Booknotes III (July '15)

New Arrivals:

1. Teacher of Civil War Generals: Major General Charles Ferguson Smith, Soldier and West Point Commandant by Allen H. Mesch (McFarland, 2015).

I am not aware of any C.F. Smith biographies so the publication of Mesch's book is a welcome event for those that like to study the early war in the West. The bibliography size and breadth won't blow anyone away but then again I have no idea what source material regarding Smith is available. The notes for several chapters do refer heavily to Smith's papers, which support the "(d)rawing on never before published letters and journals" part of the book description.

2. Slavery and Secession in Arkansas: A Documentary History edited by James J. Gigantino II (Univ of Ark Pr, 2015).

"Drawn from contemporary pamphlets, broadsides, legislative debates, public addresses, newspapers, and private correspondence, these accounts show the intricate twists and turns of the political drama in Arkansas between early 1859 and the summer of 1861." One of the goals of the project is to highlight the primacy slavery held in the secession debates.

Hewitt & Schott, eds.: "CONFEDERATE GENERALS IN THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI, VOL. 2: Essays on America's Civil War"

[Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi, Vol. 2: Essays on America's Civil War edited by Lawrence Lee Hewitt and Thomas E. Schott (University of Tennessee Press, 2015). Cloth, maps, photos, illustrations, notes, appendix¹, bibliography, index. 309 pp. ISBN:978-1-62190-089-4 $64.95]

University of Tennessee Press's essay series on western and Trans-Mississippi theater Confederate generals is now up to five volumes². The newest installment Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi, Vol. 2 also marks the moment when Thomas Schott assumes permanent co-editor duties with series originator Lawrence Hewitt. Like the first book, the biographical subjects of Vol. 2 comprise a mixture of well known figures and those deserving of greater recognition. Eight chapters explore the lives and military careers of generals Ben McCulloch, Henry Sibley, Prince de Polignac, Joseph L. Brent, John B. Magruder, Alfred Mouton, Mosby Monroe Parsons (Part 2), and Richard Gano. Typically, the essays in books like these either offer career overviews with some broad analysis or focused investigations of the officer's role in a specific campaign or battle. Both types are contained in this volume. With the book's strong Louisiana flavor, the continuing presence of series co-creator Art Bergeron, who sadly passed away in 2010, is also felt.

Students of 1861-62 operations in Missouri and Arkansas are familiar with the bitterly divided command structure in the region, but Benjamin McCulloch biographer Thomas Cutrer's essay offers a bit more detailed consideration than one typically finds in the campaign literature of the animosity between Confederate district commander McCulloch and Missouri State Guard commander Sterling Price. Both men had strong partisan support in terms of assigning blame and significant Arkansas vs. Missouri antagonism exists in the source material, making the job of the dispassionate historian difficult. Cutrer doesn't take sides in the debate. Instead, he presents both perspectives utilizing the available source material and leaves it to the reader to decide.

One can make a strong case that Henry Hopkins Sibley was the worst of Confederate general officers and there is precious little in Thomas Schott's essay that might disabuse anyone of that notion. In the search for something positive to say, given that Sibley was able to recruit and put together a relatively large military expedition with few local resources and little help from the Confederate government, Schott opines that the general must have possessed at least some public speaking skills and ability in military organization. One of the great questions about Sibley's Confederate career is why the general, after being drunk and absent from every engagement in New Mexico, was allowed to remain in command of his brigade in Louisiana. The writer's surmise that it stemmed from Jefferson Davis's personal regard for the man seems persuasive, providing yet another clear example (though one not often raised by Davis's many critics) of the Confederate president as poor judge of military capacity.

As sometimes remains the case with JEB Stuart, the public flamboyance of John B. Magruder often overshadows a full appreciation of the general's true military talent. Robert Girardi's essay focuses on Magruder's planning, organization, and execution of the brilliant Confederate expedition that recaptured Galveston on January 1, 1863, one of the most impressive combined operations conducted by either side during the war. As the writer shows, however, the native Virginian's command resolve and battlefield skills were counterbalanced by personal flaws. Like many Civil War officers, Magruder chafed in the role of subordinate and could be difficult for his superiors to handle. His tendency to live the high life of a privileged commander in full view of his men also did not endear him to the rank and file.

The opposite of Magruder is Alfred Mouton, a Louisiana officer who excelled in subordinate roles leading regiments and brigades yet proved hesitant and slow moving when granted higher independent command. Jeffrey Prushankin, perhaps the foremost authority on the Confederate command structure in Louisiana during 1864-64, offers a solid overview of West Pointer Mouton's Civil War career, which was confined entirely to Louisiana and ended in his death at the Battle of Mansfield. Another career encompassing essay with a strong focus on leadership in Louisiana, and particularly during the 1864 Red River Campaign, is Jeff Kinard's study of Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac. As a foreigner, Polignac struggled to gain the trust and respect of officers and common soldiers alike, but his personal bravery and professional military skill demonstrated during the Red River Campaign finally gained for the Frenchman a full measure of appreciation.

Native Kentuckian Richard Gano figured effectively and prominently in both the western and Trans-Mississippi theaters and Charles Grear's essay concentrates on Gano's late war military pursuits inside Indian Territory and along the NW Arkansas frontier. His raiding activities in the region contributed mightily to shrinking federal control over the countryside and to the Confederate victory at Cabin Creek on September 19, 1864.

The book also contains the final half of Bill Gurley's study of the life and military career of Mosby Monroe Parsons. The combined essays constitute the best and fullest biographical treatment available for the general. In addition to discussing Parsons's participation in the battles of Pleasant Hill and Jenkins Ferry, the chapter offers new details and insights into the general's mysterious demise in Mexico at the hands of Mexican cavalry only a short time after the Civil War ended. Parsons forged one of the most impressive military resumes of any Confederate Missourian and Gurley's well researched two-part essay comprises an appropriate record of this.

In the final essay, Steve Mayeaux makes a strong argument that Joseph L. Brent (one of Kirby Smith's unofficial brigadier general appointments) deserves a place in the pantheon of great Civil War civilian-turned-soldier figures. A complete autodidact when it came to military matters, Brent rather improbably excelled in one of the more technical branches of the service (ordnance) and became a highly respected and much in demand staff officer. He also demonstrated remarkable versatility. Having no prior naval experience, Brent nevertheless orchestrated the capture of the U.S. Navy ironclad Indianola, a remarkable feat achieved against all odds. Regardless of how much luck was involved the result remains deeply impressive. Mayeux also promotes the idea that Brent should be recognized as a military theorist. Though the idea of employing armored railroad artillery was not Brent's own, he took his initial experience with rail guns on the Virginia Peninsula to heart and after the war authored the book Mobilizable Fortifications and Their Controlling Influence in War (1885, Houghton Mifflin). While armored trains did heavily influence future military conflicts (perhaps most famously the Russian Civil War), Mayeaux takes Brent's ideas one step further and credits the creative Civil War officer as one of the earliest proponents of tank theory. The appropriateness of the link between train and tank is surely debatable but the connection is at the very least thought provoking.

Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi, Vol. 2 is another highly recommended entry in the series. With many other worthy biographical candidates lacking much in the way of modern scholarly attention, one hopes this volume is not the press and editors's final word on the general officers serving the Trans-Mississippi portion of the vast Confederate West.


Notes:
1 - Unlike its eastern and western counterparts, the Confederacy beyond the Mississippi River lacked a signature army and the book's appendix offers a comprehensive summary (to include dates, compositional data, area of operation and other useful information) of the large number of mostly ephemeral army formations that operated in the theater.
2 - Links to site reviews of previous four volumes in the series:
• Confederate Generals in the Western Theater, Vol. 1: Classic Essays on America’s Civil War
• Confederate Generals in the Western Theater, Vol. 2: Essays on America’s Civil War
• Confederate Generals in the Western Theater, Vol. 3: Essays on America's Civil War
• Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi - Volume 1: Essays on America's Civil War


More CWBA reviews of UT Press titles:
* To Live and Die in Dixie: Native Northerners Who Fought for the Confederacy
* To Retain Command of the Mississippi: The Civil War Naval Campaign for Memphis
* Rethinking Shiloh: Myth and Memory
* Ruined by This Miserable War: The Dispatches of Charles Prosper Fauconnet, a French Diplomat in New Orleans, 1863-1868
* The Knoxville Campaign: Burnside and Longstreet in East Tennessee
* To the Battles of Franklin and Nashville and Beyond: Stabilization and Reconstruction in Tennessee and Kentucky, 1864-1866
* Great Things Are Expected of Us: The Letters of Colonel C. Irvine Walker, 10th South Carolina Infantry, C.S.A.
* Crimson Confederates: Harvard Men Who Fought for the South
* Yale's Confederates: A Biographical Dictionary
* The Battle of Shiloh and the Organizations Engaged
* The Final Battles of the Petersburg Campaign: Breaking the Backbone of the Rebellion
* Echoes of Thunder: A Guide to the Seven Days Battles
* Little to Eat and Thin Mud to Drink: Letters, Diaries, and Memoirs from the Red River Campaigns, 1863–1864
* Earthen Walls, Iron Men: Fort DeRussy, Louisiana, and the Defense of Red River
* Through the Howling Wilderness: The 1864 Red River Campaign and Union Failure in the West

The Bitter Divide

The book description of The Bitter Divide: A Civil War History of St. Charles, Missouri by Rory Riddler says a lot of nothing but I am always interested in new Missouri related local histories and will almost surely pick up a copy at some point.  There were no big battles fought around the town but its location just west of St. Louis placed it in the midst of many other kinds of wartime events and threats.

B&G Vol. 31, #5 sneak peak

In its long history, the only time (I believe) that Blue & Gray Magazine tackled a non-Civil War topic was for their Little Bighorn special issue (Volume 23 Issue #2). I suppose it's fitting that the second time around is for the Rosebud fight (TOC).

Booknotes II (July '15)

New Arrivals:

1. A Scientific Way of War: Antebellum Military Science, West Point, and the Origins of American Military Thought by Ian Clarence Hope (Univ of Neb Pr, 2015).

"A Scientific Way of War analyzes how the doctrine of military science evolved from teaching specific Napoleonic applications to embracing subjects that were useful for war in North America. Drawing from a wide array of materials, Ian C. Hope refutes earlier charges of a lack of professionalization in the antebellum American army and an overreliance on the teachings of Swiss military theorist Antoine de Jomini. Instead, Hope shows that inculcation in West Point’s American military curriculum eventually came to provide the army with an officer corps that shared a common doctrine and common skill in military problem solving." The book argues for the existence of a distinct American way of war that developed throughout the antebellum period. Authored by a high ranking Canadian army officer, the professional perspective of an outsider looking in might also prove interesting.

2. The First Battle for Petersburg: The Attack and Defense of the Cockade City, June 9, 1864 by William Glenn Robertson (Savas Beatie, 2015).

Another new Petersburg related Sesquicentennial edition that has been revised and expanded from the original, Robertson's book covers the June 9 battle. By pairing Robertson with Sean Chick's recent book covering June 15-18, readers will gain a fine education in the initial botched Union attempts by both the James and Potomac armies to take Petersburg by direct assault.

3. Grant's Last Battle: The Story Behind the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant by Chris Mackowski (Savas Beatie, 2015).

For the prolific Emerging Civil War series, this study of the writing and publication of Grant's memoirs is a rare departure from histories and tours of battles and battlefields.

The rebirth of "Civil War Regiments"

Roughly equal in cultural importance to the return of the X-Files will be the 2016 return of Civil War Regiments. Yesterday, Emerging Civil War announced that they and publisher Savas Beatie will be partnering up to revive the well regarded but long defunct unit essay journal. It appears that the new issue format will be similar to the later evolution of the series as a themed compilation. No mention of any kind of volume subscription plans this time around, which is fine for those of us who will want to pick and choose our subjects. Good news this is.

Hess: "THE BATTLE OF EZRA CHURCH AND THE STRUGGLE FOR ATLANTA"

[The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta by Earl J. Hess (University of North Carolina Press, 2015). Hardcover, maps, photos, notes, OB, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:222/287. ISBN:978-1-4696-2241-5. $35]

It has been a long time coming but the gaping chasms in book length battle coverage for the 1864 Atlanta Campaign are now being rapidly filled. Happily, some of the best Civil War military historians in the field are crafting these battle studies and, even better, getting them right with reader expectations on the first attempt. One of the contributors to this welcome trend is Earl Hess, whose previous book on Kennesaw Mountain was masterful. In addition to being the first full length treatment of the subject, his new volume The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta is yet another strong effort that will be difficult to surpass in the future.

As he does with all his work, Hess effectively incorporates into his Ezra Church battle narrative source material from archives located across the country. The July 28, 1864 battle is presented in four stages (entirely appropriate given the piecemeal nature of the attacks), each recounted in lavish tactical detail. The first Confederate charge, which stepped off roughly at noon, involved John C. Brown's division of S.D Lee's Corps. Beginning on the left with Brantley's Brigade, Brown's unsuccessful assault eventually covered the entire front. This was followed by Lee's next division (Henry Clayton's), which aggressively assailed the left of the Union XV Corps at the angle of the Army of the Tennessee's refused line of defense [XV Corps facing south with XVI and XVII Corps fronting east]. Upon the repulse of Clayton, Brown's reserve brigade (Manigault's) moved forward and struck the XV Corps center on its own. Finally, Edward's Walthall's division of A.P. Stewart's Corps arrived on the field and responded to Lee's pleas for help by crashing into the Union right (where Brantley failed earlier) and center, all to no avail.

Curiously, the battle was essentially an all infantry affair, with little to no artillery involvement on either side. On the subject of losses, figures for the Union side are widely accepted as 632 killed, wounded and missing but quantifying Confederate casualties in a satisfactory manner has proved elusive. The book does not make a special study of the Confederate count, accepting the more conservative estimates of around 3,000.

Upon close inspection, it becomes clear why the Confederate attacks failed. Each division attacked on its own and there was very little coordination between brigades as well, a tragic hallmark of Army of Tennessee assaults throughout the war. Terrain was also a factor, with the Union defenders having the luxury of higher ground and a naturally angular line offering many opportunities for both converging and enfilade fire. The three steep ravines that effectively divided the battlefield substantially hindered the attackers, who went in with little knowledge of the ground. The fire discipline displayed by the veteran boys in blue, who were also protected by makeshift breastworks, had an important role in inflicting horrific casualties and stopping each successive attack cold. Finally, the command and control shortcomings of the attacking Confederates were not shared by the defending federals. Union commander O.O. Howard's calm and close direction of his army (with some timely interventions on his part) paid dividends. John A. Logan's 15th Corps, the target of Lee's assaults, benefited from a timely stream of heavy reinforcements from unselfishly cooperative 16th and 17th Corps commanders.

Hess does a very fine job of presenting the battle in the context of the larger Union strategy of extending the federal line south and beyond the Confederate left, with the goal of eventually striking the railroad below Atlanta and forcing its evacuation. The fighting at Ezra Church ends around two-thirds of the way through the book and extensive attention is directed toward the immediate aftermath of the battle, the plight of the wounded, and the continued flank extension of Sherman's confident army group. By the author's estimation, Lee's bloody repulse delayed Sherman's movements by only six days, a brief period not worth the massive bloodshed expended in the effort.

The contrast between the opposing high commands at Ezra Church could not have been more stark. Even with a highly controversial change in top command (with newcomer O.O. Howard replacing the popular and competent John A. Logan as head of the Army of the Tennessee) the Union mass redeployment from left to right proceeded smoothly. Overall, Howard moved with caution but his three corps quickly and skillfully assumed mutually supportive defensive positions once they reached a point west of Atlanta. On the Confederate side, army commander John Bell Hood directed newly appointed corps commander Stephen D. Lee to block the Union advance at Lick Skillet Road, with the intention of setting up a flank attack the next day by A.P. Stewart's Corps. Lee instead violated the spirit and intent of Hood's orders and attacked Logan's Corps frontally. With Hood's attention diverted by the pair of Union cavalry raids running around south of Atlanta, the Confederate army commander was not personally present at Ezra Church. His absence throughout the fight has been strongly condemned in the literature but Hess rightly contends that Lee's impetuous and poorly managed attack was neither ordered nor expected, making much of the criticism of Hood misplaced. On the other hand, with Lee being new to the Army of Tennessee, one could make a reasonable argument that Hood should have felt the need to oversee in person the operation that led to Ezra Church, but, as Hess observes in the book, it seems unlikely that the established facts of Lee's high command incompetence (so clearly borne out during his recent defeat at Tupelo) would have had sufficient time to make their way through the army before the general's arrival in Atlanta.

Hess has maintained in this book and others that a key factor driving Union success during the Atlanta Campaign was their domination of the skirmish line. This was demonstrated at Ezra Church during both the initial federal push against the Confederate cavalry screen and the later infantry fighting around the Lick Skillet Road, but the author doesn't really articulate what he sees as the reason(s) behind the Union army's skirmish line supremacy. Surely by 1864 the veteran officers and men of both armies developed similar skills for operating in no-man's-land. Was it sheer Union numbers (more, and fresher, men to spare on the skirmish line), disparities in morale and confidence, the essentially inexhaustible supply of ammunition available to Sherman's legions that tipped the scales, or all of these or something else? It's an interesting argument that one would like to see more fully developed. The maps in the book are a bit rudimentary, more schematic in nature than the accurately scaled and finely detailed battle cartography current readers have come to expect. The positions and movements of each regiment are clearly delineated but terrain features are rendered in minimalist fashion (e.g. the forests, tree lines and fields so often mentioned by the participants are absent, with only roads, breastwork lines and a general idea of the contours of the sloping ground and ravines represented on the page).

Hess's brilliantly written account of the Battle of Ezra Church clearly demonstrates that, despite the gross disparity in casualties, Ezra Church had several nervous moments for the defenders and was not the "easy" Union victory that tradition has suggested. The battle is significant in that it represents the third and final Confederate attempt to arrest the advance of Sherman's army group by offensive maneuver. For the rest of the campaign, Hood's diminished army would be forced into a reactive operational position. The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta is another ground breaking contribution to the campaign's assemblage of canonical works from Earl Hess, who incredibly manages to maintain a highly prolific output without any relaxation of scholarly standards of excellence. Highly recommended.



More CWBA reviews of UNC Press titles:
* Agriculture and the Confederacy: Policy, Productivity, and Power in the Civil War South
* A Gunner in Lee's Army: The Civil War Letters of Thomas Henry Carter
* Nature's Civil War: Common Soldiers and the Environment in 1862 Virginia
* A Field Guide to Gettysburg: Experiencing the Battlefield through Its History, Places, and People
* Kennesaw Mountain: Sherman, Johnston, and the Atlanta Campaign
* With a Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other: The Problem of Military Thought in the Civil War North
* The Civil War in the West: Victory and Defeat from the Appalachians to the Mississippi
* Shifting Loyalties: The Union Occupation of Eastern North Carolina
* West Pointers and the Civil War: The Old Army in War and Peace
* Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign (link to author interview)
* A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War (link to author interview)
* In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat
* The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864
* Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign
* Lincoln and the Decision for War: The Northern Response to Secession
* Trench Warfare under Grant & Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign
* Plain Folk’s Fight: The Civil War & Reconstruction in Piney Woods Georgia
* Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign
* Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War: The Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864

Beilein & Hulbert, eds.: "THE CIVIL WAR GUERRILLA: Unfolding the Black Flag in History, Memory, and Myth"

[The Civil War Guerrilla: Unfolding the Black Flag in History, Memory, and Myth edited by Joseph M. Beilein, Jr. and Matthew C. Hulbert (University Press of Kentucky, 2015). Hardcover, maps, photos, illustrations, notes, index. 255 pp. ISBN:978-0-8131-6532-5 $50]

Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of Civil War guerrilla warfare studies that have manifestly altered previously simplistic perceptions and understanding (for the better) of the "inner war" that raged across much of the continent during the conflict. This newfound sophistication has immeasurably enhanced the quality of many of the military, social, economic, political, and local home front studies being published today. Drawing from this new breadth of knowledge while offering significant insights of their own are the eight essays contained in The Civil War Guerrilla: Unfolding the Black Flag in History, Memory, and Myth, edited by historians Joseph Beilein and Matthew Hulbert.

In his introduction to the volume, Christopher Phillips expresses his appreciation for the pioneering scholarship of Michael Fellman while also politely but firmly rejecting some of the late professor's most tightly held views on the guerrilla war as a largely nihilistic arena of violence created by the basest instincts of mankind when unshackled by civilization's prior constraints. Unlike Fellman, Phillips believes that strong ideological concerns underpinned the actions of most Civil War irregular warriors in Missouri, among other things (including draft evasion) citing evidence for a demonstrably strong upswing in guerrilla violence in the state immediately after the Emancipation Proclamation that continued to escalate to coincide with the enlistment of black troops. 

Another contributor that sees clear patterns rather than random violence and chaos is Andrew Fialka, whose utterly fascinating article attempts to discover Central Missouri trends using a novel quantitative "spatiotemporal" mapping technique plotting guerrilla incidents over time. Overall, Fialka's data finds that guerrillas primarily targeted Union troops and militia but perhaps the most interesting finding is the close relationship between temporary Union occupation of an area and retaliatory violence against civilians. With large permanent garrisons established all over the state, 1861 witnessed little guerrilla violence but as the war progressed, and more and more regiments were withdrawn from Missouri, the increasingly sporadic presence of occupying forces and reliance instead on short-lived expeditions correlate strongly in time and place with the tragic explosions of guerrilla violence that occurred during 1863-64.

The next essay contrasts levels of anti-Confederate feeling and local unrest in the adjacent Piedmont regions of North Carolina (where it was widespread and strong) and South Carolina (where it was largely muted outside of a passing surge of desertion in 1863 within regiments exiting the state).  The most obvious difference is near unanimity among South Carolinians on the issues of secession and the legitimacy of the Confederate government while this was far from the case among citizens of the Tar Heel Piedmont.  Noel Fisher's now classic East Tennessee study revolutionized in readers's minds the importance of pre-war kinship, religion, political party, and economic ties in determining wartime loyalties and those factors also apply to the Carolinas Piedmont and a South Carolina section more strongly infiltrated by cotton and slavery.

Megan Kate Nelson takes the study of Civil War irregular warfare farther west than most, in her case the arid Desert Southwest. Nelson's essay quite rightly suggests that American Indian forces have been too often excluded from the Civil War guerrilla discussion. Specifically, her chapter seeks a greater appreciation for the role of American Indian raiders, their stealth tactics for stealing enemy horses and supplies honed by centuries of experience and necessity, in blocking Confederate efforts to conquer New Mexico and Arizona.

Sergeant Thomas Goodman's published captivity narrative of his time spent with William T. Anderson's band after Centralia is examined closely by Matthew Hulbert. Far from simply enriching himself by telling an exciting tale to a hungry reading audience, Goodman had clear objectives in drawing public attention to the service of federal units opposing guerrilla bands and persuading readers that their sacrifices were just as honorable and deserving of commemoration as those of Union soldiers fighting in the great battles to the east.  For modern readers, Goodman's account also serves as an effective counterpoint to John Newman Edwards's popular heroic portrayal of pro-southern guerrillas.

Fictionalized accounts of the inner war experience in southern Appalachia as expressed in literature and theater are the subject of John Inscoe's essay. As is often the case with fiction created with the intention of persuading a given audience, exaggerated accounts extolling the virtues of one side and condemning the perfidy of the other are common in the three works analyzed in Inscoe's chapter. In addition to the insertion of romantic elements for popular entertainment value, the works on a more serious level do draw appropriate attention to the critical active and support roles assumed by women during those troubled times. Curiously, given the traditional view that slavery and emancipation issues were less important to Appalachian residents, the writers also assign prominent roles to black characters, albeit in blatantly ideological fashion.

Finally, Rod Andrews attempts to sort fact from fiction in the life of Reconstruction guerrilla Manse Jolly of South Carolina while co-editor Joseph Beilein picks apart the scholarly sins of William Connelley's seminal work Quantrill and the Border Wars. While today's historians have well identified the specific flaws in Connelley's book, its broad brush portrayal of Missouri bushwhackers as murderous unprincipled outlaws remains immensely influential today. One of the most fascinating aspects of Beulein's essay is its recounting of Connelley's cunning manipulation of ex-guerrilla William H. Gregg and partisan cherry picking of Gregg's memoir for source material.

The contents of The Civil War Guerrilla leave little cause for complaint, the absence of a specifically Kentucky-based essay (though the first chapter does touch upon shared Border State contexts) perhaps being the most unexpected omission given the state's high profile connections with the topic. The fact that half the essays center on Missouri keenly reminds us how events in that most troubled of states continue to most prominently inform our general awareness and understanding of the guerrilla conflict during the Civil War. The great variety of inner war experiences are certainly well matched by the diversity of scholarly approaches adopted by the book's contributors. All of the essays are solidly grounded in the current literature of the guerrilla conflict while offering substantive and frequently quite striking contributions of their own. The Civil War Guerrilla is highly recommended.



More CWBA reviews of UPK titles:
* For Brotherhood and Duty: The Civil War History of the West Point Class of 1862
* Kentucky Confederates: Secession, Civil War, and the Jackson Purchase
* A General Who Will Fight: The Leadership of Ulysses S. Grant
* The Union Forever: Lincoln, Grant, and the Civil War
* One of Morgan's Men: Memoirs of Lieutenant John M. Porter of the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry
* My Old Confederate Home: A Respectable Place for Civil War Veterans
* Lincoln on Trial: Southern Civilians and the Law of War
* Bluejackets and Contrabands: African Americans and the Union Navy
* Camp Nelson, Kentucky: A Civil War History
* Sister States, Enemy States: The Civil War in Kentucky and Tennessee
* Kentuckians in Gray: Confederate Generals and Field Officers of the Bluegrass State
* Virginia at War, 1863
* Contested Borderland: The Civil War in Appalachian Kentucky and Virginia

The North Carolina Civil War Atlas: The Old North State at War

Put together the word atlas and the name Mark Moore and you have an instabuy on your hands. The North Carolina Civil War Atlas: The Old North State at War was originally intended as a late spring 2015 release but the project went through a publisher change (now the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources). We're apparently still looking at 2015 but late in the year would be my most hopeful surmise.

Sherrill: "THE 21ST NORTH CAROLINA INFANTRY: A Civil War History, With a Roster of Officers"

[ The 21st North Carolina Infantry: A Civil War History, With a Roster of Officers by Lee W. Sherrill, Jr. (McFarland, 2015). Softcover, 16 maps, photos, officer roster, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:455/535. ISBN:978-0-7864-7626-8 $45 ]

As one of North Carolina's "Manassas to Appomattox" regiments, the 21st Infantry forged an impressive Civil War combat record. Equally impressive in the arena of regimental studies is Lee Sherrill's massive The 21st North Carolina Infantry: A Civil War History, with a Roster of Officers, an incredibly detailed history of the unit. An oversize (8.25 x 11 inches) volume with densely packed double-columned print and with a main narrative over 450 pages in length, to say Sherrill's study is exhaustive in content and research is an understatement. One cannot recall another modern North Carolina unit history quite like it.

Recruited from the Piedmont region of the state, the progenitor of the 21st was the 12-month 11th North Carolina, which fought at First Bull Run with Bonham's brigade. During the grand reorganization of the Confederate army in 1862 the unit was redesignated the 21st regiment and it would fight on in that capacity to the Army of Northern Virginia's end at Appomattox. Sherrill briefly covers the recruitment and training periods as well as the officer selection turmoil that plagued so many regiments. The 21st's leadership factionalism, however, went on far longer than most and one marvels at the fighting prowess and unit cohesion demonstrated by the regiment on so many battlefields with so much uncertainty at the top. That said, the regiment was gifted with more than one good colonel, as both William Kirkland and Robert Hoke would perform well and go on to higher commands.

Unlike many other recent regimental studies (especially those authored by professional historians), Sherrill's book does not concern itself with any kind of complex demographic study of the men nor does it directly engage many of the common themes of modern Civil War unit scholarship (e.g. why the men enlisted, their wartime connections to the home front, what happened when they returned home, etc.). Instead, Sherrill sets out to create a definitive military biography of the regiment, one that addresses in equal measure the camp, march, and battlefield experiences of the men. With its uncommonly meticulous handling of the 21st's tragic exposures to the great epidemics of disease that raged through Confederate camps and field hospitals during the many months of inactivity following the victory at First Bull Run, the book's sweeping ambitions are apparent from the start.

The series of battle chapters comprise the heart of The 21st North Carolina Infantry. Sherrill's micro-level accounts of the 21st's actions during the battles that raged across Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and North Carolina between 1861 and 1865 are deep tactical mini-studies. That said, the bigger picture of events, at both the battle and campaign levels, is never lost in the small unit details. In addition to discussing the regiment's role in the many famous engagements fought by the Army of Northern Virginia (among them First Bull Run, Winchester, Cross Keys, Gaines' Mill, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, 2nd Winchester, Gettysburg, many 1864 Shenandoah Campaign battles, and Fort Stedman), the book also covers at great length many comparatively obscure battles involving the 21st, like Batchelor's Creek and other lesser known 1863-64 operations in North Carolina.

Accompanying these battle narratives is an excellent set of maps. In addition to being nearly full-page sized, the terrain and battle line representations (with the 21st always specifically referenced) are exemplary. A large collection of photographs is also included. The book's broad and deep bibliography (with its extensive collection of primary source materials of all types) and expansive endnotes attest to the exhaustive research that went into crafting the narrative. In terms of drawbacks, the book's size dimensions and weight are a bit too unwieldy for the paperback format. There are a few typos here and there and a full unit roster, a staple of modern regimental studies, is missing. On the other hand, the officer and staff biographical and service roster that is provided will serve as a useful reference tool.

As a military campaign themed regimental history, Lee Sherrill's The 21st North Carolina Infantry cannot be recommended highly enough. In a crowded genre, this title very much stands apart in the areas of research, content and presentation. Certainly readers primarily interested in Old North State soldiers and units that fought for the Confederacy will be overjoyed upon viewing Sherrill's handiwork.

Booknotes (July '15)

New Arrivals:

1. Grant Under Fire: An Expose of Generalship and Character in the American Civil War by Joseph A. Rose (Alderhanna Publishing, 2015).

This heavy tome (the main text runs over 600 pages) assumes a rigorous devil's advocate position for just about every aspect of Grant's generalship, character, and presidency. The author has an informative promotional website under construction (here) which offers a good idea of the type of content and context the reader can expect. It's all in how you use it but the book's bibliography is truly massive. The conclusions will be controversial but the pre-publication blurbs from well known Civil War historians (among them William Glenn Robertson, Gordon Rhea, Wiley Sword, and Larry Hewitt) laud Rose's research skills and argumentative powers. Grant's legendary integrity has received some convincing jabs in recent years but successfully presenting Grant as a bad general to today's informed readership strikes me as a task too tall for anyone. Rose seems game to attempt it, though.

2. Rebellion, Reconstruction, and Redemption, 1861-1893: The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, Volume 2 by Stephen R. Wise and Lawrence S. Rowland w/ Gerhart Spieler (Univ of S. Carolina Pr, 2015).

More on this book here.

Looks like a pretty slow summer coming up in terms of new releases but given the large backlog of unread titles the pace of reviews shouldn't change much.

Gallman & Gallagher, eds.: "LENS OF WAR: Exploring Iconic Photographs of the Civil War"

[Lens of War: Exploring Iconic Photographs of the Civil War edited by J. Matthew Gallman and Gary W. Gallagher (University of Georgia Press, 2015). Hardcover, photos, notes, reading list, index. 258 pp. ISBN:978-0-8203-4810-0 $32.95]

Lens of War: Exploring Iconic Photographs of the Civil War is another fitting entry in Georgia's UnCivil Wars series, which has carved out a bit of a niche for itself publishing titles off the worn paths of Civil War publishing. The big idea is that contributing editors Matthew Gallman and Gary Gallagher would invite another 25 other historians to join them in selecting a photograph and writing an essay about it. The cliche that a picture is worth a thousand  (or more) words certainly applies here and it's clear that photographic images have long possessed the ability to inspire budding Civil War scholars in ways unavailable to young minds discovering for the first time earlier conflicts like the American Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.

All contributors were offered complete creative freedom in writing their accompanying essays. This could have been a mess for the editors but it turned out well in this case. Format is elective, either formal or informal and with or without scholarly notes. Many chose to explicitly personalize their essays by writing in first person and nearly all fell back on their training and included chapter notes.

The convention for essay collections large in number is to divide them into sections and that's done here, with dutiful grouping into five parts (Leaders, Soldiers, Civilians, Victims, and Places). These categories suggest the full range of images and there's no need to go into specific examples here. The book's subtitle refers to "iconic photographs" but there are some fairly obscure ones in there, too, although one supposes that most readers that have been Civil War enthusiasts for a long period of time will have seen then all before at some point.

As one might expect given the amount of free reign involved, the essays vary widely in style and approach. The images are very often deconstructed in a detailed manner, either literally or along thematic lines. Some authors delve more deeply into historical background information than others and many use the power of the photograph to explore grander social, military, political, racial, class, and gender themes of interest to today's scholars. Some wander off into quite tangential territory. Most make an attempt to identify and profile the photographer. The degree of speculation involved also varies. Facial expressions and their underlying meaning are frequently interpreted with (undue?) confidence because it's probably more fun that way but others more cautiously assess the human gazes reflected in the images.

Not in the book, but a reviewer favorite.

Many of the writers note the staging (often quite elaborate) inherent in their particular selections. Viewing the iconic photographs in the book in this light, one appreciates even more the few successful spontaneous "action" photos of the war like the unique scene (at right) of a heavy column of Confederate soldiers tramping through a Frederick, Maryland street during the Maryland Campaign in September 1862.

It's difficult to imagine a Civil War enthusiast of today who lacks a deep curiosity in the photographic legacy of the conflict and Lens of War is highly worthy of recommendation to history students of all levels. The editors do mention that their book isn't intended to be read mechanically from cover to cover. Reviewers unfortunately don't really have that luxury but this one would agree with the editors that the volume is probably best experienced in short bites during casual revisits. Upon finishing this photographic study, the question surely arises in the mind of every reader as to which particular image he or she would choose if fortunate enough to have been asked to participate in the project^*.



* - Readers, feel free to offer your own choice in the comments section. Mine (which, by the way, found its way into the book as T. Michael Parrish's selection) is the disturbing photograph (below) of Confederate dead from the Battle of Corinth, arguably the most evocative image of the scale of death involved in Civil War battles and the physical indignities suffered by the corpses of those killed in action.  Curiously, Parrish points to Colonel William P. Rogers (at far left in the picture) as one of only two positively identified bodies of the slain in all of Civil War photography, the other being Confederate cavalry general Turner Ashby. There's also a well known grisly death photo of Missouri guerrilla William T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson but perhaps Parrish does not consider him a "soldier" in the strictest sense.



More CWBA reviews of UGP titles:
* Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War
* Crossroads of Conflict: A Guide to Civil War Sites in Georgia
* The Autobiography of Henry Merrell: Industrial Missionary to the South

Various book things

A few updates.

If you didn't get your 1864 Price Raid fill in recent months on the two excellent Pilot Knob studies by Suderow & House and Gifford or the campaign overview by Forsyth, Kyle Sinisi's long awaited full length operational history The Last Hurrah: Sterling Price's Missouri Expedition of 1864 is still on track for release in July. Unfortunately, Mark Lause's concluding second volume to his own treatment The Collapse of Price's Raid: The Beginning of the End in Civil War Missouri is delayed yet again to maybe August.

Another long delayed project, but a very promising one, is Terry Lowry's The Battle of Charleston and the 1862 Kanawha Valley Campaign. It's still churning along toward completion, perhaps by September. It will be the first book to cover this virtually unknown chapter of the great Confederate summer offensives of 1862.

A new title that received a bit of an early release is Ian Hope's A Scientific Way of War: Antebellum Military Science, West Point, and the Origins of American Military Thought, which sounds like an interesting study of the military intellectual development of Civil War armies.

Enjoy your 4th of July holiday.