• States at War, Volume 1: A Reference Guide for Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont in the Civil War
• States at War, Volume 2: A Reference Guide for New York in the Civil War
• States at War, Volume 3: A Reference Guide for Pennsylvania in the Civil War
• States at War, Volume 4: A Reference Guide for Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey in the Civil War
• States at War, Volume 5: A Reference Guide for Ohio in the Civil War
The description to the first volume hints at the breadth involved: "Its principal sources include the Official Records, state adjutant-general reports, legislative journals, state and federal legislation, federal and state executive speeches and proclamations, and the general and special orders issued by the military authorities of both governments. Designed and organized for easy use, this book can be read in two ways: by individual state, with each chapter offering a stand-alone skeletal history of an individual state’s war years, or across states, comparing reactions to the same event or solutions to the same problems." Also, there's a table of contents for it on the publisher's site and a rather extensive Google books preview.
The series started in the northeast and trickled down the Atlantic seaboard before dipping its toes into the Midwest. For the upcoming Volume 6, Miller is switching gears to the South with States at War, Volume 6: A Reference Guide for South Carolina and the Confederate States Chronology during the Civil War
(January 2018).I've never personally encountered these volumes anywhere. If you've used any of them at length in your research, please add your thoughts on the experience in the comments section. I would be interested in your opinion.
I have never even heard of them, and I have a pulse on this sort of thing, or at least I thought. Marketing, marketing, marketing.
ReplyDeleteYeah, probably just promoted directly to libraries.
DeleteI have used the New England and New York volumes. The amount of detail and the wide ground they cover are impressive.
ReplyDeleteWill Hickox
Thanks, Will. I was just glancing through the Acknowledgments of Vol. 1 and it looks like there were (at least at that time) only six volumes planned. So if Vol. 6, like the title implies, is the last one and does cram all the Confederate states into one volume, that would still leave many Union states unaddressed. Weird.
DeleteDrew: Thanks for bringing these to light - I was completely unaware of them. I really wish the Google "look inside" function would scrap Kindle. It's useless compared to the print book looks which feature table of contents, etc.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I can't stand the Kindle preview versions, either. Apparently, in many cases, the full versions are terrible adaptations, too. Even at this presumably mature/maturing stage of digital publishing, I still see countless 1-star reviews of graphics-heavy titles (like atlases) because they seemingly can't get the formatting right.
DeleteTry being the publisher and meeting everyone's expectations. It is a hair-pulling experience.
ReplyDelete