Booknotes VII (Oct '14)

New Arrivals:

1. Work for Giants: The Campaign and Battle of Tupelo/Harrisburg, Mississippi, June-July 1864 by Thomas E. Parson (Kent St Univ Pr, 2014).

Anyone familiar with the work of Tom Parson and interested in the 1864 North Mississippi campaign will want to acquire a copy of this book. First impressions of the bibliography, maps (looks like the same ones from the author's Blue & Gray Magazine feature article), and text are very positive. With this one and Newsome's Richmond Must Fall, Kent State's Civil War Soldiers and Strategies series is off to a smashing start. Thanks also to KSUP for shipping the review copy in an actual box correctly sized and professionally packed ... a rarity.

2. Divided We Fall: The Confederacy's Collapse From Within: A State-by-State Account by Calvin Goddard Zon (Author, 2014).

Drawn from published sources, each chapter (one per state) provides a capsule history of wartime passive and active opposition to the Confederate government. If the name sounds familiar but you can't quite place it, I reviewed on the site a title that Zon edited a short while back titled The Good Fight That Didn't End: Henry P. Goddard's Accounts of Civil War and Peace (Univ of SC Pr, 2008).

3. "The Devil's to Pay": John Buford at Gettysburg. A History and Walking Tour. by Eric Wittenberg (Savas Beatie, 2014).

A comprehensive examination of Buford's actions just before and during the Gettysburg battle, this seems to be the book that Eric was born to write.