Booknotes: Soldier of the South

New Arrival:

• Soldier of the South: Lieutenant General Richard H. Anderson at War and Peace by Edward J. Hagerty (Univ of SC Press, 2026).

Civil War titles have been absent from a worryingly extended run of USC Press's most recent seasonal catalogs, so I was delighted to see this one pop up. Hopefully, it is a sign of more to come.

Getting an idea of the book's structure and measure through its table of contents, Edward Hagerty's Soldier of the South: Lieutenant General Richard H. Anderson at War and Peace has all of the appearances of a Civil War military biography presented in the traditional format. Hagerty's study "is the first comprehensive examination of Anderson's life, providing a view of an officer's experiences on the frontier, in Mexico, and during the American Civil War. Anderson led Confederate soldiers first in Florida, then from the Peninsula Campaign to Sailor's Creek, where his patchwork corps disintegrated." Hagerty's assessment of the general's military career "considers both the strategic details of Anderson's failures and successes on the battlefield and his personal struggles off it."

After Stonewall Jackson's death in May 1863, Lee struggled to find a dependable replacement for his celebrated wing commander. Expanding the army order of battle from two wings to three corps, the additions of A.P. Hill and Richard Ewell, both strong division commanders, to the Army of Northern Virginia's top command echelon did not produce the hoped for result. After a strong start, Ewell settled into being a lackluster corps commander and Hill's higher command potential was severely hampered by chronic health problems. A late-war addition to the club, Richard Anderson was yet another promotion from within. After James Longstreet was wounded during the opening battle of the 1864 Overland Campaign, Anderson replaced him and went on to serve in corps-level leadership posts until the Army of Northern Virginia dissolved in defeat.

However, even though "Anderson was the most senior ranking soldier from South Carolina" and was a key component of the Army of Northern Virginia high command in 1864-65, he "fell into relative obscurity after the war." In the final chapter, Hagerty "examines the causes for Anderson's postwar decline and makes the case for his continued significance." Of new Confederate general biographies, this one and Chris Hartley's D.H. Hill study sit high on the to-read pile.