Booknotes: Lee Besieged

New Arrival:

• Lee Besieged: Grant’s Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18–July 1, 1864 by John Horn (Savas Beatie, 2025).

It's easy to see why John Horn is one of the authors that A. Wilson Greene singles out for special acknowledgment in his epic multi-volume history of the 1864-65 Richmond-Petersburg Campaign. After all, Horn was putting out Petersburg titles long before the topic's recent upsurge in interest and coverage. His volume addressing the events of August 1864 ranks among the better entries in H.E. Howard's classic Virginia Civil War Battles and Leaders series, and his Petersburg Campaign contribution to Combined Books's Great Campaigns series of overviews was a staple of used bookstores way back when. A big part of Horn's more recent return to prominence is his partnership with Savas Beatie, which reissued in 2015 a newly revised and expanded version of Horn's Howard series book on Grant's Fourth Offensive and published Horn's regimental history of the 12th Virginia (the "Petersburg Regiment") in 2019. Their latest collaboration is Lee Besieged: Grant’s Second Petersburg Offensive, June 18–July 1, 1864, another impressive-looking effort.

Grant's Second Offensive, which came on the heels of the mid-June attacks that failed to achieve their goal of capturing Petersburg and forcing the evacuation of Richmond, was arguably "one of the most dramatic operations of the entire war." From the description: "To pave the way for success, Grant brought the city’s bridges under the fire of his siege guns to slow the transfer of enemy trips in and out of Petersburg. He also seized a bridgehead at Deep Bottom on James River’s north bank to draw Confederate forces out of Petersburg by menacing Richmond. Next, he took more ambitious measures by sending infantry to hem in Petersburg from the Appomattox River below the city to the Appomattox above. The move was designed to cut the critical Weldon and South Side railroads and force the Rebels to abandon Petersburg and Richmond. As his infantry went to work, his cavalry set out to sever the Confederate railroads below Petersburg to cut off supplies and reinforcements from the south and west."

By seizing the bridgehead on the north bank of the James River while also sweeping below Petersburg, this offensive marked the initiation of what would develop into a months-long series of concurrent large-scale attacks against the defenses and lines of communication into and between both Richmond and Petersburg, the object being to stretch Confederate lines to the breaking point and force a decisive breakthrough on either end of the line. While progress would be made, the ultimate prize eluded the federals until the following spring.

Among a number of factors, fierce Confederate opposition played a major part in keeping the federals out of both cities. Lee's army, though heavily depleted over the course of the Overland Campaign, remained a highly potent opponent. More from the description: During the Second Offensive detailed in Horn's study, "Lee and his infantry division commander William Mahone marched to meet the enemy, and in a stunning turn of events, routed Grant’s foot soldiers at Jerusalem Plank Road. Together, Confederate cavalry under Wade Hampton and Mahone’s infantry smashed Grant’s troopers at the battles of Sappony Church and First Reams Station. Thousands of Federal prisoners flooded into Confederate camps." The grind would go on.

The Second Offensive was covered very well in the first volume of Greene's A Campaign of Giants trilogy (which just completed its second part), but, as far as I know, this book is the first major standalone treatment of those events. In support of Horn's detailed narrative is a whopping set of forty maps. Contained in the appendix section are strength and casualty tables along with orders of battle.

Booknotes: Gettysburg Surgeons

New Arrival:

• Gettysburg Surgeons: Facing a Common Enemy in the Civil War’s Deadliest Battle by Barbara Franco (Stackpole Bks, 2025).

The plight of the Gettysburg Campaign's wounded has been examined, to some degree or another, in innumerable books and articles. Barbara Franco's Gettysburg Surgeons: Facing a Common Enemy in the Civil War’s Deadliest Battle contributes to that expansive literature by focusing most closely on the physicians from both sides who were charged with the care of a veritable flood of torn bodies. From the description: "In the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, a thousand surgeons faced an unprecedented medical catastrophe: 25,000 wounded soldiers needing immediate care with only primitive tools and their own determination to save lives."

In field hospitals established all around the Gettysburg landscape, these surgeons struggled to keep up with the sheer volume of wounded. From dealing with all that human tragedy (at Gettysburg and elsewhere during the Civil War years), however, emerged invaluable experience and knowledge that facilitated a leap forward in developing improved treatments for physical trauma and in post-operative care. More: "At Gettysburg's makeshift hospitals—set up in barns, churches, and blood-soaked fields—military and civilian surgeons from both North and South worked around the clock performing life-saving operations under fire. Drawing from a decade of meticulous research, historian Barbara Franco reveals how these courageous medical professionals revolutionized battlefield medicine and established principles still saving lives today."

Expressed "(t)hrough vivid accounts and previously untold stories," major themes in Franco's study address: "(h)ow surgeons improvised new techniques that became standard trauma procedures," "(t)he harrowing reality of Civil War field hospitals during the three days of battle," "(h)ow lessons learned at Gettysburg transformed American military medicine," and "(t)he lasting impact on modern emergency and disaster response."

Franco's study is delivered in three parts. Part I delves at some length into background matters associated with Civil War surgeons, including their education, army recruitment, defined duties, and experiences in the field. The heart of the book is found in Part II's discussion of the many duties and responsibilities involved with caring for the wounded both during and after the three-day battle. Finally, Part III focuses on one of the least investigated aspects of a Civil War surgeon's career arc—the strain involved with returning to the civilian world after the war ended—those challenges relating to both finding success in professional practice postwar and maintaining personal health that was in many cases chronically impaired by their hospital service. Some abandoned medicine altogether, redirecting their primary energies toward business or political pursuits. For added reference value, a number of Union and Confederate surgeons are individually profiled in the appendix section.

Two of my favorite university press book series to awaken from their slumber next year

1. Among our choices of battlefield touring books, Nebraska's This Hallowed Ground: Guides to Civil War Battlefields series has always been a CWBA favorite. According to the home page, there was an six-year gap between the two most recent volumes, and, more significantly, nothing has been released since 2014. That extended hibernation has long had me concerned that the series was discontinued. Happily, I just found out that that will not be the case, and we'll get another installment next June—Brian Burton's Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville: A Battlefield Guide (2026). It will be Burton's second contribution to the series, the first being 2007's The Peninsula and Seven Days: A Battlefield Guide.

2. Also next June we'll get The Forts Henry and Donelson Campaign: February 6-16, 1862 (2026), edited by Woodworth and Grear, from SIU Press's Civil War Campaigns in the West essay anthology series. The most recent title was 2020's Vicksburg Besieged, so in this case the gap between then and now is more like getting back up from a long nap than a deep slumber. At any rate, it's great to get confirmation that the editorial team is still plugging away at their ambitious schedule (by my count, this upcoming title will be the eighth of seventeen originally planned volumes). Unless they can start to shrink that interval between releases again, though, only a modern Methuselah will be able to collect them all.

Booknotes: Loving Lincoln

New Arrival:

• Loving Lincoln: A Personal History of the Women Who Shaped Lincoln's Life and Legacy by Stacy Lynn (SIU Press, 2025).

Stacy Lynn's Loving Lincoln "features thirty historical and personal essays, and within them, the stories of more than ninety women, each with their own mini biographies in an appendix. Among them are Lincoln’s friends, clients, and extended family, as well as writers, artists, and—blurring the lines between history and memoir—author Stacy Lynn herself."

Lynn believes that too many Lincoln scholars and historians have "overlooked Lincoln’s love for and friendship with women." By contrast, her own study "lifts up their interactions with Lincoln." Loving Lincoln centers on the great many women who helped mold Lincoln's "moral character" throughout his life. More from the description: "Lincoln understood the importance of the women in his life, and he put women’s wellbeing at the center of his personal, professional, and political ethos. He was loved by two strong pioneer mothers as well as sisters, friends, nieces, friends’ daughters, and his wife. He served women clients during his long legal career. As president, he met with women, dedicating time to hear their concerns despite the burdens of office. He replied to letters women wrote him. He believed in their capabilities and revolutionized the role of women in the workforce."

After Lincoln's 1865 assassination, women also played a role in shaping his remembrance in the long term. More: "Mary Lincoln ensured his burial among friends, artist Vinnie Ream sculpted his statue in the US Capitol, and biographer Ida Tarbell provided a nuanced portrayal of his life. Harriet Monroe and Ruth Painter Randall further cemented his place in literature and history."

In sum, "Lynn’s unique blending of history, biography, and her own story reveals the ways in which an emotional connection to the historical figures one studies opens the door to richer human and historical understanding."

Review - "North Carolina's Confederate Hospitals 1864-1865, Volume II" by Wade Sokolosky

[North Carolina's Confederate Hospitals 1864-1865, Volume II by Wade Sokolosky (Fox Run Publishing, 2025), Hardcover, 7 maps, photos, tables, footnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:viii,216/263. ISBN:978-1-945602-30-6. $32.95]

By now the vast majority of significant Civil War campaigns, raids, and battles fought in the state of North Carolina, beginning with the Union captures of Forts Hatteras and Clark in August 1861 and concluding with the Confederate surrender at Bennett Place in April 1865, have received noteworthy treatment in the military history literature. However, the Confederate medical service's tall task of dealing with the human cost of those conflicts, from serious illness and disease acquired in camp or on the march to wounds received on the battlefield, has not been followed in like depth and fashion. Making enormous inroads into bridging that gap is Wade Sokolosky, who has not only contributed immensely to the documentation of the late-war campaigns in North Carolina but is now in the middle of producing a multi-volume history of the military hospital system in North Carolina. The newest installment in that project, North Carolina's Confederate Hospitals 1864-1865, Volume II, represents the middle volume of a planned trilogy.

As one might expect, Volume II closely follows the structure and style of presentation first established by the author in North Carolina's Confederate Hospitals 1861-1863, Volume I. At this late stage of the war, the bureaucratic conflicts between the Richmond government and state and local authorities that were covered so well in Volume I were largely resolved. Many other important topics and themes, however, are common to both books. Volume II continues to feature detailed profiles of every general hospital and wayside hospital in operation during the covered period, the wayside hospital being responsible for the feeding and temporary care (ex. examination and redressing of bandages) of wounded and sick soldiers in transit. Hospital location, its physical description, bed capacity, and personnel matters related to it are major features of each facility profile. Firsthand accounts gleaned from Sokolosky's deep primary source research also provide readers with keen insights into hospital operations from both staff and patient perspectives. Specific administrative issues, both internally and within the system at large, are also frequently discussed.

The tireless and highly competent leadership of Medical Director Peter Hines is commended throughout. In addition to the doctor's adept display of large-scale hospital system management skills, Hines always did his duty with an eye toward enhancing the quality of patient care. Examples cited by the author include Hines's decision, during mid-war hospital expansion, to adopt the pavilion-style designs that both sides came to favor and his establishment of specialized care destinations within the system (ex. the Greensboro location having particular expertise in treating wounds to the face). The leadership and accomplishments of many other military surgeons are also recognized, as are the contributions of lower staff and civilian nurses. While the well-known writings of, for example, volunteer nurse Kate Sperry ensure that her own viewpoints and activities are never forgotten, the author points out in both volumes that that was not the case for the many black nurses and hospital attendants for whom sources documenting their service do not exist.

A prominent theme in both books is the profound effects military campaigns, both inside and outside the state, had on hospital locations and operations. In Volume I it was primarily mounting casualties on the Virginia fighting front that drove hospital expansion, while Union raids launched from the occupied tidewater region of the state periodically threatened locations where major hospitals were situated. By 1864, expansion of the military hospital system centered around the three new pavilion-style hospitals referenced earlier, which were not entirely completed before being overtaken by events. As Sokolosky documents, the hospital system as a whole became threatened from all sides by large-scale military actions as 1864 progressed into 1865. In addition to renewed coastal incursions, the state was invaded from the south by General Sherman's unstoppable host and from the west through the mountains by increasingly daring cavalry raids (Stoneman's Raid in 1865 being the most prominent). To the north, the incessant stream of casualties from battles fought during the 1864 Overland and 1864-65 Richmond-Petersburg campaigns imposed unprecedented capacity stresses on North Carolina's hospitals. Those stresses, combined with mounting supply and material scarcities, threatened to overwhelm the entire system.

As first explained in Volume I, general hospital location, in addition to striking a delicate balance between proximity to the front and safety from enemy attack, was also driven by logistical considerations. That limiting factor made their establishment near cities and along major rail lines a practical necessity. In Volume II, Sokolosky recounts the constant struggles involved in maintaining hospital operations in the face of competing military demands for rail transport, the general breakdown in the Confederate economy, and the gradual shutting off of foreign supply sources through the blockade. Of course, the logistical hubs in and around which those hospitals were located were also prime military targets for the enemy, and Sokolosky carefully documents the constant relocation of hospitals and patients into the interior as the state's major cities rapidly fell to approaching Union forces in 1865. While reading those sections of the book, one cannot help but appreciate the administrative marvel that kept North Carolina's hospital system in some semblance of existence and order until the guns finally fell silent.

The trilogy's first two volumes are both heavily illustrated. In addition to pinpointing the shifting locations of North Carolina's general and wayside hospitals through a series of excellent maps, other visual supplements found in Volume II include images of persons and locations, useful data tables, and photographic reproductions of staff and admission-related documents from the archives.

So, with Volume II taking readers through the end of the war, what's left to cover in the final installment? As the author explains, Volume III will house a collection of additional topics, the prior integration of which would have proved too disruptive to the chronological flow maintained throughout the first two books. Being witness to the quality level thus far displayed, one looks forward to the final volume with relish as well as with a strong sense of appreciation for Wade Sokolosky's dedication in producing a definitive-scale history and reference guide to North Carolina's Civil War military hospitals.

Booknotes: Reckless in their Statements

New Arrival:

• Reckless in their Statements: Challenging History's Harshest Criticisms of Albert Sidney Johnston in the Civil War by Leigh S. Goggin (Fontaine Pr, 2025).

Opinions surrounding Albert Sidney Johnston's tenure as the top Confederate commander in the West vary widely. Some, citing Johnston being tasked with protecting the borders of his vast Department No. 2 with nowhere near the resources necessary to successfully operate within President Davis's initial cordon defense strategy, argue that the general was placed in an impossible situation. Others believe that it was Johnston's own deeply flawed decision-making that was principally responsible for producing much of the catastrophic military disaster that characterized the final months of his rather brief (less than eight months in total) time in command.

Of course, generations of American scholars, most recently Timothy Smith in his 2023 study The Iron Dice of Battle: Albert Sidney Johnston and the Civil War in the West, have weighed in on Johnston's strengths and weaknesses. It has often been said that well-worn Civil War topics can benefit from foreign eyes infusing fresh perspectives from the outside looking in, and we might be getting just that from Australian author Leigh Goggin in his book Reckless in their Statements: Challenging History's Harshest Criticisms of Albert Sidney Johnston in the Civil War.

From the description: "Through a meticulous analysis of military records, contemporary accounts, and secondary sources, this book challenges history's harshest criticisms of Johnston's generalship and provides explanations for his most controversial decisions, such as the reinforcement of Fort Donelson and the stacked column of corps formation used in the battle of Shiloh. Here, for the first time, Johnston's actions are interpreted in a new light - challenging long-held assumptions and inviting readers to reconsider the legacy of an important Civil War commander."

The general format employed by Goggin in his analysis is the Q&A. Each of those styled chapters (23 in total) begins with a pointed question related to Johnston's decision-making [ex. "Why did Johnston assume command of the Central Kentucky Army?"], conduct [ex. "Was Johnston responsible for the blunders at Fort Donelson?"], or awareness [ex. "Was Johnston aware of events in eastern Kentucky?"]. Arrival at an answer to the question is processed through a series of contextual angles (indicated by nested subheadings) before a final conclusion is offered. Addressed throughout each chapter are the views of key historians as they relate to the issues at hand, their major works along with the O.R. being the two most commonly cited source types in the endnotes.

Having a great deal of interest in Johnston myself, I'm looking forward to delving into this.

Booknotes: Military Captives in the United States

New Arrival:

• Military Captives in the United States: A History from the Revolution Through World War II by Craig A. Munsart (McFarland, 2025).

From the description: "Since the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the United States has actively pursued military operations both domestic and foreign. Prisoners of war represent a natural consequence of such actions, and throughout history, many of them have been incarcerated within the borders of the United States. Incorporating both existing and purpose-built prisoner facilities, the nation has held over one million prisoners, many transported here from across the globe.

Detention facilities existed in almost every state, from large population centers to remote rural areas. Many such facilities have been preserved, while others have been destroyed by the country's expanding population."

Craig Munsart's Military Captives in the United States "seeks to fill a void, examining the history of domestically imprisoned POWs from the Revolutionary War through World War II." The study is divided into two parts: "Domestic Wars" and "International Wars." The former consists of the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Discussing both combatant and noncombatant prisoners, the Civil War section runs 36 pages and summarizes camp conditions and locations on both sides along with the parole and exchange systems. The international wars section addresses the Revolutionary War, quasi-war with France, War of 1812, Texas War of Independence, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, both World Wars, and post-WW2 captive noncombatants.

The author describes himself as a visual learner and consumer of information, and in service of that the volume is chock full of maps and tables. Extensive lists of camp names and locations are collected in the appendix section, organized by conflict. Munsart's study "presents a history that has long been ignored, and one which has a legacy in many Americans' own backyard."

Review - "Union Guerrillas of Civil War Kansas: Jayhawkers and Red Legs" by Thomas & Matthews

[Union Guerrillas of Civil War Kansas: Jayhawkers and Red Legs by Paul A. Thomas & Matt M. Matthews (Arcadia Publishing and The History Press, 2025). Softcover, photos, illustrations, notes, bibliography. Pages main/total:131/160. ISBN:978-1-4671-5808-4. $24.99]

Between the implementation of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and the end of the Civil War, the borderland between Missouri and Kansas was transformed into a landscape of violence that all too often crossed accepted boundaries. The irregular warfare that that extended conflict between proslavery and antislavery forces spawned possessed a nature and intensity that few other bitterly contested regions rivaled, and perhaps none equaled.

Literature coverage of the most infamous episodes and crimes of the Civil War period in eastern Kansas and western Missouri still focuses most closely on the actions and individuals involved with the pro-Confederate side of the irregular war, but Union guerrillas operating out of Kansas and cutting their own paths of murder, arson, and plunder could be just as ruthless as their Missouri counterparts. As continues to be the case with those studying the Missouri guerrillas, gaps in the available source material and persistent myths passed down through generations plague those writers who want to find the truth behind Kansas's guerrillas. Freshly wading into this heavily disputatious historiographical ground are Paul A. Thomas and Matt M. Matthews, the authors of Union Guerrillas of Civil War Kansas: Jayhawkers and Red Legs.

With the "Bleeding Kansas" period already the subject of an expansive modern library of scholarly work, Thomas and Matthews's contextualization of the 1850s Border War that created the Kansas Jayhawker is understandably brief. For the uninitiated, they trace the historical origins of the term 'jayhawking,' which was for decades prior a fairly non-specific word used to describe acts of thievery. The terms Kansas "Jayhawker" and "Red Legs" are defined and differentiated, the latter being a subset group of the former and which came into use after the start of the Civil War. Heavily associated with looting and arson that could be indiscriminate in nature and not strongly averse to committing outright murder, Jayhawkers and Red Legs at various times drew censure from all sides, although participants themselves along with many of their home front backers seem to have proudly accepted those labels. It is the distinct purpose of the authors to avoid playing the heroes versus villains game that has plagued the Border War historiography, focusing instead on portraying these men "in a way that fairly highlights the diverse and often complex reasons that they did what they did" (pg. 18).

Thomas and Matthews frame their largely biographical study around a representative sample of six major leaders: James H. Lane, James Montgomery, Charles R. "Doc" Jennison, George H. Hoyt, Marshall L. Cleveland, and William S. Tough. Of the half-dozen, Lane and Montgomery are the two most towering figures. Content found in their chapters, which offer fine summaries of how the authors interpret their backgrounds, character, and Civil War-era activities, will be familiar to those who have read any of the multiple book-length biographies of each that have been published in recent times. Though he still lacks a full biographical treatment of his own (Stephen Starr's 1974 combined unit history and leader study Jennison's Jayhawkers remains the classic source), Jennison's level of notoriety in the areas of deadly violence and marauding was top-tier. While household names in the region at the time, the rest are fairly obscure today. Hoyt, a lawyer who insinuated himself into John Brown's legal defense, was close to Jennison and was the individual most closely associated with the Kansas Red Legs. As revealed in the book, Cleveland was little more than a criminal freebooter (earning the moniker "Phantom Horseman of the Prairie"), using the Civil War as a means for stealing horses and other forms of property. Tough was another Jayhawker who gained enough wartime notoriety to be given a nickname (the "Paladin of the Kansas Prairie") but remains little known among today's Civil War students.

A number of common threads course through the pages of all six biographical chapters. All of the half-dozen jayhawking figures featured in the study were ostensibly antislavery in disposition. Each was situated somewhere on a spectrum between the ideological true believer (ex. Montgomery and Hoyt) and the most cynical brand of 'practical' abolitionist (ex. Cleveland and Tough). Jennison's abolitionist credentials are in dispute, and the authors note that his own wife denied that he marched to the abolitionist tune. Although the chapter devoted to James Montgomery duly recounts those of his actions that would be considered war crimes, it also generously describes him as the only truly "righteous" man in the bunch.

Although freeing Missouri slaves, regardless of slaveholder loyalties, was a major objective of Jayhawker raids, it was also the case that all the men that Thomas and Matthews profile in their book were involved in very serious episodes of arson and property crimes, the latter even to the extent of robbing banks. Personal motivations ranged among inflicting 'righteous' punishment on proslavery persons to making the war pay for itself to mere cynical personal gain, with the last far too often being primary. With Missourians of all political stripes commonly deemed to be inveterate enemies, many Kansans considered cross-border plunder and robbery justified, and many Jayhawkers used Civil War conflict to amass significant wealth for themselves and their closest associates.

To varying degrees, all of these men also played a role in the worst of all war crimes, the killing of prisoners and civilians. None of the six shied away from deadly violence, and, reading the book, one gains the strong sense that psychological and emotional instability was not uncommon. In recounting specific events, the authors do address conflicting reports. One prominent example involves allegations that emerged from the sacking of Osceola in September 1861. Many secondary sources in print and on the web today maintain that nine prisoners were executed, but Thomas and Matthews have determined that the best evidence points toward period sources mistakenly conflating what happened at Osceola with prisoner killings that did occur days earlier at Morristown.

The book also makes clear that Kansas Jayhawkers and Red Legs proved capable of moving back and forth between the irregular and conventional spheres of warfare, with some of the profiled individuals effectively leading both types of units at some time during their Civil War careers. That crossover led to frequent clashes between them and their military superiors who took a dim view of Jayhawker breaches in military discipline and behavior toward enemy civilians. Nevertheless, as the book shows, arrested Jayhawkers and Red Legs who possessed valuable knowledge and experience often escaped punishment by convincing their accusers of their unique usefulness as scouts and gatherers of intelligence.

It is also unsurprisingly the case that politics was keenly involved in Kansas's notoriously factional relations between prominent Jayhawkers and high-level politicians as well as within the Jayhawker leadership. Results from such political maneuvering often proved complicated, even contradictory. For example, the authors make clear that they could find no compelling evidence to support the common view that Lane and Jennison were friends. Instead, they determine the pair to have been "bitter enemies" (pg. 40). Yet the authors also reveal elsewhere in the book that Lane co-sponsored, with Kansas's other U.S. senator, a petition that strongly urged President Lincoln to appoint Jennison a brigadier general at the very moment the war's most infamous Jayhawker was suffering in official disgrace.

Union Guerrillas of Civil War Kansas makes a hefty contribution to our understanding of those Civil War Kansas leaders who were directly involved in the irregular conflict fought on both sides of the Kansas-Missouri border. Sweeping away simplistic portrayals and partisan mythologizing, Paul Thomas and Matt Matthews's collection of Kansas Jayhawker leadership biographies reveals, using the best available evidence and reasoned conjecture, not only who those men were as individuals but how each was situated, relative to each other, within common themes associated with Jayhawker motivations, actions, and justifications of those actions. In that way, readers gain vital insights into an ideological conflict that attracted and produced, as the authors maintain, "both good and bad men who did good and bad things" (pg. 18).

Booknotes: The Lower Battlefield of Antietam

New Arrival:

• The Lower Battlefield of Antietam: The Forgotten Front of America's Bloodiest Day by Robert M. Dunkerly (Arcadia Pub and The Hist Press, 2025).

The action around Burnside's Bridge and A.P. Hill's Light Division saving the day for Lee's army are pretty iconic episodes in the Battle of Antietam, so collectively labeling those parts of the battlefield a "forgotten front" is almost surely just a way to draw a line between the differences in general understanding between events in those sectors and the more popular lore surrounding "The Cornfield," the West Woods, and "Bloody Lane."

From the description: "While Antietam remains one the most famous engagements of the Civil War, history largely overlooks the lower end of the battlefield. 

Only here did the Confederates use Antietam Creek as a barrier, so it was the only place where Union troops had to force their way across. Here the Union army waged its final attack, and the Confederates launched their last counterattack led by A.P. Hill’s division. It might as well have been a different battle entirely from the more famed northern field."

More: "Using dozens of journals, diaries, newspaper accounts and reports," Robert Dunkerly's The Lower Battlefield of Antietam: The Forgotten Front of America's Bloodiest Day "examines the action in detail and explores the gradual preservation of this oft-neglected portion of America’s bloodiest battle." Firsthand perspectives drawn from sources referenced above populate every page of Dunkerly's narrative. Quite a large number of well-framed modern photographs provide visual reinforcement of notable landmarks and vistas described in the text. Additionally, a half-dozen detailed tactical maps, along with a bunch of archival sketches, supplement the action. It's a very attractive package.

Review - "The Pathfinder and the President: John C. Frémont, Abraham Lincoln, and the Battle for Emancipation" by John Bicknell

[The Pathfinder and the President: John C. Frémont, Abraham Lincoln, and the Battle for Emancipation by John Bicknell (Stackpole Books, 2025). Hardcover, 2 maps, photo gallery, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:v,290/372. ISBN:978-0-8117-7665-3. $32.95]

When it came to what was to be expected from those individuals who were the most politically motivated appointments to the Union Army's high command, public confidence in John Charles Fremont's ability to produce battlefield victories ranked at or near the top. Though his Mexican War career was controversial and he was recognized much more for frontier exploration than organized fighting capacity, the famous "Pathfinder of the West" entered the American Civil War with a reputation that paid off with a lofty appointment as one of the Union Army's highest ranking major generals. As author John Bicknell argues in The Pathfinder and the President: John C. Frémont, Abraham Lincoln, and the Battle for Emancipation, while battlefield glory in the Civil War entirely escaped Fremont, his legacy as an early and leading proponent of military emancipation was unparalleled. In Bicknell's estimation, Fremont, much more so than David Hunter, Benjamin Butler, or any other of the slate of prominent Union generals who targeted slavery early on, deserves to be remembered by history as the "military embodiment" of emancipation.

As Bicknell explains, Fremont did not plan to immediately go into military service. At the beginning of the conflict he was in Europe, where he facilitated significant arms purchases for Union forces. Amid the general rush and confusion among competing buyers, along with no little amount of trans-Atlantic miscommunication, Fremont's financial dealings were often, perhaps unavoidably, conducted in irregular fashion. Similarly haphazard procurement procedures led to accusations of waste and fraud throughout Fremont's subsequent tenure in Missouri as commander of the Department of the West. Much of the opprobrium was directed toward Justus McKinstry, Fremont's chief quartermaster, whose actions were given wide latitude by his superior. The author's own assessment of the accusations of official malfeasance in Missouri, and how much blame Fremont himself earned, is judicious in its approach. Taking the measure of administrative disorder on Fremont's end along with the likelihood that unofficial shortcuts, sketchy or not, were necessary to address crisis in the face of broad neglect from distant Washington, Bicknell's 'plenty of blame to go around' handling of the matter has merit.

It was during his abbreviated tenure at the head of the Department of the West that Fremont experienced the political meatgrinder that would plague every top commander in Missouri. As was the case with Nathaniel Lyon and William Harney before him, practically everything in Missouri ran through the very powerful Blair family. Like Lyon, but unlike Harney, Fremont, at least initially, had the support of the politically conservative but uncompromisingly pro-Union Blairs, who were basically the long arm of Lincoln in state and departmental affairs. Bicknell traces how the relationship mutually soured, a situation exacerbated by Fremont arresting serving officer Frank Blair. As the author keenly observes, it also didn't help Fremont's standing that key emissaries from Washington who were sent to Missouri to report on conditions there were far from impartial in their investigations and submitted slanted reports hostile to Fremont. Of course, any discussion of the home, military, and political life of John C. Fremont has to include his close partner in all of it, wife Jessie Benton Fremont. Their package-deal relationship has been explored at length in many publications, and this study ably traces the many ways in which Jessie's unflagging support and personal interventions aided, and at times hindered, her husband's Civil War-period military and political activities.

Among the growing list of ways in which the general aggravated his civilian masters, it was Fremont's penchant for striking out on his own path, even to the point of insubordination, that got him into the most amount of hot water with the Lincoln administration. Fremont is perhaps most remembered by Civil War students for his 1861 declaration of martial law in Missouri that included a revolutionary order forever freeing all slaves held by those in rebellion. While the order was immediately and fulsomely praised by many in the North, Lincoln, caught off guard and deeming such a weighty political decision the exclusive domain of the chief executive, immediately rescinded the emancipation measure. Fremont's refusal to revise his proclamation, forcing Lincoln to do it himself, was the strongest signal that his tenure in Missouri would likely be short. That impolitic reaction, combined with his failure to offer much relief to the besieged defenders of Lexington in September, placed Fremont's remaining military freedom of action in Missouri on a very short leash. His ponderous fall campaign into southwest Missouri achieved nothing of great note (partially due to persistent logistical limitations), and Fremont was finally relieved altogether on November 2, 1861, ending a tumultuous 100 days in command.

The book is clearly not intended to be a detailed examination of Fremont's generalship, providing only big-picture narratives of his operations and no tactical-level discussion of his battles. Sympathetic to Fremont's 1861-62 department commands occupying logistical backwaters, the author largely defends the general's operational conduct as reasonable when faced with the supply, transportation, and environmental challenges presented to him at the time. Bicknell agrees with Jeffrey Patrick, one of the most astute students of the 1861 campaigns in Missouri, that Fremont did not 'abandon' Lyon in the Missouri interior as much as he judged (correctly, in their estimation) securing the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to be the department's overriding strategic priority. As Mountain Department commander, Fremont's chief generalship woes, according to Bicknell, were his lack of enterprise and willingness to countenance calculated risks necessary to reap greater rewards. Fremont was, unlike Grant, not one of those commanders who could accept the limits he was presented with and simply do the very best with what he had in terms of men, equipment, and supplies. While outlining where he deems Fremont ill-used by the Lincoln administration and by history, the author nevertheless concludes that there's no evidence to support belief that Fremont was competent to lead a major army in the field.

There are a few niggles to bring up in the Missouri coverage, mainly in the area of the author's terminology choices. For example, Bicknell improperly calls the Missouri State Guard the Missouri "Home Guard," and he applies the "conditional" unionist brush to a large group of steadfast loyalists (Lincoln cabinet secretary Edward Bates being the most prominent among them) who would be more appropriately represented with the term "conservative" unionists.

Upon Fremont's departure from active service in mid-1862 after refusing a subordinate position in John Pope's Army of Virginia, he quickly fades from view in most general histories of the war, only to briefly reemerge during the nomination process of the 1864 presidential election season. However, Bicknell's more focused study offers a great deal of insight into Fremont's remaining military and political aspirations during this lesser-known gap period. His research reveals that Fremont maintained a wide base of support in the North, and not just among radicals, for both further command opportunities and high political office. On the military legacy side of things, Bicknell feels that Fremont made a major error in declining to pursue a leading role in organizing and commanding black troops. His reasonable supposition is that Fremont's wide popularity combined with his earnest regard for black freedom and advancement made returning to the war at the head of black troops his best remaining opportunity for producing a major military contribution to the Union war effort.

In his earlier study of the 1856 presidential election, Bicknell argued that Fremont's political campaign, though unsuccessful, paved the way for Lincoln's victory in 1860. That "pathfinder" theme connecting Fremont and Lincoln continues in this study. Fremont's next great trailblazing role, this time in military emancipation and application of hard war (with the conciliatory Lincoln trailing behind Fremont in follower status), is a principal part of Bicknell's narrative and analysis. Though the strength and implications of that line of thinking, as presented in the book, certainly possesses numerous elements of truth, it is also the case that that viewpoint benefits very heavily from the advantages of assessing history through the lens of hindsight. It is easy to see now that Lincoln's confidence in southern unionism and concerns over Kentucky's continued loyalty were overblown. However, given what was known and what was unknown at the time, one can argue that Lincoln's calculated caution was well justified, or at the very least not worthy of moral disdain to the degree exhibited by the abolitionists of the time. In comparison to those contemporary critics, the author is more nuanced in his criticisms of Lincoln's reticence.

In 1864, Fremont made it abundantly clear that his third-party presidential candidacy was primarily aimed at defeating Lincoln's chances at a second term. He told all who would listen that he would gladly drop out of the race once someone with better radical credentials than Lincoln received the Republican nomination. However, once he saw the writing on the wall that Lincoln was staying firmly in the race and retained broad-based support, Fremont, to his credit, stepped down rather than risk being the cause behind losing the White House to the Democrats in a three-way contest. He also wanted it made known that his withdrawal was unconditional, which caused some anxiety among the backroom deal makers but did not end up derailing anti-radical Montgomery Blair's exit from Lincoln's cabinet.

As revealed in John Bicknell's The Pathfinder and the President, the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and John C. Fremont was never a close one and quickly dissolved into mutual antipathy. Close reading of Bicknell's study essentially erases any thought that the pair's partnership could have been more productive had just a few things gone differently. The two men were just too far apart in personality and political disposition, and Fremont lacked the military ability to make better use of the high command opportunities that came his way. The modern Civil War literature has produced numerous fine studies of the many complications involved in managing a coalition war effort of pro-Union radicals and conservatives, and Bicknell's study of the Fremont-Lincoln relationship also offers readers another set of keen insights into the inseparability of political considerations from military affairs amid such a conflict. While Fremont was in many ways his own worst enemy when it came to antagonizing the president, he was also the target of powerful forces arrayed against his radical political alignment. The degree to which Fremont deserves credit for leading a cautious President Lincoln along the path toward military emancipation remains open to further debate, and, as the author maintains, the matter also raises intriguing questions in regard to how much the war might have been shortened (if at all) had Lincoln sustained Fremont's emancipation edict in Missouri, but Bicknell's arguments on both counts are a force to be reckoned with among the doubters. Highly recommended.

Booknotes: Glorious Courage

New Arrival:

• Glorious Courage: John Pelham in the Civil War by Sarah Kay Bierle (Savas Beatie, 2025).

Major John Pelham had numerous things going for him on his path to legendary status among Civil War artillerymen. In Pelham, youth and high bravery were complemented with great leadership and competence, the combination drawing the personal attention and approbation of Lee himself. He was the Confederate Army's premier handler of horse artillery, and in commanding the long arm of Jeb Stuart's cavalry there was never a lack of visibility. Being mortally wounded in battle during the peak period of the Army of Northern Virginia's dominance of the eastern theater (in a reckless charge at Kelly's Ford in March 1863) further cemented Pelham's place among the Confederacy's most celebrated military martyrs.

From the description: "“It is glorious to see such courage in one so young!” So declared Confederate General Robert E. Lee on December 13, 1862, during the battle of Fredericksburg as he watched Major John Pelham fight at least five Union batteries with just one lone gun. The dashing and handsome 24-year-old Alabama officer earned the compliments and admiration of his men, the war gods of Virginia (Lee, Jackson, and Stuart), and Southern society—all while helping transform the concept of horse artillery on Civil War battlefields across Virginia and Maryland."

Sarah Kay Bierle's Glorious Courage: John Pelham in the Civil War, part of the Emerging Civil War series, "reconsiders Pelham’s extraordinary, if short, life." Her biography explores his battlefield greatness as well as his flaws. The resulting portrait frames Pelham's "place in history as he lived it, not varnished with the perspectives shoved upon him by later generations."

The book is a cradle to grave biography that covers Pelham's early life, his West Point education, his Civil War activities, and his historical memory. As we've come to expect from ECW titles in general, copious photographs and other illustrations pack the volume along with eight maps tracing Pelham's campaign and battlefield exploits. Other aspects of Pelham's life and Civil War career, such as his relationships with women, his parallels with G.A. Custer, and the CVBT's preservation efforts at "Pelham's Corner" (Fredericksburg), are explored in the appendix section.

Booknotes: Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson

New Arrival:

• Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson: The Twenty One Critical Decisions that Defined the Battles by Hank Koopman [(Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series) U Tenn Press, 2025].

From the description: "The Battles of Forts Henry and Donelson took place in February of 1862 and were early indicators of the success the US would have in the Civil War’s Western Theater. Due to Kentucky’s neutrality at the time, Brig. Gen. Daniel S. Donelson was instructed to find suitable sites for fortification along the Tennessee River but just inside the state boundaries of Tennessee. Forts Henry and Donelson were constructed in the summer of 1861 and were quickly identified by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant as strategic fortifications that, if conquered, would open the Federal Army’s path to Alabama and Mississippi. Fort Henry fell to Federal control on February 6, 1862, and Fort Donelson fell six days later. With the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers now open to Federal gunboats, Grant and his army would head southwest to Memphis and on to Vicksburg."

This was one of those Civil War campaigns in which the actions of smaller forces produced enormous strategic consequences. While it may not have been, as Kendall Gott maintains, "Where the South Lost the War," there is no denying that the twin Union victories at Henry and Donelson were unmitigated disasters for Confederate fortunes. It also firmly placed the careers of two key generals of the war, Confederate western department commander Albert Sidney Johnston and Union army commander U.S. Grant, on opposite trajectories that were cemented conclusively at Shiloh. That things might have turned out differently at key moments during the campaign makes Henry-Donelson a strong candidate for an interesting addition to University of Tennessee Press's Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series.

More from the description: Hank Koopman's Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson: The Twenty One Critical Decisions that Defined the Battles "explores the critical decisions made by Confederate and Federal commanders during the battle and how these decisions shaped its outcome. Rather than offering a history of the battle, Hank Koopman hones in on a sequence of critical decisions made by commanders on both sides of the conflict to provide a blueprint of the Battles of Forts Henry and Donelson at their tactical core. Identifying and exploring the critical decisions in this way allows students of the battles to progress from a knowledge of what happened to a mature grasp of why events happened."

Of added interest is the presence of a new voice in the series, this being Koopman's first contribution. I look forward to delving into his interpretation of the campaign's key moments and how well he works within the well-established structure of the series.

Coming Soon (June '25 Edition)

Scheduled for JUN 2025¹:
• Glorious Courage: John Pelham in the Civil War by Sarah Kay Bierle.
• Reckless in their Statements: Challenging History's Harshest Criticisms of Albert Sidney Johnston in the Civil War by Leigh Goggin.
• Lincoln’s Lady Spymaster: The Untold Story of the Abolitionist Southern Belle Who Helped Win the Civil War by Gerri Willis.
• The Weather Gods Curse the Gettysburg Campaign by Nese & Harding.
• Politics and Memory: Civil War Monuments in Gilded Age New York by Akela Reason.
• American Civil War Amphibious Tactics by Ron Field.
• West Virginia's War: The Civil War in Documents by William Kerrigan.
• The National Tribune Remembers the Atlanta Campaign: Battles, Skirmishes, Marches, and Camp Life as Recalled by the Union Veterans Themselves ed. by Stephen Davis.
• The Civil War by Jeremy Black.

¹ - These monthly release lists are not meant to be exhaustive compilations of non-fiction releases. They do not include reprints that are not significantly revised/expanded, special editions not distributed to reviewers, children's books, 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.

Upcoming Honey Springs battle study

Advance notice of anthropologist/archaeologist William Lees's Honey Springs, Oklahoma: Historical Archaeology of a Civil War Battlefield (Sept '25) recently popped up. Needless to say, my interest was immediately piqued.

Readers who have been following this site over its nearly two decades of existence know what types of subject matter grab me most, and this one checks a lot of boxes for me. First off, the long-awaited return of Texas A&M University Press to a Civil War topic is worthy of celebration. Check. An original contribution to Trans-Mississippi theater military history (which has been languishing in recent years). Check. First book-length study of one of the most significant battles fought in Indian Territory. Check. Battlefield archaeology being a central component of the study. Check. All nice. I can hardly wait to get my hands on a copy of it.