Booknotes: Brigadier General William Haines Lytle

New Arrival:

• Brigadier General William Haines Lytle: The Union's Poet-Soldier by Bryan W. Lane (McFarland, 2026).

Ohioan William Haynes Lytle, an antebellum lawyer, elected Democratic Party politician, and militia general, began the Civil War as colonel of the 10th Ohio infantry regiment. Fighting in western Virginia in 1861, he was wounded at Carnifex Ferry. Upon recovery, Lytle joined Mitchel's Division for its summer 1862 trek across northern Alabama and, later on that year, at Perryville received another wound while also falling into the hands of the enemy. Paroled and exchanged after the battle, Lytle was promoted to brigadier general and was assigned to the Army of the Cumberland, getting hit yet again by enemy fire and dying on September 20, 1863 at Chickamauga.

The only other major modern work on Lytle that I came across during a cursory online search was Ruth Carter's scholarly editing of Lytle's Mexican and ACW correspondence in her 1999 volume For Honor, Glory & Union. So it appears that Bryan Lane's Brigadier General William Haines Lytle: The Union's Poet-Soldier could be appropriately classed as the first full biography of its subject.

Lane describes Lytle as "a poet, Civil War soldier, lawyer, orator, friend, beloved brother, jilted lover, flirt, drunk, unfocused talent and sometimes genius." His book "gives ample attention to the three battles in which Lytle fought, but does not neglect his relationships with family, friends, and lovers. Talented, charming, and well-liked, even by his enemies, Lytle was a cultured gentleman who made friends easily. At the same time, he was also devoted to his troops and a fearless warrior on the battlefield."

Lane's account of Lytle's life and Civil War career, which is based on "on Lytle's own written words, the words of his family, newspaper correspondents and other primary sources," also incorporates its subject's poetry throughout the narrative. Like it was for many other busy professionals seeking a creative outlet, poetry was a side gig for Lytle. He did achieve a fair bit of fame with it, though, especially through his 1858 poem "Antony and Cleopatra," about which Lane devotes a chapter.

Booknotes: A Forest of Granite

New Arrival:

• A Forest of Granite: Union Monuments at Gettysburg 1863-1913 by Brendan Harris (Brookline Bks, 2025).

Brendan Harris's A Forest of Granite: Union Monuments at Gettysburg 1863-1913 "(e)xplores how Union veterans at Gettysburg shaped memorials to honor their sacrifices and convey deeper meanings behind their battle experiences."

A forest of granite indeed. It seems that only a battle fought in an actual Vermont quarry could contain more visible granite than that placed across the Gettysburg battlefield. Someone who has visited great battlefields across the world would have a more accurate reference point than I do, but one does get the impression that the Civil War veteran generation was exceptional in just how much its members felt compelled to establish permanent markers, monuments, and tablets in such heavy concentrations at the very places upon which they and their comrades fought. At Gettysburg alone there are an estimated 1,300 of these in total for both sides.

Harris's study traces "the overlooked efforts of veterans who sought to build lasting tributes, not only to mark where they fought but to convey the deeper meanings behind their sacrifices." Spanning the half-century following the battle's conclusion, these monumentation initiatives were largely "grassroots efforts" by Union veterans "to immortalize their experiences on the battlefield that held the greatest significance for the Army of the Potomac." According to Harris, his detailed examination of unit monumentation at Gettysburg reveals both the "complex individual makeup" of the Union army as well as the reasons "why veterans revered Gettysburg more than other battles fought during the Civil War" (pg. xiii).

As the decades following the end of the war progressed, the purposes of the monuments and the messages behind them also changed. More from the description: "Through dedication speeches, correspondence, and historical records, the book reveals how Union veterans raised funds and rallied political support to construct these monuments, even as the nation moved toward reconciliation and reconstruction. Early monuments emphasized punishment for the South and the preservation of the Union, while later ones reflected themes of reconciliation. These tributes, set against the preserved landscape of Gettysburg, reflect the complex social, political, and economic forces of their time, and continue to shape our understanding of Civil War memory."

Each chapter examines a "specific monument type," providing a great many examples of each. Numerous photographs (nearly one every other page or so) accompany the text discussion. Chapters also compartmentalize the different "eras" during which veteran monumentation unfolded, the 1888-1894 period being labeled the "Golden Age" of Gettysburg monumentation. Due to the exceptional number of Pennsylvania and New York monuments placed at Gettysburg, a separate chapter is devoted to them. In addition to revisiting Gettysburg troop strength (by state) and casualty numbers, the appendix section breaks down monument number totals by state and also provides GPS coordinates of a select group of monuments.

Review - "Richmond Views the West: Politics and Perceptions in the Confederate Capital" by Larry Daniel

[Richmond Views the West: Politics and Perceptions in the Confederate Capital by Larry Daniel (University Press of Kansas, 2025). Hardcover, 3 maps, photos, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xviii,267/359. ISBN:978-0-7006-4010-2. $49.99]

Over the past four decades or so, a flood of western-themed Civil War books authored by professional and avocational historians alike has strongly challenged the eastern theater focus of previous generations and progressively redressed imbalances in content and interpretation. At this point in time, even many obscure corners of the Trans-Mississippi Theater have received strong attention in the literature. While military history book sales and publishing still reveals widest reader interest in the epic contest between the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, it can no longer be maintained that the war's western theater is still neglected or un(der)appreciated. But how did contemporary Civil War Richmonders, whose attention was naturally absorbed to a great degree by the war fought on their own doorstep but who nevertheless closely followed the many military events and disasters occurring elsewhere, see the West as events there were unfolding? That is the overarching theme of Larry Daniel's Richmond Views the West: Politics and Perceptions in the Confederate Capital, which revisits a well-studied chain of decisions and events spanning the entire war but does so from a freshly targeted point of view.

For the purposes of his study, Daniel defines the Confederate "West" as the Trans-Mississippi (Arkansas, Texas, and most of Louisiana) and Heartland (Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, most of Georgia, and the cis-Mississippi slice of Louisiana) regions together. That vast West also takes into account the Missouri and Kentucky state governments in exile (each officially recognized by the CSA with political representatives integrated into both houses of the Confederate Congress).

An inescapable factor that greatly affected Richmond's knowledge and perceptions of the war in the West was the extreme distances involved. In discussing state of the art mid-nineteenth century communications, it is commonly expressed in the Civil War literature how far the telegraph and railroad went in tempering the twin tyrannies of time and distance. However, Daniel's study amply demonstrates how persistent that challenge was for the Richmond government when it came to not only the very distant and isolated Trans-Mississippi Department but the far better connected western theater as well. Communications were slow and unfounded rumor rife, with the fastest and most accurate (at least in the near term) news coming from northern newspapers. It could take many weeks for accurate information about the progress and results of a major western campaign or battle to reach the capital. For example, as Daniel explains, for more than a month after Fort Donelson the Davis government and the country at large did not know with any degree of truth how many soldiers surrendered there. These vast gaps in transmitting critical information played a major part in hindering the central government's ability to react in reasonable and timely fashion to rapidly evolving strategic situations, be they opportunities for successful countermoves or responses to disaster. Fragmented and outright false information that reached Richmond from the West also affected how Davis's high-level military appointments were perceived, be they ones drawing mixed opinion such as Joseph E. Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard or near universally despised ones such as John C. Pemberton and Theophilus Holmes. A particularly interesting surprise was how highly, and for how long, Richmond elites championed Missouri's Sterling Price for bigger and better command roles in the war.

On the other hand, when information from distant western military operations did arrive swiftly it was often wildly inaccurate, proclaiming great victories that were in fact either abject defeats from beginning to end or battles ultimately lost after promising initial tactical success (the latter including key battles such as Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and Stones River). Inevitably, crushing confirmation of western defeats arrived at Richmond in due time, leaving one has to wonder whether the repeated emotional rollercoaster was far more damaging to popular morale than if the bad news was accurately (or even semi-accurately) conveyed from the outset.

Cultural factors also figure into Daniel's discussion. In some ways similar to how the French historically drew heightened cultural distinctions between Paris society and life in the surrounding regions, easterners (as represented by Richmond social and political society) viewed the West at large as the frontier when it came to cultural attainment. This affected how westerners, including President Davis and his wife, were received in the capital, at least when it came to social interaction. Less clearly outlined for the reader are what effects alleged eastern cultural chauvinism had on the perception and direction of the war in the West from Richmond. One does wonder, though, how much of the persistent high regard Richmonders held for Missouri's Sterling Price, a general no modern historian rates higher than mediocre, was based on his Virginia roots and upbringing.

In creating his narrative detailing how the faraway western war was seen and interpreted from Richmond, Daniel samples widely. In addition to the words and actions of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, his cabinet, and the West's elected representatives, Richmond newspapermen, government workers, and civilians add their own perspectives. Some very well-known individuals figure prominently throughout the book as representative opinions and attitudes for or against the Davis administration's handling of the western theater. These include senior War Department clerk John B. Jones for his government insider knowledge and Judith Maguire and Edmund Ruffin for their keen-eyed observations from the civilian sphere. Freshest voices are found in the words of a great many Trans-Mississippi and Heartland elected officials from both houses of the Confederate Congress who are centered in this narrative but not featured much at all in other general histories of the war. The discordant personal and political behavior of too many of those individuals hindered Richmond's response to Union inroads in the West. Davis's revolving door series of War Department cabinet secretaries largely enter into Daniel's discussion in the context of their personally frustrating lack of autonomy when it came to the decision-making process. However, it is also claimed that George Randolph, who briefly occupied the position from March to November 1862, packed the War Department with fellow Virginians, many of whom were relations, creating a bureaucratic bloc that continued to exert Virginia-centric influence long after the secretary himself resigned from office.

In a rare moment of critical self-reflection, Jefferson Davis came to realize that his initial national cordon defense strategy was unrealistic for defending the vast West, but by late 1862 the damage was already done and it was disastrous (perhaps fatal). That and the focus on defending fixed strategic points against combined Union army and naval might, a risky practice culminating in the twin catastrophes of Vicksburg and Port Hudson in July 1863, was allowed to persist for far too long. In Daniel's view, western politics and politicians played a large part in this. Petty jealousies, internecine squabbling, and fervent opposition to presidential policy was a part of both sides during the Civil War, but Daniel contends that the Confederacy's western gubernatorial, House, and Senate demagoguery and parochial political culture contributed to a highly damaging hamstringing of Davis when it came to strategic freedom in allocating limited military resources where they could do the most good for the war effort at large. Fierce divisions within the Richmond capitol press over the direction of the war in the West, often expressed with rhetoric profoundly antagonistic toward the administration, also contributed much in the way of making it more difficult for Davis to make strategic and personnel-related decisions divorced enough from political considerations to remain militarily sound.

In tracing the path to Confederate defeat in the Civil War's western and trans-Mississippi theaters, Larry Daniel's Richmond Views the West follows a familiar pattern and narrative of events, but, in framing its view of those circumstances and decisions involved with them exclusively through a distant lens situated at the seat of power, this study offers a unique perspective deserving of standalone treatment. That the Richmond government based its distant direction of the war in the West on a partial and all too often warped understanding of personalities, places, and events there adds another persuasive element to the litany of other factors that together drove a progressive western collapse that ultimately doomed the Confederate national experiment.

Booknotes: A Precarious Balance

New Arrival:

• A Precarious Balance: Firearms, Race, and Community in North Carolina, 1715–1865 by Antwain K. Hunter (UNC Press, 2025).

From the description: "Spanning the 1720s through the end of the Civil War," Antwain Hunter's A Precarious Balance: Firearms, Race, and Community in North Carolina, 1715–1865 "explores how free and enslaved Black North Carolinians accessed, possessed, and used firearms—both legal and otherwise—and how the state and white people responded. North Carolinians, whether free or enslaved, Black or white, had different stakes on the issue, all of which impacted the reality of Black people’s gun use."

The study begins in 1715 as that was the year the state assembly first passed laws regulating black firearm ownership/use. Hunter's book, which covers 150 years, "frames firearms as an instrumental part of Black North Carolinians' lives and labor from the late colonial era through to the Civil War" (pg. 16) in all its legal and social contexts and complications.

So the final chapter covers the Civil War years. It "highlights how Black and white North Carolinians and the state balanced the utility and threat of armed Black people" during the conflict. In that chapter, Hunter argues that armed black labor was "instrumental to wartime productivity at the local level," (including managing and protecting plantations against a variety of threats in ways that "both challenged and bolstered the Confederate nation") but that wartime necessity did not extend to white support for armed blacks when it came to military service (pp. 15-16).

Booknotes: The Decision Was Always My Own, pb ed.

New Arrival:

• The Decision Was Always My Own: Ulysses S. Grant and the Vicksburg Campaign by Timothy B. Smith (SIU Press, 2025 pb edition).

After a quick glance through the front matter, I didn't see any indication that there were any prominent changes or additions to the text between editions, so I'll refer you to this page if you'd like to read the full site review of the hardcover first edition published back in 2018.

This book preceded the first installment of what would become a mammoth five-volume history of the Vicksburg Campaign by only two years, so it's probably safe to say that it played some part in organizing Smith's thoughts for what was to come. Presented entirely from the Union perspective, The Decision Was Always My Own is organized around what Smith's believes to have been Grant's key decisions beginning with the failed overland advance down the Mississippi Central Railroad in late 1862 and concluding with the post-surrender 'siege' and recapture of Jackson, Mississippi in July 1863. In addition to humanizing Grant through his family interactions, the book also emphasizes Grant's professional and political relationship-building skills (a notable exception being his persistently thorny association with ranking corps commander John McClernand).

From the description: "This volume presents a fast-paced reexamination of Grant’s decision-making process during the Vicksburg maneuvers, battles, and siege. Smith details the course of campaigning on military, political, administrative, and personal levels. The successful military campaign required Grant to handle President Lincoln’s impatience, as well as to deal with troublesome general John A. McClernand, all while juggling administrative work. In addition, Grant was more than a military genius—he was also a husband and a father, and Smith shows how Grant’s family played a role in every decision he made." Smith's The Decision Was Always My Own "shows how Grant’s decisions created and won the Civil War’s most brilliant, complex, decisive, and lengthy campaign."

Booknotes: War Fought and Felt

New Arrival:

• War Fought and Felt: The Emotional Motivations of Confederate Soldiers by Joshua R. Shiver (LSU Press, 2025).

What factors motivated Union and Confederate soldiers first to enlist then to persevere has been a popular research topic among scholars for quite a while now. The resulting literature is firmly grounded in "sociocultural and ideological arguments." Joshua Shiver's War Fought and Felt: The Emotional Motivations of Confederate Soldiers, however, takes a different approach that supplements existing work on the subject. It "advances our grasp of the links between masculinity, emotion, and relationships during the American Civil War. It is the first broadly researched, multidisciplinary, and statistically supported approach to understanding the pivotal role of emotions in the everyday lives of Confederate soldiers."

Shiver's core sample is "1,790 letters and diaries from two hundred Confederate soldiers from North Carolina and Alabama," those selections being representative of individuals hailing from both the eastern theater Upper South and western theater Deep South. The study is also very multi-disciplinary. From the description: "Drawing on history, psychology, sociology, philosophy, and neuroscience, it underscores the necessity of examining primal emotions when looking to understand soldiers’ motivations. It argues that the heightened emotions felt by these soldiers drove them to suffer, fight, desert, and willingly die."

War Fought and Felt takes into account a broad range of social connections. More from the description: Shiver's study "examines the vital role of emotions within the context of soldiers’ relationships with their parents, children, wives, sweethearts, and comrades. These relationships and the emotions they engendered defined Confederate soldiers’ firsthand experiences of war and ultimately redefined the Confederate cause itself."

In Shiver's view, the significance of other motivations commonly faded as the war progressed while emotional factors rose in prominence as Confederate soldiers increasingly faced defeat and the prospects of personal ruin. More: "A war that began steeped in ideology ended, for the soldiers, as one fought for the protection and future of one’s loved ones. Shiver demonstrates that the emotionally overwhelming nature of the war forced a tectonic shift in American masculinity in which the prewar emphasis on stoic individualism gave way to an outpouring of emotional expression and mutual interdependence."

In the end, "(b)y placing emotion alongside traditional ideological and sociocultural explanations for motivation, Shiver sheds light on a new area of research that promises to promote a deeper understanding of why the American Civil War was one of the bloodiest, most emotionally influential, and world-changing events of the last two centuries."

Review - "Honey Springs, Oklahoma: Historical Archaeology of a Civil War Battlefield" William Lees

[Honey Springs, Oklahoma: Historical Archaeology of a Civil War Battlefield by William B. Lees (Texas A&M University Press, 2025) Hardcover, maps, photos, illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xx,269/327. ISBN:978-1-64843-293-4. $50]

On July 17, 1863, two armies (large ones by frontier Trans-Mississippi theater standards) clashed north of Honey Springs in Indian Territory. The Union army led by aggressive Frontier District commander James Blunt trounced a Confederate force assembled by General Douglas Cooper to oppose the federal advance down the Texas Road, a key military artery in the region. A clear Union tactical victory, the battle was also a major strategic defeat for the Confederate forces, one that further splintered tribal alliances already shaken by prior events and military disasters such as the October 22, 1862 Battle of Old Fort Wayne. Even though many modern historians recognize Honey Springs as being the most consequential Civil War battle fought in Indian Territory, the clash still lacks a book-length treatment. Why that significance, combined with the battle's exceptional stature as a triracial Civil War engagement with allied Indians forming the majority of combatants on both sides, has not garnered more published scholarly attention beyond articles and book chapters remains curious. Thankfully, archaeologist William Lees has stepped in to address that longstanding gap. While not a conventional narrative history, his newly published Honey Springs, Oklahoma: Historical Archaeology of a Civil War Battlefield represents the battle's first major standalone study of any kind.

In Honey Springs, Oklahoma, Lees employs the three-headed interpretive approach that a number of his colleagues have used to noteworthy effect in fostering fresh understanding of both obscure and well-known Civil War military events. Thus, in addition to piecing together a picture of the Honey Springs battle through traditional documentary resources (including "memory" writings such as contemporary letters, journals, official reports, etc.), this study incorporates conflict archaeology methodologies pioneered decades ago by Douglas Scott and others along with extensive terrain analysis supported by widely accepted analytical frameworks such the KOCOA system developed by the U.S. military as a way to "help military strategists evaluate landscape for tactical or defensive advantage and risk" (pg. 5).

Setting the stage, memory sources and official documents were used by Lees to construct a chapter-length narrative overview of the Honey Springs battle along with meticulously crafted orders of battle. In addition to compiling numbers and losses data, that lengthy discussion of army structure and makeup secures a great many details that are central to getting the most out of the archaeological part of the investigation. Identifying and matching uniform, equipment, and weaponry information to specific units allowed the author to use artifact evidence mapping of such items as a reliable means of tracing likely unit positions and locations of concentrated fighting on the battlefield.

Though the author readily acknowledges that the sheer amount and degree of artifact information presented in the book might be tedious to the general reader, his extensive examination of fired and unfired/dropped ammunition (and his documentation of their locations through precise GIS mapping) is for others a fascinating exercise in locating and following opposing battle lines through artifact analysis. The amount of artillery ammunition (in particular case and canister shot) found during Lees's many archaeological surveys of the battlefield matches the use of that arm as revealed in the written documentation. Generally speaking, the great preponderance of spherical ball ammunition of all kinds might seem unusual for a mid-war battle, but many units that served along the trans-Mississippi frontier (especially the Confederate regiments and the Indian units of both sides) had to make due with second and even third-rate arms. Also speaking to theater shortages of military-grade armaments (particularly on the Confederate side) is the large number of civilian-caliber shoulder arm ammunition found on the Honey Springs battlefield.

Diversity of arms and ammunition findings was in many ways expected, but one class of artifact was exceptionally striking. Civil War Indian units were routinely issued available firearms just like their white and black compatriots, but it is nevertheless intriguing that arrowheads made out of reshaped metal were also uncovered during the field surveys. Some maintain that the arrowheads are not battle related, but Lees persuasively determines that contextual correlation with other battlefield artifact evidence points strongly toward a linkage. As Lees explains, the arrow tips also provide further evidence that tribal allies did not entirely discard older martial traditions upon enrollment in regularly organized Union and Confederate units (though it is possible that inadequate arms and ammunition drove some amount of bow and arrow use as well).

In addition to employing GIS mapping to reveal battle lines, likely positions of particular units along those lines, and areas of the heaviest combat, the archaeological investigations of Lees and his colleagues were able to clearly delineate the boundaries of the fighting and separate the battle into three distinct phases labeled by the author as the "Prairie," "Elk Creek," and "Pumpkin Ridge" engagements. Interestingly, Lees's team also found archaeological evidence of another engagement (north of the Prairie clash) not specifically referenced in memory sources. Light in nature, this is thought to have been outpost skirmishing that preceded the main battle.

The U.S. military's battlespace and KOCOA [an acronym representing "Key Terrain, Observation and Fields of Fire, Concealment and Cover, Obstacles, and Avenues of Approach"] concepts of terrain analysis are applied in detailed fashion by the author to all three aforementioned sectors of the battlefield. That process ends up deeply informing our assessments of tactical decision-making during the Honey Springs battle along with the many ways in which topography and other terrain considerations affected battlefield deployments and, ultimately, the nature and foci of the fighting.

The results of Lees's memory, archaeology, and terrain analysis investigations suggest that Cooper's curved battle line established just north of Elm Creek, variously estimated as being between 1 and 1.5 miles in length, was the best position available to receive Blunt's attack. With broad open space in front, a favorable position for both placement of his army's lone battery and utilization of the treeline for cover, Cooper faced off against Blunt's advancing army and its twelve guns (artifact GIS mapping also hints very strongly at a treeline location much closer to Elk Creek than previously realized). Surprisingly, archaeology reveals that fighting on the Prairie battlefield existed on a very narrow front, perhaps only one-third of mile in width (at the center and right of the Confederate defensive line, straddling the Texas Road). With memory sources suggesting engagement on a much wider front, this was a surprising finding. Though the Elk Creek valley has been heavily visited by relic hunters, remaining archaeological evidence strongly indicates a precise location for the Elm Creek bridge. Those artifacts and the reality of overwhelming Union artillery superiority strongly point toward an Elk Creek engagement of only brief duration after the sudden Confederate collapse and withdrawal from the prairie engagement just to the north. Terrain analysis revealing the extent of higher ground north of the creek also supports Cooper's decision to not initially deploy his forces along the waterway's south bank. Finally, the archaeology associated with the Pumpkin Ridge engagement confirms the existence of a determined Confederate stand (most likely from Colonel Tandy Walker's well-regarded First Choctaw and Chickasaw regiment, previously in reserve) that arguably prevented Cooper's general withdrawal from becoming a rout.

While the GIS mapping of the artifact evidence is prodigious, the only Honey Springs battle map included in the book is a reproduction of Wiley Britton's crude schematic drawing first published in 1899. Unfortunately, the volume misses the opportunity to apply the cutting-edge findings of its investigative triad of memory, archaeology, and terrain analysis toward another useful end, that of producing state of the art tactical maps of the Prairie, Elk Creek, and Pumpkin Ridge engagements.

Clearly, multiple factors played a part in Cooper's defeat. Never highly regarded for his generalship, Cooper apparently did not order his forces to prepare temporary breastworks or other improvements to his defensive position, nor did he designate a fallback position to his subordinates. The lack of archaeological evidence of significant fighting on the Confederate left supports Creek Confederate officer George Washington Grayson's critical contention that Cooper did not manage to get all, or even most, of his available forces up to the fighting front before Blunt struck Cooper's center and right with local numerical superiority, breaking the Confederate line. It seems clear that firepower disparities out of Cooper's control, notably the 12:4 superiority in Union artillery pieces, also played a major role in the Confederate defeat. In addition to the fact that Cherokee Confederate Colonel Stand Watie's absence from his unit while on detached service during the battle created a leadership vacuum that was inadequately filled, Lees points out that tribal tactics rarely involved standing up against artillery, and that martial tradition also might have had a significant impact on large parts of Cooper's command being absent from the fighting front. Lees does address Cooper's post-battle (and perhaps self-serving) complaint that defective gunpowder was the primary cause of his defeat. It is a difficult matter to assess in terms of reality versus perception, but the author brings up a good point that the effective stand at Pumpkin Ridge demonstrated that at least some of the units in the Confederate army had decent quality powder supplies available.

Filled with noteworthy insights and persuasive interpretation, William Lees's Honey Springs, Oklahoma is highly recommended for its fresh and fulsome contributions to our modern understanding of an understudied trans-Mississippi battle with a highly consequential shadow. Significantly, Lees's impressive work further buttresses growing recognition that conflict archaeology possesses a unique and highly valuable utility in the multi-disciplinary investigation of Civil War campfires and battlefields. Highly recommended.

Booknotes: The Devil’s Own Purgatory

New Arrival:

• The Devil’s Own Purgatory: The United States Mississippi River Squadron in the Civil War by Robert Gudmestad (LSU Press, 2025).

A number of fairly recent books, among them Gary Joiner's single volume overview Mr. Lincoln's Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron (2007), Barbara Tomblin's leadership and personnel-focused study The Civil War on the Mississippi: Union Sailors, Gunboat Captains, and the Campaign to Control the River (2016), and Myron Smith's multitude of vessel and western waterway operations histories, have explored numerous facets of the U.S. Navy's equal partnership with the army in winning the Civil War in the West. Touted as "the first complete history, " the latest contribution to this expansive modern naval literature is Robert Gudmestad's The Devil’s Own Purgatory: The United States Mississippi River Squadron in the Civil War.

Gudmestad examines the full range of actions undertaken by the Mississippi River Squadron along the vast Mississippi River Valley, where it "battered Confederate forts, participated in combined operations with the army, obliterated the Confederate fleet, protected Union supply lines, fought a river-based counterinsurgency war, raided plantations, and facilitated the freedom of thousands of enslaved people."

Perhaps the most unique element of Gudmestad's study is its "blend of qualitative and quantitative evidence," particularly the latter. His team of researchers was able to compile "a dataset of information for over 15,000 sailors who toiled in the Mississippi River Squadron," a critical data pool that underpins his study's demographic analysis. The book's introduction also cites another unique dataset "tracking the irregular war" along the Mississippi River Valley's network of waterways (pg. 4).

Gudmestad's research leads him to characterize the squadron's war as unfolding in four phases, the first involving conventional direct naval attacks against Confederate vessels and forts, the second a shift toward logistical support for the army's deep advances, and the third a heightening of the riverine counterinsurgency fight, the war on civilians, the squadron's dependency on black recruitment, and participation in military emancipation. The fourth and last phase is interesting in that the author contends that the expired service of experienced crews weakened the squadron to such an extent that the Confederates were able to achieve "their greatest successes in knocking out Union boats" (pg. 5).

Booknotes: A Summer of Battles - The Final Weeks of the Civil War's 1864 Atlanta Campaign (Volume 2)

New Arrival:

• A Summer of Battles - The Final Weeks of the Civil War's 1864 Atlanta Campaign, Volume 2: Jonesboro, Lovejoy's Station and the Capture of Atlanta by David Allison (Author, 2025).

One thing I forgot to mention in my earlier Booknotes entry for Volume 1 was that the pair comes in both hardback and paperback versions. The cover art is the same, with the hardback being jacket-less with a glossy covering over the boards.

From the description: "Volume 2 picks up as General Sherman’s army approaches the Macon railroad in several places south of Atlanta, aiming to cut the vital railroad supply line of the Confederate army holding Atlanta." The narrative "provides an in-depth exploration of the Confederate attack at Jonesboro on August 31, 1864, and the Federal attack on September 1", and it "wraps up with accounts of the fighting at Lovejoy’s Station and the conclusion of the Atlanta Campaign."

The main narrative runs just over 300 pages, so the second volume is similar in size to the first. I handcounted four maps (two for the Battle of Jonesboro) in support of the text. More: "Appendices document some of the terrible human costs of the final weeks of fighting among soldiers and their families, an important topic often ignored in other works focused on the highest levels of command." Other appendix topics include more extensive looks at casualty numbers and care of the wounded. Some disputed points, such as assigning blame for Hood's "escape," are also addressed in the appendix section.

Coming Soon (December '25 Edition)

Scheduled for DEC 2025¹:
• Between King Cotton and Queen Victoria: How Pirates, Smugglers, and Scoundrels Almost Saved the Confederacy by Beau Cleland.
• Texan in Blue: Captain Francis Asbury Vaughan of the First Texas Cavalry, USA ed. by McCaslin & Stewart.
• Border War: A Yankee Family in Civil War Missouri: A Yankee Family in Civil War Missouri by Marilyn Ferris Motz.
• Missouri and the Secession Crisis: A Documentary History by Dwight Pitcaithley.

¹ - These monthly release lists are not meant to be exhaustive compilations of non-fiction releases. They generally do not include reprints that are not significantly revised/expanded, publisher exclusives, children's books, and digital-only titles. Works that only tangentially address the war years are also routinely excluded. Inevitably, one or more titles on this list will get a rescheduled release (and they do not get repeated later), so revisiting the past few "Coming Soon" posts is the best way to pick up stragglers.

Booknotes: A Summer of Battles - The Final Weeks of the Civil War's 1864 Atlanta Campaign (Volume 1)

New Arrival:

• A Summer of Battles - The Final Weeks of the Civil War's 1864 Atlanta Campaign, Volume 1: The Siege of Atlanta, Utoy Creek and The Grand Movement by David Allison (Author, 2025).

Well, I hope everyone had a nice and relaxing Thanksgiving holiday (and the turkey wasn't too dry!).

Soon after I brought up the release of these books in an earlier post, the author contacted me and kindly offered to send over copies for review consideration on the site.

As noted before, David Allison's two-volume set addresses at length the final forty days of the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, those late-stage military events still being the literature's least well-covered parts of the campaign to date (although I would imagine that Earl Hess's long-awaited Jonesboro book might emerge sometime in the near future). In covering those actions, Allison's two-volume narrative "presents a wealth of first-hand accounts from soldiers in a day-to-day timeline that will help readers understand the remarkable events that took place on the north, west and south sides of Atlanta in the late summer of 1864."

From the description: "Volume 1 covers August 1864, when the Northern and Southern armies faced off along 15 miles of earthworks and trenches north and west of Atlanta. Volume 1 also takes a close look at the under-studied fighting in the Utoy Creek area southwest of Atlanta, including the Battle of Utoy Creek on August 6, 1864. And it follows the evolution of General Sherman’s reluctant decision to make The Grand Movement.

Volume 1's main text, exclusive of the appendix section, runs 300 pages. Glancing through the page block, I counted six maps (3 Jesperson originals, include a pair of Utoy Creek tactical maps, and 3 archival reproductions). In addition, photographs and informational tables of various types are interspersed throughout. A formal bibliography did not make it into either volume, but a quick thumb through the endnotes clearly indicates that the author conducted extensive research.

Booknotes: The Civil War Sacrifice of Somerset County, Pennsylvania

New Arrival:

• The Civil War Sacrifice of Somerset County, Pennsylvania by Gerald H. Ankeny (McFarland, 2025).

From the description: "Somerset County, in southwestern Pennsylvania, lost more than 400 of its men in the American Civil War. This book tells the county's wartime story through the experiences of its fallen soldiers and their comrades who served with them, those people who supported them in life and mourned them in death."

The publication of Civil War county histories has really fallen off of late (trends come and go), which is unfortunate given that such studies have served as great vehicles for examining some of the dustier corners of the home and fighting fronts across both sections. Among its other features, Gerald Ankeny's The Civil War Sacrifice of Somerset County, Pennsylvania is noteworthy for its uncommon approach to county history. More from the description: "Built on information gained from researching the date, place, and cause of death for each Union soldier from the county who died during the war, and whose name is memorialized in stone, the narrative describes the physical, emotional, and societal toll that those deaths inflicted on the citizens of the county whether they served in uniform or not."

For his roster, Ankeny gathered a list of 412 names from the Somerset County Civil War Soldiers' Monument and embarked on a research journey (centered upon "(m)ilitary service records, pension files, muster rolls, and medical reports") that was ultimately, and impressively, able to "accurately document the deaths of more than 93% of the men named on the monument" (pg. 4).

More than ten regiments had Somerset County men in their ranks. In addition to housing the monument roster of slain, the appendix section includes fatality information in chart form, which reveals that the 54th, 142nd, 85th, 10th Reserves, 133rd, 148th, 171st, 93rd, and 5th Heavy Artillery were the regiments (in descending order) with the heaviest losses in Somerset County men. Fredericksburg, New Market, and Gettysburg were the three battles that produced the highest number of the county's combat deaths.

In addition to providing a chronological narrative of events from 1861 to 1865, the text explores the intimate connections between individual soldiers and their families, the "shared experience of the community," and more general connections between home and fighting fronts (pg. 6). More: "First-person accounts from Somerset's men in the ranks provide unique perspectives of famous battles like Gettysburg, lesser-known actions like Piedmont, and incidents in camp and on the march. Ultimately, the story emphasizes the exorbitant price paid by these soldiers, their families, and their community because of the war." Ankeny's narrative also extends beyond the war's conclusion and includes a chapter discussing the history behind the Soldiers' Monument and its 1888 dedication.

Booknotes: The 14th New York State Militia in the Civil War, Vol. 1

New Arrival:

• The 14th New York State Militia in the Civil War, Volume 1: "Baptized by Fire"-from Bull Run to Bull Run, April 1861-August 1862 by James L. McLean, Jr. (Savas Beatie, 2025).

Back in 2023, Savas Beatie published James McLean's “The Bullets Flew Like Hail”: Cutler’s Brigade at Gettysburg, from McPherson’s Ridge to Culp’s Hill. One of the regiments that fought with that brigade at Gettysburg and elsewhere was the 14th New York State Militia (aka 14th Brooklyn and, officially, the 84th New York Infantry Regiment), and McLean's interest in that particular unit runs deep. The ultimate expression of that devotion is a highly ambitious three-volume regimental history project, the first installment being the newly released The 14th New York State Militia in the Civil War, Volume 1: "Baptized by Fire"-from Bull Run to Bull Run, April 1861-August 1862, which "chronicles the near-daily exploits of the 14th New York State Militia recruited from Brooklyn. Known as chasseurs or Red Legs for their distinctive uniforms, the men of the 14th N.Y.S.M. endured grueling marches, brutal weather, and fierce battles from April 1861 to August 1862."

Though their efforts could not stave off a resounding defeat, the 14th made a splash during the eastern theater's first major battle. More from the description: "During these first 15 months of war, the regiment earned praise from both allies and adversaries. In January 1862, a Union soldier encamped near the chasseurs wrote to his hometown newspaper that the “Brooklyn Boys” were “respected for their courage and prowess at the Battle of Bull Run”..."In August 1862, the 14th N.Y.S.M. faced a grueling campaign marked by night marches, scant rations, and relentless skirmishes, culminating in three harrowing days of combat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, where the regiment served with distinction."

Over 500 pages in length after including the front and back matter, this is a big and heavy 7"x10" book. The narrative is the result of "decades of research, including nearly 200 visits to the National Archives, the examination of documents at the New York State Archives, and the exploration of collections at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Letters, diaries, and images shared by descendants and collectors further enrich this study." If the following two volumes are this size or larger, this might become the highest word-count Civil War regimental history of all time. That enormous depth comes at a bit of a cost in that the text font is a challenge for those of us who started out young adulthood with fighter pilot vision but are now forced to use readers! It's a beautifully put together package, from the thick glossy paper stock to the sepia-toned contemporary images, color illustrations, and color cartography. Speaking of maps, they are three-dozen in number and follow the regiment from its Brooklyn origins to its assaults on the unfinished railroad at Second Bull Run.

Though a celebrated regiment during the war, according to McLean the Brooklyn Chasseurs "faded into obscurity" after the conflict ended. In addition to producing little in the way of veteran writings, "(o)nly three battle reports by its officers appear in the Official Records, two of which describe but minor engagements." Nevertheless, "records of allied and opposing regiments provide critical insights into the Brooklyn soldiers and their experiences. The result is a vivid examination of the regiment’s initial 15 months of service through the eyes of the common soldiers: their reasons for enlisting, their reactions to the challenges of military life, the evolution of their attitudes toward combat, and the lasting impact of wounds and illnesses into the postwar years."

The book is produced in a limited edition consisting of 119 signed and 600 numbered unsigned copies. These are only available direct from the publisher or from the author himself, so thanks to Mr. McLean for reaching out to me to inquire about review interest and for sending along a collector-coveted low number copy from his personal allotment. I'm looking forward to checking it out.

Booknotes: Saltgrass Prairie Saga

New Arrival:

• Saltgrass Prairie Saga: A German American Family in Texas by Jim Burnett (TAMU Pr, 2025).

In the Confederate wartime experience, isolation between home and fighting fronts was among the most extreme for Texas soldiers and civilians. The state of Texas and the rest of the Trans-Mississippi theater comprised a vast land mass on its own, and its soldiers were additionally spread all across the western theater and, perhaps most famously, into Lee's army in Virginia. The isolating effects of those vast distances between camp and battlefields on one end and home and hearth on the other were only exacerbated by uncertain communications across the wide Mississippi River that became almost impossibly precarious post-Vicksburg. Those challenges and more are explored in Jim Burnett's Saltgrass Prairie Saga: A German American Family in Texas.

From the description: "In Saltgrass Prairie Saga, John and Johanette Stengler, with their seven children in tow, leave the small central German village of Dietz and land in Galveston on New Year’s Eve, 1845: two days after Texas officially joined the United States. The world this family entered is contextualized through military reports, newspaper articles, personal correspondence, and local and state records." Though the book follows a long stretch of Texas and family history, the emphasis is on the Civil War years (which is, of course, great for our purposes!).

Questions addressed through the lens of the Stengler family Civil War experience include: "(W)hat was life like for the families who endured wartime separation? How did women ensure stability at home while their husbands, fathers, and brothers were ordered away to risk their lives? How did families remain connected despite separation and the pressures of survival?"

In sum: "Blending life and settlement on the frontier, the early years of the Texas cattle trade, the waves of immigration during the period, and the impact of the Civil War, Saltgrass Prairie Saga offers a fresh view of a pivotal period in Texas history."

This is an April title that was checklisted with the publisher, but, as sometimes happens, the prospective review copy must have gotten lost in the shuffle somewhere, never made it into my hands, and ended up fading from my mind. Happily, the author contacted me a short time ago and inquired about my interest in getting a copy directly from him. So special thanks to Jim for both the fresh reminder of this interesting book (which looks like something right up my alley) and for sending one my way.