Booknotes (Nov '14)

New Arrivals:

1. An Irrepressible Conflict: The Empire State in the Civil War by Robert Weible, Jennifer A. Lemak and Aaron Noble (SUNY Pr, 2014).

From the publisher's description: "A companion to the award-winning exhibition of the same name, displayed at the New York State Museum from September 2012 to March 2014, An Irrepressible Conflict includes reproductions of objects from the collections of the New York State Museum, Library, and Archives, as well as more than twenty-five different institutions across the state. Among the many significant objects are a Lincoln life mask from 1860, the earliest photograph of Frederick Douglass, the only known portrait of Dred Scott and a bronze medal given to the defenders of Fort Sumter by the City of New York."

2. The Fighting Fifteenth Alabama Infantry: A Civil War History and Roster by James P. Faust (McFarland, 2014).

With only brief chapter narratives covering the 15th's many campaigns and battles, a very limited bibliography, and much of the page space devoted to detailed casualty lists for each battle and a unit roster, this one doesn't sit among the fuller treatments available from the publisher's catalog of Civil War regimental roster studies.

3. The Civil War: The Story of the War with Maps by M. David Detweiler (Stackpole, 2014).

Perhaps the accompanying text is okay, but the content and design of the color cartography in this book is decidedly uninspiring, none of its qualities matching those found in the best modern atlases. A subject newbie might find it acceptable.