The Last Full Measure: The Civil War

The Last Full Measure
Book Summary
The Last Full Measure is a Civil War historical fiction novel, and it is the third in a trilogy of books about the Civil War. The Last Full Measure details the events following the Battle of Gettysburg, and dates all the way back to the end of the Civil War. It even details Robert E. Lee’s death, Ulysses S. Grant’s physical decline, and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain’s revisit of the Battle at Little Round Top before the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The Last Full Measure is divided into three parts, which has chapters about either Lee, Grant, or Chamberlain. Each chapter also dates the events that occurred.
The Last Full Measure begins in Part One, ten days after the Battle of Gettysburg.
Under each chapter title are the dates in which the events of that chapter occurred. One good example of historical accuracy, which occurs near the end of the book, is the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House. You can see in any textbook or website that the signing of the surrender documents occurred on April 9, 1865, which is the same as what is depicted in the book. A second good example is how he shows each of the three main characters lives in the aftermath of the Civil War. Everything the book states from history about these characters is true, and the dates of death for each of the three main characters are facts as well. A third example is the Battle of the Wilderness. Based on what I have read in textbooks and on the Internet, the dates of the Battle of the Wilderness, May 5th through May 7th, are facts. The way that the author describes that battle, as far as I can tell, seems to be completely true. That is one thing that The Last Full Measure does extremely well. It describes each battle thoroughly from the point of view of each general. Every date that is described in The Last Full Measure is also correct. There are also a few maps at the bottom of some pages showing how a battle was planned out and where each base was. These maps even show the direction in which certain armies were headed, and what their target was. Every battle in The Last Full Measure was a real battle during the Civil War, and every character in the book was a real person. The ranks and rank promotion of each character are true events, and the book does a great job at depicting these events. In general, The Last Full Measure has tremendous historical accuracy, on all accounts, which makes one of the best things about the book, its