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Thursday, March 30, 2023
Review - " July 22: The Civil War Battle of Atlanta " by Earl Hess
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
Booknotes: Decisions at Shiloh
• Decisions at Shiloh: The Twenty-Two Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle by Dave Powell (UT Press, 2023). From the description: Decisions at Shiloh "introduces readers to critical decisions made by Confederate and Union commanders throughout the battle. Dave Powell examines the decisions that prefigured the action and shaped the contest as it unfolded. Rather than a linear history of the battle, Powell’s discussion of the critical decisions presents readers with a vivid blueprint of the battle’s developments. Exploring the critical decisions in this way allows the reader to progress from a sense of what happened in these battles to why they happened as they did." This is Powell's second contribution to the Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series (the first, of course, being the Chickamauga installment). Here, he evaluates 22 critical decisions spread over five time intervals: "Before the Battle"; "Morning, April 6"; Afternoon, April 6"; "Afternoon and Evening, April 6"; and "April 7 and Beyond." At this point, CWBA readers will be familiar with the general format, so there's no need to summarize it here yet again. There are eight maps included in the volume. In a departure from the series norm (though, to be honest, I don't recall if the author also did this for Chickamauga), Powell's 19-Stop guidebook section drops the lengthy official report excerpts while keeping the focus on the critical decision associations. To be honest, I rather prefer it this way.
Monday, March 27, 2023
Booknotes: Nashville 1864
• Nashville 1864: From the Tennessee to the Cumberland by Mark Lardas (Osprey Pub, 2017). A bundle of backlist titles from UK publisher Osprey that stretch back to 2017 just arrived. Going in chronological order, the first is Mark Lardas's Nashville 1864: From the Tennessee to the Cumberland, which is #314 in their Campaign series. The text follows the prolific publisher's tried and true series formula, with sections covering campaign origins, an event chronology, discussions of opposing high commands and armies (with detailed orders of battle), and opposing plans. Those are followed by a campaign/battle narrative, a look at the aftermath's retreat and pursuit movements, and a brief summary of various battlefield and campaign-related preservation topics. Of course, the full-color original artworks and maps are the biggest draw of Osprey titles, which are always densely illustrated. Maps of all scales are included. Angled grid-pattern maps (these show aerial photo-style terrain with troop movement overlays) address the battles of Allatoona and Spring Hill along with the Murfreesboro Raid. More conventional line drawing cartography is applied to Forrest's West Tennessee Raid, the action at Columbia, the Battle of Franklin, and the climax at Nashville. The color plates (composed of scenes from Forrest's withdrawal from Johnsonville, the 14th USCT's attack on a Confederate battery at Decatur, and Opdycke's counterattack at the Carter House during the Battle of Franklin) originated in actual paintings that are sold privately. The last of the three stylistically mimics the Centennial-era American Heritage battle maps. In addition to those visuals, nearly every other page has a photograph or some other illustration.
Sunday, March 26, 2023
Coming Soon (April '23 Edition)
• Burnside's Boys: The Union's Ninth Corps and the Civil War in the East by Darin Wipperman.
• We Fought at Gettysburg: Firsthand Accounts by the Survivors of the 17th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry by Carolyn Ivanoff.
• John Brown's Raid: Harpers Ferry and the Coming of the Civil War by Gilot & Pawlak.
• The Civil War Political Tradition: Ten Portraits of Those Who Formed It by Paul Escott.
• The Cannons Roar: Fort Sumter and the Start of the Civil War―An Oral History by Bruce Chadwick.
• Germantown during the Civil War Era: A Reversal of Fortune by George Browder.
• Colorado in the Civil War by John Steinle.
• Sherman's Woodticks: The Adventures, Ordeals and Travels of the Eighth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry During the Civil War by Paul Hodnefield.
• The Lincoln Funeral Train by Michael Leavy.
• The Civil War Letters of Sarah Kennedy: Life under Occupation in the Upper South ed. by Uffelman, Kanervo, and Smith.
• I Am Fighting for the Union: The Civil War Letters of Naval Officer Henry Willis Wells ed. by Robert Browning.
• The North Star: Canada and the Civil War Plots Against Lincoln by Julian Sher.
• Ulysses S. Grant: A Photographic History by James Bultema.
• Black Sailors in the Civil War: A History of Fugitives, Freemen and Freedmen Aboard Union Vessels by James Bruns.
1 - These monthly release lists are not meant to be exhaustive compilations of non-fiction releases. They do not include non-revised/expanded reprints of previously published books, special editions not distributed to reviewers, and digital-only titles. Works that only tangentially address the war years are also generally excluded. Inevitably, one or more titles on this list will get a rescheduled release (and they do not get repeated later), so revisiting the past few "Coming Soon" posts is the best way to pick up stragglers.
Thursday, March 23, 2023
Booknotes: More Than Just Grit
• More Than Just Grit: Civil War Leadership, Logistics and Teamwork in the West, 1862 by Richard J. Zimmermann (McFarland, 2023). We all know that 1862 was a disastrous year for Confederate military fortunes in the West. Richard Zimmermann's More Than Just Grit: Civil War Leadership, Logistics and Teamwork in the West, 1862 attempts to explain why Union forces were so successful in winning battles and why the Confederate armies struggled so much during that critical year. Zimmermann goes about his task in a bit of an unconventional manner, examining battles through what he sees as six key "elements of victory" (none of which are specifically tied to tactical-level battlefield generalship). From the description: "With increasing complexity on the battlefield and the enormous growth of American armies, winning or losing depended upon achieving as many of these six critical goals as possible: a clear objective; mobilization of effective lieutenants; a competent staff; seizing and holding initiative; deploying all available resources; and realizing a successful strategic outcome. The more goals achieved, the greater the victory." The book applies this six-part framework to nine western and Trans-Mississippi battles from Mill Springs to Stones River, the sole clear Confederate victory in the bunch being Richmond, Kentucky. Each chapter is presented in three parts: "(a)n introduction that sets the stage for the contest," "(t)he battle narrative, and "(a)n analysis of the ways in which the six factors" [which are present in every case] "influenced the outcome of the action" (pg. 8). Accompanying the text are maps, a high command flow chart, and a table at the very end summarizing how each commander fared (through an "achieved" or "not achieved" rating) under the six elements of victory. I like books like this, ones that take a different, systematic-style approach to revisiting well-trodden ground. This will definitely get reviewed on the site.
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Booknotes: General Grant and the Verdict of History
• General Grant and the Verdict of History: Memoir, Memory, and the Civil War by Frank P. Varney (Savas Beatie, 2023). Regular Civil War readers are well aware that the personal and professional relationship between prominent Union generals U.S. Grant and William S. Rosecrans was a tense one that boiled over into outright hostility during the war. It is also recognized that those ill-feelings continued to fester during the decades of historical memory forming that so many veterans actively engaged with through various print outlets. Clearly, in the war of reputations Grant came out on top, but some believe that the victory was in many ways gained through a sullying of truth. Historian Frank Varney explored that topic at great length in his 2013 book (it's hard to believe it's been ten years already!) General Grant and the Rewriting of History: How the Destruction of General William S. Rosecrans Influenced Our Understanding of the Civil War. In Varney's view, our appreciation of Rosecrans's war record faded, while Grant's soared, primarily because "Grant orchestrated the effort." From the description: "Unbeknownst to most students of the war, Grant used his official reports, interviews with the press, and his memoirs to influence how future generations would remember the war and his part in it. Aided greatly by his two terms as president, by the clarity and eloquence of his memoirs, and in particular by the dramatic backdrop against which those memoirs were written, our historical memory has been influenced to a degree greater than many realize." In his new book General Grant and the Verdict of History: Memoir, Memory, and the Civil War, a direct follow-up to General Grant and the Rewriting of History, Varney reveals the complex story behind three other Grant "victims" (Varney believes that word is an appropriate descriptor) of Grant's wartime actions and alleged postwar distortions. The trio of generals are "the brash and uncompromising “Fighting Joe” Hooker; George H. Thomas, the stellar commander who earned the sobriquet “Rock of Chickamauga”; and Gouverneur Kemble Warren, who served honorably and well in every major action of the Army of the Potomac before being relieved less than two weeks before Appomattox, and only after he had played a prominent part in the major Union victory at Five Forks." In his Verdict preface, the author reflects on the positive and negative reaction among readers to the arguments presented in the Rosecrans volume. While same or similar Grant behavioral patterns identified in the Rosecrans-focused book extend throughout this one, the author does also mention in the new preface that the second book can be fully appreciated without having already read the first. While Varney's opinion of Grant's greatness has diminished since embarking of this two-volume project, he does retain an appreciation of the general's finer qualities. As expressed in the book's final paragraph, in Varney's view Grant "was in many ways an admirable man, and an excellent—if imperfect—general"...who "compiled an enviable record of achievement." The crux of his study's historiographical fault-finding rather lies in "our willingness to overlook the less admirable things he did: and, most importantly, with the willingness of some historians to take his word for it all" (pg. 207).
Sunday, March 19, 2023
Booknotes: Man of Fire
• Man of Fire: William Tecumseh Sherman in the Civil War by Derek Maxfield (Savas Beatie, 2023). In his foreword to Derek Maxfield's newest Emerging Civil War title Man of Fire: William Tecumseh Sherman in the Civil War, David Powell suggests that there are at least eight Sherman biographies worthy of the name. In the Suggested Reading section of this book, Maxfield offers his own capsule assessment of the qualities and strengths of six of them. Given that background, which includes two recent major works from James Lee McDonough (2016) and Brian Holden Reid (2020), and a vast volume of other works, Sherman's life and military career have obviously been covered in exhaustive detail and in up-to-date fashion. Nevertheless, for those seeking either a quick introduction or a modern refresher course, there is always room for more easily digestible books like Maxfield's. As the author reveals in the introduction, the book's title refers not to the general's much-debated incendiary hard war practices but rather to his very nature, his "fire-in-the-belly courage, scorching intellect, smoldering passion, and blazing convictions." In those ways, Maxfield's Sherman is a "force of nature." (pg xix) That framework of understanding perhaps mirrors the life-theme approach adopted by Marszalek in Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order. Infused in typical ECW fashion with numerous photographs, illustrations, and maps, the main narrative plus front matter text runs a brisk 150 pages or so. Added to that is a four-part, multi-authored appendix section that includes a register of Sherman historic sites, an English professor's perspective on Sherman's memoirs, commentary from a Sherman presenter who toured a two-man play with Maxfield's Grant, and an exploration of Sherman historical memory.
Thursday, March 16, 2023
Review - " Civil War Torpedoes and the Global Development of Landmine Warfare " by Earl Hess
According to Hess's findings, United States opposition to many forms of landmine use continued well into the post-Civil War period (even through the end of WW1). Nevertheless, aspects of mine warfare remained a regular part of U.S. officer training. In exploring the possibility of Civil War influences on concurrent European landmine development, Hess could find no evidence that peer militaries across the Atlantic, none of which exhibited any qualms about their use, paid any attention to Civil War landmine designs and tactics. In looking at landmine use in South America, Asia, and Africa between the end of the American Civil War and the Great War, Hess found that improvised mines remained the typical form. The global transition to purpose-built and designed landmines occurred during the 1930s. Exactly why landmines were relatively uncommon during WW1 on the Western Front (outside of German booby traps) remains unclear, but Hess reasonably speculates that perhaps they were deemed unnecessary due to an already sufficient defensive firepower (primarily in the form of machine guns and rapid-firing artillery) available to armies during that conflict. One of the reasons cited in the book for the tactical ineffectiveness of Confederate landmines was that there just weren't enough of them (Hess's best low-end estimate from the sources is only around 4,000 devices buried in total). In WW2, landmine warfare truly came into its own, with millions of advanced antipersonnel and antitank devices sown into massively deep and wide minefields closely integrated with other defensive arrangements. In uninterrupted fashion, generalized mine use extended into the Cold War period and beyond. The challenges of their presence remain today in many parts of the world where civilians are routinely victimized, although Hess does point to international signs that there use might finally be winding down. Its wider value further enhanced through situating its topic within the long history of international landmine development, this impressive study rightfully assumes its place as the new standard history of what proved to be the most controversial weapon and mode of warfare that emerged during the American Civil War. Highly recommended.
Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Booknotes: Burnside's Boys
• Burnside's Boys: The Union's Ninth Corps and the Civil War in the East by Darin Wipperman (Stackpole Bks, 2023). Following on the heels of his First Corps history First for the Union: Life and Death in a Civil War Army Corps from Antietam to Gettysburg (2020), Darin Wipperman's Burnside's Boys: The Union's Ninth Corps and the Civil War in the East embarks on a deep dive into another Union corps, this one, while also primarily associated with the war's eastern theater, much more far ranging in its service. Formally organized in Virginia on July 22, 1862 between the twin turmoils of the Peninsula/Seven Days and Second Bull Run campaign defeats and initially composed of nineteen regiments, a core of seven regiments (the 45th, 50th, 51st, and 100th Pennsylvania, 8th Michigan, 21st Massachusetts, and 79th New York) fought with the corps over its entire history beginning with the antecedent Burnside Expedition to North Carolina. From summer 1862 onward, Ninth Corps soldiers found themselves in Maryland, Kentucky, Mississippi, and East Tennessee before returning to Virginia soil for the war's bloody 1864-65 denouement. The corps did so much traveling, east and west, that one member nicknamed it "Burnside's Geography Class" (pg. xv-xvi). As the subtitle makes explicit, only the "key points" of Ninth Corps campaigning in the western theater are addressed in this volume, its narrative still a hefty 400+ pages in length. Overwhelming focus is placed on the Maryland and Virginia fronts, where "the bulk of the Ninth Corps' service and combat losses occurred." The book's preface outlines its content as follows:
"The introduction discusses the months immediately preceding the official formation of the Ninth Corps (briefly touching upon the North Carolina expedition). Part One's focus will be on the organization of the Ninth Corps and two early engagements, Second Bull Run and ... Chantilly. The second part of this book covers two weeks of September 1862, from the reorganization of the Army of the Potomac through the evening of September 16. Part Three focuses on one day, the devastating battle along Antietam Creek. Next, two parts discuss the movement to Fredericksburg, the terrible battle there, and the year in the West. Parts Six and Seven detail the last year of the war, when the Ninth Corps sustained horrendous losses back in Virginia. A presentation of the postwar lives of fifteen Ninth Corps veterans concludes the book." (pg.xvi-xvii)In his earlier book, Wipperman warned readers at the outset to expect some unconventional author views on the First Corps leadership, General Reynolds in particular. There's no similar disclosure here regarding Ninth Corps's much more controversial commander. A large body of primary and secondary sources are listed in the bibliography, including a pretty hefty manuscript research section that undoubtedly feeds the ground-level aspect of the narrative in a way that "vividly reconstructs life—and death—in the Ninth Corps."
Sunday, March 12, 2023
Booknotes: Searching for Irvin McDowell (new edition)
• Searching for Irvin McDowell: The Civil War’s Forgotten General by Frank P. Simione, Jr. & Gene Schmiel (Savas Beatie, 2023). There's certainly more to the McDowell Civil War story than a big-appetite guy more ferocious than Gallagher's mallet when it came to crushing watermelons and who played a major part in losing two key eastern theater battles at Manassas. However, as anyone interested in the man has been repeatedly informed, the lack of any significant body of McDowell personal papers has long held potential biographers at arm's length. It is unquestionable that he was one of the most important Union figures of 1861-62. From the description: Major General Irvin McDowell "was a prominent figure during the early months of the Civil War. With so much at stake, he was called upon to lead the Union’s largest Eastern Theater army. Pressed by the media and President Abraham Lincoln to move into Virginia and defeat the Confederates gathering there, McDowell led his neophyte army out to the plains of Manassas and was soundly defeated. McDowell went on to hold an independent command in northern Virginia during the Peninsula Campaign and serve in the Army of Virginia under Maj. Gen. John Pope during the disastrous Second Bull Run Campaign." The general was also a key witness in the infamous Porter court martial trial that followed. A fresh cache of McDowell papers may or may not emerge (for now we just have "official documents, a few letters, and orders to and from others"). Until such an event occurs, Frank Simione and Gene Schmiel's Searching for Irvin McDowell: The Civil War’s Forgotten General serves as "a reliable and readable synthesis of the man and his career." You might recall that this biographical treatment was self-published just a short time ago under the slightly different title of Searching for Irvin McDowell, Forgotten Civil War General (2021). You can peruse my review of that version HERE. If you are understandably wondering whether this new title is a revised and expanded edition or a straight reprint reformatted in the SB style, I've been informed by Gene Schmiel that the former is the case. Indeed, as mentioned before in March's Coming Soon post, according to Schmiel the SB edition is "much enhanced, with considerably more attention to the trials of Porter and McDowell." More detail than that I do not know. The new preface is coy about what differences there are inside. William Marvel's Porter book from 2021 appears in the new bibliography so there is presumably some fresh engagement with that major work.
Thursday, March 9, 2023
Review - " The Civil Wars of General Joseph E. Johnston, Confederate States Army - Volume I: Virginia and Mississippi, 1861–1863 " by Richard McMurry
One would like to believe that intelligent, dutiful, and devoted men with lofty military backgrounds would always be able to cast aside personal differences in pursuit of a common goal (especially one with so little margin for absorbing costly self-inflicted wounds), but flawed humanity dictates otherwise. Really, it should surprise no one that qualities of personality and character within a nation's military high command can exert a profound influence on victory and defeat. However, the dysfunction between Davis and Johnston, in both its depth and the frequency with which it reared it ugly head during critical junctures throughout the length of the war, is revealed to be a fairly extreme case study of two leaders bringing out the worst in each other. As Volume I ends, the seeds of conflict between Johnston and Davis that were initially sown in Virginia during the war's first year reached such toxic levels by late-1862 through mid-1863 that they contributed mightily to irretrievable disaster on a level that would seriously impact the Confederacy's ability to effectually wage war going forward. Yet even after all this, Davis, believing he lacked suitable alternatives, continued to turn to Johnston to lead principal Confederate field armies in 1864 and 1865. But that awaits us in Volume II, where the full picture detailing how their incompatible natures went a long way toward dooming the South's quest for independence will be completed.
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Booknotes: Cherokee Civil Warrior
• Cherokee Civil Warrior: Chief John Ross and the Struggle for Tribal Sovereignty by W. Dale Weeks (OU Press, 2023). From the description: "The son of a Scottish father and mixed-blood Indian mother, John Ross served the Cherokee Nation in a public capacity for nearly fifty years, thirty-eight as its constitutionally elected principal chief. Historian W. Dale Weeks describes Ross’s efforts to protect the tribe’s interests amid systematic attacks on indigenous culture throughout the nineteenth century, from the forced removal policies of the 1830s to the exigencies of the Civil War era. At the outset of the Civil War, Ross called for all Cherokees, slaveholding and nonslaveholding, to remain neutral in a war they did not support—a position that became untenable when the United States withdrew its forces from Indian Territory. The vacated forts were quickly occupied by Confederate troops, who pressured the Cherokees to align with the South." Horizons have expanded a bit of late, but, as often mentioned, the Cherokee experience still fairly dominates the scholarship addressing the Civil War in Indian Territory. In the popular literature, the Watie faction opposing Ross, particularly Watie himself, has received more attention. It's about time for a modern reexamination of Stand Watie's place in the war, too, but I've long yearned for a new book specifically focused on Ross's Civil War years. Cherokee Civil Warrior appears to offer just such a thing. Weeks's study presents the story of Ross and the Civil War "as part of the history of U.S. “Indian policy,” failed foreign relations, and the Anglo-American conquest of the American West." I will also be interested to read the author's opinion of the relationship between Lincoln and Ross. In the book, Weeks "clarifies President Abraham Lincoln’s acknowledgment of the federal government’s abrogation of its treaty obligation and his commitment to restoring political relations with the Cherokees—a commitment abruptly ended when his successor Andrew Johnson instead sought to punish the Cherokees for their perceived disloyalty." "Centering a Native point of view," Cherokee Civil Warrior "recasts and expands what we know about John Ross, the Cherokee Nation, its commitment to maintaining its sovereignty, and the Civil War era in Indian Territory." Looking forward to learning about it.
Thursday, March 2, 2023
Booknotes: Civil War Torpedoes and the Global Development of Landmine Warfare
• Civil War Torpedoes and the Global Development of Landmine Warfare by Earl J. Hess (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023). From the description: Earl Hess's Civil War Torpedoes and the Global Development of Landmine Warfare "recounts the use of landmines in the American Civil War from their predecessors before 1861through their legacy in the post-Cold War era. A handful of Confederates pioneered the use of torpedoes, as landmines were commonly called in the 1860s, burying them in front of fortifications, along roads, and as booby traps. Federal troops quickly learned how to deal with them, often using Confederate prisoners to dig them up." Though the devices were used in earlier conflicts, notably during the Crimean War, "(t)he first doctrine of landmine use in global history appeared during the Civil War." Both being recent studies closely focused on landmines (their submarine variants only lightly touched upon), Hess's study is most similar to Kenneth Rutherford's America’s Buried History: Landmines in the Civil War (2020). Hess's introduction offers a useful literature survey and assessment, his own work claiming improvements over Rutherford in the areas of research and source handling along with global contextualization of landmine development. Four major themes associated with landmines are explored in this book: "(t)hree of them are morality, tactics, and technology, and placing Civil War landmines within the context of global history is the fourth purpose of this study" (pg. xv). More from the description: "Hess discusses not only the technical and tactical aspects of the Civil War torpedo, but the morality and doctrine that surrounded this weapon in ways that illuminate how modern landmines have shaped international conflicts to our own time. Through intensive research in archival institutions, published primary sources, and technical literature, Hess has created the definitive account of Civil War era landmine warfare within its global context." I am about four chapters in right now and like it a lot so far.