Booknotes: Grant Rising

New Arrival:

• Grant Rising: Mapping the Career of a Great Commander Through 1862 by James R. Knight and Hal Jesperson (Lombardy Studios, 2015).

This book is an unusual new entry in the Civil War arena in that it was supported through a successfully funded Kickstarter campaign. Grant Rising (Map Study Series CW No. 1, general editor Dana Lombardy) covers the general's early military career and it:

"features techniques that portray Civil War battles in a new way, such as shaded relief topography, giving the maps a three-dimensional appearance. Plus the use of different color tints to represent command relationships makes it easier to determine which brigades reported to which divisions and corps at a glance. Using slightly different shades of blue and red also allow for easy differentiation of many units on a single map, making the action easier to understand."

In addition to Knight's narrative there are 46 maps (mostly brigade scale), many illustrations, and several order of battle sections. Grant battle and campaign treatments encompass both the US-Mexican War and the Civil War (Belmont, Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh, Iuka, Corinth and Chickasaw Bayou).