Books: Union Man

STANTON (520 pp.)—Flefcher Pratt—Norton ($5.95).

Although it would be a blunder to accept most writers at their own evaluation, Fletcher Pratt is just what he once said he was: "A literary mechanic." His tinkering has produced 46 books ranging from juveniles to a first-rate military study of World War II, The Marines' War (TIME, Jan. 19, 1948). Like a lot of self-made military experts, Author Pratt is perhaps happiest when he is refighting the War Between the States. In his new book, Stanton, he has a fine time trying to prove that Lincoln's War...