. Edited by Stuart W. Smith. (Shippensburg , Pa.: White Mane Publishing, 1993. Pp. xiii, 262. $25.00.) Leadership is about as elusive a quality as one is likely to find. What is it? Courage? Intellect? Presence of mind? Strength of will? Not even Clausewitz could say with certainty. The two books under review both deal with Civil War leaders and leadership, but they approach these topics from very different perspectives. Leadership During the Civil War showcases eleven papers from the 1989 Deep Delta Symposium. As is the case with any such conference publication, the papers vary in quality and adherence to the theme. None of the essayists, four of whom select political leaders as their topics, the other seven focusing on military men, seeks to define leadership precisely. All seem content to give it the broadest possible scope. All do fine work, although readers may be frustrated by the failure of two authors to provide reference notes. Three of the four politically oriented essays take positive views of their men. Richard N. Current praises Abraham Lincoln's leadership qualities and defends the president against charges that he flouted the Constitution during the war. Grady McWhiney stands up for the much-maligned Jefferson Davis by insisting that he was not nearly so bad a commander in chief as some historians have suggested. William C. Davis, biographer of John C. Breckinridge , focuses on a very brief portion of the Kentuckian's Civil War career and concludes that Breckinridge was the "most capable and efficient" secretary of war to serve the Confederacy (140). Only Jon L. Wakelyn presents a story of failure. He believes that the speakers of the Confederate state legislatures , the topic of his essay, did not provide adequate political leadership at the state level. Emory M. Thomas shifts that focus to military leaders with an unorthodox examination of the personal and intellectual forces that shaped "young" Robert E. Lee before 1847. Lawrence L. Hewitt and Arthur Bergeron seek to rehabilitate two generals who were criticized by their contemporaries and who have received negative treatment at the hands of historians. Hewitt takes on the imposing task of showing why Braxton Bragg deserves more praise than condemnation for his failed Kentucky campaign. Bergeron reassesses the career of the lesser-known Mansfield Lovell and paints a positive portrait of the general who "lost" New Orleans for the Confederacy. Nathan Bedford Forrest has no such image problem as a Civil War leader, so Ed Bearss merely reasserts accepted wisdom in trumpeting Forrest's success at Brice's Cross Roads. Herman Hattaway, biographer of Stephen D. Lee, reexamines that general's role at Second Manassas, the battle in Hattaway's 154CIVIL WAR HISTORY opinion that made Lee's reputation. Archie P. McDonald provides an overview of Jedediah Hotchkiss's military service. Richard M. McMurry gives a group portrait of the lower-ranking commissioned and noncommissioned officers of the Confederate army's small tactical units—the real "leaders" of the army, says McMurry. While most of these essayists have written previous—and usually lengthier —works on their subjects, most of them take different slants on their men in this volume, and some essays break new ground entirely. Failure to reach some definition of leadership weakens the volume to some degree. On the other hand, its broadly defined vision provides much food for thought, which makes the collection, taken as a whole, a useful one. Equally useful, but in quite different ways, is Douglas Southall Freeman on Leadership. The volume's fourteen essays, like the Deep Delta papers, were designed for oral presentation. Freeman gave his lectures, delivered between 191 8 and 1952, to a variety of audiences, including an infantry brigade , the United Confederate Veterans, and students at the Army War College, Naval War College, and Armed Forces Staff College. The most numerous and useful essays for students of the Civil War are based on the eight lectures he gave at the...