Booknotes III ( August '11 )

New Arrivals:

1. Stuarts Tarheels: James B. Gordon and His North Carolina Cavalry in the Civil War, 2nd Ed. by Chris J. Hartley (McFarland, 2011).

I am not familiar with the first edition of this unit history, but the publisher description implies that the extensively detailed roster included with the new book was not present before. New source material was also incorporated into the 2nd edition. It is nice to see it published in hardcover, with so many of the current McFarland releases paperback only.

2. Robert Toombs: The Civil Wars of a United States Senator and Confederate General by Mark Scroggins (McFarland, 2011).

McF publishes bunches of Civil War biographies of varying quality and this one appears to belong among the better group. Scroggins is an archivist and has had articles published in scholarly journals. His Toombs biography addresses the Georgian's entire public career, from antebellum state and U.S. legislator to Confederate Secretary of State and general.

3. A Pocket History of the Civil War: Citizen Soldiers, Bloody Battles, and the Fight for America’s Future by Martin F. Graham (Osprey, 2011).

This is one of the those compilations of trivia and miscellany intended for new readers that we will undoubtedly see much of between now and 2015. You might recall Graham as co-author of the Mine Run volume from the H.E. Howard Virginia battles series. Supported by a multitude of charts and tables, this hardcover pocket history covers soldier life, arms and equipment, campaigns and battles, prisons, biographical stories, and statistics, each section ending with a quiz.