Booknotes III (Feb. '09)

Other acquisitions or review copies received this month:

1. Waters of Discord: The Union Blockade of Texas During the Civil War by Rodman L. Underwood (McFarland, 2008 - PB rep.) This book, the paperback follow up to the 2003 hardcover edition, is a study of the blockade of the Texas coastline in military, economic, and diplomatic contexts. Looks like a very fine survey.

2. Cuban Confederate Colonel: The Life of Ambrosio Jose Gonzales by Antonio Rafael de la Cova (Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2009 - PB rep.). I am surprised I missed this book the first time around. It's a massive biography of a comparatively obscure figure, and contains a wealth of material pertaining to Gonzales's personal ties to the South (he also married into South Carolina's prominent Elliot family) and his Civil War career spent defending Charleston. Students of the antebellum filibuster movement will be interested in this study, as well. The 2003 hardcover edition remains in print, with the new paperback available on a print on demand basis.

3. Field Artillery Weapons of the Civil War, Revised Edition by James C. Hazlett, Edwin Olmstead, and M. Hume Parks (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2004). After two editions from University of Delaware Press (1983 and 1988), this 2004 effort, the most recent revised edition of the king of descriptive Civil War field artillery reference books, is unfortunately only available in softcover (AFAIK).