AGOOD BOOK FOR A SNOWY DAY
“Action in war is like movement in a resistant element,” Carl von Clausewitz famously observed, with weather one of the sources of the “friction” that he declared “distinguish[es] real war from war on paper.” There is is a most welcome event, for it provides a vivid description and outstanding chronicle of the specific weather events and larger weather patterns that shaped the course, conduct, and outcome of America’s bloodiest war—as well as their interactions with the “sacred soils” that endured the soldiers’ tramping feet (and vice versa).
