Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee have never before been paired as they are here. In Crucible of Command , William C. Davis, one of America’s preeminent historians, presents a thoroughly fresh portrait of these great commanders, revealing their personalities, their character, their ethical and moral compasses, and their political and military worlds as they took each other’s measure across the battlefield. The result is history at its finest and one of the great books on the Civil War.