Saturday, September 5, 2015

Booknotes II (Sept '15)

New Arrivals:

Sires and Sons: The Story of Hubbard's Regiment by Trevor P. Wardlaw (CreateSpace, 2015).

Walker's Texas Division has spawned a small number of modern regimental histories and Sires and Sons tells the story of the 22nd Texas. Like their Greyhound compatriots, the 22nd did a lot of marching in the Trans-Mississippi but experienced comparatively little in the way of heavy combat until the 1864 Red River Campaign, where the regiment fought in the battles of Fort DeRussey, Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, and Jenkins' Ferry. All of these actions are described in the book, as is the unit's first contact with the enemy at Young's Point. While the bibliography contains an appropriate range of source materials, including unpublished correspondence and a diary located in public archives and private collections, citations in the text are a bit peculiar. Many quoted passages are uncited and the O.R. is absent from both notes and bibliography though it seems likely that some of the officer reports quoted in the book are from that essential resource.  There's no formal roster but the appendices include some of the author's biographical and other research findings, organized by company. A number of yearly regimental lists (e.g. of sickness, discharges, deaths, desertions, POWs, etc) are also present there.

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