Review - "From Dakota to Dixie: George Buswell's Civil War" by White & Connelly, eds.

[From Dakota to Dixie: George Buswell's Civil War edited by Jonathan W. White & Reagan Connelly (University of Virginia Press, 2025). Softcover, 3 maps, illustrations, footnotes, index. Pages main/total:xxxii,245/285. ISBN:978-0-8139-5278-9. $35]

Edited volumes of Civil War soldier journals and letters continue to be published with regularity. One constant among them is the fact that the vast majority of these firsthand accounts were written by officers and enlisted men who spent the bulk of their service with the principal field armies that fought in the primary theaters of war. That's not necessarily a negative thing, and, after all, sheer numbers would dictate it, but it does make the better writings from soldiers with very different Civil War experiences all the more distinctive, insightful, and valuable. That is certainly the case with From Dakota to Dixie: George Buswell's Civil War, a far from ordinary diary edited by Jonathan White and Reagan Connelly.

In August 1862, twenty-one year old Winona County, Minnesota resident George Buswell put down his carpentry tools in response to the Lincoln administration's July call for 300,000 more volunteers and signed up as a private soldier in the newly formed Seventh Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. One need not conjecture as to why Buswell enlisted as he spells it out very clearly that he felt it his sacred duty to do his part in crushing the rebellion and restoring the "glorious old union," its flag representing "the best country that ever existed" (pp. 6-7).

Buswell's war diary begins on August 13, 1862, the date of his enlistment, and continues on a daily basis until the end of 1864. As was the case with most Union volunteers from his part of the country, young Buswell held heady aspirations of fighting great battles on the other side of the Mississippi River. However, fate had an entirely different course in mind for him, and he fully appreciated that matters closer to home needed to be dealt with first. Early diary entries describe his unit's sweep through the area of his home state most devastated by the late-summer settler massacres and subsequent Santee Sioux attacks on nearby settlements and military outposts. Buswell's diary contains a detailed firsthand account of the Battle of Wood Lake, and he also witnessed the mass execution at Mankato on December 26. Between then and the following May, Buswell mostly guarded prisoners. During his free time, he made a close study of Silas Casey's Infantry Tactics, which the editors credit as helping set him up to be a strong officer candidate later on in the war. In the spring of 1863, Buswell set out with the Sibley Expedition and spent the summer on the northern plains marching and fighting in the widening Dakota War. He provides a strong eyewitness account of the Battle of Big Mound in July, as well as the battles of Dead Buffalo Lake and Stony Lake that followed days later, with some revealing commentary on the foe's style of fighting.

Upon conclusion of the 1862-63 Dakota War, Buswell and the 7th switched theaters and opponents. Between then and the end of 1863, he spent time in Chicago, St. Louis, and Nashville. For a time, his detachment was sent on a sweep through southern Illinois to weed out bushwhackers and alleged Copperhead militants, capturing (by his count) some sixty men and a few deserters. Returning to St. Louis by late December, Buswell was determined to try his hand at obtaining an officer commission in one of the new black regiments forming in the area. He studied hard outside his office work duties and by his own account did very well during the examinations. His diligence was rewarded in the spring with a promotion to second lieutenant, though he wouldn't receive his official commission and company assignment with the 68th USCT until later.

On an interesting side note, Buswell, observing from afar, became a very early admirer of U.S. Grant, frequently commenting confidently and favorably on that general's upward career projection. It's an interesting contrast to the widespread attitude, as revealed in Jonathan Engel's recent study of the junior officers of Grant's Army of the Tennessee, among those who actually served under Grant and who maintained serious reservations about their commander until the final triumph at Vicksburg erased all doubts. Eventually, Buswell did get to see his idol in person, and one diary entry offers a pretty thorough description of Grant's personal appearance in January 1864 during that general's visit to St. Louis.

Central motivations behind seeking an officer position in a USCT regiment varied widely. On one end of the spectrum was the idealistic crusader and on the other the opportunistic seeker of personal advancement. One supposes that the great majority were guided by impulses that lay somewhere in between those two poles. Certainly, becoming a company officer in a USCT regiment offered ambitious and experienced enlisted soldiers substantial advancement up the promotional ladder, the type of leap in rank, pay, and prestige they were unlikely to obtain through staying in their white regiments. Buswell himself jumped from private to second lieutenant, and was told by those impressed by his examination results that only his age kept him from first lieutenant. His earliest remarks from this period indicate more of the practical careerist motivation, but Buswell quickly found that his new assignment profoundly altered his preconceptions about slavery and its degrading influences on human and social development. His descriptions of his men do reflect common prejudices, but he believed from the beginning that those placed under his charge would develop into good soldiers.

In June 1864, Buswell's regiment was assigned guard and picket duty in occupied Memphis. Some of the more enlightening diary passages from that time describe the extensive smuggling that passed between the lines and how Union troops stationed on the outskirts of the city (like his own) attempted to interdict that lucrative illicit trade in goods and medicines. The only major military operation that Buswell experienced that year was the Tupelo Campaign, the operation recounted at some length in his diary. Buswell was absent in the field when Confederate cavalry raider Nathan Bedford Forrest slipped behind Union lines and launched his Memphis Raid that reached the city on August 21.

The balance of 1864 was filled with routine garrison duty back in Memphis and its primary defense installation, Fort Pickering. Referencing that year's momentous presidential election, Buswell describes the reasoning behind his political transformation from Douglas Democrat to Republican supporter, placing himself fully behind Lincoln's re-election. Though he maintained respect for McClellan the soldier, he decried the influence of the peace faction during the election cycle and lost all faith in the Democratic Party.

In addition to footnotes more fully identifying persons and places mentioned in Buswell's writings as well as expanding upon referenced events and their background, editors White and Connelly contribute a fine general introduction along with chapter introductions that both review and contextualize what follows. With Buswell's diaries leaving readers hanging by inexplicably ending on December 31, 1864, the volume epilogue also briefly follows the thirteen-month remainder of Buswell's military service with the 68th. Also recounted are some details their research uncovered in regard to Buswell's postwar life, his involvement in Republican politics, and his tragic drowning death at age 80 during a steamship sinking off the Pacific coast.

If you are looking to read a Civil War diary far different from those commonly published by popular and academic presses, yet no less engaging and informative than those, this is the one for you. Between his August 1862 enlistment and his final mustering out in February 1866, George Buswell never fought with any of the war's main armies, his only sizable Civil War battle being Tupelo and only major campaign the one directed against Mobile in 1865. From Dakota warriors on the distant northern plains to guerrillas and anti-Republican militants in Illinois to St. Louis prisoners and Memphis smugglers to Forrest's cavalry in West Tennessee and northern Mississippi, the variety of wartime opponents and sheer breadth of fronts faced by Buswell during his long 1862-66 army service are highly remarkable, perhaps even unique, among Civil War diarists. Expertly framed and edited by Jonathan White and Reagan Connelly, the Buswell diary contained in From Dakota to Dixie is an extraordinary reading experience. Highly recommended.