Booknotes: The Civil War Battles of Macon

New Arrival:
• The Civil War Battles of Macon by Niels Eichhorn (Arcadia Pub and The Hist Press, 2021).

Taking a break from his specialist academic work examining diplomatic and other international dimensions of the Civil War-era [you might recall his 2019 book Liberty and Slavery: European Separatists, Southern Secession, and the American Civil War], historian Niels Eichhorn's The Civil War Battles of Macon is a local military history aimed at a more popular audience. From the description: "Macon was a cornerstone of the Confederacy's military-industrial complex. As a transportation hub, the city supplied weapons to the Confederacy, making it a target once the Union pushed into Georgia in 1864. In the course of the war's last year, Macon faced three separate cavalry assaults. The battles were small in the grand scheme but salient for the combatants and townspeople."

Fending off Union forces until the final moments of the war, Macon was finally occupied in the spring of 1865. More from the description: "Once the war concluded, it was from Macon that cavalry struck out to capture the fugitive Jefferson Davis, allowing the city to witness one of the last chapters of the conflict. Author Niels Eichhorn brings together the first comprehensive analysis of the military engagements and battles in Middle Georgia."