JEB STUART The Last Cavalier

When Lee muttered at Fredericksburg, “It is well that war is so terrible, we should grow too fond of it,” he little knew then either how terrible it would be or how fond of it his countrymen would become. This crazy love affair with war and death, the stuff of our history, is made all the more attractive by readers like Barrett Whitener, a Southerner and accomplished actor whose voice generates the narrative and wraps deliciously around each of the players. General Lee speaks with courtly ease and Stuart with boyish energy as the laconic Jackson moves across Virginia. Lively and energetic at the start, Davis’s account of Stuart’s daring maneuvers grows ever more painful. We are moved by Whitener’s reading because we know, after all, how it ends, both for Stuart and the Confederacy. War is indeed terrible, especially when you have grown to love and respect the warrior. P.E.F. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 03]