Monday, December 4, 2023
Review - "Bayou Battles for Vicksburg: The Swamp and River Expeditions, January 1 - April 30, 1863 " by Timothy Smith
Friday, December 1, 2023
Booknotes: Soldier of Destiny
• Soldier of Destiny: Slavery, Secession, and the Redemption of Ulysses S. Grant by John Reeves (Pegasus Bks, 2023). This is a focused Grant biography that appears rather unique in its main theme. Unfortunately, there isn't an introduction to provide a more detailed summary of the narrative thrust, but the table of contents reveals that the period of Grant's life and career covered in the book begins with his resignation from the army in 1854 and ends with his promotion to lieutenant general in March 1864. The text is divided into three parts: "Fort Humboldt to Galena (1854-1860)," "Galena to Shiloh (1860-1862)," and "Shiloh to Washington, DC (1862-1864)." Though the book is obviously not intended to be a detailed description and analysis of Grant's campaigns, it nevertheless "reveals that Grant always possessed the latent abilities of a skilled commander—and he was able to develop these skills out West without the overwhelming pressure faced by more senior commanders in the Eastern theater at the beginning of the Civil War. Grant was a true Westerner himself and it was his experience in the West—before and during the Civil War—that was central to his rise." Presumably, the volume's "redemption" angle is connected to Grant's Old Army exit from the service under a cloud, his unsuccessful run of civilian pursuits, his association (an outgrowth from his wife's side of the family) with slavery, and the religious/ethnic bigotry infamously displayed in his General Orders No. 11. Among those (and perhaps more), the slavery theme appears to be most prominent. More from the description: "From 1861 to 1864, Grant went from being ambivalent about slavery to becoming one of the leading individuals responsible for emancipating the slaves. Before the war, he lived in a pro-slavery community near St. Louis, where there were very few outright abolitionists. During the war, he gradually realized that Emancipation was the only possible outcome of the war that would be consistent with America’s founding values and future prosperity. Soldier of Destiny tells the story of Grant’s connection to slavery in far more detail than has been done in previous biographies." According to Reeves, "Grant’s life story is an almost inconceivable tale of redemption within the context of his fraught relationships with his antislavery father and his slaveholding wife. This narrative explores the poverty, inequality, and extraordinary vitality of the American West during a crucial time in our nation’s history. Writers on Grant have tended to overlook his St. Louis years (1854-1860), even though they are essential for understanding his later triumphs."
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Coming Soon (December '23 Edition)
• Our People Are Warlike: Civil War Pittsburgh and Home-Front Mobilization by Allen York.
• Silent Cavalry: How Union Soldiers from Alabama Helped Sherman Burn Atlanta—And Then Got Written Out of History by Howell Raines.
• The Boy Generals: George Custer, Wesley Merritt, and the Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, from the Gettysburg Retreat Through the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 by Adolfo Ovies.
• Thunder in the Harbor: Fort Sumter and the Civil War by Richard Hatcher.
• Southern Black Women and Their Struggle for Freedom during the Civil War and Reconstruction ed. by Karen Cook Bell.
Comments: I've been looking forward to Hatcher's Sumter book for a long time. With the author serving as the site's NPS historian for decades, the match between writer and topic should be a perfect fit.
1 - These monthly release lists are not meant to be exhaustive compilations of non-fiction releases. They do not include reprints that are not significantly revised/expanded, special editions not distributed to reviewers, and digital-only titles. Works that only tangentially address the war years are also generally 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.
Monday, November 27, 2023
Review - " Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln, and the Politics of War " by George Rable
Friday, November 24, 2023
Booknotes: Contrasts in Command
• Contrasts in Command: The Battle of Fair Oaks, May 31 - June 1, 1862 by Victor Vignola (Savas Beatie, 2023). As is the case with a number of 1862 Peninsula Campaign battles, it's been a long wait for a fresh study of Fair Oaks/Seven Pines to appear. The last substantial treatment, a slim volume, was authored by Steven Newton and published back in 1993 by H.E. Howard. It's still a fine book, but Peninsula Campaign students have been craving something more comprehensive for a very long time. Thankfully, Victor Vignola has stepped in to fill the void. His Contrasts in Command: The Battle of Fair Oaks, May 31 - June 1, 1862 is the first of two planned volumes, this one (obviously) focusing on the fighting around Fair Oaks and the upcoming one centering its attention on Seven Pines. From the description: "Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan marched his Army of the Potomac up the Virginia Peninsula during the early spring of 1862 and placed his inexperienced IV Corps at the tip of the spear south of the flood-prone Chickahominy River. McClellan’s opponent Joe Johnston took the opportunity to strike and crafted an overly complex attack plan for his Virginia army to crush the exposed corps. A series of bungled marches, piecemeal attacks, and a lack of assertive leadership doomed the Southern plan. One of the wounded late in the day on May 31 was Johnston, whose injury led to the appointment of Robert E. Lee to take his place—a decision that changed the course of the entire Civil War." Thirteen fine-looking maps supplement the text. The appendix section reexamines three topics/issues related to the battle, the one that will undoubtedly interest the most readers being the author's detailed assessment of Longstreet's level of responsibility for Johnston's battle plan unraveling. There seems to be a fairly substantial amount of Seven Pines material (and three maps associated with it) included for necessary contex. Vignola's book is not just about added detail, it also promises fresh views and interpretations. The author's "use of primary and archival sources, many of which have never been used, helped craft a wholly original tactical and leadership study that directly challenges conventional accounts." As we all know, the ground upon which Fair Oaks/Seven Pines was fought has been poorly preserved, hindering its stature among Virginia Civil War battlefields. However, it looks like Vignola's work has also led to "the acquisition of a significant parcel of land by the American Battlefield Trust," which is always a nice bonus. I am greatly looking forward to reading this book as well as its future companion.
Wednesday, November 22, 2023
Booknotes: Fighting for a Free Missouri
• Fighting for a Free Missouri: German Immigrants, African Americans, and the Issue of Slavery edited by Sydney J. Norton (Univ of Mo Pr, 2023). Directly challenging Missouri's native-born, proslavery majority on ideological, social, and political grounds, heavy German immigration into the state during the years leading up to the Civil War rapidly transformed Missouri society. Those differences helped set up an epic factional clash during the Civil War between Missouri's antislavery radical minority (among whom the Germans figured very significantly), the state's proslavery Unionist majority, and Confederate sympathizers. From the description: "This collection of ten original essays (with a foreword by renowned Missouri historian Gary Kremer), relates what unfolded when idealistic Germans, many of whom were highly educated and devoted to the ideals of freedom and democracy, left their homeland and settled in a pre–Civil War slave state." Glancing through the text, it looks like many essays encompass both pre-war developments and wartime activities, and the final essay, written by a sociologist playwright, explores the ways in which German abolitionists of old inspired her own current work. Prominent individuals, some well-known and others less commonly recognized by readers of Civil War-era topics, are a major part of many essays. More from the description: "Fleeing political persecution during the 1830s and 1840s, immigrants such as Friedrich Münch, Eduard Mühl, Heinrich Boernstein, and Arnold Krekel arrived in the area now known as the Missouri German Heritage Corridor in hopes of finding a land more congenial to their democratic ideals. When they witnessed the state of enslaved Blacks, many of them became abolitionist activists and fervent supporters of Abraham Lincoln and the Union in the emerging Civil War." The contributors to editor Sydney Norton's Fighting for a Free Missouri: German Immigrants, African Americans, and the Issue of Slavery collectively "explore the Germans’ abolitionist mission, their relationships with African Americans, and their activity in the radical wing of the Republican Party."
Monday, November 20, 2023
Ten Most Highly Anticipated Titles (first half of 2024)
I am glad my earlier assumption, that Smith's 2022 book After Vicksburg: The Civil War on Western Waters, 1863-1865 was the author's final word on the topic of the inland naval war conducted in the West and Trans-Mississippi theaters, has proved false.
2. The Army under Fire: The Politics of Antimilitarism in the Civil War Era by Cecily Zander (LSU).Nineteenth-century Americans held a range of views (and suspicions) regarding the necessity of maintaining a standing national army and a professional officer corps to lead it. Zander's exploration of those debates, specifically focused on the Civil War period, sounds like something that might be up my alley.
3. Massacre at St. Louis: The Road to the Camp Jackson Affair and Civil War by Kenneth Burchett (McFarland).Trans-Mississippi military, even military-adjacent, coverage has dried up almost completely over recent years. I thought Burchett's earlier study of the Battle of Carthage was very worthwhile, and I am very keen on reading what he has to say about this other important Missouri 1861 event.
4. The War That Made America: Essays Inspired by the Scholarship of Gary W. Gallagher ed. by Janney, Carmichael, and Sheehan-Dean (UNC).This anthology promotes fresh scholarship connected to lines of inquiry associated in some manner with Gary Gallagher's long career in teaching and publishing. I've always liked Gallagher's work, even when I disagree with it, and I also respect his willingness to openly challenge certain aspects of scholarly trends currently in vogue among the younger generation of Civil War historians.
5. The Inland Campaign for Vicksburg: Five Battles in Seventeen Days, May 1-17, 1863 by Timothy Smith (UP of Kansas).Of course, this volume (the finishing stroke to Smith's monumental Vicksburg Campaign series) was always expected, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that its release was only months away. I haven't even had the chance to finish the latest entry (Bayou Battles for Vicksburg) yet!
6. Texas Coastal Defense in the Civil War by William Fox (History Pr).Another title that might help salve some of my disappointment over the recent dearth in T-M coverage.
7. The Civil War in the Age of Nationalism by Eichhorn & Campbell (LSU).A number of recent books have effectively situated the social, military, and political aspects of the ACW within regional/hemispheric as well as global contexts. The description attached to this upcoming contribution to that body of scholarship suggests a very multi-faceted approach to the topic.
8. Garden of Ruins: Occupied Louisiana in the Civil War by J. Matthew Ward (LSU).With its state capital, primary city of New Orleans, and large swaths of key territory all seized by Union forces by the spring of 1862, Louisiana experienced one of the war's longest and most extensive military occupations and was an important testing ground for wartime reconstruction. Ward's upcoming occupation history is high on my list of must-reads.
9. The Atlanta Campaign - Volume 1: Dalton to Cassville, May 1-19, 1864 by David Powell (SB).The volume and consistency of output from Civil War authors such as Earl Hess, Timothy Smith, and David Powell has been something to behold. Entire forests have been cleared, replanted, and cleared again to fuel the insatiable demand for paper. The latest Powell project, his biggest yet, is a multi-volume history of the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, and the first volume is currently scheduled (fingers crossed) for next spring.
10. The Battle of Dranesville: Early War in Northern Virginia, December 1861 by Ryan Quint (SB).As mentioned here on more than one occasion, my eastern theater interests have always centered around the early-war period up through the end of the 1862 Peninsula Campaign. Quint's book is right in there.
Sunday, November 19, 2023
Booknotes: Stories from the Antietam Campaign
• Stories from the Antietam Campaign: A Historical Remembrance by Jimmy Keenan (Author, 2023). Stories from the Antietam Campaign describes itself as "a collection of random articles related to the Confederate Army’s invasion of Maryland in September 1862." As explained by author Jimmy Keenan in his prologue, the Antietam article forms found in this book were directly inspired by the "short stories/vignettes that were interspersed among the articles" presented in Civil War Times Illustrated's Gettysburg commemorative magazine from the 1960s. Keenan's Stories contains forty such pieces. Chapters explore a wide range of Antietam-related topics. More from the description: "The book’s Introduction starts with a summary of the entire Antietam Campaign. The following chapters are an assortment of short stories and vignettes. These essays include the legend of Barbara Fritchie along with the author’s theory regarding Robert E. Lee’s Lost Order. In addition, any questions about the location of McClellan’s headquarters during the Battle of Antietam are cleared up by the general’s own words. The fall of Harper’s Ferry, along with other events from this pivotal time in American history, are included in this Civil War anthology." Maps, photographs, drawings, and other illustrations are sprinkled throughout. Article length varies, with the forty pieces plus introduction and epilogue spread among 350 pages of main text. Many chapters contain additional commentary in the form of an "Author's Note." At the end of each article, readers will find a source list and chapter notes.
Friday, November 17, 2023
2023 Civil War book award winners list
Jeffry Wert for The Heart of Hell: The Soldiers' Struggle for Spotsylvania's Bloody Angle (UNC) [site review].
• Richard Barksdale Harwell Book Award:
Jeffry Wert for The Heart of Hell: The Soldiers' Struggle for Spotsylvania's Bloody Angle (UNC) [site review].
• A.M. Pate Award:
(TBA in January)
• Albert Castel Book Award:
(This is a biennial prize awarded on even-numbered years)
• Wiley-Silver Prize:
David Thomson for Bonds of War: How Civil War Financial Agents Sold the World on the Union (UNC).
• Fletcher Pratt Award:
(TBA in January)
• Tom Watson Brown Award:
R. Isabela Morales for Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom (Oxford).
• Bobbie and John Nau Book Prize in American Civil War Era History:
Elizabeth Leonard for Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life (UNC).
• Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize:
Co-Winners: Jonathan White for A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House (Rowman & Littlefield) and John Meacham for And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle (Random House).
• Douglas Southall Freeman History Award:
Stephen Davis and Bill Hendrick for The Atlanta Daily Intelligencer Covers the Civil War (UTenn).
• OAH Civil War and Reconstruction Book Award:
Dale Kretz for Administering Freedom: The State of Emancipation after the Freedmen’s Bureau (CNA).
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Booknotes: Final Resting Places
• Final Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves edited by Brian Matthew Jordan & Jonathan W. White (UGA Press, 2023). From the description: Final Resting Places "brings together some of the most important and innovative scholars of the Civil War era to reflect on what death and memorialization meant to the Civil War generation―and how those meanings still influence Americans today." In obvious ways, this volume reminds me of the 2019 book Civil War Places: Seeing the Conflict through the Eyes of Its Leading Historians (UNC Press), edited by Gary Gallagher and Matthew Gallman, itself inspired by the pair's 2015 book Lens of War: Exploring Iconic Photographs of the Civil War (UGA Press). In those books, contributors were invited to consider, through both professional and personal perspectives, the significance of the topic at hand, in their cases selected places and favorite photographic images. This volume, edited by Brian Matthew Jordan and Jonathan W. White, returns to the place theme, in particular Civil War-era graves and associated memorials. More from the description: "In each essay, a noted historian explores a different type of gravesite―including large marble temples, unmarked graves beneath the waves, makeshift markers on battlefields, mass graves on hillsides, neat rows of military headstones, university graveyards, tombs without bodies, and small family plots. Each burial place tells a unique story of how someone lived and died; how they were mourned and remembered. Together, they help us reckon with the most tragic period of American history." The volume, handsomely presented (often in color) and printed on thick, glossy paper stock, is heavily illustrated with photographs and other illustrations. In the book, twenty-eight chapters covering the same number of gravesites, the most afar located in Brazil, are organized into three main sections: "Common Soldiers and Sailors," "Generals and Their Steeds," and "Civilians." As noted in the introduction, each essay "features a leading scholar meditating on the long shadows cast by the Civil War dead." Each writer was encouraged to "tell compelling stories that take us to unexpected places." In doing so, contributors were further invited to "embrace the tool of autobiography if they felt it appropriate" (pg. 2). As one example, William C. Davis's chapter takes readers to the side-by-side gravesite of Confederate general Gabriel Wharton and his wife Nannie. Their wartime marriage (made closer in many ways by the war's shared crises), family life, and postwar life are recounted. On a personal level, Davis relates that his own great-great-grandfather fought and died as a private in Wharton's regiment, the 45th Virginia, and Davis taught at the university that Wharton advocated for during his life. Additionally, Davis's own wife has connections to properties once owned by Nannie's family (the Radford's). Thus, in more than one way, Davis feels that the Whartons are connected across time to his own life and marriage. As further explained in the introduction, Final Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves has two main themes. The first is the "power of place," and the second surrounds the enduring power of gravesites to serves as prisms "through which successive generations have viewed and understood the conflict" (pg. 9). The symbolism of both, of course, often evolves over time. Overall, Jordan and White "hope that taken together, the pieces presented here invite further reflection on the personal and political consequences of our nation's defining conflict" (pg. 11).
Monday, November 13, 2023
Booknotes: Anatomy of a Duel
• Anatomy of a Duel: Secession, Civil War, and the Evolution of Kentucky Violence by Stuart W. Sanders (UP of Kentucky, 2023). When I think of Civil War duels, ones actually carried out and properly conducted under the agreed upon rules of the time, the only affair that immediately comes to mind is the fatal September 1863 encounter in Arkansas between Confederate generals John S. Marmaduke and Lucius M. "Marsh" Walker. Wikipedia lists a dozen other Confederate duels. It has been suggested that there were no Civil War duels between Union officers, but Stuart Sanders's Anatomy of a Duel: Secession, Civil War, and the Evolution of Kentucky Violence examines one fought between a Union officer and a civilian. From the description: Though American dueling tradition essentially disappeared in the North long before the outbreak of the Civil War, the deadly practice remained a part of Southern culture. "During the Civil War, two prominent Kentuckians―one a Union colonel and the other a pro-Confederate civilian―continued this legacy by dueling. At a time when thousands of soldiers were slaughtering one another on battlefields, Colonel Leonidas Metcalfe and William T. Casto transformed the bank of the Ohio River into their own personal battleground. On May 8, 1862, these two men, both of whom were steeped in Southern honor culture, fought a formal duel with rifles at sixty yards." In the exchange of fire, Casto fell dead. Metcalfe continued to serve in the Union Army. Sanders is interested in more than just the story of a single duel. Anatomy of a Duel "examines why white male Kentuckians engaged in the "honor culture" of duels and provides fascinating narratives that trace the lives of duelists." Situating the Casto-Metcalfe duel within its proper cultural and political context, Sanders's narrative "explores why, during a time when Americans were killing one another in open, brutal warfare, Casto and Metcalfe engaged in the process of negotiating and fighting a duel. In deconstructing the event, Sanders details why these distinguished Kentuckians found themselves on the dueling ground during the nation's bloodiest conflict, how society and the Civil War pushed them to fight, why duels continued to be fought in Kentucky even after this violent confrontation, and how Kentuckians applied violence after the Civil War."
Friday, November 10, 2023
Booknotes: My Dearest Lilla
• My Dearest Lilla: Letters Home from Civil War General Jacob D. Cox edited by Gene Schmiel (U Tenn Press, 2023). Of the Civil War's so-called 'political generals,' Ohio's Jacob Cox clearly forged one of the most impressive military resumes. He also made major contributions to the war's historiography. From the description: "Jacob D. Cox experienced more facets of the Civil War than most officers: by land and sea, in both Western and Eastern Theaters, among the inner political circles of Ohio and Washington, DC, in territories hostile and friendly, amidst legal conflicts both civilian and military, and in the last campaigns in Tennessee and North Carolina. The Union general capitalized on his experience by penning his two-volume Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, one of the war’s finest memoirs and arguably the best by a nonprofessional soldier, as well as Atlanta and The Battle of Franklin, both definitive studies for nearly a century." Readers might recall Gene Schmiel's Cox biography based on the author's dissertation and published by Ohio University Press back in 2014 [see my review]. In gathering source material, Schmiel "learned of a cache in the Oberlin College archives of 213 letters Cox wrote to his wife, Helen, during the war. Schmiel recognized these documents as a ready resource for Cox as he wrote his histories, and many stand as first drafts of Cox’s analyses of the military and sociopolitical events of the day." Fast forward to today, and those letters have now been published as part of University of Tennessee Press's Voices of the Civil War series under the title My Dearest Lilla: Letters Home from Civil War General Jacob D. Cox. Glancing through the letters, their characterization as "first drafts" of Cox's important postwar writings seems quite apt. For letters between husband and wife, they are rather unusually detailed when it comes to describing and discussing military operations. In addition to providing a useful introduction that impresses upon readers the significance of the Cox correspondence and also a brief afterword, Schmiel organizes the letters into eight chapters, each chapter having introductory and, where appropriate, bridging narrative for added context. More from the description: "Helen Finney Cox (her husband affectionately referred to her as “Lilla”) was a mother of six and the daughter of Oberlin College president Charles Finney. These intimate and insightful wartime letters show both the fondness Cox had for his spouse and his respect for her as an intellectual equal. To Helen, the stoic, introverted statesman revealed—as he did to no one else—his inner thoughts and concerns, presenting observant, lucid, and informative reports and analyses of the war, his changing life, and his ambitions. This collection illustrates the life of a Gilded Age Renaissance man as he made the transition from untested soldier to respected general and statesman."
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Booknotes: Boy General of the 11th Alabama
• Boy General of the 11th Alabama: John C.C. Sanders and Company C in the Civil War by Donald W. Abel, Jr. (McFarland, 2023). From the description: "In the spring of 1861, John Caldwell Calhoun Sanders, a 21-year-old cadet at the University of Alabama, helped organize a company of the 11th Alabama Volunteer Infantry. Hailing primarily from Greene County, the 109 men of Company C, "The Confederate Guards," signed on for the duration of the war and made Sanders their first captain. They would fight in every major battle in the Eastern Theater, under Robert E. Lee." You might be wondering from the title, Boy General of the 11th Alabama: John C.C. Sanders and Company C in the Civil War, where greatest emphasis is placed in the volume, on Sanders biography or company history. From my admittedly only cursory glance through the text, it looks like much more the latter. For a full-length modern regimental history, author Donald Abel recommends Ronald Griffin's The Eleventh Alabama Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War [also published by McFarland, in both hardcover (2008) and paperback (2012) editions]. In this study, the battle history of the "Confederate Guards" is recounted at length by Abel, supported by numerous detailed maps and abundant photographs. Ultimately, Sanders himself, though he experienced a meteoric rise in rank and responsibility for such a young man, suffered a tragic fate. More from the description: "Leading from the front, Sanders was wounded four times during the war yet rose rapidly through the ranks, becoming one of the South's "boy generals" at 24. By Appomattox, Sanders was dead [he was killed in action at Globe Tavern on August 21, 1864] and the remaining 20 men of Company C surrendered with what was left of the once formidable Army of Northern Virginia." In addition to the narrative history, Abel includes a company roster and a set of extensive individual profiles. The latter biographical compilation fills over 85 pages and is accompanied by a multitude of grave site photos as well as other images.