Published in 1998 by Louisiana State University Press
"James Hollandsworth’s portrait of the proud and slippery General
Nathaniel P. Banks cuts to the heart of major reasons why the North took
so long to win the Civil War. As one of Abraham Lincoln’s most notorious
‘political generals,’ Banks repeatedly inflicted his presence on the battlefield
and in public affairs. Fueled by a blatant ambition to occupy the White
House, Banks wielded command first in Virginia and then in Louisiana, infuriating
his troops for his military blunders and frustrating Lincoln for his conservative
wartime Reconstruction measures toward emancipated slaves. This fine biography
contributes wonderfully to a growing awareness of the Civil War as a vast
conflict rich in complexity and riddled with irony."
-- T. Michael Parrish, author of Richard Taylor: Soldier Prince of Dixie.
"A half century has passed since a biographer has visited the life and times of General Nathaniel P. Banks. This is much too long because Banks was a major player in the nation’s political and military affairs for two-score years. Thanks to James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., this situation has been admirably addressed. Hollandsworth, author of the critically acclaimed The Louisiana Native Guards, has done it again. Pretense of Glory is biography at its best. It blends Hollandsworth’s skills as a researcher and writer with a historian’s perspective to give a balanced view of General Banks."
-- Edwin C. Bearss, Historian Emeritus, National Park Service
"Nathaniel P. Banks is generally known as the quintessential political general of the Civil War, his only rival for that dubious distinction being Benjamin Butler (see Chester G. Hearn's When the Devil Came Down to Dixie ). Of working-class origins and largely self-educated, Banks rose politically to become Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and that state's governor before the war. He was then immediately appointed a major general of volunteers, without having any military education whatever, and unfortunately made no effort to remedy the deficiency. The result was responsibility for three bloody Union defeats--in the Shenandoah Valley, along the Mississippi, and on the Red River--which were not redeemed by his pro-Negro efforts in governing New Orleans or his abortive postwar political career. Not, however, completely unattractive, Banks was ultimately an opportunist whose ambitions exceeded his abilities, disastrously for those called to serve under him. Hollandsworth's inspection of him should prove useful to most Civil War collections."
-- Roland Green, Booklist
"One hundred thirty-five years after the Civil War, Nathaniel Banks is still mocked in story and song for his failures as a Civil War general. It is easy, indeed too easy, to dismiss Banks as another example of the Union’s many failed political generals. Banks was a more complicated character than history often portrays him. James Hollandsworth’s Pretense of Glory succeeds admirably in revealing this character to modern readers.
Banks rose up from working class origins to prominent positions of leadership in Massachusetts’ politics. His commanding presence and skills as a orator were key factors in his career, and when civil war exploded, some thought these qualities would be enough to make him a good battlefield general. Banks demonstrated personal courage and energy in action, but his complete lack of military training. Knowledge, and experience doomed him, and the men he led, to repeat failures.
Banks met defeat at the hands of Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley in 1862. In 1863, Banks mounted bloody, unsuccessful attacks against Port Hudson. In 1864, Banks’s Red River Campaign was a monumental failure that permanently tarnished his reputation as a commander. The fact that many of his professional military subordinates either resented him because of his political background or treated him with disdain did not help Banks’s fortunes on the battlefield.
Banks achieved somewhat more success as a military administrator in Louisiana. Hollandsworth manages to create an understandable picture out of the morass of Louisiana politics during the Civil War, and shows readers the role Banks played in attempting to bring the state back in to the Union.
Banks’s greatest shortcoming as general and a politician was his own disturbing propensity for changing his convictions to suit his circumstances. Banks was an ambitious man, and he rarely allowed principle to stand in the way of his own advancement. He shifted his priorities, even his party affiliation, so often that by the end of his public career few could actually say what he really stood for.
Pretense of Glory is a highly readable, informative biography of an important Civil War figure. Readers will come away with a greater understanding of Nathaniel P. Banks and the events in which he played a key role."
-- John E. Deppen, Civil War News
"Nathaniel P. Banks was one of those Union generals (Fremont, Butler, Crittenden, Hunter, and McClernand were others) historians thrive on despising. Banks was a patently political appointment, rewarded for being a major power in the House of Representatives and Massachusetts politics, and an inept field commander in West Virginia, Louisiana, and Virginia. Except for footnotes and occasional chapters on defeats, Banks has been neglected. James Hollandsworth redresses this conspicuous omission with a full-scale biography. . .
Author Hollandsworth does not neglect Banks’s opportunism and vacillations, yet is respectful of his career and careful to avoid condemnation or censure. It is an objective and interesting book."
-- Larry McGehee, Southern Seen
"Writers have almost invariably lightly dismissed Banks as a military incompetent, and he has remained a laughingstock for generations of readers, which is unfortunate, for Banks was no fool. He was, in fact, one of the more important Americans of his time, and he remains important today, not only literally as a key figure in a critical period, but symbolically as an embodiment of the American Dream.
. . . Banks was a self-made man, and it is hard not to admire his determination and his peculiar gifts for politics. In those days, all most Americans wished for was a chance, and Banks not only made his own chances but made the most of them.
Then the war came, and it proved the undoing of N. P. Banks as an American hero. Abraham Lincoln squared some political debts by making Banks a major general, despite that the former congressman had never served in any military organization. About 70 percent of the book deals with General Banks and his four-year war career. Mr. Hollandsworth covers the more than 40 years the Hon. Mr. Congressman Banks spent in politics and business only in sufficient depth to provide a context by which to understand Banks’ role in the war years, making this study primarily a military biography. Unfortunately, despite the author’s emphasis, Pretense of Glory adds little to our knowledge or understanding of Banks’s role in the Shenandoah Valley in 1862 or at the Battle of Cedar Mountain in the same year, or in the operations against Port Hudson and the Red River Campaign in Louisiana. Readers seeking insight into Banks’ generalship, campaigns, and battles will likely be disappointed by Mr. Hollandsworth’s cursory coverage. Fred Harvey Harrington’s time-worn Fighting Politician: Major General N. P. Banks, published more than 50 years ago, is still the place to begin any study of Banks’ military career.
What Mr. Hollandsworth does succeed in doing is providing glimpses of an era in which generals openly dabbled in politics and politicians who had not spent a day of their lives in uniform could be made major generals in command of thousands of troops. Pretense of Glory succeeds, then, not only as a basic introduction to Banks but as a window on the complex political-military milieu that bedeviled Lincoln for four years and almost certainly hindered the Northern war effort. Unfortunately, the fact that Banks did little to help that war effort will remain for most readers the salient fact of his career and will ensure his future as a tragi-comedian in our nation’s great drama."
-- William J. Miller, Military Heritage
"Hollandsworth has produced a valuable volume in which he presents Banks as a man obsessed with "pretense of glory," a trait that prevented him from achieving the reality of glory. Historians interested in the Civil War era and political history should examine this book."
-- James Smallwood, Civil War History
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