Booknotes: Texans at Antietam

New Arrival:
• Texans at Antietam: A Terrible Clash of Arms, September 16-17, 1862 edited by Joe Owen, Philip McBride, and Joe Allport (Fonthill Media, 2017).

Texans at Antietam is a documentary history of Hood's Brigade at Antietam. From the description: "The soldiers in Hood’s Texas Brigade who fought at Antietam on September 16- 17, 1862, described intense and harrowing experiences of the fierce battle in the days, weeks and decades after the battle. Their experiences were written in official reports, diary entries, interviews, newspaper articles, and letters to families at home. These memories provide a fascinating and descriptive account of the battle against the Union Army of the Potomac at Miller’s Cornfield, the Dunker Church and other locations at the battlefield." Comments from those that opposed the brigade from the Union side are are included in the volume.

The book is divided into chapters by unit (1st, 4th, and 5th Texas, the 18th Georgia, and the Hampton Legion infantry), with additional chapters comprising 'general and commander' correspondence and testimonials from individuals outside the brigade and from both sides. In addition to the series of documents presented therein, the unit chapters include background and organization information. The editors also added select biographical summaries to the leader correspondence chapter.

The vast document collection contained in the volume was drawn from both published and unpublished sources, and the text is annotated. Just how thorough the source search was conducted is something I can't personally speak to with any kind of authority, but Ted Alexander, who is an authority, offers effusive praise of the editors's research efforts in his introduction. Photographs and a map also grace the book's pages.

Review of Reid, ed. - "RECOLLECTIONS OF A CIVIL WAR MEDICAL CADET: Burt Green Wilder"

[Recollections of a Civil War Medical Cadet: Burt Green Wilder edited by Richard M. Reid (Kent State University Press, 2017). Hardcover, map, photos, illustrations, appendices, notes, index. 158 pp. ISBN:978-1-60635-328-8. $29.95]

The position of medical cadet was created by Congress in 1861 in response to volunteer army mass mobilization and the sudden need to treat vast numbers of sick and wounded soldiers. Directly assigned to an army surgeon, a cadet's primary purpose was to dress wounds in army general hospitals and, while in the field, serve as an ambulance attendant. The term of service was set at one year, and medical cadets were accorded officer-equivalent rank and pay level equal to that of West Point cadets. While some medical education background was required by law, the urgent need for hospital attendants combined with the predictable shortage of qualified candidates led to the acceptance of individuals with no prior medical training. One of these promising yet entirely inexperienced inductees was Bostonian college graduate Burt Green Wilder. His outstanding memoir of his time spent as a medical cadet at an army general hospital in Washington, D.C. was recently published by Kent State University Press under the title Recollections of a Civil War Medical Cadet (edited by Richard Reid^*).

In the summer of 1862, Burt Green Wilder had just completed a degree in anatomy and physiology at Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School. Faced with the decision of either joining the army or trying to make use of his scientific background in the medical service, he chose the latter and applied for a medical cadet position. Glowing faculty recommendations convinced hard-pressed authorities to waive the medical training requirement, and Wilder was duly appointed (along with his friend James Adams) medical cadet at Washington's Judiciary Square Hospital.

Wilder used his retirement years to write prolifically about many different aspects of his life and career. He started composing his cadet memoir in 1910. Wilder used his letters to then fiance Sarah Nichols as the basis of the memoir, but he didn't stop there. In order to both enhance his narrative and fill in various gaps, he incorporated wider research from a number of other sources, including friend and cadet colleague James Adams's diary. Excising all personal material, the result is a remarkably intimate and detailed account of the duties of a medical cadet serving at an army general hospital. In addition to being deeply informative, the memoir is composed in a lively and frequently charming manner that is a pleasure to read.

Helped along by his anatomical and scientific background, Wilder learned his medical functions quickly and his competence made him highly regarded by army surgeons and patients alike. Initial duties were similar to those of today's hospital nursing staff, but Wilder also proved to be very adept at administering surgical anesthetic and even conducted autopsies under physician supervision. He prepared specimens for the Army Medical Museum, and his exceptionally well-written case histories brought him to the attention of the planners of the Medical and Surgical History. Indeed, as his memoir demonstrates, Wilder had many interesting personal interactions with prominent Civil War medical figures like Dr. John Brinton and Surgeon General William Hammond.

In addition to being a highly useful historical record of the role of medical cadet in the army medical service, Wilder's memoir is an equally important contribution to the history of the Judiciary Square Hospital. Along with his personal portraits of various staff members, Wilder's remarkably detailed firsthand descriptions of the physical layout of the hospital, its patient care, and its day-to-day operation are invaluable.

Wilder's unpublished manuscript also includes a large number of interesting appendices. Some were written in defense of the operation of Judiciary Square Hospital, which came under fire later from Walt Whitman and others. Other topics in the appendix section include staff bios, supporting documents of all kinds, case studies, and other interesting ephemera from Wilder's cadet service.

In addition to assembling a continuous narrative, Wilder also extensively annotated all of the collected material contained in his memoir. These later notes are integrated into the main text but helpfully separated from the contemporary material by parentheses (and the text within italicized by Reid). Wilder's post-retirement notes offer factual correctives and much in the way of additional information. Perhaps most interesting are the commentaries on the differences between 1860s medical care and that of the early twentieth century. While expressing some bemusement at mid-18th century ignorance of antiseptic and aseptic technique, Wilder's memoir does confirm the employment of some elements of progressive care at the hospital. The younger staff, including Wilder, opposed the old guard's general use of mercury preparations, and Wilder's writing also discusses the testing of bromine solutions at Judiciary Square for wound care, noting the treatment's beneficial effect on gangrene prevention.

Editor Richard Reid contributes a fine introduction to the volume. In addition to providing background information on Wilder's life, career, and manuscript preparation, the lengthy introduction also explores the scholarly utility of Wilder's memoir in a variety of contexts. In the end, Reid makes a very strong case for the value of Wilder's manuscript. The editor also added his own annotations to the main text. These are mostly biographical in nature, but others consist of brief introductions to select appendices.

Recollections of a Civil War Medical Cadet is an important contribution to the literature of Civil War medicine on several levels. In no other book is the practical role of medical cadet explored in such a comprehensive manner. Wilder's memoir also constitutes an unusually rich record of the daily operation of a Civil War general hospital from a unique perspective. Wilder's writings additionally offer abundant confirmation of the emergence during the war of a new emphasis on innovative scientific principles, a trend that would accelerate real advances in American medical practices. This volume is highly recommended.



* - Reid has published Wilder documents before. Like many medical cadets, Wilder did not complete his full term of service, leaving Judiciary Square after ten months for a coveted post as assistant surgeon with the 55th Massachusetts. See Reid's Practicing Medicine in a Black Regiment: The Civil War Diary of Burt G. Wilder, 55th Massachusetts (UMass Press, 2010) for thorough coverage of Wilder's post-cadet Civil War career.

Petersburg to Appomattox

UNC Press's celebrated but long dormant Military Campaigns of the Civil War series was only recently revived in 2015 with the release of Cold Harbor to the Crater: The End of the Overland Campaign. With the new leadership (historian Caroline Janney has now assumed the bulk of series editor duties) came new series direction as well. After reading some of the comments online, it appears that the change toward expanding coverage in line with current trends in academic scholarship wasn't uniformly popular among those readers that have been with the series from the beginning.

Indeed, the next volume, Petersburg to Appomattox: The End of the War in Virginia (April 2018), timed roughly to coincide with the release of the first book in A. Wilson Greene's Petersburg trilogy, also "blends military, social, cultural, and political history to reassess the ways in which the war ended and examines anew the meanings attached to one of the Civil War's most significant sites, Appomattox." The list of essay contributors includes Peter S. Carmichael, William W. Bergen, Susannah J. Ural, Wayne Wei-Siang Hsieh, William C. Davis, Keith Bohannon, Caroline E. Janney, Stephen Cushman, and Elizabeth Varon.

A Campaign of Giants

The 1864-65 Richmond-Petersburg Campaign has received a great deal of attention of late, from updated reissues of out-of-print titles to new original manuscripts. Among works in progress, easily the most anticipated project is A. Wilson Greene's three-volume extravaganza, and it's now becoming clearer when the first installment will become available. A Campaign of Giants - The Battle for Petersburg, Volume 1: From the Crossing of the James to the Crater is currently set for a June 2018 release. Publisher UNC Press is typically reliable on dates, even those this far out into the future. How close volumes 2 and 3 will follow, I have no idea.

Booknotes: Resisting Sherman

New Arrival:
• Resisting Sherman: A Confederate Surgeon's Journal and the Civil War in the Carolinas, 1865 edited by Thomas Heard Robertson, Jr. (Savas Beatie, 2017 Paper edition).

Newly released in paperback format, the hardcover first edition of this book was originally published in 2015. The journal writer of Resisting Sherman, Confederate surgeon Francis Marion Robertson, "fled Charleston with the Confederate garrison in 1865 in an effort to stay ahead of General Sherman’s Federal army as it marched north from Savannah."

From the description: "Dr. Robertson, a West Pointer, physician, professor, politician, patrician, and Presbyterian, with five sons in the Confederate army, kept a daily journal for the final three months of the Civil War while traveling more than 900 miles through four states. His account looks critically at the decisions of generals from a middle ranking officer’s viewpoint, describes army movements from a ground level perspective, and places the military campaign within the everyday events of average citizens suffering under the boot of war."

More: "Editor and descendant Thomas Robertson followed in his ancestor’s footsteps, conducting exhaustive research to identify the people, route, and places mentioned in the journal. Sidebars on a wide variety of related issues include coverage of politics and the Battle of Averasboro, where one of the surgeon’s sons was shot. An extensive introduction covers the military situation in and around Charleston that led to the evacuation described so vividly by Surgeon Robertson, and an epilogue summarizes what happened to the diary characters after the war."

Route information pertaining to Dr. Robertson's journey north is detailed in the footnotes in bold print. As is common practice with this particular publisher, the volume also contains many photographs, maps, and other illustrations.

Review of Alford, ed. - "UTAH AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR: The Written Record"

[Utah and the American Civil War: The Written Record edited by Kenneth L. Alford (Arthur H. Clark, 2017). Cloth, map, notes, appendices, bibliography, index. 864 pp. ISBN:978-0-87062-441-4. $60]

When it comes to Civil War-era Utah Territory, undoubtedly the event foremost in the minds of readers is the 1857-58 Utah (or Mormon) War, a conflict that also reinforces the popular view today of the incompetency of the Buchanan administration. However, a handful of studies have specifically examined the 1861-65 years in Utah in a fruitful manner and are deserving of wider recognition. The one that stands out most as the classic scholarly account is E.B. Long's The Saints and the Union (1981). Another noteworthy title is the essay anthology Civil War Saints, edited by Kenneth Alford, from 2013. The most recent full-length historical study, John Gary Maxwell's The Civil War Years in Utah, offers perhaps the most critical assessment of Utah's wartime loyalty to the U.S.^*

Kenneth Alford's latest project is a massive documentary history titled Utah and the American Civil War: The Written Record. Alford begins with an event timeline, one helpfully arranged in two parallel columns so that readers can readily match in time Utah news with political and military happenings elsewhere in the country. The timeline takes the long view, starting with the outbreak of the U.S.-Mexican War in 1846 and concluding in 1870 with the ratification of the 15th Amendment.

Incorporating current scholarship, the next chapter is devoted to an introductory narrative history of the Civil War years in Utah. The text captures well the main themes of Utah's Civil War experience, explaining its geographical significance astride continental lines of communication, the antagonism between church officials on one side and federal appointees and the army on the other, tribal conflicts, and territorial frustrations over the continual reshaping of Utah's borders and consistent congressional denial of its bid for statehood. Alford's account of Utah's relationship with the U.S. during the Civil War is much more church-friendly (for lack of a better word) than Maxwell's, for instance. While Maxwell believes that the LDS leadership demonstrated clear pro-Confederate sympathies, Alford adamantly maintains that no such evidence exists to support such a broad accusation and confidently asserts that Utah was heavily invested in Union victory. A healthy debate of their opposing views would make for interesting reading.

The majority of the text (Chapter 4's nearly 500 pages) is comprised of fully transcribed Official Records documents pertaining to Utah. Most can be found in O.R. Series 1 and are concentrated in Volumes 48 and 50, with a relative handful taken from Series 2 and 3. The total record count is 504, and the book adopts its own convenient numbering system (OR-1 through OR-504) for use of the volume's cross-referencing features and tools. As one would expect, the O.R. documents included in the book consist of orders, reports, post returns, organizational and command assignments, and correspondence of all kinds. In the book, each record is listed in chronological order and all are properly cited. Clarifying editor's notes also occasionally appear.

The next largest section of the book (Chapter 5) is devoted to records of types similar to those above but not found in the O.R. Instead these documents reside in the National Archives, Utah state archives, newspaper archives, and various published works. There are 155 of these included in the book, organized as UT-1 through UT-155. Their "(g)eneral themes include security on the Overland Trail, Utah's relationship to the rest of the nation, military affairs at Camp Douglas [the army post established by California volunteer colonel Patrick E. Connor and situated a short distance outside Salt Lake City] or within the Department or District of Utah, and Indian relations [many documents address the controversial Bear River battle and alleged massacre]." As many of the records in this chapter are handwritten documents, three sets of eyes were employed to ensure the transcriptions were accurate as possible.

Numerous appendices contribute even more useful features to the volume. The following is a brief rundown of all of them. Appendix A is a glossary of nineteenth-century terms and abbreviations. The Chronological Records List contained in Appendix B takes the OR-# and UT-# series of records and arranges them in four vertical columns organized by date. Appendix C addresses documents contained in the O.R. Supplement (100 volumes) published by Broadfoot, which have not been digitized yet. Presumably due to copyright concerns, only citations are present here (with some fair use sampling). Appendix D contains more O.R. records that are Utah-related but not found using the same keyword searches used in Chapter 4. The federally legislated border adjustments to Utah Territory, specifically the four that occurred during the war in the years 1861-62, are discussed in Appendix E, and F lists and describes Utah's assignments to various military departments, divisions, and districts. Appendix G provides a list of military units assigned to Utah Territory or Overland Trail patrol during the Civil War, and, finally, Appendix H lists OR-# and UT-# by sender and receiver name.

The bibliography shows the extensive range of primary and secondary research that went into the volume's creation by Alford and his team of assistants. The index also appears to be of the more helpful variety (i.e. wide topical coverage and many subheadings). With its single-volume assemblage of a mountain of diverse source material (some of it never before published), Utah and the American Civil War will be an invaluable reference tool for future researchers to use.



* - Links to Civil War Utah titles referenced in the first paragraph above: The Saints and the Union: Utah Territory during the Civil War by E.B. Long (Illinois, 1981), Civil War Saints by Kenneth L. Alford (BYU, 2013), and The Civil War Years in Utah: The Kingdom of God and the Territory That Did Not Fight by John Gary Maxwell (Oklahoma, 2016).

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Booknotes: We Ride a Whirlwind

New Arrival:
• We Ride a Whirlwind: Sherman and Johnston at Bennett Place by Eric J. Wittenberg (Fox Run Pub, 2017).

Eric Wittenberg has often expressed his deep interest in the 1865 campaign in North Carolina, and, indeed, one of his many books examines the Battle of Monroe's Crossroads. Like everyone else who has read them, he also is a great admirer of Michael Bradley's pair of books on the Bentonville battle and the Confederate surrender at Bennett Place. So why another book about Bennett Place? In the preface, Wittenberg explains that his book is primarily concerned with the surrender negotiations at the site and their historical significance, events that he feels are deserving of standalone treatment.

Two chapters in We Ride a Whirlwind are devoted to background history taking the narrative up to the first meeting between Sherman and Johnston. From the description: "This set the stage for the dramatic events that occurred at James Bennett's farm in modern-day Durham. In three remarkable meetings, Sherman and Johnston tried to not only set the terms for the surrender of the 91,000 Confederate troops east of the Mississippi River, but to make peace, once and for all. The new administration of President Andrew Johnson, eager for vengeance for the assassination of Lincoln, rejected the terms negotiated by Sherman and Johnston, excoriated Sherman in the press, and forced him to threaten Johnston with the renewal of hostilities if he did not surrender upon the same terms offered to Lee at Appomattox. Johnston wisely accepted those terms, leading to the surrender of his command and those other Confederates east of the Mississippi. This is the story of those events, told in detail, and often in the words of the participants themselves."

The three meetings referenced above are examined in detail in the book along with the "political machinations—both Northern and Southern—that jeopardized the general's work." The volume's epilogue "discusses the memory of those events and gives a brief history of the state park at Bennett Place." Four appendices offer additional documentation and discussion.

Booknotes: Military Trains and Railways

New Arrivals:
• Military Trains and Railways: An Illustrated History by Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage (McFarland, 2017)

From the description: "Featuring 256 drawings, this history of military trains and railways from 1853 through 1953 describes how the railroad transformed the nature of warfare. Transport and logistics are discussed for armored trains, rail-borne artillery and armored combat vehicles, medical evacuation trains and draisines (light auxiliary vehicles such as handcars). 

Continuing on: The railroad's role in establishing European colonial empires in Asia and Africa is examined. Conflicts covered include the Boer Wars, the American Civil War, the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Russo-Turkish War, World War I, the Finnish Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, World War II and the French Indochina War."

Netherlands historian, writer and illustrator Lepage supplements his text with some really nice drawings of various locomotives and all manner of other rail-borne guns and vehicles of the types mentioned above. There are also a few maps as well as some drawings of supporting structures like blockhouses. As you can see, the book is heavily weighted toward twentieth century conflicts, but there are a dozen or so pages of American Civil War content.

Review of Gaines - "THE CONFEDERATE CHEROKEES: John Drew's Regiment of Mounted Rifles, Updated Edition"

[The Confederate Cherokees: John Drew's Regiment of Mounted Rifles, Updated Edition by W. Craig Gaines (Louisiana State University Press, 2017). Softcover, 2 maps, photos, illustrations, notes, appendices, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:135/188. ISBN:978-0-8071-6662-8. $24.95]

Back in 1989, the publication of W. Craig Gaines's The Confederate Cherokees was a groundbreaking event. It was the first unit study, scholarly or otherwise, of Colonel John Drew's First Regiment of Cherokee Mounted Rifles to appear anywhere in the Civil War literature. Gaines's book also did an excellent job situating the reluctant Cherokee soldiers of the regiment within the larger context of a deeply divided Cherokee society riven by violence stemming all the way back to their traumatic removal to Indian Territory in the 1830s and 1840s. Knowledge of this tortured background history is essential to understanding why the members of the regiment deserted nearly en masse to the Union side after less than a year in Confederate service. During the nearly thirty years that have passed since original publication of the study, much in the way of new scholarship on the topic of American Indian participation in the Civil War has emerged, and LSU Press has now reissued Gaines's classic unit history under the title The Confederate Cherokees: John Drew's Regiment of Mounted Rifles, Updated Edition.

One thing that needs to be stated upfront is that the central narrative of the original manuscript remains untouched in the "updated" volume. The author's brief preface to the 2017 edition is the only new material added. While a golden opportunity to incorporate into the 2017 edition some of the relevant new scholarship hinted at in the preface was missed, the volume nevertheless retains its original value. No other study of Drew's Regiment has emerged since 1989, and Gaines's book remains the standard treatment.

Gaines sets the stage for Cherokee participation in the American Civil War by providing a good overview of the perilous state of Cherokee society in 1861, when they were confronted with the terrible realization that neutrality was not going to be tolerated by leaders in Washington or Richmond. When, in the beginning of the 1830s, the Cherokee were being forced to exchange their vast ancestral lands east of the Mississippi for new ones in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), the strongest resistance was led by principal chief John Ross. Those who reluctantly accepted the removal treaty, believing its terms to be the best the Cherokee were likely to get and realizing that sustained opposition would only make things worse, came to be identified as the Treaty (or "Ridge") Party, though by 1861 Major Ridge was long dead by assassination and his followers were now led by pro-Confederate Stand Watie. The long-standing blood feud between the Ross and Ridge factions would color all aspects of the Cherokee Civil War experience. It was a bitter internal conflict that Gaines rightly characterizes in the book as a civil war within the Civil War.

The Confederate Cherokees does a fine job of documenting the organization of the mounted rifles regiment. As Gaines demonstrates, the members of the First Regiment were only lukewarm Confederates from the beginning. Most of the common soldiers and lower ranking officers of the First were Keetoowah Society supporters, pro-Union at heart and generally opposed to fighting fellow Indians. This left only the highest ranking officers of the regiment and a tiny minority of the enlisted soldiers truly loyal to the alliance treaty John Ross reluctantly signed with Confederate officials. Clearly the regiment was going to be trouble for Confederate military authorities.

Recounting the battles of Round Mountain, Chusto-Talasah/Caving Banks, and Chustenahlah, Gaines describes in the book the unit's participation in the 1861 military campaign directed against Creek chief Opothleyahola and his already large and expanding following of pro-Union Indian allies. When faced with the prospect of fighting Union Indians at Caving Banks, the majority of Drew's Regiment deserted and soon switched sides. Remnants of the original regiment would fight in Arkansas at the Battle of Pea Ridge, where a very public post-battle row ensued after Confederate Indians (including Cherokees) were accused of scalping and mutilating Union corpses.

Confederate support of its treaty obligations to the Cherokee and other allied tribes of Indian Territory dwindled after the Pea Ridge defeat, when already scarce Trans-Mississippi military resources were instead redirected east across the Mississippi. Ross Party dissatisfaction grew, and two Union expeditions into Indian Territory in early and late 1862 solidified the faction's switch of allegiance back into the Union fold. Most of the former officers and men of Drew's Regiment joined the Indian Home Guard regiments then forming in Kansas, and the book also usefully summarizes the organization and Civil War operations of those unique units as they traveled and fought back and forth within the borderlands of Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Indian Territory.

In the book, Gaines also hints at the irregular fighting that devastated Cherokee lands during the war. Similar to what occurred in large parts of Missouri, Cherokee civilian property and lives were targeted throughout the war by supporters of both tribal factions, and the social order so carefully reconstructed after removal broke down almost completely in Indian Territory. This understudied aspect of the war contributed significantly to the precipitous decline in Cherokee numbers that occurred between 1861 and 1865, a loss figure that some historians estimate at one-third of the prewar population.

While the new edition would have benefited from a critical reexamination of the original text, a process to truly update the narrative and fix the kind of scattered errors and dated interpretations that exist in every three-decade-old historical study, The Confederate Cherokees remains an original and indispensable contribution to the Civil War literature. Hopefully, its timely reissue will ignite a spark within a new generation of readers that raises awareness of and interest in the Cherokee Civil War experience.

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The Decision Was Always My Own

When it comes to being prolific, one Civil War historian who can give Earl Hess a decent run for his money is Timothy Smith. In addition to his peerless 1862 western theater trilogy, Smith has recently written, among other things, a number of books on battlefields and battlefield preservation.

Before all this, though, he made his first splash with an excellent study of the Battle of Champion Hill. Smith's next book returns to that important campaign, but we won't see The Decision Was Always My Own: Ulysses S. Grant and the Vicksburg Campaign until next summer. Even the book page at publisher SIU Press doesn't have a description up yet, so we can only guess at its focus and range at this early point in time. Given the author's track record when it comes to military history, I think I can safely reserve a firm place for Decision on next year's reading list.

Booknotes: Civil War Logistics

New Arrival:
• Civil War Logistics: A Study of Military Transportation by Earl J. Hess (LSU Press, 2017).

I post a review of an Earl Hess book and within days his next one arrives in the mail. That's a pattern I can live with. His latest book Civil War Logistics analyzes the various means of military transportation used during the war. Early chapters cover the history of military logistics and introduce the quartermaster departments of the Union and Confederate armies. Subsequent chapters look at the rail, river, and littoral transportation networks, along with the armies's use of wagons, pack trains, and foot power. Another chapter is devoted to large-scale troop transfers. The final sections examine the targeting by both sides of enemy steamships, coastal vessels, railroads, and wagon trains, as well as their means of defense.

From the description: "Civil War Logistics offers the first comprehensive analysis of this vital process. Utilizing an enormous array of reports, dispatches, and personal accounts by quartermasters involved in transporting war materials, Hess reveals how each conveyance system operated as well as the degree to which both armies accomplished their logistical goals."

More: "According to Hess, Union logistical efforts proved far more successful than Confederate attempts to move and supply its fighting forces, due mainly to the North’s superior administrative management and willingness to seize transportation resources when needed. As the war went on, the Union’s protean system grew in complexity, size, and efficiency, while that of the Confederates steadily declined in size and effectiveness until it hardly met the needs of its army. Indeed, Hess concludes that in its use of all types of military transportation, the Federal government far surpassed its opponent and thus laid the foundation for Union victory in the Civil War."

Of course, that's a general conclusion that won't surprise anyone. I don't know yet if Hess will argue in the book that logistical superiority was the single-most important factor in Union military victory, giving it a primacy similar to what Thomas Army recently claimed for Union engineering technology and prowess, but both certainly went hand in hand.

Review of Hess - "THE BATTLE OF PEACH TREE CREEK: Hood's First Effort to Save Atlanta"

[The Battle of Peach Tree Creek: Hood's First Effort to Save Atlanta by Earl J. Hess (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). Hardcover, 20 maps, photos, appendix, notes, bibliography index. Pages main/total:259/344. ISBN:978-1-4696-3419-7. $37.50]


The 1864 Atlanta Campaign literature's change in status from one of profound scholarly neglect to dramatic expansion is one of the more remarkable recent developments in Civil War military historiography. For a long time, the best account of the July 20, 1864 Battle of Peach Tree Creek was contained in the relevant section(s) of Albert Castel's first-class Atlanta Campaign study Decision in the West (1992). This changed only recently with the publication of a pair of very useful studies from Robert Jenkins. Appearing in reverse chronological order, his To the Gates of Atlanta: From Kennesaw Mountain to Peach Tree Creek, 1-19 July 1864 (2015) detailed the Union crossing of the Chattahoochee River and the sweeping blue advance south and east toward Atlanta, while the first major clash before Atlanta itself received full treatment for the first time with 2014's The Battle of Peach Tree Creek: Hood's First Sortie, July 20, 1864^*.

Now we have a new examination of the topic in Earl Hess's The Battle of Peach Tree Creek: Hood's First Effort to Save Atlanta. While obviously sharing much common ground with Jenkins in terms of content along with some similar interpretations, Hess's book offers major improvements in organization, presentation, and analysis.

As was the case with Jenkins's two volumes, events preceding the Peach Tree Creek battle receive proper attention in Hess's study. The Union crossing of the Chattahoochee during the second week of July and the advance from the bridgeheads to Peach Tree Creek between July 17 and July 19 were major events in the campaign (if nothing else, they led to the removal of Confederate Army of Tennessee commander Joseph E. Johnston and the appointment of John Bell Hood to the top post), and these moments are meticulously described in The Battle of Peach Tree Creek. The federal movements were fairly cautious all-around but were well managed, and the narrative demonstrates Sherman's skillful use of the road network north of Peach Tree Creek. During this time, the federal commander ably moved his army group forward in stages, seizing key intersections in orderly fashion and leaving few openings for Confederate ripostes. For the opposing side, the book's coverage of the actions and reactions of the Confederate cavalry screen is light by comparison (see notes below).

It would be difficult to argue that the battle was managed particularly well by either side. Though touchy, rank-conscious Joseph Hooker performed well during the campaign as a whole in his uncomfortable subordinate role (and many historians praise his conduct as a corps commander in 1864), he was oddly lethargic at Peach Tree Creek when alacrity was needed. Not his usual bold self, Hooker only lazily advanced across the creek and failed to seek out and connect with both flanks in a timely manner, leaving his own command and others more vulnerable to attack than they should have been on the afternoon of July 20.

Much has been made of the wide gap that existed between Thomas and the rest of the army group to the east and how exploiting it could have inflicted serious damage to Sherman's command. Hess joins those that have chastised the Confederate high command for making no attempt to explore the vulnerabilities of the gap, criticizing in particular General Cheatham's failure to at least advance a line of skirmishers into the void. The problem with this view is that the gap itself was crisscrossed by streams—Clear Creek on the west, Peach Tree Creek to the north, and South Fork of Peach Three Creek to the east—with the terrain in between thickly wooded and covered in underbrush. Any force sent there would have had great difficulty in maintaining order and alignment, and the experience of Bate's division on the 20th seems to argue against the idea of launching any kind of lightning stroke through that sector. While duly noting the lost opportunities at Peach Tree Creek, Hess does favorably acknowledge the alternative Confederate strategy of holding the Peach Tree Creek line with a smaller force and launching the balance of the Army of Tennessee against the Army of the Ohio and the open flank of the Army of the Tennessee (the move that Sherman expected).

Hood's order to shift the army to the right before initiating the advance has been criticized for badly throwing off the Peach Tree Creek timetable and making things much more difficult for the attackers, but Hess notes, as others have before him, that the Union forces were already in position by the originally planned start time (1 p.m.) and the Union dispositions weren't much different by the time the attack was launched between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.. It would have been better to attack even earlier during the crossing itself, but that was never part of the plan.

Hess is critical of Hood's en echelon attack plan, citing how it gave the Union defenders the opportunity to deal with each enemy division in turn. However, echelon assaults were also designed to aid in the coordination of attacks conducted over battlegrounds with poor lateral visibility/communications (like at Peach Creek Creek) and, when well managed, they also had the ability to suck in enemy reserves so that each successive attack had an improved chance of success. Given this, one might argue that the echelon attack at Peach Tree Creek might have unfolded better left to right rather than right to left, leaving Hardee's battering ram as the final decisive blow rather than the first punch. It might also have been the better way to achieve the goal of dislodging and pushing the Union defenders into the tangled confluence of the Chattahoochee-Peach Tree Creek triangle, where the Cumberland army might theoretically have been crushed. Either way, Hess's confident assertion that a timed general attack would have resulted in a better coordinated battle (the Civil War record on those isn't exactly sterling, either) is not entirely convincing. Robert Jenkins's more powerful criticism of the echelon attack centers around its execution. The confusion engendered by the more extreme than planned pre-battle shift to the right, which opened gaps in the line which were unfilled by skirmishers and exacerbated by terrain obstacles, meant that all the attacking divisions landed on unscouted territory and newly separated neighboring units lacked the flank connections necessary to know when to step off their attacks.

Whichever plan was best, the reality was that William J. Hardee's army corps provided the battle's initial blow. Adding to Hardee's failures during what Hess considers the general's worst battlefield moment of the war was a signal lack of artillery support during the fight, though no discussion of favorable candidates for firing platforms and fields of fire is offered in the book. The question of whether the terrain would even have allowed a few supporting batteries, let alone massed artillery, is not answered.

An unintended consequence of the echelon attack is the aid it provides to future historians writing battle studies in chronological sequence. Whereas Hardee outnumbered his foes as much as 5-to-1 yet only feebly attacked, Stewart's Corps encountered the reverse odds in some instances and pressed the attack vigorously. In the battle sector west of Hardee, it was Confederate brigades vs. Union divisions [Featherston vs. Ward, Scott vs. Geary, O'Neal vs. Williams, and Reynold vs. McCook] and the results were predictable, though Scott's Brigade nearly broke through Geary's Division. Throughout the book, Hess draws upon his earlier study of small-unit tactics in the Civil War, and this volume perhaps focuses on the deployment and battlefield ramifications of the various divisional, brigade, and regimental tactical formations more directly than any of the author's earlier battle studies.

Late in the day, two badly understrength brigades from French's Division advanced and deployed on Reynold's left but did not attack. The only artillery support the Confederates were able to deploy effectively was the battalion of Major William Preston, which did some execution. In general, the Confederates did not have the unit density left of Hardee to take advantage of the yawning gaps in Hooker's indifferently positioned corps, and the rebels were uniformly repulsed by a combination of superior numbers, oblique artillery fire from across neighboring ravines, broken terrain, and terrible heat. Given how little Hood accomplished at Peach Tree Creek, it would be difficult to speculate how much better things might have gone had certain elements (e.g. Hardee's willingness to press the attack) transpired differently.

While Hardee and Stewart fought Twentieth Corps and parts of Fourth and Fourteen Corps on July 20 at Peach Tree Creek, the armies of Schofield and McPherson to the east continued their own advance toward Atlanta. On the Union right, the divisions of Stanley and Wood eventually linked up with the Army of the Ohio, but McPherson, in typical fashion, advanced at a snail's pace while only opposed by Wheeler's Confederate cavalry. McPherson's conduct of the movement from Decatur disappointed Sherman, but it did end any chance of a resumption of the fighting at Peach Tree Creek when Patrick Cleburne's reserve division was ordered east to shore up Hood's threatened right flank.

The battle ends with much the book's narrative remaining. Hess covers the Confederate withdrawal to the inner line of fortifications surrounding Atlanta, and he also recounts at some length the methodical federal advance that finally reunited all parts of Sherman's army group and partially invested Atlanta along its north and east faces. Delving into a multitude of individual cases, the book devotes extensive coverage to the plight of the wounded. Tragically, as no major battle was expected, Union medical services were located far to the rear, hampering rapid recovery and treatment of the wounded. Abandoned by their retreating comrades, Confederate casualties fared even worse.

Hess finds little gray area among the opposing reactions to the battle. Used to victory already, Union participants were uniformly ebullient, while Confederates were correspondingly despondent. Lack of southern elan wasn't limited to Hardee's Corps, as the author notes that up to one-third of Featherston's already grossly outnumbered brigade straggled during the battle. While personal disappointment at being passed over for army command may have colored Hardee's weak performance, Hess, as others have done, also attributes Confederate failure to the morale effects of constant retreat along with shock and anger over the replacement of the popular Joe Johnston. Hess might also have considered as contributing factors the lingering emptiness of the previous year's Chickamauga "victory" and the almost inexplicable scale of the Chattanooga rout (to say nothing about their massive casualties).

Hess clearly appreciates the almost impossible situation that Hood was placed in so late in the game, but he also believes that Hood was the wrong person for the job (though other candidates are not raised).  Hood needed weeks not days to acclimate to army command, and the leadership disruption in the wake of Johnston's ouster only made an immediate offensive even more difficult to pull off.  Even so, it's hard to blame Hood personally too much for being ill-informed about the true positions of Sherman's armies or the botched shift to the right that preceded the July 20 battle. Perhaps Hess's most incisive criticism of Hood's attack plan revolves around the impossibly narrow window of opportunity that existed for hitting the Army of the Cumberland when it would be at its most vulnerable (after most of Thomas's army had crossed Peach Tree Creek but before its divisions had a chance to fortify). Hood presumed the ability to predict a precise moment of opportunity without the means of verifying it by advancing his own skirmish line (he left the front to the Union skirmishers) and was, predictably, proved wrong. It is hard not to agree with Hess that Hood's best move would have been to cancel the July 20 attack altogether and instead prepare a nasty surprise for McPherson on the right (which was what the army essentially ended up doing on July 22, but with less preparation and exhausting haste).

The only major element of the study that elicits significant disappointment is the cartography. The hand-drawn quality tactical maps are numerous but profoundly spartan, especially in their depiction of underlying terrain. Though a viable mental picture of the battlefield can be drawn from the excellent narrative, visual reinforcement should have been made a higher priority. The operational-scale maps are slightly better.

Adding to his two previous battle studies of similar authority and scale on Kennesaw Mountain and Ezra Church, Earl Hess has now contributed three invaluable scholarly volumes to the previously neglected but now fast-growing Atlanta Campaign bookshelf. The best overall treatment of the subject, Earl Hess's The Battle of Peach Tree Creek should be regarded as the new standard history of John Bell Hood's first battle as defender of Atlanta.

✯ ✯ ✯

* - Some brief additional notes comparing the Jenkins (2 vols) and Hess treatments of Peach Tree Creek:

Both authors cover roughly the same ground. With an entire book devoted to the period between the Chattahoochee Crossing and the Peach Tree Creek battle, Jenkins's narrative follows fully the actions of Wheeler's cavalry during this period, events largely absent from Hess's account. Jenkins also deals with the PTC crossings at greater length, especially the Moore's Mill fight between Reynold's Arkansas brigade and Jefferson Davis's Union division.

Jenkins's PTC study is more detailed on a granular level, but the manuscript is very rough and the decision to incorporate a unit history of the author's ancestor's regiment further fragments an already unpolished narrative. Hess's book is demonstrably better organized, has superior operational clarity, and its tactical details are more than sufficient. His analysis throughout is also deeper and addresses a wider range of topics.

Both authors are highly critical of Hardee, and their descriptive accounts of the attacks conducted by Hardee and Stewart (as well as the reasons behind their failure) are portrayed in a similar light.

Both books describe the ground on both sides of the Peach Creek Creek battlefield well. However, the maps in the Jenkins book are much more artfully formed and better detailed overall.

Click here to view more CWBA reviews of UNC Press titles

Phantoms of the South Fork

At least for the eastern theater, John Singleton Mosby is the dominant figure when it comes to discussion of small Confederate partisan groups that launched repeated hit-and-run raids behind Union lines and fairly haunted enemy occupying forces for long periods of time by their general nuisance making. Numerous books, articles, novels, movies, games, and a 1950s television show have recounted the legends and exploits of the man himself and his 43rd Battalion, Virginia Cavalry. But there were certainly other partisan leaders and units of considerable import operating in Virginia during the war. One of the better known units was led by Captain John Hanson "Hanse" McNeill and came to be known as McNeill's Rangers.

Between September 1862 and the end of the war, McNeill's Rangers continually disrupted the B&O Railroad and hit isolated Union garrisons and small patrols all over the rugged hills of the Upper Potomac. Though McNeill himself died from wounds in November 1864, his men carried on, and the Rangers (now led by McNeill's son, Jesse) would carry out their most famous exploit in the waning moments of the war. On one late February morning in 1865, they stole into Cumberland, Maryland under the predawn cover of darkness, captured generals George Crook and Benjamin Kelley, and escaped to safety with their high-ranking prizes.

Next month, Kent State University Press will release Steve French's Phantoms of the South Fork: Captain McNeill and His Rangers, the first full book-length treatment of McNeill's Rangers to appear since H.E. Howard published Roger Delauter's McNeill's Rangers back in 1986 (at least I don't know of any others in between). I've never read it, or any of Delauter's other Howard series contributions, so I cannot comment on their quality. Getting back to French's upcoming book, according to the publisher "Phantoms of the South Fork is the thrilling result of Steve French’s carefully researched study of primary source material, including diaries, memoirs, letters, and period newspaper articles. Additionally, he traveled throughout West Virginia, western Maryland, southern Pennsylvania, and the Shenandoah Valley following the trail of Captain McNeill and his “Phantoms of the South Fork.”" I hope to get a copy of it and review it on the site.

Booknotes: The Battle of Peach Tree Creek

New Arrival:
• The Battle of Peach Tree Creek: Hood's First Effort to Save Atlanta by Earl J. Hess
 (UNC Press, 2017).

Nice cover art, too.

I came back from vacation and there was only one lonely book in the mail pile, Earl Hess's The Battle of Peach Tree Creek. In terms of numbers and variety of new releases actually sent my way, this summer has been an exceptionally dreary one. Things are looking up a bit for the fall and winter, though, as there is a good-sized stream of promising titles in the offing...until, of course, many miss their dates and get pushed on down the line into next year.

From the description: "Offering new and definitive interpretations of the battle's place within the Atlanta campaign, Earl J. Hess describes how several Confederate regiments and brigades made a pretense of advancing but then stopped partway to the objective and took cover for the rest of the afternoon on July 20. Hess shows that morale played an unusually important role in determining the outcome at Peach Tree Creek--a soured mood among the Confederates and overwhelming confidence among the Federals spelled disaster for one side and victory for the other."

I actually read this one several months ago and sketched out a review back then. I typically don't read ARCs and never review solely from them, but the ones from UNC Press are essentially the release version minus an index. I plan on posting the final version of the review next week. I'll just need a little while to check my notes to see which concerns were addressed, if any. Included with the review will be brief commentary comparing Hess's book with the earlier one by Robert Jenkins, The Battle of Peach Tree Creek: Hood's First Sortie, July 20, 1864 (2014).

Author Q & A: Douglas C. McChristian on "Regular Army O!"

I am joined by retired NPS historian Doug McChristian to discuss his most recent book Regular Army O!: Soldiering on the Western Frontier, 1865-1891, which was published earlier this year by University of Oklahoma Press. An exhaustive study based heavily on the diaries, letters, and memoirs of enlisted men, the book offers readers the most complete portrait to date of what life was like in the post-Civil War frontier army.

From his author bio, McChristian "is a retired research historian for the National Park Service and a former National Park Service field historian at Fort Davis and Fort Laramie National Historic Sites and at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument." His earlier books include: An Army of Marksmen: The Development of United States Army Marksmanship in the 19th Century (1981), The U.S. Army in the West, 1870–1880: Uniforms, Weapons, and Equipment (1995), Uniforms, Arms, and Equipment: The U.S. Army on the Western Frontier 1880-1892 (2 Vols, 2007), Fort Bowie, Arizona: Combat Post of the Southwest, 1858–1894 (2005) and Fort Laramie: Military Bastion of the High Plains (2009).

DW: Your new book Regular Army O! has been lauded by other experts as the new standard in portrayal of post-Civil War western frontier army life. What are some of the earlier works that influenced you most?

Doug McChristian

DCM: Two early works on the subject were Fairfax Downey’s Indian Fighting Army and S. E. Whitman’s The Troopers, both popular histories. Undoubtedly the book that had the greatest impact on me was Don Rickey Jr.’s Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay. I first read it during college days and was hooked on the subject. Not only was Rickey’s study a scholarly work, it relied on personal interviews, letters, and diaries of Indian Wars veterans. During my career with the National Park Service it became the bible for those of us stationed at frontier military sites. In the glory days of living history I coordinated “camps of instruction” for field interpreters using Forty Miles as our primary guide. Don served as a guest speaker and through those associations we developed a close friendship that lasted until his passing in 2000. The title of my new book, incidentally, is not coincidental. The title of his groundbreaking work was borrowed from an 1874 Harrington & Hart ballad. I elected to use the following line of the song as my subtle tribute to Don, “Forty miles a day on beans and hay, in the regular army O’”.

Other influential works to which I referred repeatedly over the years were Robert M. Utley’s Frontier Regulars, the standard overview of the army and the western Indian campaigns. Actually there were a number of other titles, such as Fowler, The United States Soldier Between Two Wars, Bill Leckie’s landmark study The Buffalo Soldiers, and Knight, Life and Manners in the Frontier Army. Of course, I eagerly devoured the many first-hand accounts that saw print after Rickey brought attention to their value and other historians began ferreting them out of archives and family possession.


DW: What gaps in the existing literature did you attempt to fill through your own work?

DCM: My aim was to build upon Rickey’s model by utilizing the greatly increased number of first-hand soldier accounts that have surfaced in public and private collections since Forty Miles was first published in 1963. Whereas Rickey relied heavily on the experiences of living veterans who had served in the late 1880s and early 1890s, I wanted to flesh out the subject by using more accounts from the rank and file during the late 1860s and 1870s. Many of those simply were not available when Rickey did his research.

Another of my purposes was to investigate how the regulars felt about various things—their motivation for enlisting, how their friends and family reacted to their enlistment, their training and military service in general, how they viewed Indians, and other factors. And I intentionally focused more attention on the black soldiers of the four segregated regiments. I also sought to provide greater detail about the army of that time, how it was organized and how it functioned with relation to the enlisted soldier.


DW: In your mind, what remains the greatest popular misconception about the frontier Regular Army? (I believe I read somewhere that the widely-held view that the ranks were disproportionately filled with recent immigrants is largely inaccurate.)

DCM: That’s an easy one to answer. Actually, the ranks were filled to a great degree by immigrants, especially during the late ‘60s and ‘70s. That condition existed on a descending scale through the end of the Indian Wars era. In my view, however, the most prevalent misconception among the general populace today is that the regulars were a bunch of ill-disciplined racist brutes out for nothing more than killing Indian women and children. This impression is just as off the mark as the hero—cavalry to the rescue—image portrayed in movies prior to the 1960s. The nation’s experience in Viet Nam changed that. The war was unpopular stateside, to say the least, and the negativity generated among the nation’s youth became manifested in outright hatred of the military, the police, and anything else that represented authority and the so-called establishment. That attitude was widely reflected in motion pictures and television wherein good became bad, and bad became good. Suddenly, Hollywood recast the Indian Wars army in a negative light for an entire generation of Americans. I have tried to provide a more realistic, balanced view of the frontier regulars.


DW: Your book discusses at great length the many challenges (ex. depression, disease, suicide, alcoholism, and more) of isolated army service in the West. Over the two and a half decade period examined in your book, did the army make any kind of concerted effort to counter these banes of the service?

DCM: I wouldn’t characterize it as a concerted effort, certainly not a comprehensive one. Neither do I subscribe to the claim some have made that the era was the army’s a dark age. I have attempted to convey that as an underlying theme throughout the book. Rather than organizing the text in chronological sequence cover-to-cover, I crafted most of the chapters to address the respective topics chronologically to demonstrate how conditions improved for the enlisted man. For instance, educational opportunities and potential advancement to commissioned rank were unknown in the early post-Civil War years. By about 1880 post schools had gained official sanction and curricula included subjects such as U.S. history (especially valuable to those recent immigrants) in addition to the usual basics. The army also made provision in its regulations whereby ambitious enlisted men could undergo written examination to become second lieutenants and further pursue a military career, rather than face a dead end in the ranks.

In addition to such topics as food, sanitation and medical care, I examine how off-duty activities and recreation changed over the years. The old time sutler’s bars and “hog” ranches eventually gave way to post canteens operated by the soldiers. There the men could buy beer or wine, but nothing stronger, as well as sandwiches and snacks. The canteen also provided a wholesome atmosphere where the soldier could relax, visit with his comrades, and indulge in checkers and non-gambling card games. By the late 1880s some forts even boasted gymnasiums so that the men could exercise, especially during northern winters when outdoor recreation was limited.


DW: I’d like to redirect the rest of the questions to Civil War connections. Regular Army O!’s book description boasts the use of over 350 diaries, letters, and memoirs. Did frontier regulars and their families save their correspondence on a comparable scale to the Civil War volunteers?

DCM: We first have to take into consideration that the regular army was a much smaller organization. Whereas over a million men served in the Union Army during the Civil War, I estimate that only about 240,000 enlisted in the regulars over a period of some twenty-five years. Then too, several thousand of those deserted. Consequently, the pool of those who could have potentially left letters, diaries, and the like was considerably smaller.

My impression is that a far greater ratio of Civil War soldiers wrote letters to their families and friends than did the post-war regulars, who served in the army for very different reasons. Some men simply did not wish to have their families know they had joined the army. Not a few men enlisted under aliases because civilians in the East often did not consider soldiering in the regular army to be an honorable occupation. The attitude of the general populace was entirely different from that during the Civil War when volunteers were doing their patriotic duty to preserve the Union. Relatives were proud of that and tended to preserve the letters.

Likewise, many if not most Civil War soldiers had achieved a higher level of education and were able to write home, or later publish reminiscences of their wartime experiences. Moreover, that was considered a “good” war and the greatest conflict ever witnessed on US soil. The veterans were aware that they had played a role in history and took pride in relating their experiences. Conversely, the regulars on the frontier were not involved in a declared war and by far the majority never saw combat with Indians. The country largely looked upon the Indian campaigns as a sideshow somewhere out west that didn’t concern them. Consequently, not so many veterans considered their military service worth recording.

Several other reasons also may account for the disparity. As we have noted, a large proportion of the rank and file were foreign immigrants many of whom could neither read nor write English. It’s conceivable that letters in foreign languages may yet exist in other parts of the world. I found only a few accounts left by soldiers who had a basic command of English while they were in the service, but later prepared superb reminiscences. Sergeants John Spring and Charles Windolph come to mind. As the book demonstrates, the regulars tended to be a rather hard lot of men and most of them simply were not inclined to letter writing, even if they knew anyone with whom they might communicate.


DW: In the West, how smooth was the transition from the temporary volunteer frontier garrisons back to the Regular Army?

DCM: I’m not aware that there was any great problem with the transition. The volunteers, of course, were anxious to be sent home as soon as their terms expired, or the war ended. I know of one Kansas unit that mutinied in the face of a campaign because their enlistments would be up while they were in the field. Some units were under the mistaken impression that they would be sent home immediately after the Confederate surrender, but that wasn’t the case. The government bound them to remain in service for up to six months after the president declared the war officially ended. President Johnson didn’t do that for several months. Accordingly, some volunteer units remained on the western frontier until late 1865 and even into 1866. The reason was to give the army time to recruit up to full strength the regular regiments that served in the eastern and southern theaters. It also took time to transport them, or in many instances to march afoot, to their new stations to relieve the volunteers.

At the command level, the army reorganized the geographical military divisions and departments during the 1865-1867 period to reflect a shift in focus to the West and rapid national expansion. A major element in the army’s mission was to contend with Indian resistance to white encroachment.


DW: There were many violent clashes, large and small, between native groups and Civil War volunteers throughout the West between 1861 and 1865. Did the army conduct any kind of official study of these actions to see if any valuable lessons could be passed on to the regulars who replaced the volunteers in 1865-66?

DCM: No official study resulted to my knowledge. The only documented instance of which I’m aware was an investigation into the famous Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado perpetrated by the Third Colorado Cavalry. Unfortunately, much valuable experience was lost as the volunteers were discharged. On the positive side, many former volunteer officers applied for regular commissions following the war. Some of those men had frontier service to their credit and made particularly effective leaders in the West. The Eighth Cavalry, for example, was one of the new regiments authorized in 1866. It was recruited in northern California with the result that a high percentage of its officers and men had served previously with the California volunteers in several western territories.


DW: In your view, were there any distinct differences in the way state and territorial volunteers interacted with western tribal groups versus Regular Army officers and men? Some authors have suggested that the volunteers fought with a higher degree of ideological motivation and brutality.

DCM: Generally speaking, I believe that’s true. Some of the worst events involving Indians occurred during the war and were committed by the volunteers. Some noteworthy instances that come to mind are Colonel Patrick Connor’s lopsided victory at Bear River, Utah, the hanging of the Cheyenne chiefs at Fort Laramie, and, of course, Sand Creek. Some of this animosity can be attributed to the fact that the majority of volunteer units serving on the frontier came from western states and territories where Indians were viewed as a threat to settlement, commerce, mining, and communication. Most had been in closer proximity to Indian depredations. Consequently, they had a more personal stake in defeating Indians than did, say, the Eleventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry that served along the Oregon-California Road.

Additionally, the volunteers seem to have operated under a looser command structure than the regulars. Volunteer officers on the frontier, by and large, were citizen soldiers who possessed little or no military training or prior experience. There were so many inefficient former volunteer officers glutting the post-war corps that the army authorized review boards in 1870 to evaluate who should remain and who should be cashiered. A great many elected to resign. That great exodus resulted in a distinct improvement of the officer corps.


DW: In your opinion, do NPS sites located across the West do an adequate job of recognizing the Civil War volunteer contributions at those posts and forts (either inside the visitor centers or at trailside exhibits)?

DCM: I don’t know that I’m qualified to speak to that point. I’ve been retired for more than a decade now and I no longer have close relationships with those sites. That in mind, I would offer my opinion that most of the forts and battlefields in the West devote less attention to the volunteers than to the regular army. One reason may be that the buildings and ruins at fort sites represent the later era, therefore interpretation tends to reflect the visible resource. An exception is Fort Laramie’s most venerable standing structure, Old Bedlam, which served as headquarters for the volunteer garrisons during the Civil War. One portion is refurnished to reflect that. Fort Bowie National Historic Site here in Arizona has an interpretive trail leading to and around the site of the First Fort established and occupied by the California Volunteers. Another might be Pecos National Monument which embraces the 1862 Glorieta Battlefield in which the First Colorado Infantry and the Third U.S. Cavalry won a victory over Confederate General Sibley’s invasion of New Mexico Territory. Perhaps the park with the closest association with territorial volunteers is Sand Creek National Monument in eastern Colorado. That was solely a volunteer event. I must admit that I have not visited the place since it became an NPS unit, so I can’t speak to interpretation there.


DW: Thank you very much for your time, Doug. I appreciate your insights into many of the questions that have bounced around in my mind over the years regarding this fascinating topic.

DCM: Thank you for the opportunity and your thoughtful questions.