Battlefield Of Franklin Land Preservation Purchase

Civil War News
$3.00
Vol. 42, No. 3
48 Pages, April 2016
Battlefield Of Franklin Land Preservation Purchase
By Gregory L. Wade
FRANKLIN, Tenn. — What is
considered the bloodiest acreage in
the Nov. 30, 1864, Battle of Franklin
is now being reclaimed as part of the
evolving Carter Hill Battlefield Park.
Local preservation leaders recently
closed on a $2.8 million purchase
from owners Reid and Brenda
Lovell after a months-long process
of coordinating various funding
sources for the critical 1.6 acres that
adjoin the Carter House, a major
battle landmark.
Details were recently provided at
a press conference led by Franklin’s
Charge board member Julian Bibb,
who praised the “remarkable transition” of the Franklin battlefield.
Franklin’s Charge is a coalition of
civic and preservation groups who
joined together more than ten years
ago to purchase local battleground.
Over 150 years ago the Army of
Tennessee stepped off in a series
of charges to be virtually destroyed
by Federals under John Schofield in
hopes of taking Franklin and later
Nashville.
At that time, most of the terrain
was open farmland on the outskirts
of what was once a small Middle
Tennessee farming community. Over
time development covered much of
the battlefield with houses, light industry, and small businesses.
All that remained of the critical
area where the Confederates temporarily broke the Federal line was
the small farmhouse and a few acres
known as the Carter House farm.
The 1.6 acres purchased, which
adjoin the southern boundary of the
Carter House property, is comprised
of two lots. Today, they are occupied
by a flower shop and other structures
that were turned over to the City
of Franklin Parks Department by
Franklin’s Charge and the Battle of
Franklin’s Trust (BOFT), managers
of the Carter House the nearby Carnton Plantation. The structures will be
removed in coming months, possibly
relocated for other use.
The purchase is only the latest step
in a long and arduous effort to rebuild the Franklin battlefield.
“It had to be a miracle,” quipped
Civil War Trust (CWT) President
James Lighthizer, referring to the
most recent acquisition. Local resident Michael Grainger, long time
Trust board member and former
chairman, said, “Local leadership
has been incredible and will continue to be a partner [with the CWT].”
In 2005, after years of frustration
attempting to preserve Franklin battleground, local preservationists decided it would have to be done the
hard way, by buying properties, often with buildings on them.
The largest parcel of land was
originally a local golf course slated
to be sold to a developer to build
houses on what was the right flank
of the Confederate attack north toward the Federal lines just south of
the town.
It was then that Franklin’s Charge
came into existence. Funds have
been raised for the $5 million purchase from private donors, the CWT,
the City of Franklin and others. That
110-acre segment, now fully interpreted and known as the Eastern
Flank Battlefield, is what got the
preservation ball rolling in Franklin.
Since that time nine other parcels
in proximity to the Carter House
have been purchased and have been,
or will be, turned over to the Frank-
Franklin Charge leader Julian Bibb speaks at the Lovell purchase
closing.
(Gregory L. Wade photos)
Battle of Franklin. 1891 print by Kurz and Allison. Restoration by Adam Cuerden. (Library of Congress)
lin Parks Department, according to
Bibb.
But it was the land just south of the
Carter House, long considered the
most bloodied ground in Franklin,
and some say in America, that was
the most coveted.
BOFT Chief Executive Officer
Eric Jacobson noted, “to not have
this ground reclaimed and preserved,
would be like having Omaha Beach
cut out of Normandy.”
The most recent acquisition
evolved when Franklin’s Charge and
the BOFT began discussions with the
Lovells, who have a strong sense of
the history of the land, having grown
up in Franklin.
“I was born and raised in Franklin on ground many believe should
have been a national park,” said Reid
Lovell. He recalled when visitors
came to town and had to envision
what happened, not walk on ground
where it transpired.
“My great-grandfather, who fought
here, and my parents would be proud
of what we are doing here today,” he
said at the press conference.
The Franklin Board of Mayor
and Aldermen voted unanimously
in February to fund part of the
remaining debt on the Lovell
property purchase. The previously
saved plots, valued at $6.8 million,
are being transferred to the city in
exchange for $1.08 million to be
paid by the city on a non-interest
basis over seven years.
These funds will cover the balance
now bridged by a local bank and will
be derived from the city’s hotel-motel tax. Local banker Chuck Isaacs
was instrumental in working out the
loans. All the city funds are allotted
as well as a donation of $25,000
by his employer, First Farmers and
Merchants Bank.
A $1.3 million grant from the
National Park Service’s American
Battlefield Protection Program
(ABPP) was a major piece of the
Franklin Alderman Michael Skinner, left, and Franklin Charge Board
member Ernie Bacon attended the Franklin press conference.
funding and the most complex,
according to Bibb.
“With help from city officials, the
Civil War Trust and others at the
ABPP, we got it done,” Bibb noted.
Other funding came from private donors including local Civil War Trust
board member Grainger, who has
been involved with other national
preservation efforts.
Representatives of Save the Franklin Battlefield, the oldest battlefield
preservation group in Franklin who
for years advocated the possibility
of a battleground park, attended the
signing of official documents and
“have been with us every step,” said
Bibb.
The site interpretation work will
be led by representatives of the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage
H Franklin
. . . . . . . . . . . see page 4
Inside this issue:
23 – Black Powder, White Smoke
24 – Book Reviews
33 – Critics Corner
36 – Events Section
11 – The Source
8 – Through The Lens
10 – Treasures From The Museum
14 – The Watchdog
Civil War News
24
– Reviews
of
Civil War Books –
Guelzo On Emancipation, Its Relevance
Redeeming the Great Emancipator. By Allen G. Guelzo. Illustrated, photos, notes, index, 208 pp.,
2016, Harvard, www.hup.harvard.
edu, $22.95.
This is the second volume of the
Nathan I. Huggins lectures at Harvard University that I have read.
The first, as eminent as this volume,
Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory by Harold Holzer, examined the
impact of Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of freedom at the time it
was issued and how its meaning has
changed since.
This second contribution eloquently objects to charges of racism and
political opportunism levied against
Lincoln. The volume originated as
the 2012 Huggins lectures.
In recent years, Lincoln’s reputation
as the “Great Emancipator” has been
under attack by historians and others
who view his proclamations as
political gamesmanship.
Allen Guelzo effectively refutes
these allegations and places them
in a contemporary framework.
He revives the importance of the
Emancipation Proclamation and
Lincoln’s reputation as an antislavery advocate.
While noting Lincoln’s flaws,
including his belief that recently
freed blacks were unprepared for
full citizenship, Guelzo explores the
myths surrounding his proclamation. He discusses the relevance of
self-emancipation and congressional
attempts to take the lead on emancipation away from Lincoln.
Guelzo even explores the issue of
reparations for slavery. After reading
this book (and Holzer’s Emancipating Lincoln), no one will be able to
rationally deny Lincoln’s anti-slavery sincerity.
Guelzo opines that Lincoln still
deserves the title of Great Emancipator because he was a positive
force for race relations: “Lincoln is
a piece of African American history
as much as Civil War history; and the
fate of African Americans is tied to
the fate of all other Americans. Inequality, as William Julius Wilson
reminded us, is a problem for blacks,
whites, Latinos, and Asians together
as Americans, as citizens, as friends.
For ultimately, we are indeed all in
this together.”
The author explains his rationale
by making several major points.
First, he explains emancipation’s
significance and finds overwhelming
evidence that Lincoln was deeply
committed to ending slavery. Carefully choosing his words, Guelzo
contextualizes Lincoln’s statements
and character.
He adds that the “problem with
our apprehension of Lincoln’s antislavery is that he seems to have gone
about it in what we would regard as
a bafflingly obtuse fashion.” This
is because Lincoln did not initially
view slavery as primarily a racial issue – but one that was political and
economic.
Second, Guelzo argues that Lincoln lacked racial empathy because
he was “the wrong man for expressions of empathy on almost any subject.” Many, including myself, will
disagree with this.
Addressing the controversy surrounding demands for reparations
for slaves’ descendants, Guelzo
states that “reparations” were in fact
paid by the gigantic cost of the Civil
War in death, suffering and dollars.
He says the war’s initial mission
was reunification but it changed to
both reunification and emancipation
during the conflict.
Finally, the author concludes that
Lincoln himself readily admitted his
dependence on God when he said in
1864, “I attempt no compliment to
my own sagacity. At the end of three
years of struggle the nation’s condition is not what either party, or any
man devised, or expected. God alone
can claim it.”
This is a first-rate book that describes a major historical event and
its relevance today.
Reviewer Frank J. Williams is
founding chairman of the Lincoln
Forum and author of Lincoln as Hero.
11th Mich. Soldiers During, After War
Conspicuous Gallantry: The
Civil War and Reconstruction
Letters of James W. King, 11th
Michigan Volunteer Infantry.
Edited by Eric R. Faust. Illustrated,
photos,
maps,
appendices,
notes, bibliography, index, 304
pp., 2015, Kent State, www.
kentstateuniversitypress.com, $45.
James W. King enlisted as a private in the 11th Michigan infantry in
September 1861. Just 19 years old,
King began a long correspondence
with his future wife, Sarah Jane Babcock, whom he affectionately called
Jenny.
King’s letters offer richly detailed
descriptions of the places he saw,
including towns like Louisville
and the mountainous regions of
Tennessee and Georgia. Just like a
tourist, King could not resist sitting
in “the old armchair presented to
[Andrew] Jackson by Washington”
when he visited The Hermitage, near
Nashville.
Throughout his enlistment King
exhibited a strong desire to fight until the war was won, and he showed
little reluctance to criticize the generals. Don Carlos Buell, in his estimation, was a “traitor.”
And when George B. McClellan
was relieved of command in November 1862, King wrote, “we have tried
such generals too long. This standstill policy I do not believe in, never
did. I hope our new leaders will not
follow in the tracks of their predecessors.”
King’s experiences in the army
included a minor engagement with
Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan, as well as the battles of Murfreesboro, Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge. “I have seen sights
that would make the blood curdle in
one’s veins,” he told Jenny.
In some cases he chose not to
describe what he saw. But editor
Eric Faust wisely included some of
King’s most colorful accounts from
Charles E. Belknap’s History of the
Michigan Organizations at Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and Missionary Ridge (1897). These include a
description of King’s wounding at
Missionary Ridge on Nov. 24, 1863.
Throughout the correspondence
King often reflected on the terrible-
April 2016
ness of war; yet he never wavered
in his commitment to serve out his
enlistment.
Southerners, in his view, had
brought this “destruction” on themselves — and he would see to it that
they got what they deserved.
“The monster secession entered
the sacred circle,” he wrote of one
abandoned home in February 1863.
“The home is left to the mercy of the
Northern soldier who, to avenge himself against some brother’s wrong,
applies the torch, and the consuming
flames speedily do their work…. Ah
Jenny there is an awful penalty resting on the heads of the leaders of this
rebellion. May each of them meet a
traitor’s doom.”
A number of topics arise in King’s
letters, including his hatred of Copperheads and his views of women.
Southern women, he noted, “have
one very bad habit, and that is nearly
all use tobacco & snuff to excess.”
When Jenny apparently suggested that women might serve in the
military, he replied that their nature
was “an embodiment of peace and
gentleness” and that women were
“not fitted to pass through the trying
scares which war always brings.”
But when Jenny told him that she
had been learning to farm, James replied playfully, “You would make a
pretty looking farmer Jenny.”
Only 15 men in the 11th Michigan volunteered to reenlist in 1864,
and King was not among them. In
July 1864, he was wounded in the
shoulder by a Confederate shell that
Kansas Frontier Guard Was
First To Defend Washington
The 116: The True Story of
Abraham Lincoln’s Lost Guard.
By James P. Muehlberger. Illustrated, photos, map, timeline, bibliography, appendices, notes, index, 446
pp., Ankerwycke, www.shopaba.org,
$24.95.
Just when you think that everything
has been written about Abraham Lincoln, another obscure subject comes
to light. This is the history of first
responders, The Frontier Guards, a
group of Kansas veterans who came
to the aid of Abraham Lincoln and
defended the capital from Confederate attack in the earliest stages of the
Civil War.
This book lucidly describes the
unit’s history and the activities of
its leader, James Lane of Kansas. It
details their performance in “Bleeding Kansas” and the efforts made to
deceive the Confederacy into not attacking Washington City at its most
vulnerable time.
Although the text is only about 200
pages, the book contains considerable
information on their activities and
even more on the relationship of Lincoln and Lane. Lane was quite influential in Lincoln’s political life.
The remaining 200-plus pages contain detailed and interesting biographies of the unit members and their
fates before, during and after the war.
This is a well-written and informative history of an obscure unit and a
relatively unknown aspect of the war.
It provides much information on Lincoln’s early-war political aspirations.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and
believe it deserves a spot on your
book shelf. I highly recommend it.
Reviewer Joseph A. Truglio is
president and business agent for
a motion picture film technicians
local union and a lifelong student
of the Civil War. His memberships
include the Lincoln Group of New
York and New Jersey Civil War
Heritage Assn. He is president of
the Phil Kearny Civil War Round
Table in Wayne, N.J.
Ulysses Grant: Youth to Uniform
by Joe Krom
This historical novel illustrates Grant’s
boyhood in southern Ohio up to his entry into
the army as a lieutenant. Ulysses shaped
his country. What events shaped him? What
early influences molded his character?
$14, paperback, 209 pages
Eel River Traders, Publisher
www.eelrivertraders.com
exploded above him while he was
leisurely reading a book. After recovering, King returned to Michigan
with his regiment in September and
was discharged in October.
Rather than remain up north, he
returned to Chattanooga, where he
worked as a clerk for the assistant
quartermaster.
King returned to Michigan in the
fall of 1865 to marry Jenny. Soon
thereafter he settled in Tennessee to
try his hand at growing cotton. Jenny
spent some time there with him and
some time back in Michigan.
Throughout 1866 they corresponded with one another and with
other family members, with topics
ranging from farming and land speculation to race relations and national
politics during Reconstruction. By
1868, however, the Kings had had
enough of the South, and threats of
Klan violence forced them to return
to the North.
Conspicuous Gallantry is capably edited and annotated by King’s
great-great-grandson. The inclusion
of both wartime and postwar correspondence makes this worthwhile
reading.
Reviewer Jonathan W. White is
associate professor of American
Studies at Christopher Newport
University and author of several
books about Abraham Lincoln and
the Civil War. Visit his website at
www.jonathanwhite.org.
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Civil War News
April 2016
25
Woman From The North 7 Essays Discuss Lincoln & Europe
Goes South As Teacher
Heading South to Teach: The
World of Susan Nye Hutchison,
1815-1845. By
Kim Tolley.
Illustrated, maps, tables, notes,
bibliography, index, 278 pp., 2015,
UNC,
www.uncpress.unc.edu,
$29.95 softcover.
First half 19th-century American
history is often overshadowed in literature and schools by the issues that
brought about the Civil War. Often
this preoccupation subsumes other
themes or characteristics of the age
some call “Freedom’s Ferment,” the
ripening of the Republican spirit in
the newly developing nation.
Freedom’s Ferment spawned a
new way for Americans to view the
world and was played out in arenas of
American life that included religion,
education, women’s rights, mental
health care and for social justice.
Fueling this attitude was the Second Great Awakening (1790-1840),
a religious revival movement that
pushed these issues and abolition to
the forefront of American society.
Kim Tolley’s biography of Susan
Nye Hutchinson explores one of the
little-known players of the Second
Great Awakening. Hutchinson left behind a rich diary for scholars to catch
a glimpse of this important time.
Tolley’s skillful use of other
source material like newspapers,
census returns and church records
further illuminates Hutchinson’s life
and provides a solid dose of American social history.
SHARPSHOOTER
The book’s setup is of particular
note. Beneath the heading of each
chapter, Tolley has included significant slices from Hutchinson’s diary,
which set the stage for the chapter’s
narrative.
In this fashion, readers get a much
fuller and more robust portrait of
the protagonist than in a traditional
biography.
Susan Nye began her diary as she
headed south in 1815. She married
Adam Hutchinson in 1825. Her last
entry was made in 1841.
At the time less than one out of
five white Southerners, 16 or older,
and fewer than one out of 10 enslaved and free blacks had any religious affiliation.
Nye was not just a teacher but also
an evangelizer bringing the word of
God to others. She did this in myriad
ways: praying in the streets of Raleigh with slaves and free blacks, establishing an independent school in
Georgia, and risking arrest by teaching slaves to read.
Other American women of the
age, such as Lucretia Mott, Angelina and Sarah Grimke, and Harriet
Beecher, are better known for promoting women’s rights and speaking
out against slavery.
Yet Hutchinson deserves credit
as a groundbreaker for all she
accomplished during an era of
shifting social norms.
Readers interested in the social
history of the first half of the 19th
century will find this book enjoyable
and fascinating.
The author’s sentiments about her
subject are best summarized when
she visits Hutchinson’s grave and
notes about the headstone, “When
the sunlight falls from the right angle, the phrase becomes clear: ‘The
Righteous Live in Everlasting Remembrance.’”
Reviewer James A. Percoco is
Teacher-in-Residence
for
the
Civil War Trust and The Journey
Through
Hallowed
Ground
Partnership,
the
author
of
Summers With Lincoln: Looking
for the Man in the Monuments, and
a member of the National Teachers
Hall of Fame.
witness of a sort
“thatA historians
rarely
encounter.
The Selected
Letters and
Papers of
Maj. Eugene
Blackford,
C.S.A.
VOLUME 1
Fred L. Ray, Ed.
”
SHARPSHOOTER
The Selected Letters
and Papers of
Maj. Eugene Blackford,
C.S.A.
Edited by Fred L. Ray
A Virginia officer in an Alabama regiment, commander the Army
of Northern Virginia’s elite sharpshooters, Eugene Blackford’s
correspondence spans nearly the entire war and allows a modern
reader to see this turbulent era through the eyes of someone who
lived it. His accounts of the sharpshooters; battles like Chancellorsville and Gettysburg; camp life; army leaders; and national and
regimental politics are detailed and exceptional. Volume 1 of 3.
Special 20% prepublication discount • 6x9 cloth, 235 pages, 10 Maps,
30 illustrations, footnotes, index, bib. – CFS Press, Asheville, NC
http://www.ebsharpshooter.com
Lincoln in the Atlantic World. By
Louise L. Stevenson. Illustrated, photos, tables, notes, bibliography, index,
290 pp., 2015, Cambridge. www.
cambridge.org, $99.99 hardcover,
$29.99 softcover.
One of the great shifts in studies
of American history in the 18th and
19th centuries has been the introduction of a transatlantic perspective.
Partly, this reflects a political agenda since the transatlantic perspective
seeks to displace ideas about American exceptionalism.
But in a healthier way, the transatlantic perspective reminds us that
events like the Civil War did not occur
in a vacuum. Both sides placed heavy
bets on the possibilities of European
intervention, and both armies leaned
heavily on the examples afforded by
European warfare at mid-century.
But the transatlantic perspective
cannot be limited merely to diplomatic or military history. Louise Stevenson’s Lincoln in the Atlantic World
reminds us that, for Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War was a “testing” of
the single greatest accomplishment
of Enlightenment political ideas, the
creation of a large-scale republic.
Thus, “the outcome of the Civil War would determine the fate of
republicanism both nationally and
globally, in 1865 and for all time.”
Stevenson
approaches
the
transatlantic Lincoln through a
series of seven essays, which she
calls “lessons” – an African lesson,
a German lesson, an English lesson,
and so on.
The “African” lesson is about the
unusual appearance, in the list composed in 1860 by John Locke Scripps
of “most influential” books Lincoln
had read, of Nathaniel Riley’s 1817
Authentic Narrative of the Brig Commerce. That was an account of the
shipwreck and enslavement of American sailors in North Africa.
Scripps was shrewdly positioning
Lincoln’s opposition to slavery as an
issue that touched white Americans,
not just blacks. He also was lining up
Lincoln’s support for gradual, compensated emancipation with similar
recommendations made in Riley’s
popular Narrative.
Another “lesson” comes in the
form of the hat Lincoln wore in his
undercover passage through Baltimore en route to his inauguration.
The hat was a soft-brimmed “Kossuth hat,” made popular in America
by the champion of Hungarian independence, Louis Kossuth.
“Lincoln had adopted the uniform
of a European republican” and may
have even borrowed his famous Gettysburg formula — “of the people, by
the people, for the people” — from a
speech Kossuth delivered before the
Ohio legislature in 1852.
The most intriguing of Stevenson’s
lessons is the last one, taught by
the British comedy, “Our American
Cousin.” Although it is remembered
today only as the play Lincoln was
watching when John Wilkes Booth
fired his fatal shot, Stevenson carefully unpacks in detail the message
Lincoln was enjoying.
“Overall, the play discredits aristo-
cratic pretensions and both male and
female conventions of gentility,” especially the “sockdologizing” of the
British upper classes who had done
so much to favor the Confederacy.
“Sockdologizing” – a “verbal jab
at aristocratic” pretensions — was
almost the last word Lincoln heard,
and formed an ironically appropriate
period to a life that challenged pretension at every level.
Stevenson’s book is more of a series of episodes than a comprehensive survey of Lincoln and the Atlantic world of the 19th century. Latin
America, for instance, makes no appearance in the book, nor do the European wars of the 1850s and 1860s.
The “English lesson” is almost
entirely about John Bright but gives
short shrift to Bright’s formidable
political ally, Richard Cobden, who
was known broadly as “the British
Lincoln.”
There are several easily-corrected errors that will annoy hard-core
Lincolnites (e.g., Francis Carpenter’s
First Reading of the Emancipation
Proclamation depicts Lincoln’s reading of the “preliminary” proclamation to his cabinet on Sept. 22, 1862,
not, as commonly thought, the first
draft reading of July 22, 1862).
But this book adds a series of important bricks in the rebuilding of the
worldwide context of the Civil War,
which is, after all, what concerned
Abraham Lincoln the most.
Reviewer Allen C. Guelzo is
the Luce Professor of Civil War
Studies at Gettysburg College and
the author of the New York Times
best-seller Gettysburg: The Last
Invasion.
Richard A. LaPosta
Civil War Books
First Editions • Rare • Out of Print
Buy, Sell, Trade, Search Service
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Civil War News
26
April 2016
1861 Peace Conference’s 13 Essays On ’64 Tennessee Campaign
Aim To Avert Civil War
The Peace That Almost Was:
The Forgotten Story of the 1861
Washington Peace Conference
and the Final Attempt to Avert
the Civil War. By Mark Tooley.
Illustrated, photos, notes, index,
316 pp., 2015, Nelson Books, www.
thomasnelson.com, $26.99.
For 19 days in February 1861,
131 delegates from 21 states met in
Washington in a quixotic attempt
to prevent the Civil War. Mark
Tooley has written a significant
and entertaining book describing
the often-overlooked efforts of the
Washington Peace Conference. Upper South and Border slave states,
as well as Northern free states, were
represented.
Tooley’s most valuable contribution is to confirm that the national
crisis was all about slavery. He says,
“Nearly all the Peace Conference
was a desperate attempt to protect
slavery and assuage Southern worries about Northern Republican encroachment on Southern political
prerogatives.”
He cites a Washington Star article
that said the arriving delegates faced
the “only question upon where (sic)
there bids fair to be any considerable
difference of opinion — the territorial slavery question.”
The author describes the delegates, contemporary Washington, its
clergy and churches (not really necessary), proposed compromise provisions, counting of the presidential
electors’ ballots, Abraham Lincoln’s
arrival and tangential involvement,
the conference’s agreement on proposed constitutional amendments,
the immediate undermining of them
by ex-President and conference president John Tyler, and congressional
inaction on them.
The conference agreed to recommend congressional initiation
of constitutional amendments that
would •reinstate the Missouri Compromise boundary between free and
slave territories; •require a majority
of slave state senators to approve
new territorial acquisitions; •prohibit congressional interference with
slavery where it existed; •affirm fugitive slave laws; •ban importation
of slaves, and •require unanimous
approval of the states to revoke any
of these provisions.
It is significant that, like the unsuccessful Crittenden proposals of
the preceding month, these conflict-avoidance proposals dealt solely with slavery-related issues.
At the conference’s close, Tyler
pledged to present these proposals to
both houses of Congress because it
was “my duty to give them my official approval and support.”
By the next evening, however,
he had taken his seat as delegate to
Virginia’s secession convention, denounced the proposals and called the
conference a “worthless affair.”
Tooley does not contend that the
conference was insignificant. He
points out that it probably delayed
secession by Virginia and other Upper South states, helped prevent Border states’ secession, and arguably
provided a cooling-off period that
enabled the electoral vote counting
and Lincoln’s inauguration to occur
peacefully.
Despite a few minor historical
errors, this book is a marvelous exposition of a significant, generally
unknown occurrence in the series of
events that occurred between Lincoln’s election and inauguration. It is
highly recommended.
Reviewer Edward Bonekemper
is Civil War News Book Review
Editor and author of six Civil War
books, including The Myth of
the Lost Cause: Why the South
Fought the Civil War and Why the
North Won.
The Tennessee Campaign of
1864. Edited by Steven E. Woodworth
and Charles D. Grear. Photos, maps,
notes, 261 pp., 2016, Southern
Illinois, www.siupress.com, $34.50.
After the fall of Atlanta,
Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood
broke away from the Union army
under Gen. William Tecumseh
Sherman to initially cut off his
communications with the North and
later to invade Tennessee in the hope
of drawing Sherman off in pursuit.
This volume is a collection of 13
essays on this pivotal 1864 campaign
The first essay, edited by William
Lee White, is a recently discovered
diary about Confederate division
commander Maj. Gen. Patrick R.
Cleburne’s movements through Alabama and northern Georgia at the
commencement of the campaign.
Next is an accounting by Stewart
Bennett of the battle of Allatoona
Pass, Georgia. This is an exciting
description of the bloody contest.
John R. Lundberg tells of the Battle
of Spring Hill, Tenn., and the aftermath of the clash, when Gen. John
M. Schofield’s troops slipped by the
Confederate army, escaping to fight
again at Franklin.
There are two essays about
the Battle of Franklin. First is
“The Destruction of the Army of
Tennessee’s Officer Corps . . .” by
Andrew S. Bledsoe. Following is
an essay examining the psychology
of killing as it pertained to Franklin,
where there was a lot of killing and
much close-quarter fighting
On the two-day Battle of Nashville, there are four essays. Brooks
D. Simpson writes of the pre-battle
communication difficulties and misunderstandings among Gens. George
H. Thomas, Ulysses S. Grant and
Henry W. Halleck. In “Where Genius
Cannot Exist,” Paul L. Schmelzer
scrutinizes Thomas’s generalship in
light of German military writer Carl
von Clausewitz’s standard for military “genius.”
D.L. Turner and Scott L. Stabler
describe “The Fight for Freedom by
the U.S. Colored Troops at the Battle of Nashville.” Co-editor Steven E.
Woodworth describes the actions of
Gen. Andrew Jackson (A.J.) Smith’s
command at Nashville. John J. Smith
writes about civilians’ actions during
the Franklin-Nashville Campaign.
Co-editor Charles D. Grear tells
of “Texans’ Reactions to Hood’s
Tennessee Campaign.” Finally, Timothy B. Smith and Jennifer M. Murray, respectively, describe battlefield
preservation at Franklin and Nashville, Tenn. Although the salvation of
the battlefield land and buildings at
Franklin got off to a late start, its story
is positive. Unfortunately, the preservation of land at Nashville is the
story of a true “lost cause.” Except for
Shy’s Hill and a few forts, redoubts
and monuments, the battlefield of
Nashville has been largely taken over
by urban sprawl. Little remains of the
fields where Thomas’s and Hood’s
troops once struggled.
This book is a valuable addition to
a Civil War library. Although it does
not contain as detailed descriptions of
the campaign as other volumes, these
essays provide fresh insights.
Reviewer Robert L. Durham spent
most of his career at the Defense
Logistics Agency. He has written
book reviews and articles for
numerous historical blogs and
publications.
Books for Review
can be sent to:
CWN Review Editor, Edward H. Bonekemper III
814 Willow Valley Lakes Dr., Willow Street, PA 17584
Send cover image to [email protected]
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Civil War News
April 2016
Definitive Work On 1864
Raid & Dahlgren’s Papers
Kill Jeff Davis: The Union Raid
on Richmond, 1864. By Bruce M.
Venter. Photos, maps, appendix,
notes, bibliography, index, 378 pp.,
2016, Oklahoma, www.oupress.
com, $29.95.
Union Col. Ulric Dahlgren lay
dead in a muddy road northeast
of Richmond, Va., on the night of
March 2, 1864. He and his fellow
cavalrymen had ridden into an ambush set up by Confederate horse
soldiers and home-guardsmen. On
the slain colonel’s body, the Rebels
found papers that ignited a controversy that continues to today.
Dahlgren and his troopers were
part of the so-called Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid intended to release Union
captives in Libby Prison and on
Belle Isle in the Confederate capital.
Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick had
brokered the idea of such an operation and received approval of it from
President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.
The plan involved a three-prong
effort. A main body, nearly 4,000
horsemen under Kilpatrick, would
advance on Richmond from the
north, while units of Maj. Gen.
Benjamin Butler’s command would
come in from the east, up the Peninsula. A diversionary movement under Brig. Gen. George Custer would
move toward Charlottesville.
Dahlgren’s role in the operation
was to lead a 500-man force to free
the prisoners on Belle Isle, south of
the James River.
In the end, Custer’s movement had
little effect on the overall operation.
Butler never sent forces toward the
capital, and Confederate resistance
proved stiffer than anticipated.
The furor arose immediately after
the raid’s failure. The papers found
on Dahlgren consisted of orders and
his memorandum book. Most important were the words, “Jeff Davis and
Cabinet must be killed on the spot.”
Since then, as author Bruce Venter
asserts, the raid has been “layered in
myths, legends, truth, and confection.” It has been the source of much
historical inquiry and speculation.
Venter’s new work, however, will
likely stand as the definitive study on
the raid for a long time.
The author addresses all the controversies by removing mysteries,
rendering judgments and admitting
that certain matters elude certainty.
The research is impressive, and
the writing is finely crafted. This
book is highly recommended.
27
103rd New York & Connecticut
Books Make The War Personal
Crossing Antietam: The Civil
War Letters of Captain Henry Augustus Sand, Company A, 103rd
New York Volunteers. Edited by
Peter H. Sand and John F. McLaughlin. Illustrated, photos, map, notes,
bibliography, index, 184 pp., 2015,
McFarland,
www.mcfarlandpub.
com, $35 softcover.
Hidden History of Connecticut
Union Soldiers. By John Banks.
Illustrated, photos, notes, bibliography, index, 206 pp., 2015, History
Press, www.historypress.net, $21.99
softcover.
Reviewer Jeffry D. Wert is a retired
Pennsylvania high school teacher.
He is the author of eight books on
the Civil War, including his recent
Cavalryman of the Lost Cause: A
Biography of J.E.B. Stuart.
of his character, but he doesn’t make
a very favorable impression on me.
He is not very refined and appears to
be fond of show, as he goes round in
camp in full Zouave uniform, with
a long mustache and shaved head,
and looks like anything but an acting
brigadier.”
While he lay dying at the Otto
farmhouse on the Antietam battlefield, Sand and his mother Isabella
wrote several touching letters to his
family in New York. Since I guide
at the battlefield, Max’s five postwar paintings of the farm and house
made the letters and the captain’s
passing all the more poignant to me.
Hidden History is so much more
than a collection of the tragic stories
of Connecticut soldiers and their
families. John Banks writes about
Pvt. Orlando Snow who went into
a deep depression when he lost his
very ill brother Nelson in Otto’s
cornfield at Antietam.
Nelson preferred to die in battle
than risk being called a coward.
Orlando did not snap out of his
melancholy until an Irish enlisted
man whipped him in a brawl.
Captured with most of the 16th
Connecticut at Plymouth, N.C., in
April 1864, he died in Andersonville
that November.
Sgt. George Marsh, 8th Connecticut, was a veteran of New Bern.
He was a carpenter, constantly sent
money home to his parents and in
his spare time tattooed his comrades
with India ink. He died on the Rohrbach farm at Antietam early in the
morning of Sept. 17, 1862, while
waiting to go into battle.
Without warning, an incoming
Confederate 12-pdr. shot plowed
into the prone Yankees. It killed three
men, including Marsh, who died
from the concussion of the round
striking the ground next to him.
Both Hidden History and Crossing Antietam are insightful studies
of Civil War soldiers. I recommend
them to serious students of the war.
Reviewer John Michael Priest
retired from teaching in 2011 after
serving 30.5 years. He is a guide
at Antietam. He has published four
Civil War books and is an avid
54mm wargamer — French and
Indian War through the U. S. Civil
War.
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Crossing Antietam and Hidden
History are excellent companion
volumes. Both cover the war on a
very personal level.
Crossing Antietam chronicles the
war in the East from Capt. Henry
Sand’s enrollment in the predominantly German 103rd New York
through his death from a mortal
wound at Antietam. Hidden History
concentrates heavily upon the lives
and deaths of specific Connecticut
soldiers throughout the war with
many references to Antietam.
The well-educated, bilingual and
affluent Sand missed very little in
his astute letters home. For instance,
while very ill in New Bern, N.C.,
he wrote to his youngest brother
Max: “I am glad to hear such good
accounts of the young ladies of
Brooklyn. Give my love and a kiss
to them all — every one of them. We
have a great many pretty ladies here,
but I’m afraid you would not find
them handsome as they are all colored (like meerschaum pipes – from
cream color to ivory black). You, I
suppose, prefer white ladies — I
used to myself — it’s all a matter of
taste.”
He left behind a less than flattering description of Col. Rush C.
Hawkins, 9th New York Zouaves: “I
don’t know him well enough to judge
Essays on How We Remember the Battle and Understand
Its Consequences, edited by Gerald Christianson, Barbara
Franco & Leonard Hummel
Foreword by Edward Linenthal. Contibutors: Maria Erling, Pamela
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Leonard Hummel, Gregory Hoskins
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Civil War News
28
Doctor’s View As Surgeon,
Inspector & Sanitary Agent
Agent of Mercy: The Untold
Story of Dr. Archibald S. Maxwell Civil War Surgeon & Iowa
State Sanitary Agent. By George C.
Maxwell. Illustrated, photos, maps,
appendices, notes, bibliography, index, 193 pp., 2015, George C. Maxwell, [email protected],
$12.99 softcover.
Medical logistics evolved during
the Civil War in response to the
need to manage and distribute medical supplies and allocate staff in an
effective way. This subject has received little focus thus far. George
Maxwell’s work goes a long way to-
ward remedying that situation.
Maxwell’s work is a biographical
sketch of his great-great-great grandfather’s experiences during the war.
Dr. Archibald Maxwell served the
Union for two years. He held the
following positions: surgeon, hospital inspector, professor and State of
Iowa Sanitary Agent.
Maxwell’s unique and diverse assignments provide readers with insight into medical logistics through
the eyes of politicians, soldiers, family members, medical professionals
and relief organizations.
He was a self-made man who took
every opportunity provided to edu-
Charles Stone: Ball’s Bluff Scapegoat
The Extraordinary Life of
Charles Pomeroy Stone: Soldier,
Surveyor, Pasha, Engineer. by
Blaine Lamb. Notes, photos, bibliography, index, 276 pp., 2016, Westholme Publishing, www.westholmepublishing.com, $29.95.
Woe is the professional military
man who gets caught in the crosshairs
of vengeful, powerful politicians.
That could have been the epitaph for
Union Gen. Charles Pomeroy Stone
who made the mistake of relying on
the military skills of U.S. Senator
Edward Baker at the Battle of Ball’s
Bluff, Va., on Oct. 21, 1861.
Not only did Baker, a well-liked
politician but incompetent colonel,
lose that battle, but he also lost his
life. Stone, Baker’s commanding officer, was blamed for the loss, Baker’s death, and collaborating with the
Confederates.
Stone was the first target of the
vengeful Joint Committee on the
Conduct of the War, a collection of
Congressmen whose main purpose
seemed to be harassing the West
Point-educated Democrats who
made up much of the Union’s officer
corps.
After the Committee held a sham
investigation of Ball’s Bluff, Stone
was sent to prison for several months.
He was not even allowed to see any
formal charges filed against him.
While those details of Stone’s
life are the most famous covered by
Blaine Lamb, the rest of his book is
also rewarding. This first-ever biography of Stone is finely detailed,
despite the handicap that Lamb had
to piece together Stone’s life from a
vast array of primary and secondary
resources.
Lamb found tantalizing hints that
Stone kept journals detailing his
career, but he could not find them in
any known manuscript repository.
This is Lamb’s first book and a
worthy addition to anyone’s Civil
War library.
Stone’s early war service was organizing Washington City’s defense,
likely saving the butts of the same
congressmen who would railroad
him. He served as the early righthand man of Gen. Winfield Scott and
later Gen. George McClellan.
The latter abandoned him in the
Ball’s Bluff controversy — probably
because Little Mac was the next obvious target for blame.
Allowed to rejoin the army after
his imprisonment, Stone served well
in Louisiana and on the Red River
Campaign. Still, his reputation precluded him from serving a major role
in the war. After the war, William T.
Sherman recommended Stone for a
position training the Egyptian Army,
a post he held nearly 13 years.
My only criticism is the lack of
maps and a detailed timeline relating
to Ball’s Bluff. The Confederate side
of the battle was also not detailed.
The addition of that material would
have helped the reader better understand Stone’s defense of his actions
during the battle.
Reviewer Clint Johnson has
written 12 Civil War and American
Revolution history and historical
travel books.
Every so often a book comes
along that makes the past profoundly
relevant to the present. Such is
the case with Antonio Elmaleh’s
historical novel, The Ones They Left
Behind.
His book is a breath of fresh air
given our current state of affairs in
a deeply divided United States. Not
only does his book resonate with
hope and redemption, but it touches
on other issues and pathos that we as
a nation contend with, including the
plight of being a wounded warrior.
The core of the story revolves
around Union veteran Harriman
Hickenlooper, a soldier in the 6th
Iowa Volunteer Infantry who participated in Sherman’s March to the
Sea. In 1867 he sets out to retrace
that route in an effort to resolve his
own inner demons and rediscover
that people at their deepest level are
kind, compassionate and forgiving.
His faith in humanity is central to
the premise of the book. So certain
is Hickenlooper that he will not be
harmed as he makes his way across
Georgia that he literally bets his farm
on it.
On this venture he wears his
cate himself. He also was a strong
advocate for quality medical care
and support for Iowa soldiers and
civilians.
Many biographies telling the story
of an author’s genealogy get bogged
down in the details of specific events
and situations that serve only to promote a good image of the subject.
However, George Maxwell uses a
unique style to describe the events in
a neutral way that is easy for readers
to understand.
This work consists of multiple
small chapters focusing on certain
periods of Maxwell’s service. This
format works well by providing
readers background information
about the types of obstacles military
and political organizations supporting Union soldiers encountered.
The author did a good job describing Dr. Maxwell in the final paragraph of the epilogue: “His life story
remains an example to us of what is
possible, if one dares to try.”
The book is reasonably priced
and easy to read. It gives excellent
insight into how the medical profession operated during the Civil War
and laid the foundation for modern
battlefield medicine. It receives my
highest recommendation for those
interested in battlefield medicine and
civilian relief work.
Reviewer Richard J. Blumberg has
a master’s degree with honors
in Civil War studies. He is past
president of the Houston Civil
War Round Table and is a speaker
for that group and the Society of
Women in the Civil War. He also
reviews books for the Blue and
Gray Education Society.
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Recommended Novel About A Veteran
The Ones They Left Behind. By
Antonio Elmaleh. Historical fiction.
Map, 260 pp., 2014, Antonio Elmaleh, www.antonioelmaleh.com,
$22.95.
April 2016
Union uniform but does not carry a
firearm, just a faded American flag.
What transpires along the 245 pages
of Elmaleh’s terrific prose and narrative verve is a story that will tug
at the reader’s heart strings without
dripping into maudlin sentimentality. While his journey seems to be
absurd and utopian in concept, Hickenlooper defies all convention in this
absolute page-turner.
Hickenlooper’s escapade is a oneman truth-and-reconciliation commission, mostly seeking to resolve
his inner turmoil, but also to make
amends to others he encountered
when he was in Sherman’s military
juggernaut.
The ever-idealistic Hickenlooper
not only wants to make peace within himself, but also for the nation,
which is struggling to emerge from
the fratricidal carnage of the Civil
War in one of the most devastated
regions of the country. On his journey Hickenlooper confronts not only
his demons, but all of humanity’s
deepest sins: wrath, envy and deeply
Proprietors Tom & Thelma Barry
rooted prejudice.
All of the novel’s characters are
multi-dimensional and believable.
Elmaleh skillfully weaves issues of
gender and race against this dark
backdrop. One of the most poignant
scenes is Hickenlooper’s reburial of
his brother, whose remains he recovers on his journey.
One of the most significant characters is not human at all, but rather a
clock that serves as the metaphor for
time and has a much deeper meaning in the plot’s context. So in some
ways this novel is a mystery, with all
the tension inherent in one, and the
clock’s character pushes the novel
forward in a well-paced, but frenetic
manner.
The bet on his farm in Centreville,
Iowa, requires Harriman to complete
his journey from Centreville to Savannah, Ga., and back, unharmed, in
44 days.
Given the mysterious nature of aspects of the novel, readers might expect that the twists that occur along
the way would be dark. But the ge-
nius of The Ones They Left Behind
is they are not. Rather, they remind
us of the potential for good that each
person has within himself, and readers are not left feeling forlorn or depressed. While the book is readable,
it is deeply contemplative without
being pushy in matters of morality.
The conclusion of the book is a
stunner, too!
This book is highly recommended
on a number of levels. It is a pure
joy to read. Also, anyone who has
an interest in the frailty and glory
of the human heart or the price
everyone pays when a nation goes to
war should read The Ones They Left
Behind.
Reviewer James A. Percoco is
Teacher-in-Residence
for
the
Civil War Trust and The Journey
Through
Hallowed
Ground
Partnership,
the
author
of
Summers With Lincoln: Looking
for the Man in the Monuments, and
a member of the National Teachers
Hall of Fame.
Civil War News
April 2016
29
Gen. Martin Hardin Informative Letters By George L. Gaskell
Saw America Change
Lincoln’s Bold Lion: The Life
and Times of Brigadier General
Martin Davis Hardin. By James
Huffstodt. Illustrated, photos, maps,
notes, bibliography, index, 432 pp.,
2015, Casemate, www.casematepublishing.com, $32.95.
Gen. Martin D. Hardin (18371923) was the son of Mexican War
hero John J. Hardin, an intimate
friend of Abraham and Mary Lincoln. Coming from an ancestry rich
in military heroes, Martin Hardin
experienced America from its era of
canal boats and slavery to the times
of the Gilded Age, airplanes and Prohibition.
This book is both a biography of
General Hardin and a window into
America’s change to industrialization and modernization.
During his youth Hardin explored
America’s backwoods from Jacksonville, Ill., to St. Louis, Mo., and the
river plantations of western Mississippi. He fished, hunted, rode canal
boats, listened to slaves’ ghost stories and developed a love for adventure. These attributes would serve
him well during his life as a soldier.
Although Hardin was initially
drawn to life as a lawyer, his mother
Sarah Hardin and stepfather Chancellor Reuben Walworth of New
York planned a military career for
him.
Appointed to West Point by President Franklin Pierce, he gradually
adjusted to West Point’s military life,
made many lifelong friends, graduated in 1859 and was assigned to
command Fort Umpqua, Washington
Territory.
During the trek to his new post, he
endured the rigors of frontier travel,
met numerous Indian tribes, and developed a respect for Native Americans and their culture. His stay on the
frontier was cut short by the opening
of the Civil War as he was recalled
East and attached to Battery H, 3rd
U.S. Battery.
Due greatly to his mother’s social
connections in Washington and her
friendship with the Lincolns, Har-
din’s advancement was assured. Promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1862,
he was assigned command of the
12th Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment. He bravely led his command
in actions at Second Bull Run, White
Oak Swamp, Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg and the Peninsula Campaign.
Hardin was wounded four times
and lost his left arm during an
ambush at Catlett’s Station. After
a brief recuperation, he assumed
command of the Washington
defenses and was largely responsible
for foiling Gen. Jubal Early’s plan to
capture the capital.
Due to his mother’s lobbying, he
was promoted to brigadier general in
July 1864. He spent the remainder
of the war in Washington and then
commanding occupation troops in
Raleigh, N.C.
After the war, Hardin pursued a
legal career, his first love. Joining
a powerful law firm in Chicago, he
became a frequent companion of
fellow lawyer Robert Todd Lincoln
and joined virtually all of Chicago’s
elite social clubs. After the death of
his first wife, he married Amelia McLaughlin, the daughter of a wealthy
Chicago coffee merchant.
Between his thriving law practice
and the McLaughlin family wealth,
the Hardins enjoyed a privileged
life befitting a wealthy couple of the
Gilded Age.
Hardin never forgot his military
friends, attended G.A.R. meetings,
hosted Union and Confederate
friends, and wrote extensively of his
war experiences.
By his death in 1923, he had witnessed America transform itself
from the days of covered wagons to a
world military and economic power.
James Huffstodt does an excellent
job portraying General Hardin’s life
in the context of a changing America. Readers get to know him intimately and also how his world was
changing.
There are a few typographical and
historical errors. For example, President Henry Harrison should be Benjamin Harrison, Mrs. Bertha Potter
should be Mrs. Bertha Palmer, and
the date of Hardin’s return to active
duty after his amputation was 1864,
not 1863.
These minor errors detract very
little from the valuable contribution
this book makes as a definitive biography of a forgotten hero. It is highly
recommended.
Reviewer Wayne L. Wolf is
Professor Emeritus at South
Suburban College and the author
of numerous books and articles
on the Civil War including The Last
Confederate Scout and Two Years
Before the Paddlewheel. He is past
president of the Lincoln-Davis
Civil War Roundtable.
A Connecticut Yankee at War:
The Life and Letters of George Lee
Gaskell. By Robert Grandchamp. Illustrated, photos, maps, notes, bibliography, index, 200 pp., 2015, Pelican, www.pelicanpub.com, $25.95.
George Lee Gaskell is yet another
of those unknown Civil War figures
whose experiences are sufficiently unique that they should be made
available to students of the war.
Robert Grandchamp has done
just that in a succinct, nicely produced volume that utilizes Gaskell’s
Civil War letters, sandwiched by a
well-written and informative brief
biography of Gaskell’s life before
and after the war.
Growing up in eastern Connecticut
and Rhode Island, Gaskell became a
carpenter and then a clerk before enlisting on a commercial voyage as a
hand on the merchant bark Ariel in
1860.
Already educated in English
grammar and Latin, Gaskell sailed to
Zanzibar and learned Arabic, French
and Swahili. When he returned to
Rhode Island, war had broken out.
In December 1861 Gaskell enlisted
in Battery G of the 1st Rhode Island
Light Artillery. Battery G served
with the Army of the Potomac in
the Peninsula, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg campaigns and saw action in
several battles. Gaskell, however,
never served in a gun crew. Instead,
due to his high level of literacy, he
was made the battery’s company
clerk. He became immersed in record-keeping duties and gained a
unique perspective.
His Civil War career took a dramatic turn in December 1863 when
he accepted a voluntary appointment
to a newly organized unit of black
troops, the 14th Rhode Island Heavy
Artillery, Colored (later the 11th
U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery). After
passing a rigorous examination, Gaskell joined his new unit, which spent
the remainder of the Civil War on
garrison duty in Plaquemines Parish,
Louisiana.
Following the war, Gaskell remained in the South and married into
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a prominent Plaquemines family. He
became involved in local politics,
helped register freed black voters,
and finally operated retail businesses
in Louisiana and later in Chattanooga, Tenn.
The heart of this book consists of
Gaskell’s wartime letters — most
written to his sister Mary and some
to a local newspaper. As expected,
the letters are literate and informative. The correspondence regarding
Battery G’s experiences at the battles
of Fair Oaks and Second Fredericksburg will be of value to students of
those actions.
Most of the letters written while
Gaskell served in Battery G reveal
details of life in a battery on campaign. In fact, given the relative
dearth of original correspondence
by members of Federal field artillery
units, the reader may well wish that
Gaskell had written more often.
Gaskell’s letters from Louisiana are equally informative about a
starkly different sort of war experience. Primary accounts of service as
a white officer commanding black
troops in newly conquered parts of
the South are lacking, and Gaskell’s
articulate correspondence sheds
needed light on that role, as well.
Grandchamp, who has written a
solid history of Battery G, has done a
nice job of combining Gaskell’s letters with necessary biographical details in a tightly written and well-edited book. He supplies an abundance
of detailed, explanatory endnotes.
As with any such effort, there are
minor criticisms. For example, the
editor relies on the long-accepted
strength numbers for the opposing
forces in the 1862 Peninsula Campaign even though researchers such
as Leon Tenney have recently shown
that Confederate numbers were
probably higher.
Grandchamp’s compilation is a
worthwhile addition to the library
of anyone interested in field artillery units or the experiences of black
troops and their white officers in the
occupied South.
Reviewer John Foskett is a
practicing attorney in Boston,
Mass., and has a life-long interest
in the Civil War.
Digital Issues of
CWN are available
by subscription
alone or
with print
plus archives
to 2012 at
CivilWarNews.com
39th ANNUAL OHIO CIVIL WAR
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750 Tables of Military Items, Books, Prints, etc.
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SPECIAL FEATURES
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Field Hospital Scenario
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73rd OVI Regimental Band
Period Church Service
Gettysburg Address Presented Daily
by President Lincoln
Marlboro Volunteers Traveling Museum
& Military Vehicles
Exhibits by 29th Annual Meeting of GAR-UCV
Veterans Association
& much more!
$7 Admission (includes parking) – Under 12 FREE
Handicap Facilities, Food and Door Prizes.
www.ohiocivilwarshow.com
FOR INFORMATION CALL: 419-884-2194
Ohio Civil War Show, LLC
Civil War News
30
April 2016
Wallace’s Career Through Shiloh Battle Atlanta Campaign Book Has
Weak Sources & References
“My Greatest Quarrel with
Fortune”: Major General Lew
Wallace in the West, 1861-1862.
By Charles G. Beemer. Illustrated,
photos, maps, notes, bibliography,
index, 342 pp., 2015, Kent State,
www.kentstateuniversitypress.com,
$39.95.
Lew Wallace is known for different
aspects of his life. The author of Ben
Hur, he also served in the Union
Army during the Civil War, rising
to the rank of major general. During
his time in uniform, he led troops
at the Battle of Fort Donelson and
elsewhere, served on the military
commission that tried the Lincoln
assassination conspirators, and
led the commission that convicted
Capt. Henry Wirz of conspiracy and
murder.
Despite this long list of accomplishments, Wallace is primarily
remembered for a single day in his
military career: April 6, 1862. On
that first day of the Battle of Shiloh,
Wallace commanded the three-brigade 3rd Division of the Army of the
Tennessee near Crump’s Landing.
Ulysses S. Grant’s army was
spread out over several miles while
awaiting Don Carlos Buell’s army
to join it for a campaign against
Corinth, Miss. Grant was unprepared
for a surprise Confederate attack on
the Union forces. Located miles to
the north, Wallace’s troops were not
part of the initial battle but heard the
guns in the distance.
A confusing series of events began to unfold when Wallace received
verbal and then written orders to
march his division to support the rest
of the army in its struggle to survive
against the Confederate onslaught.
This confusion impacted the Union
army’s fighting strength that day and
began a war of words that continued
for decades.
The major controversy is about
what those orders said. As preplanned, Wallace took the inland
Shunpike Road that would put him
close to Shiloh Church and Sherman’s Division. But the Rebels had
driven Sherman back from that area,
and Wallace was exposed. So he had
to retrace his steps and eventually come down the River Road. His
division thus missed the first day’s
fighting.
Grant later stated that he had
ordered Wallace to take the River
Road. His orders were first issued
verbally and transcribed by an
aide. This written order was never
located after the battle, and the exact
instructions contained in it are at
the crux of the allegations against
Wallace.
Beemer explains that for years
Wallace was blamed by many officers for the near defeat on Shiloh’s
first day. If he ignored a direct order
to take the River Road, criticism of
him by Grant, Halleck and others
would be appropriate. But it is not
clear he did so. If not directly organized by Grant, the criticism was at
least supported by his later writings
and statements on the topic.
This work covers Wallace’s early
career and military service through
the Battle of Shiloh. Most notable
are Wallace’s actions at Fort Donelson, where his unauthorized actions
helped save the day for the Union.
Beemer argues that non-recognition of these actions was part of a
larger conspiracy created by officers
on Grant’s staff to ensure that Wallace, not Grant, was blamed for the
failures on Shiloh’s first day.
For readers interested in the disputes between political and “professional” generals, this book will be
interesting — especially to students
of Grant or Wallace.
Reviewer
David
Sesser,
a
former
museum
curator,
is
Special Collections Curator and
E-Resources Coordinator at the
Huie Library, Henderson State
University, Arkadelphia, Ark.
Atlanta 1864: Sherman Marches
South. By James Donnell. Illustrated, maps, photos, bibliography, index, 96 pp., 2016, Osprey, www.ospreypublishing.com , $24 softcover.
This little work offers a very
general account of the crucial 1864
military campaign in North Georgia.
James Donnell has based his text
overwhelmingly on the unreliable
official reports and self-serving
memoirs of the commanding generals
(William Tecumseh Sherman for the
Union and Joseph E. Johnston and
John Bell Hood for the Rebels).
Donnell has made little, perhaps
no, use of the major studies of the
campaign that have appeared during
the last four or five decades.
His 15 suggestions for “Further
Reading” omit all works by Russell
Bonds, Albert Castel, Stephen Davis
and others who have done so much
to reshape our understanding of the
1864 operations in Georgia.
The book will be of limited value
to those who have no knowledge
of the events that brought about
the September 1864 Union victory
that may have saved the Lincoln
Administration.
Both new recruits to the study of
the Civil War and veteran campaigners would be wise to turn to one or
more of the recent far better and
much more substantive works on the
campaign.
Reviewer Richard M. McMurry, an
independent scholar in Dalton,
Georgia., is working on a study of
Joseph E. Johnston’s role in the
Confederate military history.
Books for Review
can be sent to:
CWN Review Editor, Edward H. Bonekemper III
814 Willow Valley Lakes Dr., Willow Street, PA 17584
Send cover image to [email protected]
In Theaters April 22nd!
www. UnionBoundTheMovie.com
Civil War News
April 2016
31
Good 179th N.Y. Full Account Of Louisiana
Volunteers History Plantation & Butler Family
“If I Have Got To Go and Fight,
I Am Willing.”: A Union Regiment
Forged in the Petersburg Campaign: The 179th New York Volunteer Infantry 1864-1865. By Edwin
P. Rutan II. Illustrated, photos, maps,
notes, appendices, bibliography, index, 524 pp., 2015, RTD Publications, www.179thnyvolunteers.blogspot.com, $24.95 softcover.
This book tells the tale of the
179th New York Volunteer Infantry, a regiment raised in the Empire State’s southern tier during the
spring and summer of 1864. In June,
shortly before the Petersburg Campaign commenced, the 179th went to
the front and joined the Army of the
Potomac’s 9th Corps.
Over the next 10 months, the regiment participated in the opening
assaults against Petersburg and the
Battles of the Crater, Poplar Springs
Church and Fort Mahone. During
this year of bloody action, it lost 72
killed and another 109 dead from
disease.
Like most modern regimental histories, Rutan’s book does not seek to
glorify the men of the 179th but simply to “understand more deeply and
more broadly the reality of the soldiers’ experience and respect what
they endured.”
Even though he professes no argument, Rutan develops something of
a thesis. He takes pains to disprove
a common theory about regiments
recruited late in the war. Some historians — and Rutan singles out
Bruce Catton, Ella Lonn and James
McPherson — have hinted that latewar regiments were mostly filled
with “bounty men,” soldiers who
joined the ranks because of high enlistment bonuses, not patriotism.
The theory contends that late-war
regiments rarely aided the Union
army in its hour of need and were
weighed down by rampant skulking,
desertion and antiwar activism. Rutan believes the 179th New York did
not fit this mold.
Although it had its share of desertions and although each soldier
collected as much as $700 in bounties, the 179th fought doggedly, losing between 15 and 40 percent of its
combatants in its battles.
The officers and enlisted men
were “no rear echelon or garrison
soldiers,” Rutan writes, “This book
demonstrates that the 179th New
York was a ‘high number’ regiment
that fought.”
This is an excellent regimental
history. In addition to providing the
traditional play-by-play action of the
179th’s important battles and campaigns, Rutan injects social history
into his narrative.
He discusses the importance of
the draft, substitution, local and state
bounties, desertion, religion, health,
politics, the 1864 election, ties to the
home front, acceptance of death, and
veterans’ postwar reunions.
Perhaps the most interesting chapter involves the court-martial of Pvt.
Newton Spencer, a soldier from Co.
F who wrote a scathing letter published in the Penn Yan Democrat
blaming Maj. Gen. George G. Meade
for the disaster at the Crater. Union
high command charged him with
disrespecting a commanding officer
to discourage men from betraying
their commanders to the antiwar
press during an election year.
Rutan’s chapter about Spencer is
a skillful reminder that regimental
history involves more than narrating
the Union army’s well-known battles
against the Confederates.
In short, this book is cutting-edge.
It invigorates the genre by looking
at sources that go beyond the battlefield.
It is not without its shortcomings,
and most of these have to do with
awkward text and image formatting.
Rutan originally published his regimental history as an e-book, and it is
evident that he and his editors made
little effort to revise the manuscript
when they transferred it to the printed version.
Block quotations are frequent and
enormous. This might suit the internet, but it tends to break up the
narrative and stifle analysis in the
printed version. Also, the alignment
is inconsistent, and the print is terribly small.
Most vexing of all, nearly all of the
e-book’s maps and some of its photographs are missing from the printed copy. At various points, bracketed
text indicates where these missing
maps and images ought to appear.
This apparently is the author’s
reminder to visit the e-book to get
the full experience. But for a reader
who possesses only the printed copy,
these insertions are simply annoying.
It is fair enough to say that “If I
Have Got to Go and Fight” can exist
as both an e-book and a hard copy.
However, in the printed format it
needs to play by the rules.
These reservations should not deter readers. This is a solid regimental
history, one that justifiably emphasizes the important role played by
those Union soldiers who were recruited during the war’s final year.
Reviewer Timothy J. Orr is an
assistant professor of history
at Old Dominion University in
Norfolk, Va. For eight years, he
worked as a ranger at Gettysburg
National Military Park.
Kimberly Brigance
ISA Accredited Appraiser
Civil War Militaria & Memorabilia
[email protected] | 770-715-2208
www.kbappraise.com
The Butlers of Iberville Parish,
Louisiana: Dunboyne Plantation
in the 1800s. By David D. Plater. Illustrated, maps, photos, notes, bibliography, index, 332 pp., 2015, LSU,
www.lsupress.org, $35.
Edward George Washington Butler (1800-1885) was the son of an
army officer. His father’s friend Andrew Jackson served as the boy’s
guardian after his father died. With
Jackson’s support, young Butler secured an appointment to West Point,
from which he graduated in 1820.
Eleven years later he resigned
from the army. In 1826 Butler wed
Frances Parke Lewis, a great-granddaughter of Martha Custis Washington. One of the bridesmaids was
Frances’s cousin Mary Custis — later Mrs. Robert E. Lee.
The Butlers moved to Louisiana
to make their fortune growing sugar.
For decades they struggled with the
numerous problems that beset planters along the Mississippi River.
By 1860 they had risen into the
lower strata of the Southern aristocracy. Butler had returned to the
army in the Mexican War as colonel
of the 3rd United States Dragoon
Regiment. In 1861 he served as a
delegate to the Louisiana secession
convention.
Too old for Civil War service, Butler sent his two sons into the Confederate army. One received a mortal
wound at Belmont, Mo., in November 1861 while major of the 11th
Louisiana Infantry Regiment. The
other served as a staff officer and
survived the war.
David Plater has given us an excellent account of the Butlers’ lives
— especially of Frances’s crucial
role in managing Dunboyne Plantation during her husband’s absences.
The book is recommended for
those desiring to study antebellum
Southern agriculture, particularly the
sugar plantations. It also offers much
good material on Southern family
life, the effect of the Civil War on
Louisiana, and the efforts of white
Southerners to rebuild their lives after the war.
Readers seeking accounts of Civil
War military action will find almost
nothing here. Some of the material
on Butler’s military career, however,
will be of value to those studying the
United States Army’s 19th-century
history.
A good map or two would have
enhanced the book. Judicious editing and common sense, both in short
supply these days, would have greatly reduced the excessive length of
many of the footnotes and made the
book much more reader-friendly.
Reviewer Richard M. McMurry, an
independent scholar in Dalton,
Ga., is working on a study of
Joseph E. Johnston’s role in the
Confederate military history.
War Affected Country’s
Economic Development
Free Labor: The Civil War and
the Making of an American Working Class. By Mark A. Lause. Illustrated, photos, notes, index, 296 pp.,
2015, Illinois, www.press.uillinois.
edu, $95 hardcover, $28 softcover.
This book is part of the University of Illinois Press’s “The Working
Class in American History” series.
Mark Lause’s central theme is that
the Civil War caused a reshaping of
the economic, social and political
structure of the United States.
In 1860, U.S. wealth was based on
agriculture that was supported by a
society of artisans producing material goods in small quantities. By 1866,
the U.S. was an industrial country
supported by agriculture. Laborers
in manufacturing and transportation
grew more numerous than those engaged in agriculture.
The author explores the relationship between labor and capital.
Those interested only in the military
aspects of the Civil War should read
at least the book’s first portion. The
armies fighting in the fields were
only as effective as the munitions the
industrial laborers produced and that
the transportation workers moved to
the front.
During the war an overlooked
struggle took place on the home
front as labor leaders fought with
owners for increased benefits for
their members.
Lause notes that one of the misconceptions about the Civil War is
that most industrial workers opposed
the Federal government’s efforts to
end slavery. Labor, some historians
claim, feared that if slavery was ended African Americans would flood
the labor market as cheap labor and
decrease industrial workers’ pay.
The New York draft riots and
discontent in the Pennsylvania coal
fields are used by these historians as
examples of labor resistance to the
war and emancipation effort.
In rebuttal, Lause points out that a
substantial portion of the men fighting for the Federal cause were industrial workers and the troops used to
crush the New York draft riot included labor union members.
The book’s heart and soul is concerned with the idea of free labor:
the right of laborers to collectively
negotiate with their employers concerning wages, benefits and safety
issues. Lause contends that the leaders of the free labor movement saw
slavery as an impediment to developing a free labor movement and
thus opposed slavery.
The U.S. free labor movement had
started before the Civil War when
industrial workers began to strike,
with various degrees of success, for
higher wages and improved living
conditions.
The free labor concept was not
confined just to the North. Southern
industrial workers saw their livelihoods threatened by the employment of slaves in both skilled and
unskilled industrial occupations. The
author’s discussion of free labor also
includes female and African-American workers.
The core of the book examines
labor unions’ development from the
1850s to 1877. During this period,
free labor made some gains but also
suffered severe setbacks in winning
pay hikes, job security and fringe
benefits. As a result, some union
leaders became socially and politically radicalized.
Both home-grown and imported
ideas concerning a revamping of
American society and government
began to be espoused by union leaders as they sought to win concessions
from transportation and industrial
leaders.
The year 1877, says Lause, marked
a low point in the free labor movement in the United States. During
that year the federal government
ended its Reconstruction policy in
the South and used Federal troops to
break up industrial and transportation strike efforts.
This book is well worth reading to
understand the United States’ economic development. The Civil War,
like World War II, reshaped labor/
capital relations. My only complaint
is the small size of the print; I had
to stop after every 20 pages to rest
my eyes.
Reviewer Charles H. Bogart has
a B.A. in history from Thomas
More College and an MA in
urban planning from Ohio State
University. He is the historian for
Frankfort, Kentucky’s Fort Boone
Civil War Battle Site.
Civil War News
32
April 2016
U.S. Army Col. Henry M. Lazelle Winfield Scott’s Policy
Had A Varied & Colorful Career On Regular Army Use
Against the Grain: Colonel Henry M. Lazelle and the U.S. Army.
By James Carson. Illustrated, photos, maps, notes, bibliography, index, 428 pp., 2015, North Texas,
www.untpress.unt.edu, $32.95.
Henry M. Lazelle is another interesting figure from the Civil War era
whose relative anonymity is difficult
to explain. In this biography Lazelle’s great-grandson James Carson
relates his story and sheds light on
a number of areas that generally escape attention.
Lazelle’s career reads like a movie script. He graduated in 1855 from
West Point, where he roomed with
the later renowned painter James
McNeill Whistler. He served as a
lieutenant at Fort Bliss in western
Texas, where he fought Apaches.
In 1861 he and his command were
surrendered to the authorities of a
seceded Texas by their treasonous
commander David Twiggs. Lazelle
was held until exchanged and paroled
in July 1862. Then he was appointed
Assistant Commissary General of
Prisoners of War, a post considered
to be consistent with his parole.
In October 1863, Lazelle was ap-
pointed colonel of the newly raised
16th New York Cavalry. He spent
a year leading that unit in a largely
futile conflict with John Mosby’s
rangers in northern Virginia. After
performing other functions, he was
assigned to Reconstruction duty in
North and South Carolina before
being sent back out West on various
posts in connection with the “Indian
Wars.”
He returned to West Point as Commandant of Cadets, was re-assigned
to Western posts, and was sent to
India as an observer of British military exercises related to the Empire’s
difficulties with Afghanistan. He returned to Washington to assume supervision of the compilation of the
Official Records and ended his military career as commander of Fort
Clark, Texas.
Lazelle was a bright but contentious character, and dispute seemed
to be his constant companion. Two
incidents were significant. While
Commandant of Cadets at West
Point he became embroiled in the
sharp controversy involving the alleged harassment and bullying of
one of the few black cadets, Johnson
Chestnut Whittaker.
Lazelle, whose racist views are
discussed frankly by Carson, and
West Point’s Superintendent, John
M. Schofield, drew a line in Whittaker’s court-martial that left intact an
ongoing “tradition” of cadet hazing
that was particularly egregious in the
cases of the socially isolated black
cadets.
When Schofield was replaced
by Lazelle’s classmate Oliver
O. Howard, who was far more
sympathetic to blacks and who had a
more jaundiced view of West Point’s
traditions, he and Lazelle inevitably
clashed. Howard had Lazelle
relieved but also was relieved
himself by commanding general
William T. Sherman.
The other notable dispute involv-
ing Lazelle erupted in connection
with his supervising the continued
compilation of the Official Records.
On Lazelle’s watch, a roster of loyal
members of the otherwise mutinous
15th Pennsylvania Cavalry who
fought at the Battle of Stones River
was included.
Apparently, however, the list
originated from a newspaper story,
which ignited a political battle over
how the ORs were being compiled.
While Lazelle prevailed on the issue and secured more congressional
funding for the project, he ultimately
was replaced.
This book provides illuminating
insights on a number of interesting
Civil War-era military issues: soldier
and family life at isolated frontier
forts, arcane and contrived rules of
prisoner exchange and parole, frustrations of small unit commanders
confronting Mosby’s “guerilla” activities, cadet life at West Point, the
politicized process of assembling the
Official Records, and Army politics
and bureaucracy.
The text is well-written if somewhat dry, and the author presents a
balanced study of Lazelle despite
his familial connection. Extensive
use has been made of primary sources, and there are several interesting period photographs, especially
of Lazelle’s various frontier posts.
There are only four maps, but they
adequately show the locations of Lazelle’s assignments and activities.
Although Lazelle’s Civil War experiences were somewhat truncated,
Civil War students will find this book
of substantial value for its revealing
view of Army life before, during and
after the war. It is recommended.
Reviewer John Foskett is a
practicing attorney in Boston,
Mass., and has a life-long interest
in the Civil War.
Scott’s Memoirs Is Good Military History
Memoirs of Lieut.-General
Winfield Scott. Edited by Timothy D. Johnson and Michael Gray.
Notes, bibliography, index, 414 pp.,
2015, Tennessee, www.utpress.org,
$59.95.
Winfield Scott is often regarded
as the greatest American soldier to
serve between the eras of George
Washington and Robert E. Lee. Born
in 1786 (“a year older than the Constitution” he is reported once to have
said), Scott entered the army in 1808.
He served for the next 53 years and
for much of that period was America’s leading military figure.
Scott fought in the War of 1812,
receiving promotion to brigadier
general in 1814. In 1841 he became a
major general and commanding general of the army — a post he held until November 1861. His 1847 campaign capturing Mexico City is one
of the outstanding feats of American
military history.
In 1861 Scott proposed to President Abraham Lincoln that the best
strategy to defeat the Confederacy
was to blockade the Rebel coast and
establish national control of the Mississippi River.
The administration rejected the
plan and launched a series of bloody
and unsuccessful efforts to end the
war by capturing the Confederate
capital of Richmond.
In the long run, however, Union
forces managed to win the war by
implementing, if unintentionally,
a modified or expanded version of
Scott’s basic plan.
By that time, Scott had retired
to West Point, New York. He then
wrote his Memoirs, which were published in 1864. The old soldier died
two years later.
The Memoirs cover, but only
superficially, the first months of the
Civil War. Scott’s earlier chapters,
however, contain much information
on the antebellum army that will
interest anyone studying American
military history. That army, after
all, shaped many of the Civil War’s
officers.
Scott’s observations on individuals he knew — and often feuded with
— will also spark interest. He skewered Gen. John P. Boyd as “courteous, amiable ... but vacillating and
imbecile, beyond all endurance.”
He described President James
K. Polk as someone “whose little
strength lay in the most odious elements of the human character. ... a
man of meaner presence is not often
seen.”
Zachary Taylor, he said, was “slow
of thought. ... quite ignorant … and
quite bigoted.” Finally, Jefferson Davis was “profoundly ignorant of law.
... [a] deadly enemy.”
Timothy Johnson and Michael
Gray have done a fine job editing this
work. The addition of maps would
have made it much more useful.
Reviewer Richard M. McMurry, an
independent scholar in Dalton,
Ga., is working on a study of
Joseph E. Johnston’s role in the
Confederate military history.
Winfield Scott’s Vision for the
Army: Mobilizing the North to
Preserve the Union. By Mark C.
Vlahos. Illustrated, photos, maps,
tables, bibliography, notes, 210 pp.,
2015, LuLu Publishing, www.lulu.
com, $19.51 softcover.
By 1861, Winfield Scott had
served in the army for over five decades — including commands in the
War of 1812 and the Mexican War.
In addition, he had a profound effect
on the strategic concept adopted by
Union forces during the Civil War.
The so-called Anaconda or Snake
Plan realistically envisioned a protracted war of four or more years and
proposed an army of 25,000 regulars
and 60,000 volunteers.
Mark Vlahos suggests that “Scott’s
decision to keep Regular units intact”
rather than scatter the regulars as a
training cadre “would have a lasting
impact on mobilization.” Influences
on Scott’s thinking and alternatives
to his use of Regular infantry are the
focus of this book.
The author traces the evolution of
military mobilization from the Revolutionary War to 1865. He defines
the role of the militia system and the
part played by Regular infantry units
in the Eastern and Western Theaters
of the Civil War.
Eventually,
Vlahos
reasons,
“Scott’s decision to keep the Regular infantry intact deprived the mobilized Army of maximum use of a
small reservoir of military leadership
and expertise contained in the standing army.”
He derives this judgment from
some of the early war writings of
George B. McClellan, the brief reflections on the use of the Regulars in
the postwar memoirs of John Schofield and Ulysses S. Grant, and Fred
Shannon’s two volume study, The
Organization and Administration of
the Union Army 1861-1865 (1928).
Instead of the Regular infantry
being used on the battlefield, as an
intact unit, Vlahos contends it should
have been broken up and used as a
“training cadre.” These writings noted above are the only sources cited
by the author to support his thesis.
Also, Vlahos notes, “…there is
not one book out addressing mobilization and Army expansion for the
Civil War…” However, he fails to
cite Marcus Cunliffe’s classic study
of army organization, Soldiers & Civilians: The Martial Spirit in America, 1775-1865 or any of the three
studies on the draft and mobilization
of Union armies.
Cunliffe credits the militia system
as an integral part of the American
military tradition, while Vlahos
gives no credibility to the part played
by the militia during the Civil War.
He dismisses it: “The Militia system
as organized could not provide a
reservoir of military manpower.”
The author appears unaware of
the important role played by the
New York State Militia (NYSM)
(New York State National Guard
(NYSNG) after 1862). When war
began in 1861, the NYSM exceeded
the size of the Regular Army by over
3,000.
Early in the war at least four
NYSM regiments were federalized
for the duration of the war. The 9th
NYSM, 14th Brooklyn, 20th NYSM
and the 69th NYSM all served with
distinguished records.
On four occasions there were additional musters of NYSNG units
into Federal service for 90 days
each: 1861 (7,334 men), 1862
(8,588), 1863 (13,971), and 1864-65
(5,000+).
Finally, over 600 former members
of the famed 7th NYSM served in
the volunteer armies, while 345 were
commissioned officers serving as a
“training cadre” for volunteer units.
Winfield Scott deserves kudos for
his vision for the Union army. As
Vlahos observes, “Nobody contributed more to establishing the army.”
Scott’s maintaining the Regular infantry as a unit was based on his brilliant use of Regulars as intact units
at Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane in
1814.
Scott realized the necessity of utilizing the Regular infantry as an intact force functioning as a model for
the volunteer units.
This book is a brief and informative history of the Union army’s
organization and mobilization from
1861 to 1865. More than 20 charts
and tables complement the text along
with numerous illustrations.
Although the author suggests alternatives to Scott’s decision to keep
the Regular infantry units intact, the
use of the Regulars did work even
with an imperfect militia system.
This success is demonstrated by
recently published works on the use
of Regular infantry in the Civil War
as a cohesive fighting unit: Timothy Reese’s Sykes’ Regular Infantry
Division, 1861-1865 (1990); Mark
Johnson’s That Body of Brave Men:
The U.S. Regulars And the Civil War
in the West (2003); and the exceptional tome, On Duty Well and Faithfully Done: A History of the Regular
Army in the Civil War (2013) by
Clayton Newell and Charles Shrader.
However, there are a few issues.
The book lacks an index. There is
too much reliance on Wikipedia as
a source. Several sources used are
dated — Robert Henry’s The Story
of the Mexican War and Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln: The War
Years are examples.
Vlahos’s monograph is, however,
an informative and fascinating study
of the mobilization of the Union
army during the Civil War period.
Reviewer Michael T. Russert, a
member of the North Shore Round
Table of Long Island and the
Company of Military Historians,
has a MALS plus 60 hours in
American Studies.
Civil War News
April 2016
Steve Davis’
Critic’s Corner
Editor’s note: With this column we
launch a new feature, “Critic’s Corner,” contributed by Stephen Davis
of Atlanta. In each column Steve will
select a “golden oldie” of the Civil War bookshelf – one well-known
work which happens to be one of his
personal favorites.
“Favorite books” is a topic which
always elicits different opinions.
Steve welcomes comments and, yes,
criticism. Please email Steve at
[email protected].
Unapologetic Confederate
Some years ago I gave a talk in
St. Louis entitled, “From Cooke’s
Books to Krick’s Licks: A Century
of Reading on the Army of Northern
Virginia.” Bob Krick loved the title
(he was in the audience), but it also
suggests my choice here, John Esten
Cooke’s Wearing of the Gray (1867)
as pictured below.
Is Cooke’s Wearing a memoir, a
history, or a romantic novel? Well,
it’s a little of each. It’s also one of
the most elegant books written by a
Confederate about the war.
Cooke was the consummate
Virginian. Born at Winchester in
1830, he was nine when his father,
a lawyer, moved his large family
to Richmond. There John Esten
(pron. EEstin) received good early
schooling, but his father’s limited
finances kept him from entering the
University. He read law under his
father’s tutelage, and in 1851 joined
the practice of “John R. Cooke &
Jno. Esten Cooke.”
The younger Cooke’s real interest,
however, was writing, in which he
showed early talent. He published
his first poem at eighteen. A novel about French chivalry, written
in 1847, was later serialized in the
Southern Literary Messenger, Richmond’s esteemed magazine. Publication of other novels by Harper &
Brothers in New York, largely historical romances set in Virginia, allowed Cooke to give up law practice
for literature. By the time of the war,
he enjoyed prestige as one of the
South’s leading writers.
Cooke had joined the Richmond
Howitzers even before John Brown’s
raid. After Sumter he became sergeant in the Howitzers, and commanded a gun at Manassas. Promoted to captain, he joined the staff of
Jeb Stuart, to whom he was related
by marriage.
Service in Lee’s army gave Cooke
the war experiences he began to soon
write about. In early 1863 a series of
articles, entitled “Outlines from the
Outpost,” began appearing in Richmond’s Southern Illustrated News.
One of these, “Stonewall Jackson,
and the Old Stonewall Brigade,”
demonstrates Cooke’s qualities as
Southern author.
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• He admired Jackson. Stonewall
was “the military leader of masterly
genius.”
• Confederates were superheroes.
“They marched, and fought, and
triumphed, like war machines,
which felt no need of rest, or food,
or sleep.”
• Yankees were incompetent on
the battlefield, especially against
Stonewall. They brought into battle
their best troops, “only to have them
put to rout. They advanced with the
most magnificent trains of supplies,
only to have them captured. They
brought to the contest new uniforms
– only to have them covered with the
mud and opprobrium of defeat and
disaster.”
• The Confederate cause was noble. “The flag of the Republic must
be borne aloft in triumph tho’ the
dearest and most precious blood of
the Southern land be poured forth
like water.”
You get the idea. Cooke was an
unapologetic Confederate, serving to
the very end (and never wounded).
After General Stuart’s death at Yellow Tavern, he was assigned to Brig.
Gen. William N. Pendleton’s staff
as inspector-general of horse artillery He surrendered in this capacity
at Appomattox. He buried his silver
spurs there rather than give them
over to the Yankees.
Penniless at the end of the war,
Cooke had to resume writing quickly. That meant for New York publishers, which in turn meant that he
had to soften his tone when he wrote
about his former enemies. He compiled his “Outlines” articles, plus
others he had written, added in more,
and thus developed Wearing of the
Gray: Being Personal Portraits,
Scenes & Adventures of the War,
which was published by E. B. Treat
of New York in 1867.
The book carries 47 articles under such headings as “Personal Portraits.” Staff service in Lee’s army
had allowed Cooke to meet lots of
leading officers, and he described
them all as chivalrous, brave and
noble. His compliments could be
repetitious, but they were sincere.
He admired Jeb Stuart the most, and
dedicated Wearing to Stuart’s memory. Describing Stuart’s “boyish gaiety,” he recounted how Jeb loved to
laugh, joke and sing. Douglas Southall Freeman once wrote, “Cooke
‘caught’ Stuart precisely….Nothing
that has been written since Cooke’s
day has changed a line in the laughing face of Stuart.” Cooke wrote of
others just as touchingly. In Wearing
he ends his sketch of John Mosby
by recounting a scene he must have
witnessed: Mosby alone, standing at
Stuart’s grave in Hollywood Cemetery, breaking down in tears.
A section called “In the Cavalry”
allows Cooke to write a lot about
Stuart, but also “Jackson’s DeathWound” – Cooke was one of the first
Southern writers to recount the fatal
incident at Chancellorsville.
The section called “Outlines from
the Outpost” reprints most of his
Southern Illustrated News columns,
but some of them didn’t make the cut
for the New York publisher. One wartime article deriding Yankee generals
(Nathaniel Banks as “a shoemaker, I
believe, from Massachusetts”) was
excluded from Wearing. Cooke was
ever the novelist, and even some of
his reminiscences in Wearing have
tinges of fiction. For one he even
brought in a Colonel Surry and May
Beverly, characters in one of his antebellum Virginia romances. We may
excuse this: if it’s not straight history, it’s still in the spirit of fun.
The grind of war and the South’s
course to defeat necessarily
hardened Cooke, as one sees in his
“Latter Days” section. “The war
grows tedious,” he wrote in “On the
Road to Petersburg.” At Appomattox
Cooke saw an army which had
been overwhelmed by enemy
numbers, worn out by starvation and
exhaustion. But he could still see
heroism and gallantry. “The South
is prouder of Lee to-day,” he wrote
in June 1865, “and loves him more,
than in his most splendid hours of
victory.”
One of the reasons I enjoy rereading Wearing of the Gray is
its timelessness. We live in a
politically correct world today, in
which relics of the Southern War for
Independence are being taken down,
moved away and packed into closets.
For me, John Esten Cooke’s writing,
with its unabashed Confederatism, is
a welcome antidote.
Stephen Davis is a longtime Civil
Warrior and avid book collector.
His two paperbacks on the
Atlanta Campaign, A Long and
Bloody Task and All the Fighting
They Want, will be published this
summer as part of Savas Beatie’s
Emerging Civil War Series.
Wearing Of The Gray reprint.
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Presented by the Shenandoah Valley Battleeelds Foundation
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Civil War News
34
April 2016
Troops Carried Out Book Features Period, Modern
Massacre In Missouri Photos From 4 American Wars
Blood in the Ozarks: Union War
Crimes Against Southern Sympathizers and Civilians in Occupied
Missouri. By Clint Lacy. Illustrated, photos, maps, 163 pp., 2015,
Poisoned Pen Publishing, [email protected], $17 softcover.
This short book is the latest sal-
vo in an apparent long-running feud
between the author and two other
amateur historians of the Civil War
in Missouri. The bone of contention
between them relates to a wartime
Union cavalry raid on the Pulliam
family farm nestled in the Ozark
foothills of southeastern Missouri.
Both sides acknowledge that two
companies of Union militia cavalry
commanded by Maj. James Wilson
charged into a Confederate militia
cavalry encampment on the Pulliam
farm on Christmas Day 1863, killing at least 30 Rebel troopers while
freeing about 100 Union POWs held
there.
Clint Lacy contends that, during
the raid, Wilson’s men also indiscriminately murdered about 60 civilians who had gathered for a Christmas dinner and religious service.
Calling the raid the “Wilson Massacre,” the author counts women and
small children among the dead.
Lacy’s two detractors deny the
Wilson Massacre. They argue, in
several publications cited in the
book, that only Confederate troops
were killed by Major Wilson’s
command.
Blood in the Ozarks is Lacy’s attempt to prove the historical reality
of the Wilson Massacre. Much of
Lacy’s evidence is circumstantial.
The most convincing evidence that
he marshals involves an unpublished
Civil War memoir dictated in 1918
that specifically mentions that “[s]
oldiers, their families, nearby families” were “[a]ll killed” in Wilson’s
raid.
Readers can make up their own
minds as to whether or not Lacy has
carried the burden of proof for the
reality of the Wilson Massacre. This
lawyer views Lacy’s evidence of the
massacre as falling short of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Nonetheless, I think that Lacy makes a very
believable case for the massacre.
Lacy’s prose is only so-so.
Lengthy and frequent quotations
also interrupt the flow of the author’s
narrative and sometimes make it difficult to follow. The few photos and
illustrations in the book generally
complement the narrative.
The book contains no bibliography, but the footnotes attest to Lacy’s
combing of period Missouri newspapers and other source materials. The
footnotes are grouped at the end of
each of the nine chapters, an improvement upon bunching them up
at the end of the text.
Despite its narrow focus, I recommend Blood in the Ozarks to readers
interested in the Civil War in Missouri or the war’s impact on the civilian population of that state.
Reviewer C. Michael Harrington
is a member of the Houston
Civil War Round Table and Civil
War Aficionados. He has written
several articles on South Carolina
Confederates. A practicing lawyer,
he has degrees in economics from
Yale and Cambridge and a law
degree from Harvard.
Ghosts: Images of War. By Carrie Zeidman. Photos, 72 pp., 2015,
Swiss Creek Publications, www.
swisscreek.com, $40 softcover.
This book is not about “ghosts” in
the literal sense. Readers will find
no pictures of phantoms, images interspersed with trees, or misty floating orbs. Instead, a journey is taken through four hallowed grounds
to explore and tie the past with the
present.
Photos from the Revolutionary
War, Civil War, World War I and
World War II are combined with
pictures of modern visitors or period
photos to create chilling images at
historical locations. Time stands still
as readers study these photos that
create a “You Are There” effect.
Readers are placed at the scene of
horrific battles such as Gettysburg,
Flanders, Monmouth, Antietam,
Normandy and Pearl Harbor; cemeteries at Monmouth and Normandy;
and the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
I found the picture of the Children’s Memorial in the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw the most emotional.
Standing in front of this memorial
was a period photo of children on
their way to one of the death camps.
Interspersed with them is a modern
image of a man staring at the monument.
Another creative photo is from
Appomattox Court House. A period image is combined with one of a
modern visitor. This photo and dozens more can be viewed over and
over as doorways to the past brought
to life in the present.
This work is sure to generate discussions and provide memories of
times that should never be forgotten.
It is an antidote to George Santayana’s warning that “Those who do not
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Reviewer Larry Clowers lives
in Gettysburg, Pa., and is a
professional historical interpreter
of Ulysses S. Grant.
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Civil War News
April 2016
Novel Follows 2 Men’s
Lives From 1858-1868
Henceforth the Bad Angel. By
Philip Brewster. Novel. 376 pp.,
2015, Philip Brewster, http://badangelbook.com, $15.99 softcover.
Novels about the Civil War in
the
Trans-Mississippi
Theater
are relatively rare. Works such as
Paulette Jiles’s Enemy Women and
Daniel Woodrell and Ron Rash’s
Woe to Live On have attempted to
tell the complex story of the war in
Missouri.
Philip Brewster’s new novel follows two young men, one white and
one African American, through three
turbulent events in Kansas history in
1858, 1863 and 1868.
Brewster’s novel begins with the
emigration of Michael Craddock
and his family from Ohio to Kansas
Territory in 1857. While traveling
through Missouri, they meet a slave
boy named Gabriel, and a friendship
develops between Gabriel and young
Michael.
In 1858 the boys witness the infamous massacre of Free State men
at the Marais des Cygnes and then
meet abolitionist John Brown. They
also encounter Abraham Lincoln
when the presidential aspirant makes
a brief visit to Kansas in 1859.
Once the Civil War begins, the
narrative moves forward quickly to
August 1863 and William Clarke
Quantrill’s devastating raid on Lawrence, Kan. The young men witness
the attack, Michael as a civilian and
Gabriel as a recruit in the recently
authorized 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry regiment.
In 1864, after Gabriel participates
in Gen. Frederick Steele‘s Camden
Expedition, he joins Michael as a
courier for the Kansas militia during
Sterling Price’s raid through Missouri and Kansas. They witness the
fighting between the Kansas militia
and Price’s men at the Mockbee farm
and the Union charge against the retreating Confederates at Mine Creek.
With the war over, Gabriel joins
the 10th U.S. Cavalry while buffalo
hunter Michael joins Maj. George
A. Forsyth’s Scouts and survives the
brutal 1868 battle between the scouts
and the Plains Indians at Beecher Island. The narrative concludes with
Michael’s visit to Nicodemus, Kansas, for Gabriel’s funeral.
Brewster has penned an engaging
narrative with fully developed characters and vivid, detailed descriptions of the major events. Although
a few minor errors have crept into
the narrative, it appears that Brewster consulted some of the standard
works on the territorial, Civil War
and Indian War periods in Kansas
history.
Those who prefer works of fiction
and desire to learn more about some
of the most significant events in the
“Sunflower State,” all at a very reasonable price, will find Henceforth
the Bad Angel quite enjoyable.
Reviewer Jeff Patrick is an
interpretive specialist with the
National Park Service at Wilson’s
Creek National Battlefield in
Republic, Mo. He holds B.A. and
M.A. degrees in American history
from Purdue University.
magazine
35
Youth Novel Follows A Boy
Transported To Civil War
Will’s War: A Boy Travels
Through Time to the Civil War.
By Lynn Lowin. Juvenile novel.
474 pp., 2015, Lynn Lowin,
[email protected].,
$16.95 softcover.
This account uses William Bradford, a 13-year-old boy from Litchfield, Conn., as a time traveler. Will’s
interest in the Civil War begins as he
is reading a book by Bruce Catton,
and he is mysteriously transported
back to 1861.
Throughout the book, Will travels
between contemporary Litchfield
and the wartime Virginia Shenandoah Valley.
He witnesses the battles of First
Manassas, Port Royal, New Market
and Gettysburg, as well as the surrender at Appomattox Court House.
But he is more than a passive bystander. He fights with the Virginia
Military Institute cadets at New Market, participates in partisan guerilla
raids, and is a medic at Gettysburg.
In his final travel episode, Will
witnesses Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia and is reunited with soldiers
and civilians he has interacted with
over the past four years.
Back in Litchfield, he learns that
his great-great-grandfather fought in
the war. His estranged father gives
him letters from his ancestor that
propel him to seek information about
his ancestor and his wartime role.
Will’s story reflects the tragedy and loss of war. He experiences
the sorrow of friends’ deaths, hardships imposed on ordinary families
and suffering of the wounded. He
concludes that the war his ancestor
fought represented the inhumanity of
man to man.
War was truly hell with its horrors
of amputated limb piles, starving
soldiers and civilians, and mangled
bodies. Will thus becomes like all
participants in war: he longs for
peace, a return home and an end to
the needless slaughter.
Lynn Lowin’s use of time travel
provides the medium by which she
combines accurate historical data
with a story constructed to relate
to young 21st-century readers. The
book allows today’s youth to learn
the basic events and tribulations of
the Civil War from a person their
own age who also deals with contemporary issues of divorce, work,
dating and sibling bickering.
Additional themes of forgiveness,
strength in adversity, and the importance of family are incorporated as
lessons for maturing adolescents.
Will’s War is thus not aimed at the
Civil War historian but provides an
excellent format for the war’s basic
history in a context very readable and
relevant to young readers. For this
purpose, it is highly recommended.
Reviewer Wayne L. Wolf is
Professor Emeritus at South
Suburban College and the author
of numerous books and articles
on the Civil War including The Last
Confederate Scout and Two Years
Before the Paddlewheel. He is past
president of the Lincoln-Davis
Civil War Roundtable.
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