Thursday, March 27, 2008

Booknotes III (March 08)

Regular rundown of book purchases or review copies received so far this month (Part 3):

The Civil War Ends: Greensboro, April 1865 - A Historical Study of the Civil War in Guilford County by Bradley R. Foley and Adrian L. Whicker (Guilford County Genealogical Society, 2008). As a collector of local Civil War histories, I was pleased to receive a copy of this brand new publication, which appears rich in content. If you have any interest in the subject, get one while they last. These short print run books typically sell out quickly and are not reprinted.

Chancellorsville and the Germans: Nativism, Ethnicity, and Civil War Memory by Christian B. Keller (Fordham Univ. Press, 2007). "German" units had already compiled a stellar combat record in the West and Trans-Mississippi theaters before the famously negative fallout from Chancellorsville commenced. I will be interested in finding out if Keller discovered significant regional differences in nativist attitudes.

Roll Call to Destiny: The Soldier's Eye View of Civil War Battles by Brent Nosworthy (Basic Books, 2008). The title seems to imply an individual perspective, but the narrative actually uses higher organizations (batteries, regiments, brigades, etc.) to examine the nature of combat between the three major combat arms.

Planting The Union Flag In Texas: The Campaigns of Major General Nathaniel P. Banks in the West by Stephen A. Dupree (Texas A&M Press, 2008). A number of excellent military studies separately examine the various Union campaigns directed at Texas, but this new one is the first attempt at a comprehensive interpretation.

Summers with Lincoln: Looking for the Man in the Monuments by James A. Percoco (Fordham Univ. Press, 2008). I hadn't heard of this new Lincoln study before it landed on my porch with Keller. Looks to be an attempt to interpret Lincoln and his legacy through outdoor sculpture art. Sounds like an original approach.

3 comments:

  1. Does Dupree's book cover the 1863 and 1864 Red River Campaigns or just the coastal expeditions?

    Chris Keller used to teach at Dickinson College in Carlisle and did research often at MHI. It does look like an interesting book.

    Art Bergeron

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  2. Hi Art,
    Yes, Dupree does devote a large chunk of his study to the Red River campaigns. I've only thumbed through it, so I have no idea of the quality of analysis yet. The author is a physicist by profession, but previously edited another Red River related work, Pvt. William McMillen's diary, titled "Campaigning with the 67th Indiana, 1864: An Annotated Diary of Service in the Department of the Gulf" (iUniverse, 2006).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Correction: a nuclear engineer, not a physicist.

    ReplyDelete

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