Booknotes: Brigadier General William Haines Lytle

New Arrival:

• Brigadier General William Haines Lytle: The Union's Poet-Soldier by Bryan W. Lane (McFarland, 2026).

Ohioan William Haynes Lytle, an antebellum lawyer, elected Democratic Party politician, and militia general, began the Civil War as colonel of the 10th Ohio infantry regiment. Fighting in western Virginia in 1861, he was wounded at Carnifex Ferry. Upon recovery, Lytle joined Mitchel's Division for its summer 1862 trek across northern Alabama and, later on that year, at Perryville received another wound while also falling into the hands of the enemy. Paroled and exchanged after the battle, Lytle was promoted to brigadier general and was assigned to the Army of the Cumberland, getting hit yet again by enemy fire and dying on September 20, 1863 at Chickamauga.

The only other major modern work on Lytle that I came across during a cursory online search was Ruth Carter's scholarly editing of Lytle's Mexican and ACW correspondence in her 1999 volume For Honor, Glory & Union. So it appears that Bryan Lane's Brigadier General William Haines Lytle: The Union's Poet-Soldier could be appropriately classed as the first full biography of its subject.

Lane describes Lytle as "a poet, Civil War soldier, lawyer, orator, friend, beloved brother, jilted lover, flirt, drunk, unfocused talent and sometimes genius." His book "gives ample attention to the three battles in which Lytle fought, but does not neglect his relationships with family, friends, and lovers. Talented, charming, and well-liked, even by his enemies, Lytle was a cultured gentleman who made friends easily. At the same time, he was also devoted to his troops and a fearless warrior on the battlefield."

Lane's account of Lytle's life and Civil War career, which is based on "on Lytle's own written words, the words of his family, newspaper correspondents and other primary sources," also incorporates its subject's poetry throughout the narrative. Like it was for many other busy professionals seeking a creative outlet, poetry was a side gig for Lytle. He did achieve a fair bit of fame with it, though, especially through his 1858 poem "Antony and Cleopatra," about which Lane devotes a chapter.