• Let Us Die to Make Men Free: American Slavery and Civil War in Global Perspective by James E. Strickler (McFarland, 2026).
Friday, November 13, 2026
Booknotes: Let Us Die to Make Men Free
New Arrival:
• Let Us Die to Make Men Free: American Slavery and Civil War in Global Perspective by James E. Strickler (McFarland, 2026).
This book looks at slavery and the American Civil War "in the broader context of 19th century world history." In applying that global perspective, author James Strickler explores the question of why the U.S. was "the only country in the Americas" in which the issue of slavery sparked a civil war.
From the description: "Through the stories of 14 key individuals (seven from the United States and seven from other countries), the book compares developments in the United States with slavery in the Caribbean, secession in Hungary, emancipation in Russia, civilian deaths in China, nation-building in Germany, lynching in South Africa, and post-war reconciliation in Japan."
Drawing conclusions from those comparisons, Strickler's Let Us Die to Make Men Free offers ideas about "what made slavery and the war exceptional--and what did not--and how their legacies are felt today."
• Let Us Die to Make Men Free: American Slavery and Civil War in Global Perspective by James E. Strickler (McFarland, 2026).
Wednesday, November 11, 2026
Booknotes: Napoleon's Long Shadow
New Arrival:
• Napoleon’s Long Shadow: How French Military Genius Shaped the American Civil War by Timothy B. Smith (UP of Kansas, 2026).
From the description: "For the generation that fought the American Civil War, the wars of the early nineteenth century were not distant history—they were a professional guide. Military education at West Point and elsewhere immersed American officers in the campaigns of Europe’s great commanders, and none cast a longer shadow than the Corsican general Napoleon Bonaparte."
References to Napoleon and his campaigns are sprinkled throughout the Civil War military history literature, but analysis is most often superficial at best. Timothy Smith aims to change that with his new book Napoleon’s Long Shadow: How French Military Genius Shaped the American Civil War.
More from the description: "Despite decades of casual analogy, until now, no comprehensive study has ever examined how Napoleon’s campaigns shaped Civil War operations on the battlefield. Through a series of clear, apples-to-apples comparisons, author Tim Smith places nine of Napoleon’ campaigns alongside their closest Civil War counterparts." For the curious, the chapter pairings are: the Italian and Valley campaigns, Marengo and Fort Donelson, Ulm and Vicksburg, Austerlitz and Chickamauga, Jena and Second Manassas, Wagram and Chancellorsville, Borodino and Gettysburg, Leipzig and Antietam, and Waterloo and Shiloh. Before I got into the ACW, I was a pretty heavy Napoleonic Wars reader and wargamer, so I'll be very interested in these comparative assessments, especially given that strong parallels don't immediately come to mind for a number of them.
The result of all this "is a fresh interpretation of how the Civil War was fought. Smith argues that the war’s early years were profoundly shaped by earlier models of warfare, while its final year marked a decisive break toward a more modern, industrial style of conflict."
Coming out next June, Smith has another interesting-sounding study related to the Napoleonic Wars that adopts a similar type of approach. Also published through Kansas's excellent Modern War Series, The Operational Mind: Jomini, Clausewitz, and Civil War Command "analyzes how commanders translated military theory into decisions regarding movement, concentration, timing, and the employment of force," all through "a series of engaging case studies, each centered on a specific campaign."
• Napoleon’s Long Shadow: How French Military Genius Shaped the American Civil War by Timothy B. Smith (UP of Kansas, 2026).
Monday, November 9, 2026
Review - "The Federal Signal Service at Antietam: Stations, Officers and Battlefield Intelligence on America's Bloodiest Day" by Cory Pfarr
[The Federal Signal Service at Antietam: Stations, Officers and Battlefield Intelligence on America's Bloodiest Day by Cory M. Pfarr (McFarland, 2026). Softcover, maps, photos, timelines, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xiv,217/288. ISBN:978-1-4766-8988-3. $39.95]
The 1862 Maryland Campaign and its culminating battle fought along Antietam Creek remain Civil War military history subjects second only to Gettysburg in sustained popular interest, discussion, and publication. Although Gettysburg still reigns supreme when it comes to inspiring book-length study of just about any topic associated with it, there has been significant catch-up on the Maryland Campaign front in recent years. For example, at this point most regular readers of the modern Maryland Campaign literature recognize the role of the U.S. Army's Signal Service (later renamed the Signal Corps) in transmitting vital intelligence on Confederate army movements and locations. However, in devoting a full-length study to the subject in his new book The Federal Signal Service at Antietam: Stations, Officers and Battlefield Intelligence on America's Bloodiest Day, Cory Pfarr reveals for the first time the full nature and significance of the Signal Service's role. His research and conclusions both question and help reshape our traditional understanding of Army of the Potomac commander George McClellan's command behavior during the battle as well as our knowledge of the timing and flow of battlefield intelligence to his headquarters. Critics of McClellan's generalship during the Antietam battle, and there are a great many, typically maintain that McClellan, content to follow the flow of the battle through dispatches from his subordinates and firsthand viewing through a telescope set up near his headquarters, kept an isolated and static command and control presence on the battlefield. Pfarr's McClellan is much more actively engaged. According to the author, the best evidence reveals that McClellan rode to other parts of the battlefield on at least five occasions on September 17. While that doesn't match the physical activity of the injured Lee, who was everywhere on that day personally monitoring the defensive efforts of his hard-pressed Army of Northern Virginia, it is much more than the one occasion that McClellan's most generous critics allow. The McClellan of Pfarr's interpretation is also better informed. McClellan's critics maintain that the general's perspective of the battlefield from his headquarters position behind the Union center was limited. In contrast, Pfarr argues that McClellan, who had signals contact with all sectors of the battlefield by the afternoon, processed a continual stream of Signal Service messages passed to his headquarters that closely informed his knowledge of the full breadth of the battlefield, in many instances on a near real-time basis. An early chapter in the book is devoted to the life and career of Major Albert Myer, the original developer of the army's flag and torch signaling code and system. That section of the book also offers interested readers brief instruction on the basics of Myer's system, which was adopted by the U.S. Army very late in the antebellum period and used by both sides during the war. An interesting aspect of Myer's leadership as chief signal officer of the Army of the Potomac was his selection process for subordinate officers. In addition to technical expertise (with strong eyesight to go with it!), Myer wanted officers possessing exceptional intellectual interests and, as Pfarr puts it, "moral seriousness." Much depended on the efforts and competence of these men, and it was believed that individuals of that type were needed to handle the technical requirements of the service as well as the isolation, stresses, and dangers involved in carrying out their duties. Myer's system was formally developed in the 1850s and was finally gaining acceptance by the end of the antebellum years, and McClellan, his own initial skepticism mainly centered around the reliability of volunteer officers and men, is credited by the author for supporting the signal service during its early period of development in the Civil War. Signal stations were useful for gathering both new information and confirming other intelligence reports, and Pfarr contends that the service played a role in speeding McClellan's response to Lee's invasion of Maryland. There was a concerted effort to establish stations as far forward as safety permitted in order to establish a stream of intelligence as close to real-time as possible. Unfortunately, through fog of war, interference, and other factors, this system did not perform quite as intended during the fighting for the South Mountain passes. However, as Pfarr explains, it did work well during the closer lead-up to Antietam and during the battle itself. The study's focus on biography also extends to the eight chapters devoted to each signal service station established during the battle. In those, Pfarr applies considerable research in fleshing out the prewar, wartime, and postwar lives of the pair of officers responsible for operating each station. It's a remarkable record and remembrance of the lives of these unsung individuals whose dedicated military service both inside and outside the signal service might otherwise have been lost to history. Though dwarfed in size by the biographical treatments, the other principal part of each signal station chapter is its opening section (ranging in size from a few paragraphs up to several pages) that details the location and activities of the station during the battle, with special attention paid to the impact of the most noteworthy transmissions regarding Confederate movements and positions. For example, Red Hill Station, with its exclusive view of Burnside Station and its ability to communicate with every other station except HQ Station No. 1, is commonly considered the most important one on the battlefield, and the chapter explores its role in supporting Ninth Corps's afternoon attack against the Confederate right flank. Though the attack failed, the station's six surviving reports clearly reveal that "it was not for want of timely intelligence" (pg. 139). Post-Antietam actions are not examined at any great length in the volume, but it is positively maintained that the signalmen continued to prove their worth by tracking Lee's retreat and assisting with fire direction against the Confederate batteries arrayed across Boteler's Ford. Unfortunately, the bulk of the message hard copies that the signalmen based their aerial telegraphy on did not, for some reason or another (the destructive effects of adverse weather being chief among them), survive the campaign and make it into archives that today's historians can access. Signal Service/Corps detachments traveled light by both design and necessity, and they possessed little means, let alone a wagon, for safeguarding document storage as they went about their movements in the field largely unprotected from the elements. Some readers might be disappointed to find just how sparse the information is about the activities of some of the stations, but it appears that the above is a major unavoidable factor behind it. Officers and men of the Signal Service may not have been exposed to shot and shell on a routine basis, but their work still involved considerable danger. One might imagine that those operating a station isolated in no man's land and in plain view for miles around felt more than a bit vulnerable, and indeed a pair of service members were captured by Jeb Stuart's roving Confederate cavalry during the Maryland Campaign. The excellent Fortescue memoir Service with the Signal Corps, edited by Greg Acken and published by University of Tennessee Press, noted that escorts were very infrequent, and he and his team suffered capture themselves in 1863 while monitoring Lee's retreat after Gettysburg. Civil War cavalry regiments were always pressured to detail men for a variety of side missions, and one might imagine that providing security for signalmen was another unwanted distraction and unit strength drain that they would have resisted. The volume is filled with excellent maps as well as modern landscape photographs of the visual field from the signal stations. The maps depict the course of the battlefield action while also usefully marking the location and directional flow of information between and from the forward signal stations and army headquarters. Readers trained to believe that those parts of Civil War battlefields where the most intense fighting occurred were filled with powder smoke dense enough and persistent enough to obscure meaningful observation might question how truly effective the forward flag signaling system was once the battle reached fever pitch. That is a real enough concern, but Pfarr cites an abundance of evidence from the signal men themselves confirming that they were able to see and transmit information throughout the day with few impediments. A question that will very likely arise in the minds of most readers of this volume, and indeed is specifically raised in the Afterword by contributor John Tokar, is why McClellan, if he was assisted by so much accurate and near real-time intelligence across the length of the battlefield, was still not able to use that information to craft a more decisive victory over his opponent. Alas, Pfarr leaves such discussion and conjecture to others. That's fine, but it would still be interesting to know his own thoughts on the matter. The more technical services will always struggle to gain anything approaching the levels of attention and recognition lavished upon front-line military units such as those involved in heroic infantry charges and dashing cavalry raids, but this study produces a strong argument that the Signal Service officers and men operating during the Maryland Campaign had an impact far beyond their tiny numbers. While the overall results of the campaign did not meet expectations, it is made abundantly clear to the reader of Cory Pfarr's The Federal Signal Service at Antietam that it was not because of any great lack of accurate and well-timed information. Recommended.
The 1862 Maryland Campaign and its culminating battle fought along Antietam Creek remain Civil War military history subjects second only to Gettysburg in sustained popular interest, discussion, and publication. Although Gettysburg still reigns supreme when it comes to inspiring book-length study of just about any topic associated with it, there has been significant catch-up on the Maryland Campaign front in recent years. For example, at this point most regular readers of the modern Maryland Campaign literature recognize the role of the U.S. Army's Signal Service (later renamed the Signal Corps) in transmitting vital intelligence on Confederate army movements and locations. However, in devoting a full-length study to the subject in his new book The Federal Signal Service at Antietam: Stations, Officers and Battlefield Intelligence on America's Bloodiest Day, Cory Pfarr reveals for the first time the full nature and significance of the Signal Service's role. His research and conclusions both question and help reshape our traditional understanding of Army of the Potomac commander George McClellan's command behavior during the battle as well as our knowledge of the timing and flow of battlefield intelligence to his headquarters. Critics of McClellan's generalship during the Antietam battle, and there are a great many, typically maintain that McClellan, content to follow the flow of the battle through dispatches from his subordinates and firsthand viewing through a telescope set up near his headquarters, kept an isolated and static command and control presence on the battlefield. Pfarr's McClellan is much more actively engaged. According to the author, the best evidence reveals that McClellan rode to other parts of the battlefield on at least five occasions on September 17. While that doesn't match the physical activity of the injured Lee, who was everywhere on that day personally monitoring the defensive efforts of his hard-pressed Army of Northern Virginia, it is much more than the one occasion that McClellan's most generous critics allow. The McClellan of Pfarr's interpretation is also better informed. McClellan's critics maintain that the general's perspective of the battlefield from his headquarters position behind the Union center was limited. In contrast, Pfarr argues that McClellan, who had signals contact with all sectors of the battlefield by the afternoon, processed a continual stream of Signal Service messages passed to his headquarters that closely informed his knowledge of the full breadth of the battlefield, in many instances on a near real-time basis. An early chapter in the book is devoted to the life and career of Major Albert Myer, the original developer of the army's flag and torch signaling code and system. That section of the book also offers interested readers brief instruction on the basics of Myer's system, which was adopted by the U.S. Army very late in the antebellum period and used by both sides during the war. An interesting aspect of Myer's leadership as chief signal officer of the Army of the Potomac was his selection process for subordinate officers. In addition to technical expertise (with strong eyesight to go with it!), Myer wanted officers possessing exceptional intellectual interests and, as Pfarr puts it, "moral seriousness." Much depended on the efforts and competence of these men, and it was believed that individuals of that type were needed to handle the technical requirements of the service as well as the isolation, stresses, and dangers involved in carrying out their duties. Myer's system was formally developed in the 1850s and was finally gaining acceptance by the end of the antebellum years, and McClellan, his own initial skepticism mainly centered around the reliability of volunteer officers and men, is credited by the author for supporting the signal service during its early period of development in the Civil War. Signal stations were useful for gathering both new information and confirming other intelligence reports, and Pfarr contends that the service played a role in speeding McClellan's response to Lee's invasion of Maryland. There was a concerted effort to establish stations as far forward as safety permitted in order to establish a stream of intelligence as close to real-time as possible. Unfortunately, through fog of war, interference, and other factors, this system did not perform quite as intended during the fighting for the South Mountain passes. However, as Pfarr explains, it did work well during the closer lead-up to Antietam and during the battle itself. The study's focus on biography also extends to the eight chapters devoted to each signal service station established during the battle. In those, Pfarr applies considerable research in fleshing out the prewar, wartime, and postwar lives of the pair of officers responsible for operating each station. It's a remarkable record and remembrance of the lives of these unsung individuals whose dedicated military service both inside and outside the signal service might otherwise have been lost to history. Though dwarfed in size by the biographical treatments, the other principal part of each signal station chapter is its opening section (ranging in size from a few paragraphs up to several pages) that details the location and activities of the station during the battle, with special attention paid to the impact of the most noteworthy transmissions regarding Confederate movements and positions. For example, Red Hill Station, with its exclusive view of Burnside Station and its ability to communicate with every other station except HQ Station No. 1, is commonly considered the most important one on the battlefield, and the chapter explores its role in supporting Ninth Corps's afternoon attack against the Confederate right flank. Though the attack failed, the station's six surviving reports clearly reveal that "it was not for want of timely intelligence" (pg. 139). Post-Antietam actions are not examined at any great length in the volume, but it is positively maintained that the signalmen continued to prove their worth by tracking Lee's retreat and assisting with fire direction against the Confederate batteries arrayed across Boteler's Ford. Unfortunately, the bulk of the message hard copies that the signalmen based their aerial telegraphy on did not, for some reason or another (the destructive effects of adverse weather being chief among them), survive the campaign and make it into archives that today's historians can access. Signal Service/Corps detachments traveled light by both design and necessity, and they possessed little means, let alone a wagon, for safeguarding document storage as they went about their movements in the field largely unprotected from the elements. Some readers might be disappointed to find just how sparse the information is about the activities of some of the stations, but it appears that the above is a major unavoidable factor behind it. Officers and men of the Signal Service may not have been exposed to shot and shell on a routine basis, but their work still involved considerable danger. One might imagine that those operating a station isolated in no man's land and in plain view for miles around felt more than a bit vulnerable, and indeed a pair of service members were captured by Jeb Stuart's roving Confederate cavalry during the Maryland Campaign. The excellent Fortescue memoir Service with the Signal Corps, edited by Greg Acken and published by University of Tennessee Press, noted that escorts were very infrequent, and he and his team suffered capture themselves in 1863 while monitoring Lee's retreat after Gettysburg. Civil War cavalry regiments were always pressured to detail men for a variety of side missions, and one might imagine that providing security for signalmen was another unwanted distraction and unit strength drain that they would have resisted. The volume is filled with excellent maps as well as modern landscape photographs of the visual field from the signal stations. The maps depict the course of the battlefield action while also usefully marking the location and directional flow of information between and from the forward signal stations and army headquarters. Readers trained to believe that those parts of Civil War battlefields where the most intense fighting occurred were filled with powder smoke dense enough and persistent enough to obscure meaningful observation might question how truly effective the forward flag signaling system was once the battle reached fever pitch. That is a real enough concern, but Pfarr cites an abundance of evidence from the signal men themselves confirming that they were able to see and transmit information throughout the day with few impediments. A question that will very likely arise in the minds of most readers of this volume, and indeed is specifically raised in the Afterword by contributor John Tokar, is why McClellan, if he was assisted by so much accurate and near real-time intelligence across the length of the battlefield, was still not able to use that information to craft a more decisive victory over his opponent. Alas, Pfarr leaves such discussion and conjecture to others. That's fine, but it would still be interesting to know his own thoughts on the matter. The more technical services will always struggle to gain anything approaching the levels of attention and recognition lavished upon front-line military units such as those involved in heroic infantry charges and dashing cavalry raids, but this study produces a strong argument that the Signal Service officers and men operating during the Maryland Campaign had an impact far beyond their tiny numbers. While the overall results of the campaign did not meet expectations, it is made abundantly clear to the reader of Cory Pfarr's The Federal Signal Service at Antietam that it was not because of any great lack of accurate and well-timed information. Recommended.
Friday, November 6, 2026
Booknotes: So Badly Routed
New Arrival:
• So Badly Routed: The Battle of Fisher’s Hill in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, September 22-24, 1864 by Larry W. Allamong, Mike K. Kehoe, Richard B. Kleese, Nicholas G. Racey, and William L. Stover, Jr. (Savas Beatie, 2026).
After suffering yet another heavy defeat in the Shenandoah, this time on September 19, 1864 at the Third Battle of Winchester, Jubal Early's small Confederate army fell back through Strasburg and occupied the high ground south of the town at Fisher's Hill. Even though the elevated position there was the Valley's supposed "Gibraltar," Early's depleted forces couldn't hold off the continued onslaught of Phil Sheridan's Union Army of the Shenandoah. Massively outnumbered and struck in both front and flank, Early's forces were routed again and retreated to Waynesboro. Though there were still clashes to come, the result of the battle meant that any real Confederate threat in the Valley was essentially removed for the rest of the war.
Larry Allamong, Mike Kehoe, Richard Kleese, Nicholas Racey, and William Stover's So Badly Routed: The Battle of Fisher’s Hill in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, September 22-24, 1864 offers readers the first full account of the battle. In it, the authors "draw on extensive firsthand archival research to explore the military operations from the days following the Third Battle of Winchester through Sheridan’s attack at Fisher’s Hill." The volume represents "a complete treatment of the decisive battle and related military actions in Warren and Page counties, and of the Mosby Affair at Front Royal."
The text is supported by 25 maps. There are even some sprawling two-page maps, and the amount of small-unit detail overall is impressive.
With the main narrative ending on page 153, the large appendix section is a major component of the study. It includes detailed (and annotated) orders of battle for both sides; information on the six medals of honor awarded to participants in the battle; extensive Fisher's Hill casualty lists for both sides; more casualty rosters for the September 20-24 fighting at Front Royal, Gooney Run, Overall, Oak Hill, and Luray; a discussion of the road network at Fisher's Hill; and, finally, a driving tour of the Fisher's Hill battlefield accompanied by a pair of maps.
• So Badly Routed: The Battle of Fisher’s Hill in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, September 22-24, 1864 by Larry W. Allamong, Mike K. Kehoe, Richard B. Kleese, Nicholas G. Racey, and William L. Stover, Jr. (Savas Beatie, 2026).
Thursday, November 5, 2026
Booknotes: Lincoln's Compass
New Arrival:
• Lincoln's Compass: The Declaration of Independence and the American Idea by Joshua Claybourn (Bloombury Academic, 2026).
The literature has for some time now ingrained in the reader's mind the idea that the Declaration of Independence, not reverence for the Constitution, was the guiding light of Abraham Lincoln's political philosophy. In Lincoln's Compass: The Declaration of Independence and the American Idea, Joshua Claybourn is the latest author to explore this subject.
From the description: "As we mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration's immortal words, Joshua Claybourn reflects on their enduring power through the eyes of one of its greatest leaders. Drawing on Enlightenment philosophy, Judeo-Christian ethics, and the lived political culture of both the Revolutionary era and the antebellum frontier Claybourn traces how Lincoln came to view the Declaration's assertion that “all men are created equal” as a timeless moral truth-what he called his “ancient faith.”"
More from the description: "Through vivid storytelling and close readings of Lincoln's most important speeches-from the Lyceum Address to the Peoria Speech-Claybourn reveals how Lincoln used the Declaration to confront the moral crisis of slavery and to redefine the meaning of American freedom."
In the preface, Claybourn explains that the chapters of his book "trace how Lincoln read the Declaration and how he used it to mold the Union's meaning together during the war." He does this in a way that "mixes narrative with argument." In addition to recounting events as they happened, the book is designed "to explore why Lincoln's case persuaded his own generation and whether it still can now" (pg. vii).
• Lincoln's Compass: The Declaration of Independence and the American Idea by Joshua Claybourn (Bloombury Academic, 2026).
Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Booknotes: Confederate Gibraltar
New Arrival:
• Confederate Gibraltar: The Vicksburg Campaign from the Fall of New Orleans to the Battles in the Bayou by Matt Atkinson (Savas Beatie, 2026).
Some Civil War campaigns are so long in duration, complicated in their dimensions, and full of battles of various sizes that the standard single-volume overview treatment of the kind we've come to expect from the ECW series won't cut it. Currently, we are in the middle of a multi-volume 1864-65 Richmond-Petersburg Campaign series from Sean Chick, and the ECW crew has now moved out west with the first of three planned Vicksburg Campaign volumes from Matt Atkinson.
The subtitle of Atkinson's Confederate Gibraltar: The Vicksburg Campaign from the Fall of New Orleans to the Battles in the Bayou makes it clear enough as to what events are covered in the first volume. Of course, every Vicksburg study recognizes the fact that Grant's campaign as it unfolded would not have been possible without the benefits of the naval supremacy placed at his disposal.
Another major theme explored in the volume is its terrain challenges. From the description: Arrayed against Union army and naval forces were "Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton and his Confederate army and perhaps an even more formidable opponent—the terrain. That part of Mississippi, riddled with alluvial lowlands, malarial swamps and canebrakes, woods, deep bayous, and steep ridges presented high-water floods and low-water navigation hazards." As recounted in the book, federal combined operations "spent months probing, maneuvering, bombarding, assaulting, and even digging in their effort to find a way to reach the nearly unreachable Confederate Gibraltar."
The volume ends with Grant's initial crossing of the Mississippi River below Vicksburg. Four maps support the text, and the volume features a dense collection of illustrations as well as period and modern photographs (an ECW series staple). There is also a single appendix consisting of contributor John Castaldo's review of the Yazoo River sinking of the ironclad U.S.S. Cairo.
On a related note, in his foreword to the book Timothy Smith mentions that Atkinson's master's thesis was on Chickasaw Bayou. Perhaps he can be prevailed upon to produce the first standalone study of that battle. I would definitely be interested in something like that.
• Confederate Gibraltar: The Vicksburg Campaign from the Fall of New Orleans to the Battles in the Bayou by Matt Atkinson (Savas Beatie, 2026).
Monday, November 2, 2026
Review - "Civil War Chaos in Texas: The Tumultuous Tenure of Governor Pendleton Murrah" by Lori Duran
[Civil War Chaos in Texas: The Tumultuous Tenure of Governor Pendleton Murrah by Lori Duran (Arcadia Publishing and The History Press, 2026). Softcover, photos, illustrations, endnotes, bibliography. Pages main/total:142/171. ISBN:978-1-4671-7243-1. $24.99]
When Unionist governor Sam Houston was ousted from office after refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to the new Confederacy, Lieutenant Governor Edward Clark finished out the remaining months of the old Texas hero's term. Clark in turn lost a close August 1861 gubernatorial race to Francis R. Lubbock, who served his two-year term and declined to run for reelection, joining the army instead. Facing off against each other in August 1863 were Pendleton Murrah and Thomas J. Chambers. There were no formal political parties in the Confederacy, but as the war progressed candidates could often be differentiated from each other based on their level of support for the Davis government in Richmond. Murrah, both a strong states rights advocate and pro-administration candidate, handily defeated the anti-administration Chambers, and he served as the state's governor through Confederate defeat and surrender in 1865. Murrah's leadership during this period as well as numerous other aspects of Civil War Texas home front politics and society are explored in Lori Duran's Civil War Chaos in Texas: The Tumultuous Tenure of Governor Pendleton Murrah.
As explained in the opening sections of the book, few details regarding Murrah's early life are open to modern inspection. Born out of wedlock, Murrah grew up in an orphanage, but he overcame those humble beginnings to graduate from Brown University and become a respected lawyer in Alabama. At some point, he also contracted the tuberculosis that would plague him for the rest of his life. Perhaps for his health, in 1850 Murrah moved to Marshall, Texas, an up and coming town that launched his political career. He also married Sue Taylor there, although their union (like the country's as a whole) proved less and less harmonious as time went on.
The study is largely a work of synthesis. According to Duran, "(n)o autobiography, biography, personal journal, or diary concerning [Murrah] or his wife has been found" (pg. 152), and that gap is mostly addressed in this book through a variety of published primary and secondary sources as well as a handful of letters. With apparently little in the way of detailed information available regarding Murrah's activities during the first half of the war, the book instead surveys the great many unresolved state-level military, political, social, and financial trials and pressures that accumulated during that time and which were immediately placed on Murrah's plate in November 1863. Murrah's governorship does not begin until Chapter Six, well over halfway through the volume's main narrative.
The Union military's strategic interest in Texas ran hot and cold over the duration of the war, their efforts largely limited to transitory seizures of coastal ports and barrier islands. Nevertheless, the threats to Texas's borders came from all points of the compass, and these are outlined in the text. The preview to Murrah's governorship also notes the significant wartime industrialization of East Texas, with special attention paid to Murrah's hometown of Marshall, which also became a major political and military administrative center. The first half of the book also reviews the mounting challenges Texas society faced as the war progressed. In addition to persistent frontier security problems, these issues included runaway inflation, shortages in essential civilian goods, military impressment of crops and slave labor, expanded conscription, and a dangerous internal opposition and insurgency. The book examines how Murrah's predecessors, especially Governor Lubbock, attempted to manage these crises and problems. When Murrah inherited the governorship, he was faced with an expanding military economy but a collapsing civilian economy. After the twin surrenders of Vicksburg and Port Hudson almost entirely isolated the Trans-Mississippi states and military department from the rest of the Confederacy, Murrah also had to contend with increasingly centralized military control of domestic affairs. Murrah's views on state prerogatives repeatedly clashed against departmental commander Edmund Kirby Smith's military priorities. If there is a general complaint to be made in how all this is presented, it lies in the somewhat disjointed chronological development of the narrative, which shifts back and forth in time both abruptly and frequently.
Though perhaps a bit unrealistic in her expectations, Duran is critical of Murrah maintaining his Confederate loyalty throughout the war and not working toward ending the conflict earlier after final defeat seemed inevitable. On the other hand, she also presents a strong case for Murrah's effectiveness as a wartime governor laboring under extreme internal and external conditions. Though limited by poor health, Murrah was active in maintaining support for public institutions of the kinds that were de-prioritized and allowed to fall into neglect in other Confederate states. Unlike other ardent supporters of states rights (Governor Brown of Georgia being an extreme example), Murrah was also willing to compromise with Confederate authorities for the good the overall war effort. As outlined in the text, a prime example of that was Murrah's willingness to suspend the competing activities of the state cotton bureau after Kirby Smith strongly objected to its drawing resources away from the Confederate bureau's ability to acquire critical military supplies for forces in the region. After resisting earlier efforts at drafting Texas militia and state troops into Confederate service (especially when it came to those units defending the frontier counties from Indian raids), Murrah also reluctantly gave in to Confederate manpower demands made during the spring of 1864. Those Texans deployed outside the state played a major role in achieving Confederate victory during the Red River Campaign. Recognizing the inevitable fallout from the complete collapse of Confederate authority in 1865, the author also doesn't attach to Murrah an undue degree of blame for the breakdown in law and order in the state during that time.
After the Confederate surrender, Murrah, suffering intensely from late-stage tuberculosis but fearing prosecution from the U.S. government, fled across the border into Mexico with other prominent Confederates. He died in Monterrey only weeks later in August 1865. While his gravesite in Mexico may still be lost to history, this book goes some way toward preserving Murrah's historical memory and his significant place in Texas's Civil War political record.
