Booknotes: Point Lookout, Maryland

New Arrival:

• Point Lookout, Maryland: The Largest Civil War Prison by Robert E. Crickenberger Jr. (Savas Beatie, 2026).

From the description: "As the exchange cartel collapsed and relentless campaigns swelled Northern prisons beyond capacity, Point Lookout emerged in July 1863 as a grim solution. Officially dubbed “Camp Hoffman,” this sprawling 45-acre compound on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay opened in the shadow of Gettysburg and soon became the largest prison of the Civil War. By August 1865, more than 52,000 prisoners had crossed its gates, marking it as a cornerstone of the “second wave” of Union prison camps." Sources tell us that the Andersonville prisoner population peaked at just under 33,000 men. This was far more than were held at Point Lookout at any one time (around 22,000), so "largest" must be referring to the total number of prisoners cited above, with the longer existing Point Lookout facilities exceeding shorter-lived Andersonville's on that measure. Perhaps it had the largest physical footprint of any other Civil War prison, too. At any rate, Robert Crickenberger's Point Lookout, Maryland: The Largest Civil War Prison "is a meticulous and groundbreaking study that reexamines the prison and its place in Civil War history." It "dismantles accepted assumptions, offering a balanced perspective that questions the validity of memoirs taken as gospel by earlier scholars."

From skimming the bibliography and from my own cursory online search, there are two previous book-length histories of the Point Lookout prison and hospital system (both privately published). I reviewed the most recent of the pair for the site in 2021 [here]. Other recent titles have addressed the planned (but never carried out) Confederate operation, as part of the July 1864 Johnson-Gilmor Raid, to free the prisoners there. Crickenberger, who has been (as his author bio reveals) closely associated with Point Lookout in numerous capacities since 1978, has spent decades researching the prison's Civil War history. "Challenging the traditional portrayal of guards as uniformly brutal and prisoners as mere victims, he draws on extensive, previously unpublished research to explore the complex experiences of both. Postwar accounts, steeped in survivor bias and “Lost Cause” rhetoric, have long dominated the story—until now."

In addition to recreating a physical portrait of the Point Lookout POW camp, Crickenberger's comprehensive examination touches upon both guard and prisoner experiences, prison procedures, living conditions, the camp's place in the parole and exchange system, the camp's supply system, and various prisoner breakout schemes. Camp hospitals and burials are also part of the discussion, as are the Point Lookout defenses. All of this "illuminates Point Lookout’s critical role in shaping not only the Civil War but also the future of American incarceration." Additional map, death rate assessment, camp leadership, and guard unit information is collected in the appendix section.

Review - "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

[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). Softcover, maps, photos, illustrations, appendix section, endnotes, index. Pages main/total:xxx,300/455. ISBN:9798272419958. $25]

The collective output of 1864 Atlanta Campaign publishing over the past fifteen years or so has managed to achieve, in a remarkably short period of time, a stunning reversal of the rather profound neglect that persisted across preceding decades (the one shining light being Albert Castel's classic 1992 campaign history). Remarkably, just for the July fighting around Atlanta alone, six major studies—two each for the Peach Tree Creek, July 22, and Ezra Church battles—have been produced since 2010. Credited to Gary Ecelbarger, Earl Hess, and Robert Jenkins, all are excellent. What still remains the most overlooked phase of the long campaign, however, is its conclusion. Those events are finally addressed at length for the first time in a two-volume set (available in both hardcover and paperback) from David Allison titled A Summer of Battles - The Final Weeks of the Civil War's 1864 Atlanta Campaign. Encompassing the first thirty days of August 1864, Volume 1 begins with the pressing of Union siege lines forward against Atlanta's inner ring of defenses and ends with General William T. Sherman's army group seizing a bridgehead across Flint River and closing in on the critical Macon & Western Railroad town of Jonesboro.

Allison's detailed descriptive account of the week-long series of events leading up to and including the Battle of Utoy Creek solidly suggests an author possessing intimate knowledge of the ground and strong familiarity with the source material. The ways in which the battlefield terrain and road network west of Atlanta shaped the course and conduct of the fighting between the Union Fourteenth and Twenty-Third Corps and S.D. Lee's Confederate corps are clearly and meaningfully laid out. Variously presented at brigade and regimental scales, the tactical narrative incorporates a vast array of firsthand accounts that really bring to the fore the experiences of the common soldiers and lower-ranking officers that led them. At the higher command level of the discussion, the author also offers a lengthy assessment of the controversy that emerged over Fourteenth Corps commander John Palmer's rank dispute that did much to derail the entire operation. The effect Palmer's obstinate refusal to take orders from Army of the Ohio commander John Schofield (after being directed to do so by Sherman) had on Union opportunities for breakthrough success west of Atlanta remains open for debate, but Allison's analysis supports the view that Palmer's intransigence likely led to hundreds of unnecessary Union casualties. While his actions may have satisfied his sense of personal honor, Palmer's resignation in the middle of an active operation constitutes a major black mark against his otherwise sterling record as one of the Union Army's best-regarded citizen-generals. In the end, Allison's account of the Utoy Creek battle shows that John Bell Hood's Army of the Tennessee, though severely battered by the failed offensive actions of the previous month, remained well capable of defensively thwarting Sherman's methodical extension of the fighting front.

There are some notable flaws. In common with many other self-publishing projects of this scale, text and presentation have some rough edges that an outside editor might have helped smooth over, but the end result is not overly distracting.  A dearth of map coverage marred Allison's otherwise fine 2018 study of the rear area battle at Decatur [site review here]. With inclusion of a pair of good brigade-scale maps of the fighting at Utoy Creek, there is improvement in this volume. At a larger scale, Sherman's initial progress west of Atlanta is traced using maps borrowed from the atlas to the O.R., but they're usefulness is limited. Unfortunately, map coverage ends entirely with Utoy Creek, leaving the reader with only textual means of tracking the course of the Grand Movement and its final approach to Jonesboro.

A great strength behind Allison's narrative account of these operations is the sheer number of firsthand accounts the author managed to compile through his research. They are extensively integrated into every aspect of the study. Indeed, that class of source material deeply colors and enhances Allison's detailed renderings of the opposing siege lines, the mass bombardment of Atlanta, the large-scale maneuvering west and south of the city, and the battlefield events of the thirty-day period (August 1 to August 30) examined in the book. When the contending armies were on pause during the month, the earthworks constructed by both sides, as well as the sharpshooting and skirmish line raids and sweeps that each side participated in, strongly resembled what was going on far to the east around Petersburg. Personal interactions between Union and Confederate soldiers facing each other across no man's land, including widespread fraternization, is also covered extensively. The scale and intensity of the bombardment of Atlanta, and what it was like to experience it on both ends of the barrel, are also informatively revealed in the text. Many Union rifled batteries fired so many rounds that they wore out their tubes, necessitating replacement guns be sent down from northern factories. Confederate soldiers in the trenches around Atlanta and civilians remaining in the city itself undoubtedly suffered from the physical and psychological effects of the bombardment, but the rain of shells at the same time did not lessen their resolve. Bombardment alone could not break Confederate resistance, and there was no patience for regular siege approaches. That reality, along with the check at Utoy Creek and the failure of Judson Kilpatrick's cavalry raid to do much damage to enemy rail communications, finally convinced Sherman that a more radical approach was needed in order to lever Hood's army out of Atlanta. His answer was the "Grand Movement," a far more ambitious flanking strategy that ultimately proved successful.

For his Grand Movement, Sherman pulled Twentieth Corps back to a series of fortified Chattahoochee River bridgeheads and slid the rest of the army group west and south along a wide-arcing left wheel movement that would position it against, and eventually across, Hood's last remaining rail link below the city. Not displaying his usual brand of aggressiveness, Hood did not directly oppose the five-day march of Sherman's flanking forces, and the question naturally arises as to why he didn't attack while Sherman's army group was in motion. The normal explanation is that Hood, lacking full and timely intelligence (Wheeler's cavalry was off on a long-distance raid against Sherman's own communications), mistakenly assumed that the enemy movement was either the beginnings of a general retreat or, at worst, another raid against Atlanta's rail links. By the time Hood realized that the threat beyond his left was being conducted by Sherman's main body (six full corps), it was too late to intervene. Hood himself cited the many offensive hindrances stemming from the broken nature of the ground west of Atlanta and the enemy's ability (consistently demonstrated at all points prior) to instantly fortify as reasons for not attacking. The possibility that Hood's Army of Tennessee, after the failed attacks on July 20 at Peach Tree Creek, the July 22 Battle of Atlanta, and at Ezra Church on July 28 together produced frightening losses in officers and men, might have simply been spent as an offensive force is curiously not part of the discussion, which is a bit surprising given that both Ecelbarger and Hess make that argument in their excellent Ezra Church books. As Allison describes it, Sherman's movement was planned and executed so skillfully (with the Union corps pressing forward cautiously, refusing flanks and fortifying at every stop along the way) that openings for Hood to counterattack and derail it were hard to come by. However, as August 30 approached, Twenty-Third Corps, the original hub of the wheeling movement and then its entrenched rear guard, found itself separated from the other corps by three miles of ground. In the author's view, this moment, as fleeting as it may have been, was Hood's only real opportunity to strike back. Hood's inability or failure to contest the Grand Movement is addressed in the main text and at even more depth in an appendix, and further critical assessment of Hood's reaction to finding the enemy in force and across his communications will undoubtedly be furnished in Volume 2.

In presenting a wealth of descriptive military and human interest detail on some of the most neglected aspects of one of the war's most momentous campaigns, David Allison's A Summer of Battles - The Final Weeks of the Civil War's 1864 Atlanta Campaign, Volume 1 is well worthy of recommendation, certainly sparking more than enough interest to proceed onward to the second volume's coverage of the Battle of Jonesboro, Lovejoy's Station, and the fall of Atlanta.

Booknotes: William Watson and the Rob Roy

New Arrival:

• William Watson and the Rob Roy: The Adventures of a Civil War Blockade Runner by Walter E. Wilson (McFarland, 2026).

William Bryant Watson was a Scottish emigrant who eventually settled in Louisiana, prospering as a Baton Rouge businessman during the late antebellum years. He enlisted in the famed Third Louisiana volunteer infantry regiment and fought with it as a sergeant. Wounded at Corinth in October 1862, Watson traded army service for the adventure and financial allure of blockade running. He is best known for captaining the Rob Roy, a shallow-draft schooner. Watson penned memoirs of his Confederate Army service and his two years of blockade running exploits, both published as standalone works decades after the war ended. Of the pair, the one under consideration here is his 1892 book The Adventures Of A Blockade Runner; Or, Trade In Time Of War.

Authoring both army and navy memoirs has to be a pretty rare occurrence in the Civil War literature (offhand, I can't think of another individual who did that), and Watson's wartime account of sail-powered blockade running also excites interest when weighed against the more common picture of the mature phase of the illicit international trade as primarily involving sleek and swift steamships. I've never read it before. Google Books tells me that Texas A&M University Press published a version of it in paperback in 2021 (still in print). In terms of its degree of critical reassessment, the set of sample pages available do not indicate editorial work beyond J. Barto Arnold's introduction. What certainly does offer critical analysis of Watson's memoir is Walter Wilson's new book William Watson and the Rob Roy: The Adventures of a Civil War Blockade Runner.

From the description: "The Rob Roy may be the American Civil War's most famous blockade running schooner. Its fame stems from the spellbinding wartime memoir of its owner and captain, William Watson. This obscure but articulate Scotsman's rollicking tale is a standard maritime reference for scholars and students of America's most tragic conflict. However, his sea story is only partly true. It blends verifiable facts with liberal doses of exaggeration and omission. It was his story after all, and he saw no harm in making himself its hero."

More: "This first-ever critical examination of William Watson's "eyewitness" account relies on widely dispersed contemporary accounts and official reports." In the author's own words, the aim of his narrative is to provide "the true history surrounding William Watson, his schooner Rob Roy and his blockade-running tales." In getting at that truth, "(t)he text and notes will identify Watson's exaggerations and misstatements as appropriate." Wilson's narrative will "also fill in the historical gaps that Watson left untold" (pg. 9).

Booknotes: John Yates Beall, Son of the South

New Arrival:

• John Yates Beall, Son of the South: The Life and Death of a Confederate Privateer by Ken Lizzio (McFarland, 2026).

At least in the realm of Civil War biography, I don't believe that I've ever encountered a situation quite like this one. Within a period of just over two years, we have in our hands not one but three biographies of a Confederate waterborne irregular soldier and clandestine operator that few Civil War readers of today could readily identify by photo. Pretty amazing. The third release is Ken Lizzio's John Yates Beall, Son of the South: The Life and Death of a Confederate Privateer.

From the description: "John Beall, a Confederate soldier whose execution President Lincoln upheld despite appeals for clemency from his staff, was a scion of a prominent Virginia family. Wounded while fighting with Stonewall Jackson's legendary brigade, he fled to Canada intending to sit out the war. Beall found a way back into the war that did not involve the killing he came to abhor, engaging in privateering on the Chesapeake Bay."

Of the previous two biographies, Ralph Lindeman's Confederates from Canada: John Yates Beall and the Rebel Raids on the Great Lakes (McFarland, 2023) covers Beall's Civil War activities with the most depth while the military trial and widespread campaign to commute Beall's death sentence are examined at greater length in William Harris's Confederate Privateer: The Life of John Yates Beall (LSU, 2023). Of the three biographers, it appears that Lizzio is most convinced that Beall was a victim of gross injustice.

More from the description: "Captured and released in a prisoner exchange, he [Beall] made a daring attempt to free Confederate prisoners on Lake Erie's Johnson's Island. He was arrested while passing through Niagara Falls. This time there would be no reprieve--he was falsely charged with espionage and sentenced to be hanged. Lincoln anguished over his decision to uphold Beall's sentence, knowing full well he was sending an innocent man to his death."

In terms of significant content found in Lizzio's book that is either absent from the other two or lies outside their main focus, the author's preface advances the claim that, of the three, his own study "offers a more comprehensive examination of Beall's life and the environment in which he grew up" (pg. 3).

Booknotes: Lutheranism and American Culture

New Arrival:

• Lutheranism and American Culture: The Making of a Distinctive Faith in the Civil War Era by Timothy D. Grundmeier (LSU Press, 2026).

Timothy Grundmeier’s Lutheranism and American Culture broadly "examines the transformation of the nation’s third-largest Protestant denomination" between 1830 and 1900. The project is noteworthy not only for its ambition but for its topical freshness. "In the vast corpus of works on the Civil War era and American religious history, scholars have almost entirely overlooked the views and experiences of Lutherans", making Grundmeier's study of "a previously unexplored subject" a major new contribution to the literature.

According to the author's analysis, the Civil War era marked a major turning point in Lutheranism's religious, social, and political pathways in the United States. From the description: "In the antebellum era, leading voices within the church believed that the best way to become American was by modifying certain historic doctrines deemed too Catholic and cooperating with Anglo-evangelicals in revivalism and social reform. However, by the mid-1870s, most Lutherans had rejected this view. Though they remained proudly American, most embraced a religious identity characterized by a commitment to their church’s confessions, isolation from other Christians, and a conservative outlook on political and social issues."

Three of the book's six chapters, one covering the social and political conflicts of the 1850s and two addressing the secession and Civil War years, center a transitional period in American Lutheranism that was in many ways, like the Civil War conflict itself, a struggle between conservative and radical ideologies. More from the description: "Throughout the Civil War and early years of Reconstruction, disputes over slavery and politics led to quarrels about theology and church affairs. During the war and immediately after, the Lutheran church in the United States experienced two major schisms, both driven by clashing views on the national conflict. In the postbellum years, Lutherans adopted increasingly conservative positions in theology and politics, mainly in reaction to the perceived “radicalism” of the era. By the final decades of the nineteenth century, Lutherans had established a rigorously conservative and definitively American form of the faith, distinct from their coreligionists in Europe and other Protestants in the United States."

Grundmeier's work on this topic also offers critical engagement with Protestant denominations outside Lutheranism as well as other important societal forces. More: "Although Grundmeier focuses on a single religious tradition, his study has implications for several areas of Civil War scholarship. First, it demonstrates how the Lutheran experience diverged from that of other Protestant groups, thereby expanding our understanding of how American Christians responded to the era’s crises, including slavery, sectionalism, and national identity. In addition, his work reinforces and extends many of the findings in other historical fields: the political culture of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, the views of German and Scandinavian immigrants, and the various forms of conservatism among white northerners."

Booknotes: Latinx Civil Wars

New Arrival:

• Latinx Civil Wars: The Formation of Latinidad in an Age of Revolution and Rebellion by Jesse Alemán (NYU Press, 2026).

The American Civil War experiences and perspectives of Spanish-speaking persons living across the Far West and Southwest borderlands of North America, including those that actively took up arms for either side, has received stronger attention in the literature over the past couple decades. Even more recently, the push toward expanding our understanding of the international dimensions of the conflict has spread to deeper examination of connections with the Caribbean islands and the countries of Central and South America. Of the island group, Cuba figures prominently in the discussion, as it does in Jesse Alemán's new book Latinx Civil Wars: The Formation of Latinidad in an Age of Revolution and Rebellion.

From the description: "The mid-nineteenth century was a crucible for the emergence of US Latinidad. Against the backdrop of the US–Mexico War, the Cuban wars of independence, and the American Civil War, Latinx identity took shape in fractured and contested ways―through struggles over race, slavery, and governance in the United States, Mexico, and Cuba." Alemán's study "uncovers this turbulent history through a rich archive of letters, military dispatches, journalism, and literature that reveal Latinx identity as itself at war during the long Civil War era."

Alemán references writings from a wide spectrum of individuals, both famous (or infamous) persons and those more obscure to today's reading audience. His study, which "begins in California and ends in Cuba" (pg. 24), merges the "lives and words" of "well-known figures―such as María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Loreta Janeta Velázquez, and Rafael Chacón―with overlooked participants like Miguel Otero, James Santiago Tafolla, and Federico and Adolfo Cavada." Their assembled writings "illuminate how questions of race, displacement, and assimilation reverberated across national and cultural borders, producing competing visions of what it meant to be Latinx in nineteenth-century America." Through this examination of "the fraught intersections of race, class, language, and national allegiance across Union and Confederate lines," we ultimately come to interpret "Latinidad as a product not of unity, but of conflict and contradiction."

Review - "Opening Manassas: The Iron Brigade, Stonewall Jackson, and the Battle on Brawner’s Farm, August 28, 1862" by Herdegen & Backus

[Opening Manassas: The Iron Brigade, Stonewall Jackson, and the Battle on Brawner’s Farm, August 28, 1862 by Lance J. Herdegen and Bill Backus (Savas Beatie, 2025). Hardcover, 8 maps, photos, footnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:x,264/286. ISBN:978-1-61121-761-2. $32.95]

While no one has yet attempted to surpass John Hennessy's 1993 masterpiece Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas, smaller pieces of the campaign and battle have received quality standalone treatment. Noteworthy works of that type include Robert K. Krick's Cedar Mountain battle study, Scott Patchan's examination of James Longstreet's August 30 mass assault that secured Confederate victory at Second Manassas, and a number of book-length accounts of the Fitz John Porter controversy. Another prominent title to add to the list is Lance Herdegen and Bill Backus's Opening Manassas: The Iron Brigade, Stonewall Jackson, and the Battle on Brawner’s Farm, August 28, 1862.

In addition to its fresh description and reappraisal of the much smaller-scale, but nevertheless bitterly contested, fighting that directly preceded (and did much to shape) the following two days of major fighting at Second Manassas, the book also adopts a novel dual-author format, one that is described by the publisher who suggested it as a "fog of war" style of approach. In it, widely acknowledged Iron Brigade expert Lance Herdegen handles the Union side, and Bill Backus unveils the action from the opposing perspective of Stonewall Jackson's wing of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The chain of events examined in the book unfolds through alternating Union and Confederate chapters. The one-sided viewpoint and focus of each chapter is further shaped by the writer's interpretation of how much was known about the other side's movements and intentions at the time. The transition between chapters is less than smooth at times, with narrative and chronological continuity to some extent sacrificed in service to emphasizing the friction of war.

Understanding what had to happen to place elements of two Confederate divisions of Jackson's wing and a portion of Union general Rufus King's First Division/Third Corps together on Brawner's Farm requires a pretty heavy amount of background and context, and the reader is past the volume's midpoint before the August 28 clash itself begins in earnest. Taking the long view, Herdegen traces the full length of the Iron Brigade's journey from its western origins to the bitter struggle in Brawner's field. The brigade's unusual headgear and uniform, struggles with adapting to army discipline under the leadership of John Gibbon, the physical trials of the summer campaign, and mounting frustration over a lack of battle experience are all matters discussed at some length. Covering the background for the Confederate side of things, Backus ably traces Lee's increasingly desperate attempts to come to grips with, and quickly crush, John Pope's Army of Virginia before it could combine forces with the Army of the Potomac. Ultimately, that involved the high-risk detachment of Stonewall Jackson's wing of the Army of Northern Virginia for a drive deep into the enemy rear to sow chaos and create opportunity for Pope's defeat or destruction. A striking theme that emerges from the fog of war approach is just how much in the dark both sides were as to enemy locations and intentions. Indeed, the extent of mutual confusion that persisted over the period examined in the book is pretty remarkable considering the relative proximity of the opposing forces involved, and misuse of cavalry as a contributing factor is a good point raised by Backus.

Backus's overall assessment of Jackson as a general aligns with those who rate him at his best when conducting sweeping operational maneuvers and weakest when managing affairs at the tactical level. In terms of problematic leadership traits, Backus cites Jackson's legendary operational secrecy and his frequent issuing of orders that bypassed the normal chain of command as key flaws. Both of these, especially the former, are on prime display during the August period examined in the book. Indeed, the author's analysis of Jackson's decision-making at each stage of the operation heavily emphasizes the degree to which Jackson courted disaster through his own unique command style. Though his many points of criticism raise valid concerns about Jackson's leadership style and judgment, their sheer number, especially after factoring in those involving negative repercussions that might have happened but didn't, arguably threatens to overshadow the greater significance of what Jackson and his men actually achieved during these stages of the campaign. In contrast, Backus heaps superlatives upon division commander Richard Ewell, though, unlike how the Jackson critiques are handled, it's made much less clear in the text where the reasoning is coming from. Jackson's gravest mistake, in the author's view, was his abandoning possession of Thoroughfare Gap, though Backus mitigates some of that criticism by conceding that Jackson's prioritization of his wing's concentration over assigning strong units to rear area security had merits of its own and by noting that other mountain passes were available for reestablishing communications had things truly gone south for the Confederates.

During the Civil War, infantry lines of battle arrayed against each other in the open and at short range rarely traded volleys for more than a brief period of time before one side or the other brought the proceedings to a head by either charging the enemy line or ending the exchange through withdrawal. As traditionally understood, Brawner's Farm was different, a face to face firefight lasting upwards of an hour and a half, resulting in horrendous casualties for those involved, and this volume's microhistory of the battle fully explores that atypical reality. As explained in the text, the Confederates struggled that day to harness their superior numbers, a large part of that being attributed to terrain difficulties, key leadership losses, and the battle taking place very late in the day. On the Union side, Gibbon's brigade has always garnered the lion's share of the attention for its determined and costly stand, but Herdegen also duly credits Abner Doubleday's brigade for filling in a dangerous gap in the Union line at a critical moment when the Confederates of Lawton's Brigade were finally able to launch a charge against it (which was repulsed with heavy losses all around). Support for Gibbon from the rest of the division could have been better managed, but that is typically blamed on the temporary leadership void caused by General King's untimely epileptic episode. It was what happened after the battle that caused the most controversy. The decision to march King's division away from the battlefield was, in Herdegen's opinion, a "mistake" that "played a large role in the defeat of Pope's Army of Virginia in the next two days" (pg. 263), but the reasoning behind that damning assessment is left undeveloped. One might argue that falling back was well within military prudence given how exposed King's battered division would have been on the morrow.

As the book recounts at length, officer losses on the 28th were exceptionally high, but the Confederate leadership casualties in particular (two division commanders along with a great multitude of field grade and company officers spread across four brigades) cast a long shadow. In assessing the aftermath of Brawner's Farm, this study persuasively contends that the process of  junior officer attrition in the Army of Northern Virginia was already reaching damaging levels well before the war's midpoint.

Brawner's Farm was far more than an outpost battle or mere prelude to the main event, and, like David Powell and others have recently done in altering our conception of which events should be considered integral parts of the Battle of Chickamauga, books like this one clearly demonstrate that Second Manassas should be viewed as a three-day, rather than the traditionally understood two-day, battle. In addition to providing a thorough history of the fighting at Brawner's Farm, Opening Manassas offers Civil War readers compelling historiographical points of interest in regard to ongoing debates surrounding Stonewall Jackson's generalship and the early development of the Iron Brigade's distinguished combat reputation.

Coming Soon (February '26 Edition)

Scheduled for FEB 2026¹:
• Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend: Reconsidering Lincoln as Commander in Chief by Kenneth Noe.
• A Desperate Fight: The Lives of Louisiana's Confederate Soldiers by Henry Motty.
• Witness to War: The Story of the Civil War Told By Those Who Lived It by J. Mark Powell.
• Death or Victory: The Louisiana Native Guards and the Black Military’s Significance in the Civil War by A.J. Cade.
• Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln by Matthew Pinsker.
• Latinx Civil Wars: The Formation of Latinidad in an Age of Revolution and Rebellion by Jesse Alemán.
• Procuring Victory: The Army Quartermaster and the Economics of Expansion in Nineteenth-Century America by John Wendt.
• Reasons We Fight: Tejanos and American Wars, 1836-1972 by Alex Mendoza.
• A Fate Worse than Hell: American Prisoners of the Civil War by W. Fitzhugh Brundage.
• A Mother's Work: Mary Bickerdyke, Civil War–Era Nurse by Megan VanGorder.
• Point Lookout, Maryland: The Largest Civil War Prison by Robert Crickenberger.

Comments: February's slate looks like a pretty good collection of Civil War and Civil War-adjacent releases. A very good-looking month for LSU. Only a handful of the January titles expected to make it my way did, so hopefully the rest of those will straggle in next month, too.

¹ - These monthly release lists are not meant to be exhaustive compilations of non-fiction releases. They routinely 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 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.

Booknotes: Texan in Blue

New Arrival:

• Texan in Blue: Captain Francis Asbury Vaughan of the First Texas Cavalry, USA by Richard B. McCaslin & J. Wayne Stewart (TSHA, 2025).

For all the recent scholarly attention that has been lavished upon Southern Unionists and their impact on the Civil War, a full regimental history of the First Texas Cavalry (Union) remains unwritten. Carl Moneyhon's biography of the regiment's colonel, Edmund J. Davis, contains only a single chapter recounting the whole of his Civil War career. Though not as highly ranked, Francis Vaughan was another Lone Star Unionist officer who served in that regiment, his life and Civil War military service the subject of Richard McCaslin and J. Wayne Stewart's Texan in Blue: Captain Francis Asbury Vaughan of the First Texas Cavalry, USA.

From the description: "Francis Asbury Vaughan left his home in Guadalupe County, Texas on July 4, 1862, to fight in the Civil War. But he did not join a Confederate unit. Unlike twenty-one of his brothers and cousins, and most white male Texans who fought in that conflict, he became a captain in the First Texas Cavalry, USA, the best-known Union outfit from the Lone Star State."

Fortunately for posterity, Vaughan did not allow his own perspective of the war and his part in it to go unwritten. He "recorded some of his wartime experiences in what he called a memorandum, which remains in the possession of his descendants along with other treasured records concerning him and his relatives. These documents are the foundation for this book, which provides a unique insight into the ideals and actions of a Texan who not only served for three years as a Union officer but afterward became a Republican for the remaining three decades of his life in Texas."

As recounted in the book, Vaughan also had a significant impact on Texas's postwar history. "As a Texan in blue, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1868, a federal appointee and elected local official several times over, and a successful businessman and father, Vaughan established a legacy that offers useful perspectives not only on him, but on the events that surrounded and involved him."

2025 - The CIVIL WAR BOOKS and AUTHORS Book of the Year and Top Ten Year in Review

BOOK OF THE YEAR

1. HONEY SPRINGS, OKLAHOMA: Historical Archaeology of a Civil War Battlefield by William B. Lees (TAMU).

It is universally recognized that gaining a deep understanding of Civil War battles requires walking the ground in person, but what about looking underneath the surface? As objective means of both confirming and challenging the written historical record, conflict archaeology and material culture study are proven methods at this point. Raising (and perhaps even resolving) significant questions on their own that have never been asked before is another facet of battlefield archaeology's profound utility. All of the above shines through William Lees's decades-long investigation of the Honey Springs battle and battlefield. That Honey Springs was arguably the most critical, yet still understudied, battle fought in Indian Territory during the Civil War adds even more value to Lees's groundbreaking work.

Runner-Up

2. Green and Blue: Irish Americans in the Union Military, 1861–1865 by Damian Shiels (LSU).

Based on the author's unprecedented examination of newly digitized widow's pension files held at the national archives, Green and Blue immerses readers in the most comprehensive profile and analysis of Irish Civil War volunteers to date. This is a model ethnic study that cannot be recommended highly enough.

The Rest of the Year's TOP TEN (in no particular order)

3. The Atlanta Campaign - Volume 2: From the Etowah River to Kennesaw Mountain, May 20 to June 27, 1864 by David A. Powell (Savas Beatie).

At this point, I might as well reserve a spot on the list for each of Powell's Atlanta Campaign volumes!

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

Books exploring Mississippi River Squadron vessels, leaders, and campaigns fairly abound, but Gudmestad's study is the first deep dive into the men who manned the celebrated Brown Water Navy. The volume's unique quantitative approach and analysis extends to other essential aspects of the navy's part in the western war, too.

5. Civil War Cavalry: Waging Mounted Warfare in Nineteenth-Century America by Earl J. Hess (LSU).

With this one, Hess has now produced fresh, wide-ranging, and insightful book-length examinations of all three major service branches of the Union and Confederate armies.

6. Reckless in their Statements: Challenging History's Harshest Criticisms of Albert Sidney Johnston in the Civil War by Leigh S. Goggin (Fontaine).

As one might expect given the breadth of his study's approach to the topic, Goggin's conclusions vary in strength, but his spirited, thoughtful, and evidence-based defense of Sidney Johnston's tenure in the West is full of compelling arguments that are forces to be reckoned with.

7. The Weather Gods Curse the Gettysburg Campaign by John M. Nese & Jeffrey J. Harding (The History Press).

In their investigation of weather's role in Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North, Nese and Harding more than meet the challenge of coming up with an original angle that advances our knowledge and appreciation of what remains by far the Civil War's most scrutinized campaign.

8. The Pathfinder and the President: John C. Frémont, Abraham Lincoln, and the Battle for Emancipation by John Bicknell (Stackpole).

In my opinion, this is the literature's best examination of the fraught wartime relationship that developed between Fremont and Lincoln, specifically the contrasting paths each leader adopted on the road toward military emancipation.

9. From Dakota to Dixie: George Buswell's Civil War edited by Jonathan W. White & Reagan Connelly (UVA Press).

If you are craving an expertly edited Civil War soldier diary written from a highly unusual field service arc and perspective, this is the book for you!

10. More Important Than Good Generals: Junior Officers in the Army of the Tennessee by Jonathan Engel (KSU Press).

No Civil War army could operate efficiently without quality company and regimental officers fulfilling the leadership and administrative gap between the generals at the top and the common soldiers at the bottom. Engel's examination of the motivations, duties, attitudes, and essential traits of these individuals is unique in its insights and full of promise in how it might be applied to other Civil War armies.

Best of 2025 - Honorable Mentions

2025 was a pretty good year for Civil War publishing. By my admittedly anecdotal observation, numbers still haven't returned to pre-Covid levels, but they are on the upswing from the 2021-24 period of middling stagnation. One thing last year had in common with 2024 was a heavy mid to late Q4 backloading of major releases, so finalizing a yearly Top 10 list in timely fashion was yet again a challenge. Other factors also come into play. Though it only becomes a pressing issue near the end of the year, a lag time of 6 weeks or more between official release and review copy mailing is a common occurrence nowadays. Plus, I like to enjoy the extended October through December holiday festivities as much as the next guy!

Off the top of my head, I count at least four more 2025 titles that I really wanted to consider for list inclusion but simply couldn't get to them in time. Needless to say, a line has to be drawn at some point, and now is that time.

Check back tomorrow for the 2025 CWBA Top 10 list, but for now here are last year's Five Honorable Mentions (two of which are end-of-2024 releases):

• The Forgotten Battles of the Chancellorsville Campaign: Fredericksburg, Salem Church, and Banks’ Ford in Spring 1863 by Erik Nelson (Kent St).

• A Campaign of Giants - The Battle for Petersburg, Volume 2: From the Crater's Aftermath to the Battle of Burgess Mill by A. Wilson Greene (UNC).

• The Confederate Resurgence of 1864 by William Marvel (LSU).

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

• Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation-Volume 1, Alabama to Mississippi & Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation-Volume 2, Missouri to Virginia by Philip J. Osborne (Author).

Any of these fine books could easily have made tomorrow's list.

Review - "Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation - Volume 1, Alabama to Mississippi" & "Volume 2, Missouri to Virginia" by Philip Osborne

[Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation-Volume 1, Alabama to Mississippi & Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation-Volume 2, Missouri to Virginia by Philip J. Osborne (Author, 2025). Softcover, footnotes, bibliography, appendix section. Pages main/total: (V1) x,396/406 & (V2) x,386/396. ISBN: (V1)-9798269241180 & (V2)-9798270767471 $35 ea.]

Even though the Confederate Army was dwarfed in raw size by the Union forces that opposed it, assembling a reliable catalog of its great multitude of components remains a daunting task. The process has had a long history, from Marcus Wright and Claud Estes's rudimentary lists to far more detailed book-length compilations from Joseph Crute and Stewart Sifakis. A number of authoritative single-state volumes that contain much more unit-specific information than what is possible to fit inside general reference guides have been produced as well. Particularly fine examples of those include Jim McGhee's out of print and highly desirable Missouri guide and Art Bergeron's Louisiana volume. We also have access to well-researched army-wide orders of battle from Steven Newton and Dan Fullerton, the former focusing on the critical year of 1864 and the latter the entire conflict. Building upon all of this previous work while conducting his own intensive research is Philip Osborne, the author of a new two-volume record titled Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation.

A focused scouring of national and state government archives is a prominent feature of Osborne's primary research. That is supplemented by additional use of manuscript materials as well as published primary and secondary sources. Newspapers from every state, together numbering in the hundreds across both volumes, were also widely utilized by the author.

Within the set's state sections (which are ordered alphabetically), basic Confederate Army units (i.e. infantry and cavalry regiments and battalions, consolidated units, and both light and heavy artillery units) are listed by ascending unit number. Where applicable, miscellaneous and specialized units such as engineers are also grouped together. Each Confederate Army entry includes primary and alternate unit designations, field grade officer lists for the regiments and battalions (and for artillery batteries their captains and lieutenants), and departmental assignments (with date ranges). Many readers will particularly appreciate the close attention paid to battery compositions and, since so many of those changed over time, date ranges. Unit notes are variable in length and content (the information conveyed by some is pretty wide-ranging) and are not intended to be comprehensive service summaries. The most consistent feature is a rough time (month/season and year) of initial organization. Campaign and battle records are not listed. As useful as the previous Crute and Sifakis reference books are, gaps in their work have long been recognized, and Osborne cross-references his own lists with the corresponding reference number from Sifakis's Compendium series (so units lacking that number were among those absent from Sifakis's books). Indicated by "(A)" in Osborne's listings are those field grade officers also found in Bruce Allardice's Confederate Colonels.

Titling these volumes "Southern Army Units" rather than "Confederate Army Units" was by design, the intention being to apply equal emphasis to state and Confederate units. The comprehensiveness of this broader approach is unprecedented. Previous guides have offered only limited state unit coverage, but Osborne's set truly takes it to another level. State and local entities of all designations, including the plethora of state militia, state army, state guard, state line, home guard, local defense, minute men, and 'old men and young boys' reserves infantry, cavalry, and artillery units, appear in Osborne's guide. Paper units never fielded and temporary formations of very short duration, Mississippi's 60-Day "Army of 10,000" being associated with the latter group, are also dutifully referenced. Post-secession state armies (before they were incorporated into the Provisional Army of the Confederate States) are added, too. All of this pushes the number of units listed in Osborne's two books into the thousands. Unlike the Confederate Army sections, the portions of both volumes that are devoted to state units are widely footnoted and occasionally arrange units within higher organization tables. The author's prodigious newspaper research proved particularly useful in finding key information about these more obscure state units.

This two-volume set is not intended to be the be all, end all reference tool of its type (Osborne himself modestly describes their content as a "starting point" for users), and anything of this scale will have errors and omissions of its own, but there are more than enough new and enhanced features in it to produce unquestioned value when measured against what else is available. Authoring even the most ambitious reference books can seem like a thankless task, and (as was the case here) even finding an outfit willing to publish it can prove to be a disheartening quest. With the added challenge of doing all this while being based in the U.K., author Philip Osborne deserves a lot of credit for the dedication of his research and for his long-term perseverance, even if it ultimately meant channeling all of that considerable labor into, in all likelihood, the audience-limiting route of self-publishing. Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation merits a place in any Civil War reference library, and hopefully this review can help get the word out.

Booknotes: From Gray to Blue

New Arrival:

• From Gray to Blue: Galvanized Yankees in the American Civil War [publisher's book page] by Patrick H. Garrow (U Tenn Press, 2025)

I was unable to obtain a review copy of Patrick Garrow's 2020 book Changing Sides: Union Prisoners of War Who Joined the Confederate Army, but I did feature it in a book news post that can be found here. What did come in just now, though, was its new companion volume, From Gray to Blue: Galvanized Yankees in the American Civil War, which "explores the other side of this overlooked aspect of Civil War history."

Every prior investigation of this topic has established clear connections between miserable POW camp living conditions and willingness to escape them through switching sides, and that is also a starting point for Garrow's fresh study. From the description: "Significantly expanding on previous scholarship around "galvanized Yankees," Garrow begins his study with an overview of Civil War prisons as a whole. He outlines unsavory conditions endured by prisoners of war on both sides, including a lack of proper shelter, food, potable water, and medical care."

However, survival was not the only factor that prompted switching sides, and Garrow's research also uncovers a number of lesser-recognized motivations. Additionally, his study follows the Union Army Civil War service of these 'Galvanized Yankees' over the remaining balance of the conflict. More from the description: "Garrow investigates service records, pension files, period newspapers, and regimental histories to uncover the complex motivations of Confederate prisoners of war who joined Federal forces. He documents the individual histories of twelve distinct infantry and cavalry regiments, contextualizing the wartime climate, struggles, and political leanings of the soldiers grappling with survival and allegiance during the Civil War."

Booknotes: Between King Cotton and Queen Victoria

New Arrival:

• Between King Cotton and Queen Victoria: How Pirates, Smugglers, and Scoundrels Almost Saved the Confederacy by Beau Cleland (UGA Press, 2025).

As studies exploring the international dimensions of the American Civil War continue to expand their geographical and conceptual reach, it remains easy to see why various aspects of the three-way social, political, economic, and diplomatic relationship between the British Empire and the United States and Confederate governments still garners the most attention in the literature. Contributing to that discussion, Beau Cleland's Between King Cotton and Queen Victoria: How Pirates, Smugglers, and Scoundrels Almost Saved the Confederacy draws renewed attention toward those actions undertaken by public and private colonial networks operating close to the conflict in North America.

Cleland's study "recenters our understanding of the Civil War by framing it as a hemispheric affair, deeply influenced by the actions of a network of private parties and minor officials in the Confederacy and British territory in and around North America."

A map on page 178 cites seventeen pro-Confederate plots in North America and surrounding waters (eight of which were actually set into motion) that were directly linked to connections with these British colonial networks. More from the description: "John Wilkes Booth likely would not have been in a position to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, for example, without the logistical support and assistance of the pro-Confederate network in Canada. That network, to which he was personally introduced in Montreal in the fall of 1864, was hosted and facilitated by willing colonials across the hemisphere.Many of its Confederate members arrived in British North America via a long-established transportation and communications network built around British colonies, especially Bermuda and the Bahamas, whose primary purpose was running the blockade." Of course, the parts played by British colonial authorities and enterprising private citizens in blockade running operations based out of Bermuda and Nassau are well established. Nevertheless, "(i)t is difficult to overstate how essential blockade running was for the rebellion’s survival, and it would have been impossible without the aid of sympathetic colonials."

The first two chapters of Cleland's study revisit "antebellum relations between the South and Britain" and restate the "critical importance of British colonial support for the establishment and sustainment of Confederate blockade running" over the first half of the Civil War. The actions of prominent British colonials are also highlighted. Chapter 3 traces Confederate social connections in Bermuda as well as the Confederate government's attempt to "take control over blockade running." The "ambivalent" attitudes toward the Confederacy from black inhabitants of the British colonies, as well as the ways in which they opposed pro-Confederate networks, are examined in the following chapter. Chapter 5 highlights "the case of the Chesapeake hijacking as an example of the increasing fusion of privateering and filibustering by pro-Confederate raiders." The final two chapters, "set largely in Canada, explore how Confederates embraced the logic of informal warfare and diplomacy in 1864-65, with increasingly chaotic results" (pp. 10-11).

In the final estimation, Cleland maintains that the pro-Confederate "informal, semiprivate network(s)" described in the book "were of enormous consequence for the course of the war and its aftermath, and our understanding of the Civil War is incomplete without a deeper reckoning with the power and potential for chaos of these private networks imbued with the power of a state."