Booknotes (Aug '14)

New Arrivals:

1. A Corporal's Story: Civil War Recollections of the Twelfth Massachusetts by George Kimball, edited by Alan D. Gaff and Donald H. Gaff (Univ of Okla Pr, 2014).

Wounded twice, Kimball fought in many of the great eastern theater battles before leaving the army after serving three years. He resumed his newspaper career with the Boston Journal, writing often about his Civil War experiences. The Gaffs have reassembled these memoir pieces for A Corporal's Story, also contributing an introduction and notes to the project.

2. Chained to the Land: Voices from Cotton & Cane Plantations edited by Lynette Ater Tanner (John F. Blair, 2014).

Tanner collects Louisiana slave narratives in this volume, with some emphasis on the state's apparently distinctive stamp on the institution, a Le Code Noir that set standards for slave care, religious instruction, and limited protections on the sale of children. The volume is part of the publisher's Real Voices, Real History series devoted to preserving this historical material.