Booknotes (December '09)

New additions this month:

1. Marching With the First Nebraska: A Civil War Diary by August Schernekau, edited by James E. Potter and Edith Robbins (Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2007).

I didn't pick up a copy of this diary when it first came out, as a cursory glance through it at the bookstore gave me the impression of a pretty mundane manuscript with uninspired editing. I've changed my mind since. A paperback edition is due out next February.

2. Counterfeit Gentlemen: Manhood and Humor in the Old South by John Mayfield (Univ. Press of Florida, 2009).

3. Fort Point: Gibraltar of the Pacific by J.G. Motheral (Fort Point Museum Assoc., 1971).

This is a 40-page general history pamphlet, similar to something one buys at the gift shop of various national parks, with a fair amount of Civil War focus. Motheral covers the construction and armament of the fort, as well as some of the pro-Confederate plots by land and sea hatched during the war in California.

4. Family Values in the Old South edited by Craig Thompson Friend and Anya Jabour (Univ. Press of Florida, 2009).

This is a collection of ten essays on family life in the antebellum South, with wide coverage of attendant issues (e.g. politics, economics, marriage, death, domestic roles, slavery, and other race relations).