Booknotes: The 14th New York State Militia in the Civil War, Vol. 1

New Arrival:

• The 14th New York State Militia in the Civil War, Volume 1: "Baptized by Fire"-from Bull Run to Bull Run, April 1861-August 1862 by James L. McLean, Jr. (Savas Beatie, 2025).

Back in 2023, Savas Beatie published James McLean's “The Bullets Flew Like Hail”: Cutler’s Brigade at Gettysburg, from McPherson’s Ridge to Culp’s Hill. One of the regiments that fought with that brigade at Gettysburg and elsewhere was the 14th New York State Militia (aka 14th Brooklyn and, officially, the 84th New York Infantry Regiment), and McLean's interest in that particular unit runs deep. The ultimate expression of that devotion is a highly ambitious three-volume regimental history project, the first installment being the newly released The 14th New York State Militia in the Civil War, Volume 1: "Baptized by Fire"-from Bull Run to Bull Run, April 1861-August 1862, which "chronicles the near-daily exploits of the 14th New York State Militia recruited from Brooklyn. Known as chasseurs or Red Legs for their distinctive uniforms, the men of the 14th N.Y.S.M. endured grueling marches, brutal weather, and fierce battles from April 1861 to August 1862."

Though their efforts could not stave off a resounding defeat, the 14th made a splash during the eastern theater's first major battle. More from the description: "During these first 15 months of war, the regiment earned praise from both allies and adversaries. In January 1862, a Union soldier encamped near the chasseurs wrote to his hometown newspaper that the “Brooklyn Boys” were “respected for their courage and prowess at the Battle of Bull Run”..."In August 1862, the 14th N.Y.S.M. faced a grueling campaign marked by night marches, scant rations, and relentless skirmishes, culminating in three harrowing days of combat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, where the regiment served with distinction."

Over 500 pages in length after including the front and back matter, this is a big and heavy 7"x10" book. The narrative is the result of "decades of research, including nearly 200 visits to the National Archives, the examination of documents at the New York State Archives, and the exploration of collections at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Letters, diaries, and images shared by descendants and collectors further enrich this study." If the following two volumes are this size or larger, this might become the highest word-count Civil War regimental history of all time. That enormous depth comes at a bit of a cost in that the text font is a challenge for those of us who started out young adulthood with fighter pilot vision but are now forced to use readers! It's a beautifully put together package, from the thick glossy paper stock to the sepia-toned contemporary images, color illustrations, and color cartography. Speaking of maps, they are three-dozen in number and follow the regiment from its Brooklyn origins to its assaults on the unfinished railroad at Second Bull Run.

Though a celebrated regiment during the war, according to McLean the Brooklyn Chasseurs "faded into obscurity" after the conflict ended. In addition to producing little in the way of veteran writings, "(o)nly three battle reports by its officers appear in the Official Records, two of which describe but minor engagements." Nevertheless, "records of allied and opposing regiments provide critical insights into the Brooklyn soldiers and their experiences. The result is a vivid examination of the regiment’s initial 15 months of service through the eyes of the common soldiers: their reasons for enlisting, their reactions to the challenges of military life, the evolution of their attitudes toward combat, and the lasting impact of wounds and illnesses into the postwar years."

The book is produced in a limited edition consisting of 119 signed and 600 numbered unsigned copies. These are only available direct from the publisher or from the author himself, so thanks to Mr. McLean for reaching out to me to inquire about review interest and for sending along a collector-coveted low number copy from his personal allotment. I'm looking forward to checking it out.

Booknotes: Saltgrass Prairie Saga

New Arrival:

• Saltgrass Prairie Saga: A German American Family in Texas by Jim Burnett (TAMU Pr, 2025).

In the Confederate wartime experience, isolation between home and fighting fronts was among the most extreme for Texas soldiers and civilians. The state of Texas and the rest of the Trans-Mississippi theater comprised a vast land mass on its own, and its soldiers were additionally spread all across the western theater and, perhaps most famously, into Lee's army in Virginia. The isolating effects of those vast distances between camp and battlefields on one end and home and hearth on the other were only exacerbated by uncertain communications across the wide Mississippi River that became almost impossibly precarious post-Vicksburg. Those challenges and more are explored in Jim Burnett's Saltgrass Prairie Saga: A German American Family in Texas.

From the description: "In Saltgrass Prairie Saga, John and Johanette Stengler, with their seven children in tow, leave the small central German village of Dietz and land in Galveston on New Year’s Eve, 1845: two days after Texas officially joined the United States. The world this family entered is contextualized through military reports, newspaper articles, personal correspondence, and local and state records." Though the book follows a long stretch of Texas and family history, the emphasis is on the Civil War years (which is, of course, great for our purposes!).

Questions addressed through the lens of the Stengler family Civil War experience include: "(W)hat was life like for the families who endured wartime separation? How did women ensure stability at home while their husbands, fathers, and brothers were ordered away to risk their lives? How did families remain connected despite separation and the pressures of survival?"

In sum: "Blending life and settlement on the frontier, the early years of the Texas cattle trade, the waves of immigration during the period, and the impact of the Civil War, Saltgrass Prairie Saga offers a fresh view of a pivotal period in Texas history."

This is an April title that was checklisted with the publisher, but, as sometimes happens, the prospective review copy must have gotten lost in the shuffle somewhere, never made it into my hands, and ended up fading from my mind. Happily, the author contacted me a short time ago and inquired about my interest in getting a copy directly from him. So special thanks to Jim for both the fresh reminder of this interesting book (which looks like something right up my alley) and for sending one my way.

Booknotes: "Mending Broken Soldiers" paperback edition

New Arrival:

• Mending Broken Soldiers: The Union and Confederate Programs to Supply Artificial Limbs by Guy R. Hasegawa (SIU Press, 2025 pb ed).

From the description: Guy Hasegawa's Mending Broken Soldiers is "the first volume to explore the wartime provisions made for amputees in need of artificial limbs—programs that were the forebears of modern governmental efforts to assist in the rehabilitation of wounded service members. Hasegawa offers a comprehensive look at the artificial-limb industry, including detailed descriptions of the ingenious designs employed by manufacturers; illustrations and photographs of period prosthetics; accounts of the rapid advancement of medical technology during the Civil War; and in-depth examinations of the companies that manufactured limbs for soldiers and bid for contracts, including at least one still in existence today."

This is the new paperback reissue of the book. I reviewed the first edition hardcover back in 2012. To read it, go HERE.

Review - "Decisions at Chancellorsville: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle" by Sarah Bierle

[Decisions at Chancellorsville: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle by Sarah Kay Bierle (Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series - University of Tennessee Press, 2025). Paperback, 17 maps, photographs, battlefield touring guide, orders of battle, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xx,142,277. ISBN:978-1-62190-956-9. $24.95]

Decisions at Chancellorsville is the latest installment of University of Tennessee Press's Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series, which has published multiple titles each year since 2018. In addition to the prolific release schedule that the series continues to maintain, fresh blood is infused into its stable of authors on a fairly regular basis, too, and this is Sarah Kay Bierle's first contribution. And a fine one it is.

Now for the obligatory background summary for those unfamiliar with the series and its structure. First, it should be noted that these books do not examine Civil War campaigns and battles through the traditional narrative perspective and format. Instead, the main content is presented through a chronological sequence of "critical decision" analyses. In the hierarchy of decision-making, critical decisions are defined as being those command choices that produce profound consequences in their immediate aftermath and that meaningfully shape the course of ensuing events.

As outlined in previous reviews, analysis of each critical decision follows a standardized format to which every volume strictly adheres. Discussion progresses through five linked stages—Situation, Options, Decision, Result(s)/Impact, and Alternate Decision/Scenario. The first and typically lengthiest section, Situation describes the state of affairs at a crossroads moment in the campaign or battle. It provides readers with the background information necessary to recognize and evaluate the range of reasonable Options (most frequently two or three in number) available for addressing the situation. The historical Decision is then outlined before the Result(s)/Impact section recounts what happened and how those results shaped subsequent events. A degree of emphasis is placed on tracing lasting effects of critical decisions made earlier. Finally, an optional Alternate Decision/Scenario section delves into alternative history conjecture based on choices not made. In this case, Bierle elected not to engage with the optional alternate history component, which is perfectly fine.

In the series, critical decisions are categorized as being either strategic, operational, tactical, organizational, logistical, or personnel-related. Bierle organizes the sixteen decisions of her study into six groupings: the pre-battle January-April 1863 interval and the May 1, May 2, May 3 (in two parts), and May 4-6. Those six sub-sections contain three critical decisions each, the exception being the last, which includes a single one involving Army of the Potomac commander Joseph Hooker's retreat decision. There are a preponderance of tactical-level critical decisions. In the author's view, the total numbers disparity (nine for the Union side and six for the Confederates) represents Hooker's persistent struggle to reassert control of events after the strong start to his campaign quickly fizzled. Although he had many opportunities during those first days in May to impose (or reimpose) his will upon Robert E. Lee's vastly outnumbered army, Hooker's choices instead led him to "give up his military advantages and initiative, handing opportunity to Lee to react" (pg. xvi), with decisive reaction on the part of Lee forming several of the Confederate side's half-dozen critical decisions. Supporting the volume's decision analysis are 17 maps, a 12-stop driving tour, an appendix examining the campaign's historical memory (that is not a regular series feature), and orders of battle for both sides.

Beirle's selection of critical decisions and their available option formulations together exhibit a very strong grasp of both big picture and more nuanced elements of the military history literature associated with the Chancellorsville Campaign. Each option is effectively framed for the reader through thoughtful weighing of the benefits and risks attached to it (some of which have a fresh ring to them).

For the series as a whole, nearly all critical decisions are made by individuals, mostly high-ranking military officers and top government officials. Collective critical decisions are thus highly unusual, but Bierle has two of them. In her assessment, the final Union assault on Marye's Heights was a group decision among frontline small-unit commanders. Another decision involving multiple parties was the possibility of medical and military officers deciding as a group that Hooker was too incapacitated (presumably by concussion) to remain in command after the pillar he was leaning against was struck by cannon fire. Another interesting matter related to the Fredericksburg sector of the battlefield is Bierle's willingness to take up the truce flag controversy, a matter recently addressed at some length in Erik Nelson's 2024 study of the eastern half of the expansive Chancellorsville battlefield, as a critical decision impacting the final Fredericksburg assaults. Though not related to any particular critical decision (and thus not explored further), the author's criticism of Jeb Stuart's infantry tactics (characterizing them as overly wasteful frontal assaults) on May 3 after the cavalryman took over leadership of wounded Stonewall Jackson's Second Corps forms a dissenting opinion perhaps worthy of mention. Most modern writers, including the general's most recent biographer, have not adopted that same view, instead arguing that Stuart performed well after being abruptly thrust into infantry corps command in the middle of a major battle.

In terms of arguable 'misses,' Bierle's set lacks a standalone decision related to how George Stoneman's cavalry corps would be used during the campaign. Incorporating it into the discussion as just a part of Hooker's overall planning options lends an element of inevitability to how Stoneman's role in the campaign would unfold that is perhaps not warranted. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that Hooker, even if he had eschewed the deep raid option in favor of keeping his cavalry nearby, would have deployed his cavalry as close tactical support in ways that might have kept him better informed as to Lee's movements and protected the open right of his army from getting crushed by Jackson's massive flank attack.

As mentioned before, one of the conceptual qualities of the critical decision is that its impact extends beyond the immediate period in ways that meaningfully shape downstream campaign and battlefield events. Interestingly, Bierle goes beyond that, showing how critical decisions during the Chancellorsville Campaign affected the Gettysburg Campaign that followed it. For example, Bierle suggests that Third Corps commander Dan Sickles's dismay at Hooker's critical decision ordering him to abandon the Hazel Grove high ground (leaving it to the Confederates for use as a devastating artillery platform that transformed the fighting around the Chancellorsville crossroads) might very well have been a bitter learning experience that directly informed his determination, misguided or not, to press forward to occupy the higher ground fronting his assigned position as the left flank of the Union army at Gettysburg. As another example, contemporary observers and present day writers alike have praised Hooker's winter reforms that restored Army of the Potomac morale after Fredericksburg and placed it on a strong footing for the spring, but Chancellorsville exposed the flaws in Hooker's artillery arm reorganization. Hooker's belated, mid-battle decision cited by Bierle that restored Hunt's authority over the army's artillery had a positive short-term impact (albeit limited by circumstances), and it led to Hunt being given authority to reorganize the artillery after the battle in ways that improved its performance at Gettysburg. Bierle also suggests that Fifth Corps commander George Meade's experience with Hooker's mismanaged Chancellorsville council of war, which resulted in the commanding general going against majority opinion of his principal subordinates and ordering a retreat, shaped how Meade would conduct his own critical decision during a similarly key moment at Gettysburg on the night of July 2-3.

Consistency is a hallmark of the Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series, which is pretty remarkable given the hectic release schedule and multitude of contributors involved, and Sarah Bierle's Decisions at Chancellorsville strongly upholds that reputation while also adding some unique elements of its own. Hopefully, we'll see more of her quality input in the future.

Booknotes: Richmond Views the West

New Arrival:

• Richmond Views the West: Politics and Perceptions in the Confederate Capital by Larry Daniel (UP of Kansas, 2025).

Larry Daniel's Richmond Views the West: Politics and Perceptions in the Confederate Capital seeks to answer the following question: "How did politicians, bureaucrats, reporters, and civilians in Richmond understand a war being fought a thousand miles away?" Rather than looking backward with a critical engine fueled by a mountain of modern scholarship, Daniel instead focuses on what was known (or what was thought to be known, the "perceptions" of the book's subtitle) at the time. In the end, Daniel "shows for the first time how poor intelligence, fierce politics, and cultural prejudice affected Confederate strategy in the Western Theater."

For the purposes of the study, the author divides the Confederacy into three geographical parts: the Trans-Mississippi (self-explanatory), the Heartland (TN, MS, AL, cis-Mississippi LA, and most of GA), and the East (VA, NC, SC, a coastal strip of GA, and FL). Daniel's "West" is the combined Trans-Mississippi and Heartland regions.

From the description: "In his novel approach to understanding the Western Theater of the U.S. Civil War, Larry Daniel brings new insight and understanding to the war without ever setting foot in the West. Rather, he takes readers to Richmond, Virginia, to see how the war was understood in the Confederate Capitol. We see in real time how the Jefferson Davis administration received, understood, and reacted to reports from the front, which often arrived in Richmond days after they were written. Daniel gives voice to cabinet members, War Department clerks, congressmen, capitol reporters, and even civilians, all watching the war unfold hundreds of miles away."

As Daniel explains in the Preface, it is his belief that "the power base remained solidly in Richmond" and "not by some quasi-connected political and military western bloc." On the other hand, the author does seem to favor McMurry's view that there was a western power bloc "at least powerful enough to effectively immobilize Davis," forcing him, through geographical political appeasement, to assign resources East and West in balanced proportions that ending up dooming both military theaters to failure (pp. xvii-xviii).

While the campaigns and battles fought in Virginia may have absorbed the most attention in the Confederate capital, there was certainly a great deal of interest (and misperception) in what occurred out West. More from the description: "...Richmond was still rocked by the disastrous losses across the Appalachians, especially Fort Donelson, New Orleans, Vicksburg, and Atlanta. Still, incomplete information and biased press reports deified certain western generals in the public imagination, including P. G. T. Beauregard, Sterling Price, and Joseph E. Johnston, whose performance did not justify such public adoration."

According to Daniel, cultural factors combined with flawed national strategy helped place the Confederacy on the path to defeat. The cream of Richmond society tended to consider the West as the frontier, and that had a negative affect on how the war was conducted from Richmond. More: "Richmonders’ “Virginia-first” military strategy and their aristocratic sense of cultural superiority over the diverse regions and cultures of the West blurred their view and damaged their ability to make strong strategic decisions." Also, "(t)he Davis administration’s preference for territorial and static defense, influenced by their strategic and political (mis)understanding of the region, set the war in the West on a spiraling downward trend from which it never recovered."

Currently, I'm about fifty pages in and am liking it so far.

Booknotes: Southern Army Units 1861-1865, Vols 1 and 2

New Arrival:

• Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation - Volume 1, Alabama to Mississippi & Southern Army Units, 1861-1865: A Compilation - Volume 2, Missouri to Virginia by Phil Osborne (Author, 2025).

For assistance in researching Confederate Army units, there are a number of reference works of varying degrees of completeness and detail. Building upon what were essentially just basic unit lists compiled during the late-19th and early-20th centuries, Joseph Crute added more information in his single-volume 1987 work Units of the Confederate States Army. In the 1990s, even more detail was provided by Stewart Sifakis's multi-volume Compendium of the Confederate States Armies. However, both, while laudable efforts on the part of their authors, have been criticized for not being comprehensive enough. Most recently, Dan Fullerton's Armies in Gray: The Organizational History of the Confederate States Army in the Civil War, which conveys unit information via an organizational tree extending all the way down to the smallest maneuver units (regiments, battalions, and artillery batteries), was published in 2017. Now, with Philip Osborne's two-volume set Southern Army Units, 1861-1865, we have another work available for cross-referencing this vast amount of unit data.

From the description: Osborne's set "lists by state the infantry, cavalry and artillery regiments, battalions and batteries that made up the armies of the southern states during the American Civil War 1861-1865. In addition to listing those units that were organized for service in the Confederate States Army, the work also includes those units that remained in individual state service. These were primarily the militia for each state and the work contains comprehensive information on these units that is not readily available elsewhere. Information for each unit contains its main designation, alternative designations, commanding officers, artillery armament, areas of service and occasional extra information on the lesser known units."

It's worth mentioning that Osborne's reach extends to state militia, home guard local forces, state armies (ex. Missouri State Guard), and reserves, thus the title's "Southern" rather than "Confederate" designation. If such information is available, battery armaments at various points during the war are listed. That alone should spark the interest of those frustrated by their absence within most published orders of battle. Keep your eyes peeled for the review, which will go into more detail in regard to content.

Book News: A Summer of Battles

When it comes to the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, David Powell's five-volume series is consuming the bulk of reader attention these days. With only fifteen months passing between the release dates of the first two installments, the project is proceeding at a rapid clip. However, that's not to say that there aren't other things of possible interest out there for us to consider in the meantime.

A couple of days ago, I came across a new two-volume set covering the fighting around and below the city following the July 28 Battle of Ezra Church (itself the subject of two recent full-length battle studies):

• A Summer of Battles - The Final Weeks of the Civil War's 1864 Atlanta Campaign, Volume 1: The Siege of Atlanta, Utoy Creek and The Grand Movement
and • A Summer of Battles - The Final Weeks of the Civil War's 1864 Atlanta Campaign, Volume 2: Jonesboro, Lovejoy's Station and the Capture of Atlanta

What primarily leads me to have more than a passing interest in these two self-published efforts is their author, David Allison. I rather liked his 2018 book Attacked On All Sides: The Civil War Battle of Decatur, Georgia, the Untold Story of the Battle of Atlanta [to read the site review, go here]. Its primary drawback was a lack of maps, so I hope the author took that criticism to heart when putting together the new set, which is available in very reasonably priced hardcover and paperback versions. 

Booknotes: Opium Slavery

New Arrival:

• Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America's First Opioid Crisis by Jonathan S. Jones (UNC Press, 2025).

Considering the mass use (and misuse) of prescribed opiates during the conflict, it is no surprise that dependency became a long-term problem for a great many Civil War veterans. From the description: "During the Civil War, the utility and widespread availability of opium and morphine made opiates essential to wartime medicine. After the war ended, thousands of ailing soldiers became addicted, or “enslaved,” as nineteenth-century Americans phrased it. Veterans, their families, and communities struggled to cope with addiction’s health and social consequences."

Jonathan Jones's Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America's First Opioid Crisis "unearths the poorly understood stories of opiate-addicted Civil War veterans in unflinching detail, illuminating the war’s traumatic legacies."

The manner in which the contemporary professional medical field and society at large characterized addiction only added to the coping and treatment challenges that addicted veterans and their families faced. More from the description: "Medical and government authorities compounded veterans' suffering and imbued the epidemic with cultural meaning by branding addiction as a matter of moral weakness, unmanliness, or mental infirmity. Framing addiction as “opium slavery” limited the efficacy of care and left many veterans to suffer needlessly for decades after the war ended."

In order to gain an understanding of the breadth and scale of the problem, Jones consulted a wide variety of sources such as "veterans' firsthand accounts as well as mental asylum and hospital records, government and medical reports, newspaper coverage of addiction, and advertisements." The resulting study also "provides critical historical context for the modern opioid crisis, which bears tragic resemblance to that of the post–Civil War era."

Review - "Rockets, Tanks and Submarines: The Ingenuity of Civil War Texans" by Edward Cotham

[Rockets, Tanks and Submarines: The Ingenuity of Civil War Texans by Edward T. Cotham, Jr. (State House Press, 2025). Softcover, photos, drawings, maps, illustrations, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:ix,236/304. ISBN:978-1-64967-027-4. $39.95]

It was patently obvious to every contemporary observer that the Civil War North and loyal Border States together possessed financial, industrial, logistical, and technological resources that the agriculture-based economy of the Confederate South could not hope to match. In attempting to put that vast disparity into stark perspective, it has often been repeated in the sources that New York state alone had more manufacturing firms than the entire South. The only question was whether Union military and civilian leaders and planners would prove able to fully mobilize and manage those resources and integrate them efficiently into a war-winning strategy. There were ups and downs in the process along the way, but it would be difficult to argue that the overall effort was not a stupendous success. It has even been argued, the chief proponent being Thomas Army, that engineering, and with it its major components of education, management, personnel, and technology, was the decisive factor in the Union triumph. Somewhat lost, or at least underappreciated, in all that discussion were the many military advancements and innovations produced by Confederate inventors, designers, and engineers, many of whom hailed from Texas. Their many attempts to offset Union land and naval superiority with advanced weapons and force-multiplying technologies are the focus of Edward Cotham's fascinating new study Rockets, Tanks and Submarines: The Ingenuity of Civil War Texans.

Cotham's study is not the first book to detail the wartime history behind the men and activities of the Singer Secret Service Corps, a highly active group of inventors and financiers led by Edgar Singer and organized at Port Lavaca, Texas in 1863. Best known for their development and production of effective torpedo technologies, Singer agents spread their mine warfare ideas and expertise for deployment to both inland waterway invasion routes and strategic points located along the Confederate coastline from Texas to Virginia. Published in 2015, Mark Ragan's Confederate Saboteurs: Building the Hunley and Other Secret Weapons of the Civil War represented a pioneering investigation into the wide-ranging impact the Singer group had on not only land-based and underwater torpedo/mine warfare during the Civil War but also submarines (including the famed CSS Hunley) and torpedo boats. Fully crediting Ragan's groundbreaking research, Cotham's own book both revisits and expands upon that earlier work. Numerous productive Texan men of ideas both inside and outside the Singer group are profiled in the text. Among the most prominent figures are the aforementioned Edgar Singer, Robert Creuzbaur "The Captain Nemo of Texas," Benjamin Whitney, Charles Williams (designer of the Triton submarine plan and a horological torpedo), and Williams collaborator Ebenezer Allen.

Among the innovative secret weapons developed for the Confederate war effort, the Singer torpedo of various designs and triggering mechanisms proved most effective. Relatively cheap deterrents that packed a powerful punch that could sink a capital ship in a single blow, Singer weapons were a horror to Union naval vessels cruising inland waterways or those attempting to breach southern harbor defenses. Army officers and men also came to fear their subterra tactical deployment along strategic roadways, railroad tracks, and land-facing fortifications. As Cotham and others before him have pointed out, though, the Achilles heal of employing torpedoes for coastal defense was their highly uncertain shelf life in the face of strong tidal forces and both saltwater corrosion and sea life encrustation disabling triggering mechanisms. To remain reliably effective, torpedo fields that protected harbors would have to be regularly replaced, a requirement that was perhaps beyond the capacity of local resources.

In addition to torpedo weapons themselves, their means of conveyance to the enemy in the form of submarines and semi-submersible torpedo boats are major objects of Cotham's research. The successful sinking of USS Housatonic by the submersible CSS Hunley and the damaging of the ironclad USS New Ironsides by the torpedo boat David are only part of a wider discussion of the debates within Confederate military, government, and civilian circles over the usefulness and potential of such weapon classes. The leadership of the C.S. Navy is often portrayed as being more open than most when it came to approving new and untested technologies, but Cotham's study shows that getting that approval was more often than not a tough struggle, which was understandable given the competition for limited resources within Confederate military procurement. Nevertheless, the potential merits behind a number of unbuilt designs, such as the aforementioned Triton, and design elements are interesting to contemplate. Assisting in visualizing what weapons described in the book looked like (or might have looked like had they been built) are a multitude of detailed technical drawings and conceptual illustrations.

Though it does not do so extensively, Cotham's study does engage in current debates among Civil War historians over whether expensive, time-consuming, and resource-intensive ironclad squadrons were the Confederacy's best option for port and harbor defense, the other option between reliance on fixed defenses composed of interlocking land batteries, mine fields, and obstructions. While he does not lean decisively in either direction, the author adds torpedo boats to the discussion as an alternative to capital ship ironclads. Smaller in size, and presumably far cheaper and quicker to produce, it is assumed that torpedo boats could have been put into operation in fairly large numbers using the same amount of resources spent on constructing and maintaining ironclad squadrons, with more than a little money and materials left over to use toward other war effort priorities. It's a tantalizing thought to consider, but Cotham also recognizes that the David's attack on New Ironsides was the only proof of concept that we have to go on. While torpedo boat projects were planned at several locations across the Confederacy, Cotham and others note that wild rumor, scant documentation, and mystery all dog any modern investigation of those programs. As an example, in his own discussion of the completed or nearly completed Texas torpedo boat's ultimate fate at the time of the Trans-Mississippi Department's surrender, Cotham's examination of the available evidence was not able to produce much more clarity than what Ragan published on the topic a decade ago. Even more mysterious are claims of a functioning Houston submarine, the existence of which Cotham could find no compelling supporting evidence.

Perhaps the least successful of the Texas weapons discussed in the book that were actually built and tested was the attempt to form a rocket battery. Designed by German-born ordnance officer George Schroeder, and overseen by Swiss-born engineer Julius Kellersberger, the Schroeder rocket system was rushed into production and failed spectacularly during a high-profile test firing. Suffering from the age-old problem associated with military rockets, namely the impossibility of reliably controlling the flight path to target, the battery project was scrapped entirely and remaining rockets disposed of.

For those potential readers wondering about what machine Cotham's mention of "tanks" in the title could possibly be referring to, the answer is mobile railroad artillery. At several points in the book, Cotham credits district commander Major General John B. Magruder for backing promising innovations, and the general brought to the Galveston front his prior rail gun experience from the Virginia Peninsula. At Galveston, Magruder expanded the concept into development of an interconnected system of reinforced casemates linked to each other by tracks that would be used to move a rail gun back and forth between threatened points. While that is certainly an original, and rather commendable, weapon system for Civil War island defense, associating it with a tank is still a pretty generous analogy (even if the turreted rail gun sought after by Magruder had been actually built)!

Popular conceptions of Texas's contributions to the Civil War often involve images of hard-charging cavalry and shock troop infantry on the battlefield, but Edward Cotham's Rockets, Tanks and Submarines effectively reminds us that a small group of enterprising Texas citizens also produced technological innovations that did not lead to victory but nevertheless had an outsized impact on the course of the war. Additionally, several of those developments served as windows into the future conduct of warfare worldwide. Recommended.

Booknotes: Three Roads to Gettysburg

New Arrival:

• Three Roads to Gettysburg: Meade, Lee, Lincoln, and the Battle That Changed the War, the Speech That Changed the Nation by Tim McGrath (Dutton Caliber, 2025).

From the description: "By mid-1863, the Civil War, with Northern victories in the West and Southern triumphs in the East, seemed unwinnable for Abraham Lincoln. Robert E. Lee’s bold thrust into Pennsylvania, if successful, could mean Southern independence. In a desperate countermove, Lincoln ordered George Gordon Meade—a man hardly known and hardly known in his own army—to take command of the Army of the Potomac and defeat Lee’s seemingly invincible Army of Northern Virginia. Just three days later, the two great armies collided at a small town called Gettysburg. The epic three-day battle that followed proved to be the turning point in the war, and provided Lincoln the perfect opportunity to give the defining speech of the war—and a challenge to each generation of Americans to live by."

The author is an accomplished presidential historian (James Monroe) and award-winning naval history writer, and this appears to be his first book-length foray into the Civil War world. Obviously, the subject matter addressed in Three Roads to Gettysburg: Meade, Lee, Lincoln, and the Battle That Changed the War, the Speech That Changed the Nation is among the most well-trodden ground within Civil War history. I scanned the prologue for hints as to eye-catching  views and interpretations that might be developed later on but didn't encounter anything in that preview that jumped out of the page. But that doesn't mean there aren't any out of the ordinary ideas embedded in the narrative.

As the subtitle suggests, the Gettysburg Campaign and its aftermath is primarily presented through the lens of a trio of key actors in the drama: Lincoln, Lee, and Meade. More: "These men came from different parts of the country and very different upbringings: Robert E. Lee, son of the aristocratic and slaveholding South; George Gordon Meade, raised in the industrious, straitlaced North; and Abraham Lincoln, from the rowdy, untamed West. Lincoln’s election to the presidency in 1860 split the country in two and triggered the Civil War. Lee and Meade found themselves on opposite sides, while Lincoln had the Sisyphean task of reuniting the country." In sum, this book "tells the story of these consequential men, this monumental battle, and the immortal address that has come to define America."

Booknotes: The Atlanta Campaign - Volume 2

New Arrival:

• The Atlanta Campaign - Volume 2: From the Etowah River to Kennesaw Mountain, May 20 to June 27, 1864 by David A. Powell (Savas Beatie, 2025).

Only a short time ago, David Powell's The Atlanta Campaign - Volume 1: Dalton to Cassville, May 1-19, 1864 (2024) was released to fully justified acclaim from eager readers. It concluded with coverage of the infamous "Cassville Affair" controversy that was fully investigated in Robert Jenkins's study [this] published that very same year and revisited again this year by Dennis Conklin.

The Atlanta Campaign - Volume 2: From the Etowah River to Kennesaw Mountain, May 20 to June 27, 1864 picks up the action after Joe Johnston declined to offer battle at Cassville and withdrew his Confederate Army of Tennessee across the Etowah River, surrendering the campaign initiative yet again to Sherman. From the description: "Sherman opened the second phase of the campaign on May 23 by throwing his army across the Etowah. Instead of moving down the railroad to Allatoona, however, he marched west of Marietta to Dallas. The next five weeks were by some measures the hardest of the entire summer as maneuvering gave way to trench warfare, first along the New Hope Line, then Pine and Lost mountains, along the Mud Creek Line, and finally, atop the imposing slopes of Kennesaw Mountain. The daily grind, punctuated by periodic assaults at New Hope Church, Pickett’s Mill, Gilgal Church, Pigeon Hill, and Cheatham Hill took a terrible toll on both armies."

As the subtitle reveals, Volume 2 ends with the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, the failed Union frontal assaults there convincing Sherman to once again adopt the indirect approach along the path to Atlanta, which was almost in sight. More from the description: "The heavy rain through most of June made life in the field a misery, sick lists spiked, and men and horses broke down or died. Neither side could claim victory as June drew to a close. Sherman remained undaunted. He would return to flanking. And this time Atlanta was a mere dozen miles distant."

Similar in number to the earlier volume, 21 maps from frequent collaborator David Friedrichs support the narrative. There are also orders of battle updated to June 1. I believe I read in an interview online that Powell was already well on his way toward completing the third volume of this planned five-volume series, so it looks like his research and writing pace is showing no signs of slowing down.

Booknotes: After the Fire

New Arrival:

• After the Fire: Richmond in Defeat by Nelson D. Lankford (UVA Press, 2025).

Civil War Richmond books fairly abound, which is natural given the city's mega-role in shaping the conflict. Among them are major works, from classic to modern, by Emory Thomas, Ernest Furgurson, Stephen Ash, and Mary DeCredico. Like A.A. and Mary Hoehling's The Day Richmond Died (which I used to encounter inside nearly every used bookstore with a sizable Civil War section), Nelson Lankford's older contribution focuses on the end stage of the city's Civil War experience. His book Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital was first published in 2002 by Viking. Arriving more than two decades later is its sequel of sorts, After the Fire: Richmond in Defeat.

As explained in the prologue, After the Fire "is the story of Richmond and its people in the early months after the war, especially during the pivotal first year." Of course, every Civil War student is familiar with the fire and destruction that ensued as Confederate forces evacuated Richmond in April 1865 and triumphant federal forces moved in. Lankford's narrative "emphasizes the year of tentative rebuilding after the fire, culminating in dramatic events during April and May 1866" that revealed remembrance's stark racial divide (pg. 5).

From the description: After the war, it was left to the citizens to rebuild, and "After the Fire tells what happened next, offering a kaleidoscope of perspectives to evoke a vanished world of privation, defeat, jubilation, false starts, engrained antagonism, and the lost causes of Confederate nostalgia and of racial reconciliation. Nelson Lankford deftly narrates the desperate struggle of Confederates and Unionists, men and women, and white and Black Americans to shape the postwar landscape. Unsettling any sense of inevitability about this pivotal moment in history, Lankford puts the reader in the shoes of those who lived through it."

Francis O'Reilly's Malvern Hill study has a release date

Long suffering students of the 1862 Peninsula Campaign series of battles have had two major projects on their minds for a very long time. The first, R.E.L. Krick's massive two-volume history of the Battle of Gaines' Mill, has already been released to universal acclaim. An American Battlefield Trust donation exclusive, it's still unclear if there are plans for a general release in the future (at least I've yet to come across anything said about it publicly). A study as unique and important as that one deserves a wider release, so hopefully that will happen someday.

Getting to the matter at hand, though, the other much-anticipated title of the pair, Frank O'Reilly's Malvern Hill battle history, has just received a release window from the publisher. If you follow Savas Beatie on social media, you already know that Retreat from Victory: The Battle of Malvern Hill and the End of the Seven Days, July 1, 1862 is scheduled for a Spring '26 release. Online retailers currently have the date as May 15, but, as such things go, that may change.

It won't have the girth of the Krick set, but it will come in at a tome-like 500+ pages. The Sneden watercolor was a great choice for the cover art, too.

Review - "The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War" by Lindsay Rae Smith Privette

[The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War by Lindsay Rae Smith Privette (University of North Carolina Press, 2025). Softcover, illustrations, tables, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xiv,154/221. ISBN:978-1-4696-9027-8. $29.95]

In the twelve months following the July 21, 1861 Battle of Bull Run, environmental extremes significantly impacted a number of major Civil War areas of operation. In the process, those outside pressures further taxed medical services already unprepared to handle the conflict's unprecedented scale of battlefield casualties. In the wake of hard-earned lessons in handling the sick and wounded, the Union Army systematized a number of medical reforms under fresh leadership. Many were the handiwork of Surgeon General William Hammond and Army of the Potomac Medical Director Jonathan Letterman. The westward spread of these much-needed changes, in combination with popular outcry over messy casualty management after the Fort Donelson and Shiloh campaigns, resulted in notable improvements in how U.S. Grant's Army of the Tennessee managed the health and fighting trim of its soldiers during the long December 1862-July 1863 Vicksburg Campaign. That transformation is the subject of historian Lindsay Rae Smith Privette's The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War, which examines the medical department's impact upon the course of arguably the conflict's most environmentally challenging military campaign.

Privette shows that by the time Fifteenth Corps commander William T. Sherman launched his December 1862 Chickasaw Bayou operation the Hammond/Letterman reforms were already taking shape. Among the most important initiatives were the reorganization of medical care and distribution of medical supplies. Previously done at the regimental level, it was determined that effectiveness and efficiency demanded that those tasks to be more centralized at the division level, and actual practice confirmed that wisdom. Outfitting well-stocked hospital ships to bed, treat, and transport sick and wounded soldiers was another priority that greatly benefited the health of the western army. As the author notes, perhaps least appreciated among the new mandates was the marked improvement in record-keeping, which was abysmally neglected after Donelson and Shiloh. This system allowed patient location to be tracked as well as the progress of care. Implementation made it possible for the first time to fully document and closely follow case studies that would later be used to improve the quality of wound and disease treatment. Chickasaw Bayou was, by any estimation, a complete military failure, but Privette argues that it did mark a turning point in medical service improvements, though there was still more left to be done.

The many ways in which Northern aid societies enhanced Union soldier health and welfare are well described in the literature, as is the fact that those well-intentioned civilian activities frequently clashed with military administrators, who also didn't appreciate the frequent criticisms that aid society inspectors aimed in their direction. Privette remarks upon the administrative clashes between the army and government-approved soldier aid agencies such as the United States Sanitary Commission (USSC) and Western Sanitary Commission (WSC), showing that their conflicts extended well beyond mere jealousies over authority and into practical matters of managing soldier health. Asserting control over bodily care was also a major issue down the army chain of command, where military priorities frequently clashed with rank and file health concerns. At the bottom of it all was the private soldier, whose options for what we today call "self-care" were limited. After Chickasaw Bayou, Army of the Tennessee soldiers camped along the swamps, bayous, and levees of eastern Louisiana suffered terribly from disease and the elements, and Privette's findings amplify much of what fellow historian Eric Michael Burke revealed in his excellent, award-winning Fifteenth Corps study published in 2022. According to both authors, from the shocking scale of non-combat losses incurred to the widespread believe among the common soldiers that their own health needs, indeed the value of their very lives, lay at or near the bottom of their corps commander's list of military priorities, it was clear that much needed to be done in order to restore faith in the army's high command. General John A. McClernand's Thirteenth Corps also enters the discussion, and the book helpfully reminds readers that heated accusations back and forth in regard to McClernand's alleged neglect of his corps' medical services contributed heavily to the rising friction between the general and army commander Grant.

Citing military necessity and the impossibility of avoiding the ravages of regional endemic disease, Grant and Sherman refused to abandon the Vicksburg canal project that ended up stretching between January and March 1863, even insisting that sickness and loss claims over that period were greatly exaggerated. The army's medical department concurred, and Privette acknowledges the difficulties involved with reconciling critical claims originating from the rank and file level against those from defensive-minded top leadership. Nevertheless, regardless of the weight one might assign to the various factors involved, it was clear to all that general health (measured by the army sick list) had improved substantially by April.

In contrast to other histories of the Vicksburg Campaign, Privette presents an interesting angle centered around the environmental context of the military operation. The cold rains and flooding of the winter months (which restricted camp space, contaminated water, and presented troops with conditions rife for respiratory and intestinal disease) and the summer months (which exposed the army to peak malaria and yellow fever) were essentially a extra defender on the Confederate side. With those environmental obstacles in mind, the author notes that Grant crossed the Mississippi, swept across the state's interior, and invested Vicksburg at essentially the perfect time for the health of his men, the month of May being right between the two aforementioned seasonal extremes. While liberal foraging largely compensated for the inland movement's imperfect supply line situation, as least for the short term, other challenges to soldier mind and body needed to be addressed. Appropriately stressed in the study is the impact that regular sleep deprivation during the rapid marches of May had on the men's immune systems, although it is also acknowledged that the May victories had uplifting follow-on psychological and physical endurance effects. The biggest potential non-combat killer during the active phase of the campaign was high heat exacerbated by the punishing pace of the army's advance. Denied adequate rest, shade, cooling, and fluid replacement, soldiers struck with heat exhaustion resorted to straggling to both save themselves for the present and recharge themselves for the future when they rejoined their units.

Though General Grant had a reputation for being a strong supporter of the medical service, his army did prioritize ammunition over medical supplies when it came to utilizing the limited transportation that accompanied the army across the river into Mississippi. This isolation had the potential for disaster, as, just like it was for supplies, the army's tenuous path of supply and communications back to Grand Gulf would have been dangerously insecure if the army was bogged down into static, high-casualty warfare before reaching Vicksburg itself. Fortunately, Union casualties were manageable for the series of battles fought between Port Gibson and Big Black River, and the failed assaults that caused half of the army's total casualties for May occurred after establishment of a secure logistical base nearby on the Yazoo River had been assured. It is also noted that the administration and requisition policies of the army's recently appointed medical director, Madison Mills, had resulted in medical supply stockpiles in close proximity west of the Mississippi that were sufficient to handle the influx of patients that preceded the investment of Vicksburg.

The author also sees the geographical and logistical isolation that Grant's army operated under during much of the Vicksburg Campaign as having positive aspects. For the medical services, they were able to go about their business with less direct civilian and political interference than ever before, and Privette also considers that isolation an opportunity for surgeons to improve their self-reliance in ways that would serve them well over the balance of their Civil War careers. It is also noteworthy that case studies authored by Vicksburg Campaign surgeons as well as other documentation created in fulfillment of Mills's new requirements formed significant contributions to the medical literature.

After the failure of the May 19 and 22 assaults, the beginning of summer siege operations heralded the return of health concerns inherent to static warfare, namely camp sanitation and contaminated water. From May into June, the flooding, cold, and wetness that caused so many problems was replaced by spring into summer challenges such as high heat, humidity, and dried up water sources. However, as Privette notes, the medical corps's enhanced operations over previous months resulted in improved care, better defined authority, and refined administration, and the army's close proximity to its river communications made possible a constant flow of medical and aid society supplies along with rapid evacuation of the most ill and most severely wounded soldiers.

Lest one think that weather changes and other environmental factors chiefly explained the army's healthier state, Privette notes that private-sphere medical inspectors previously critical of the army, such as physicians employed by the USSC and WSC, abruptly changed their tune after witnessing the surprisingly (in their view) strong health of the soldiers besieging Vicksburg and improved efficiency of army medical services. Rather than try to block civilian aid workers altogether, Grant sagely facilitated aid society medical supply supplementation with the caveat that it be tightly regulated by army officials. The reshaped relationship worked well, and, in the author's view, the army at Vicksburg experienced far less civilian interference and authority conflicts than it did during the contentious aftermath of Shiloh.

By June, however, malarial diseases and diarrhea/dysentery exploded among the heavily reinforced Vicksburg besiegers, with total sick numbers double what they were during the earlier canal-building winter. Nevertheless, only the worst cases were evacuated to general hospitals upriver, and the new division and corps field hospitals (with assistance from the hospital ships) were able to keep the temporarily disabled soldiery nearby and, working together, managed the army's health well enough to earn credit for being a strong sustaining force along the army's path to final victory. Aiding those efforts, supplies and medicine (one of the most critical being quinine) flowed into the field hospitals via the Milliken's Bend transit depots with noteworthy, albeit imperfect, consistency.

During the siege itself, oppressive heat and humidity affected both sides regardless of the impression that southerners were more physically accustomed to it. With the besieging army swelling to 77,000 men, getting sufficient supplies of potable water was paramount, and both sides utilized the nearby Mississippi River as a supplement to local sources. Just as important as medical care for Grant's soldiers was the positive effect the practice of regular unit rotation into and out of the trenches had on the men's physical and mental well-being. The Confederate defenders did not have that luxury. Though drawing detailed comparisons between Union and Confederate medical services lies beyond the scope of this study, it is clear that by the end of the siege, when a third of the defenders were in hospital and much of the rest seriously debilitated by constant front line duty, the "surgeon's battle" was one that the Confederates could not have hoped to match.

The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War represents a noteworthy addition to the medical services history of the Civil War. Keeping in mind the environmental extremes within which the Vicksburg Campaign was fought as well as period limitations in the scientific knowledge of disease processes and transmission, Privette's study nevertheless successfully argues that Grant's Army of the Tennessee incorporated improvements in medical department organization and practices that were numerous and significant enough to mitigate the effects those unavoidable factors had on soldier health and fighting efficiency. While the subtitle's lofty claim that medicine "won" the campaign is certainly attention-grabbing, it is actually more representative of the book's content and interpretation to maintain that advancements in Union Army medicine "helped win" the contest for Vicksburg. That more measured conceptualization, as developed by Privette, is persuasive.