Booknotes (April '10 )

New additions:

1. Confederate Alamo: Bloodbath at Petersburg's Fort Gregg on April 2, 1865 by John J. Fox III (Angle Valley Press, 2010).

Confederate Alamo is the only book length account of the fighting at Ft. Gregg during the closing moments of the '64-'65 Petersburg Campaign. There are many illustrations, and the George Skoch maps are nicely detailed. Appendices include an OB with numbers and losses information along with in-depth looks at some of the controversies surrounding the battle.

2. Deliver Us From This Cruel War: The Civil War Letters of Lieutenant Joseph J. Hoyle, 55th North Carolina Infantry by Joseph J. Hoyle, edited by Jeffrey M. Girvan (McFarland, 2010).

Editor Girvan provides a general introduction as well as a brief discussion of the historiography of the common soldier literature. Chapters are organized into chronological groupings of letters, transcribed in full, headed by a short overview of the regiment's activities during the period, all of which are annotated by Girvan. A number of battle maps are provided, as well as a roster of Hoyle's Company F, to also include lists of deaths from combat and disease.

3. Why Texans Fought in the Civil War by Charles David Grear (Texas A&M Univ. Press, 2010).

Grear's essay in The Fate of Texas (U. of Ark. Press, 2008) gives a taste of what to expect in this broader book length study.