Booknotes III (October '12)

New Arrivals:

1. The Great Hanging at Gainesville, 1862: The Accounts of Thomas Barrett and George Washington Diamond (Texas State Hist Assoc, 2012).

In 1862, tensions between Texas Unionist and Confederate neighbors reached fever pitch, with fears of a burgeoning armed fifth column leading to the trial and execution of dozens of pro-Union civilians at Gainesville. Two memoirs of these events were published in the 1960s. Now out of print, both are combined unedited in a single volume for the first time with a new introduction by historian Richard McCaslin, the foremost modern authority on the subject.

2. Discovering the Civil War in Florida: A Reader and Guide, 2nd Edition by Paul Taylor (Pineapple Pr, 2012).

This is a newly revised edition of Taylor's book, which features official reports from several Florida battles as well as a site guide.

3. The Iron Brigade in Civil War and Memory: The Black Hats from Bull Run to Appomattox and Thereafter by Lance J. Herdegen (Savas Beatie, 2012).

Herdegen is the author of several books about the Iron Brigade, and this full length unit history, which has all the elements one would hope for in a brigade study, appears to be the culminating effort of all those years of dedication and accumulated expertise.

4. The Tribunal: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid edited by John Stauffer and Zoe Trodd (Belknap Pr/Harvard UP, 2012).

This is a thick compilation of documents [speeches, letters, newspaper articles, journals, poems, and songs] reacting to John Brown's Raid. In it, the editors sought to collect viewpoints as wide ranging as possible, both domestic and foreign.