LEE'S TERRIBLE SWIFT SWORD

LEE'S TERRIBLE SWIFT SWORD gives us eyewitness accounts of the nine months of battles from Antietam to Chancellorsville when the Army of Northern Virginia carried out its most powerful offensive actions. The accounts are arranged chronologically, and we hear from the lowest private, as well as from army commanders. Estell reads like a journalist. He could never give us the range of accents and intonations of these people, yet he's often moved by their accounts. This is easy to understand, for these events are so gripping and powerful, and the participants so literate and observant, that the reading avidly engages the listener's interest. M.T.F. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 97]