Review - "The Forts Henry and Donelson Campaign: February 6–16, 1862" by Woodworth & Grear, eds.

[The Forts Henry and Donelson Campaign: February 6–16, 1862 edited by Steven E. Woodworth and Charles D. Grear (Southern Illinois University Press, 2026). Paperback, 4 maps, table, photos, illustrations, chapter notes, index. Pages:xi,146. ISBN:978-0-8093-3997-6. $24.95]

The Forts Henry and Donelson Campaign: February 6–16, 1862 is the eighth installment of SIU Press's Civil War Campaigns in the West (formerly Civil War Campaigns in the Heartland) series edited by Steven Woodworth and Charles Grear. In addition to adding their own chapters to the volume, the editors have assembled five other contributors. Together, these seven essays examine various aspects of the campaign and its dramatic impact on the course of the war in the West.

Woodworth sets the stage with a general introduction, and Michael Burns begins the anthology with a reminder of the important ways in which extreme environmental conditions shaped the land and naval fighting at both forts. In some cases, such as the heavy flooding at Fort Henry, the unpredictable power of nature overwhelmed man's attempts at military planning, preparation, and conduct. Similarly, a sudden winter cold snap and flooding to potential escape routes directly affected the results of the contest at Fort Donelson. In each case, Union forces were the great beneficiaries of this powerful natural intervention into human affairs.

Blakeney Hill's following essay revisits the army-navy command relationship that bore such bountiful fruit for Union forces during the campaign. Simon Cameron remains widely reviled for his wasteful and corruption-filled tenure as Lincoln's first Secretary of War, but Hill interestingly credits his insistence that the Brown Water Navy remain under the auspices of the army as a key decision. While the inland navy's command and administrative structure would change as the war progressed, the critical first months of army-controlled joint operations on the western rivers (the actions at forts Henry and Donelson being primary examples) established an efficiency and manner of close cooperation between the services that jump-started Union offensives in the heartland West. The result was a pace of combined operations that the more disorganized and resource-poor Confederates proved incapable of countering, and Union forces essentially wrested control of the vast Mississippi River Valley by mid-1863. This was a stupendous achievement that many would not have thought possible at the war's beginning.

Next, Nathan Bedford Forrest biographer Brian Steel Wills revisits Forrest's role in the campaign, which ended with his command's daring escape from the trap at Fort Donelson just before the Confederate garrison surrendered to Union forces. In Wills's view, and that of others he cites, Fort Donelson was a watershed moment in Forrest's image and development as a cavalry commander, his iron drive and leadership traits demonstrated there catapulting him along the path to becoming the western Confederacy's most feared mounted warrior. It also exposed a fiercely independent streak that would impact his later career both positively and negatively.

The Confederate breakout attempt is examined most closely in Jonathan Steplyk's chapter. While this critical episode in the campaign has already been exhaustively examined in the literature, Steplyk's adds a fresh element to the discussion by following the day's battle in the context of a clash between competing military principles, matching Confederate surprise against Union security. Perhaps more than most, Steplyk credits Union picket placement and skirmish lines, in both developing and impeding the Confederate attack, for becoming major obstacles to Confederate success on that day. At the same time, he doesn't simplistically reduce the clash to Union security beating Confederate surprise. It is a much more nuanced analysis than that.

Another shining light in terms of fresh material is Sheilah Elwardani's deeper look at a single Confederate brigade and its commanding officer, Gabriel C. Wharton. Her essay reveals what Wharton's recently published letters and his still unpublished memoir tells us about the attempted breakout from Fort Donelson. Wharton was one of the officers that infamously escaped the doomed fort by steamboat with General John B. Floyd, but, unlike Floyd, Wharton managed to get out of it with career and reputation intact. Elwardani informs us that the memoir's primary focus is on Fort Donelson, and it attempts to explain/rationalize the reasons and justifications behind Floyd's controversial decision-making in the matter (although she also notes that over time Wharton attempted to distance himself from Floyd's defense).

The February 15 attack by Union division commander Charles F. Smith's forces against thinly stretched Confederate defenders opposite the Union left, which seriously endangered the Confederate hold on Fort Donelson itself on that day, is often credited with having a major impact on the Confederate decision to surrender. Steven Woodworth's contribution detailing this assault focuses on the tactics involved, which in some ways presaged more celebrated uses of columnar attacking formations on the Civil War battlefield (notably those employed by Emory Upton at Spotsylvania)

Finally, Civil War Texas expert Charles Grear contextualizes the impact that Fort Donelson had on that state. While Fort Donelson shouldn't be thought of as a Texas battle, the Seventh infantry regiment being its largest and most noteworthy contribution, the battle (combined with Pea Ridge, where a great number of Texan formations fought) nevertheless was a major turning point in Texas's war. As was the case across the Confederacy, the responses of Texas soldiers and civilians to the string of military disasters suffered in the western heartland in early 1862 was a mixture of both demoralization and renewed determination. Prior to that time, most Texas fighting men remained in the Trans-Mississippi theater guarding the state's lengthy land borders and coastline. But, as Grear explains, the twin defeats at Henry-Donelson and Pea Ridge, especially the former, helped propel the passage of national conscription and prompted a new surge in Texas volunteering (part of which was to avoid the stigma of becoming a draftee). Those battlefield defeats, and the massive territorial losses that accompanied them, also prompted the transfer of a great many Texas units eastward across the Mississippi and, in the other direction, civilian and slave refugees to presumed safety in Texas. In those ways, Donelson was a defining moment in the course of Texas's Civil War.

With three major campaign histories (the most recent and best of those being Timothy Smith's) along with a host of other related book-length publications addressing various themes and topics, the Forts Henry and Donelson Campaign of 1862 has been treated quite well in the modern literature. Woodworth and Grear's edited anthology is both a useful new addition to that body of scholarship and a fine new installment in the Civil War Campaigns in the West series. Even the most well-read student of the campaign should find fresh points of interest numerous enough to make The Forts Henry and Donelson Campaign: February 6–16, 1862 a worthy addition to the home library. Highly recommended.

Review - "Hundreds of Little Wars: Community, Conflict, and the Real Civil War" by Schieffler & Stith, eds.

[Hundreds of Little Wars: Community, Conflict, and the Real Civil War edited by G. David Schieffler and Matthew M. Stith (Louisiana State University Press, 2025). Hardcover, chapter notes, index. Pages:xii,271. ISBN:978-0-8071-8220-8. $45]

Beginning most prominently with 1995's Seasons of War, historian Daniel E. Sutherland has had a profound impact on the field through his exploration of the many ways in which local history enriches and expands our modern understanding of the American Civil War. Developed in another line of study headlined by 2009's A Savage Conflict, Sutherland's sweeping reinterpretation of the character, scale, and larger meaning of the war's vast irregular component has also proved to be highly influential. Additionally, as editor of University of Arkansas Press's The Civil War in the West series (now sadly defunct), Sutherland played a significant part in promoting and conveying to readers new scholarship dealing with the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi West. In appreciation of Sutherland, as person, scholar, and mentor, is the essay anthology Hundreds of Little Wars: Community, Conflict, and the Real Civil War, edited by G. David Schieffler and Matthew M. Stith.

Given Daniel Sutherland's stature as one of the leading proponents of the idea that the local experience of the Civil War was the "real war" for most of the population, this set of essays written in his honor grabs onto that central concept and branches off from it far and wide. The traditional understanding of Civil War "community" as being tied to static local geography (i.e. cities, towns, and counties) is explored in fresh directions such as temporary POW and refugee camps. Entering into other spaces (including more figurative-level ones) are those essays that address community in the context of race, gender, regular and irregular military organizations (ex. volunteer regiments and partisan ranger units), and intersections between the natural and built environments. The resulting dozen essays are organized into pairs assigned to six themed sections: (1) Regimental Communities, (2) County and Environmental Communities, (3) Border Communities, (4) Hybrid (in terms of race and demography) Communities, (5) Irregular Communities, and (6) Transnational and Comparative Communities. To get a taste of what to expect, one chapter from each pairing will be commented upon below.

Through works such as Gerald Prokopowicz's All for the Regiment and others, the Civil War regiment, always seen to have been closely representative of the community or communities from which it was recruited, has also come to be viewed as a community in and of itself within the larger structures of the Union and Confederate armies. Similar to how she approached the topic in other writings dealing with the 16th Connecticut, 11th New York, and 2nd Texas, Lesley Gordon examines issues of alleged cowardice and the quest for redemption in her essay exploring the 128th New York, a regiment that was singled out as the worst of the "Harpers Ferry Cowards"—the context being alleged misbehavior that contributed to the entire garrison's disgraceful surrender on September 15, 1862. Interestingly, Gordon finds that the men of the 128th, unlike their fellow New Yorkers of the 11th, fully redeemed themselves in subsequent campaigning, yet (unlike other Harpers Ferry regiments collared with the same label) during reunions and for the decades after the war bitterly clung to a victim mentality that remained one of the central unifying elements of their communal memory. It's a testament to the far reaching power and endurance of such accusations.

Paired with an occupation study of Virginia's Fauquier County emphasizing the local irregular conflict and gender relations between civilians and occupiers is an examination of the prison community established at Camp Ford (Smith County, Texas, located a few miles outside Tyler) from 1863-65. In it, volume co-editor Matthew Stith explores the camp's interactions with the local population along with the natural (including area wildlife of various kinds) and man-made environments. With good water and wood for shelter-building widely available and given the opportunity to forage liberally from the resource-rich countryside, Camp Ford prisoners (even after overcrowding resulting from the breakdown of the exchange system and influx of new arrivals from the 1864 Red River Campaign) experienced much lower morbidity and mortality rates in comparison with the war's more infamous POW facilities.

As developed fully in The Rivers Ran Backward, his sprawling 2016 study of the nineteenth-century West's so-called Middle Border, the essay authored by Christopher Phillips again frames that vast multi-state region occupying both sides of the Missouri and Ohio Rivers as being not a distinct line of demarcation between northern and southern identities but rather a place, a region-sized "community" if you like, of integrated economies and mostly shared political and social values. As Phillips explains, the harshest and most enduring divisions within the Middle Border were not of a longstanding North versus South nature but rather were a product of mid-1850s political violence, the Civil War itself, and postbellum politics.

Co-editor G. David Schieffler's contribution expands the concept of Civil War community to the black refugee camp, one of the largest in the South, that was established at Helena, Arkansas after the Union Army of the Southwest entered the area and set up a permanent and heavily fortified garrison in the river town. As Schieffler shows, the reciprocal relationship that developed between the army and refugees, the former providing protection, employment, and limited supplies and the latter camp and military labor, forged a community of mutual assistance. However, those benefits to the refugees were also accompanied by inconsistent policies and support, much of which was dependent upon the attitude and priorities of the military officer who happened to be in overall command of the post at a given moment. That capriciousness, the frequent abuses, and the naturally unhealthy conditions at Helena that felled soldiers and freedpeople alike in alarming numbers, together rendered uncertain both life and freedom for the refugees.

The Barton Myers essay identifies a community of similarly skilled and motivated partisan officers who led irregular units in different parts of the border and southern states during the Civil War. In addition to offering fresh recognition of obscure figures, their commands, and their activities, Myers points toward commonalities among the leaders, with many having served in conventional forces before the appeal of independent action and of engaging in local defense led them to enter partisan service. The divide between regular and irregular service was also significantly blurred, as these officers frequently returned to the conventional war by directly cooperating with regular forces. In addition to their local knowledge, most possessed aggressive streaks and a high tolerance for risk that made them effective raiders and scouts. However, as evidenced by a number of violent deaths among these men long after the war ended, those qualities valuable during wartime could also negatively impact their relations with others off the battlefield and upon their return to civilian life. As Myers makes clear, among the host of factors that scholars have developed in recent years to explain the 1862 Partisan Ranger Act's mostly disastrous outcome, the lack of strong and effective leadership from officers such as these was not among them.

As recounted by Michael Shane Powers, Confederate veterans Edward Burke of Louisiana and members of Virginia's Imboden family represented international actors forging mutually beneficial links between Gilded Age America and the country of Honduras, with the added dimension of key involvement with British sources of capital. Powers's essay is not a tale of fleeing the country to escape postwar persecution or renewal of antebellum-style filibustering activities but rather one of successful entrepreneurs expanding New South economic ties with Central America. In the 1880s, Burke and the Imbodens utilized British investment to fund large-scale mining operations, and they became instrumental figures in developing Honduran mineral extraction industries and national infrastructure. Much of their success was owed to their integration into Honduran society in ways that previous foreigners failed to do, and as experienced soldiers they also played an active part in Honduran internal conflicts in support of the legitimate government.

Certainly, you can expand the definition of a word or concept like "community" so far and wide as to run the risk of losing its value as an object of reference or study, but the larger point of these essays, that of recognizing the abundant insights that localized (even microscopic-level) points of view can offer in both isolation and in sum, certainly holds true. A handful of men dying in a remote guerrilla ambush far behind the front lines barely merits mention, but a thousand of such forgotten incidents spread across the landscape of war can have the same impact on a combatant side's friends, families, and local communities as the Battle of Gettysburg. In similar fashion, the "hundreds of little wars" that this volume touches upon and that collectively fill in the innumerable gaps and crevices between and behind the major campaigns and battles that garner the lion's share of attention were often the war for a great many of those who participated in them.

Review - "The Mexican-American War Experiences of Twelve Civil War Generals" edited by Timothy Johnson

[The Mexican-American War Experiences of Twelve Civil War Generals edited by Timothy D. Johnson (Louisiana State University Press, 2024). Hardcover, 3 maps, chapter notes, index. Pages main/total:xvii,233/267. ISBN:978-0-8071-8238-3.]

Over the decades following the conclusion of the War of 1812, elements of the United States Army operated primarily as coastal defense garrisons and frontier constabulary, thus the outbreak of war with Mexico offered a unique opportunity for West Point graduates to test themselves against a foe organized on roughly similar European-style lines. Historians have most commonly examined those experiences, and what roles they might have played in professional development, within the process of writing general officer biographies. The result, in terms of providing both descriptive detail and analysis, has always been a mixed bag. While some coverages point toward useful insights and possible connections between Mexican-American War service and Civil War generalship, the rest come across as being mostly box-checking exercises completed along the way toward toward presenting the main event of their subject's military career, the American Civil War. What sets apart the 2024 anthology The Mexican-American War Experiences of Twelve Civil War Generals is its laser focus on drawing out those connections. Timothy Johnson, Winfield Scott biographer and author of a number of scholarly Mexican-American War titles, serves as this volume's editor, and he successfully presses his essay contributors to both recount the military participation in Mexico of West Point-trained officers who would later become high-ranking Civil War generals and cite specific examples of how those experiences might have shaped later command performances under vastly increased levels of responsibility.

Johnson's assemblage of writers is noteworthy for having a number of major biographers in it as well as others who have authored important works on topics directly related to their essay subject's Civil War military career. The essays, twelve in total, are evenly divided between Union and Confederate generals, ten of whom rose to army command (the other two were high-profile corps commanders entrusted with major independent operations). For the Union side, the author-subject pairings are Timothy Smith on U.S. Grant, Stephen Engle on Don Carlos Buell, Ethan Rafuse on Joseph Hooker, Thomas Cutrer on George McClellan, Jennifer Murray on George Meade, and Brian Steel Wills on George Thomas. On the Confederate side, we get Joseph Glatthaar on Robert E. Lee, Sean Michael Chick on P.G.T. Beauregard, Cecily Zander on Braxton Bragg, Christian Keller on Stonewall Jackson, Craig Symonds on Joe Johnston, and Alexander Mendoza on James Longstreet.

Drawing connections between Mexican-American War and Civil War experiences is most often framed around positive and negative "lessons" learned from youthful experiences in the former which were then later applied to leadership in the latter. As several contributors to this volume prominently note, these links must in the main be inferred. Many of their subjects wrote little to nothing about their experiences in Mexico, while those that did only rarely linked (at least in direct fashion) their own Civil War decision-making and conduct of military affairs to what they either did or observed during the Taylor and Scott campaigns in north and central Mexico. Johnson's contributors collectively navigate that tricky path with caution and judiciousness.

In Mexico, junior officers, particularly staff officers, keenly observed a wide range of matters related to civil-military affairs. According to Glatthaar, Lee, through direct awareness of the troubling military-political divide that developed between his mentor General Scott and the Polk administration, likely learned important lessons about personal and professional relationships between superiors and principal subordinates that helped him later foster a cordial and effective military partnership with Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Closely working with the highly touchy Scott in Mexico also taught Lee the value of showing proper (even strategic) deference to superiors and knowing when to gracefully quit pressing when it came to losing disagreements (ex. Lee's strong disapproval of, but quiet acquiescence with, the Davis administration's decision to reorganize brigades with regiments from the same state). On the less productive side was how Joseph Hooker responded to what he witnessed during the conflict. Unlike many of his fellow West Point graduates who observed with disdain naked political interference in military matters in Mexico, Hooker, as insightfully examined by Rafuse, embraced "playing games" with that system. That relish for games of intrigue pervaded Hooker's entire Civil War career, contributing mightily to his downfall. At any rate, with the war in Mexico came more direct reinforcement of the reality that politics and war were inextricably linked and cooperating with politician-officers was an inescapable part of the professional war fighting experience.

While the scale and distances involved in the war with Mexico helped quartermaster officers like Grant to refine their logistical managements skills, the experiences of living off the land through foraging and occupation without at the same time inciting a general uprising also proved instructive. Many West Point-trained professionals freely expressed their disdain for volunteer soldiers, and highlights from Murray's Meade chapter draw correlations between the Pennsylvanian's Mexican War experiences, where he witnessed widespread pillaging and other abuses of the local population, and his clear support for a conciliatory manner of conducting warfare during the early years of the American Civil War. Everyone recognized that volunteers needed strong subordination and discipline in order to be transformed into effective soldiers.

The importance of awarding credit where credit was due in official writings, regardless of personal animosities, was also realized by most as being in the best interest of the service. When it was not done as expected, officers such as Beauregard became embittered by the experience. A part of that self-aggrandizement at the expense of others stemmed from officers forging cynical alliances with the press corps. For Meade, who is known by all Civil War students for the special hell he wanted to reserve for newspaper reporters, the origins of that attitude developed during the Mexican War. There he traced through the press the making of undeserved reputations as well as the silent treatment given to distinguished officers who opposed, on principle, cultivating self-promotional relationships with ambitious reporters. Meade also carefully noted the internal dissension, jealousy, and unseemly competition for attention that playing those games engendered in the officer corps. 

On a tactical basis, the war taught the value of combined arms, and many young officers appreciated the battle-winning outcomes that resulted from closely coordinated infantry and artillery attacks both in the open and against fortified positions. The Thomas and Beauregard chapters from Wills and Chick are particularly strong on detail in regard to tracing artillery exploits in Mexico. Both chapters demonstrate how that war raised the prestige and reputation of the field artillery service in the U.S. Army. When it came to the process of neutralizing Mexican strongpoints, many staff and line officers also witnessed the value of using turning movements in conjunction with frontal masking demonstrations and artillery fire. The actions of engineer officers such as Lee and Beauregard also clearly revealed the value to be derived from, and the dangers attended with, personal reconnaissance. Just in general ways, junior officers acting on the staffs of general officers in Mexico gained professional knowledge about how armies (or at least higher formations) actually worked in the field, an eye-opening experience for those accustomed to company-level frontier service or static fort postings.

In the area of personal relationships, the shared experiences of the war with Mexico forged lifelong bonds among many fellow officers (a close attachment exemplified by the formation and endurance of the Aztec Club). Knowing that true measurements of character and military ability emerge from the testing ground of war, Mexico also allowed those officers who served together to take stock of colleagues who would later become either comrade or foe during the Civil War.

When the Mexican-American War experiences of Civil War generals are discussed in the literature, it is primarily through the themes of the war with Mexico either being a proving ground for what was learned at West Point or the conflict being an education in and of itself. On a collective basis, there are certainly noteworthy elements of both of those themes inside this strong set of essays. While there is a degree of repetition entailed with compiling twelve independent essays involving basically only two major campaigns, and a few chapters lean most strongly into the descriptive realm of presentation, there is certainly more than enough analytical heft across the volume to make this anthology a heartily recommended read for even the most broadly informed students of both wars.

Review - "From Frederick to Sharpsburg: People, Places, and Events of the Maryland Campaign Before Antietam" by Steven Stotelmyer

[From Frederick to Sharpsburg: People, Places, and Events of the Maryland Campaign Before Antietam by Steven R. Stotelmyer (Antietam Institute, 2023). Hardcover, maps, photos, illustrations, footnotes, appendix section, bibliography index. 521 Pp. ISBN:979-8-218-34180-0. $39.95]

Steven Stotelmyer is one of those individuals who is using retirement not as a leisure-filled coda to a long working life but rather a means toward finally being able to dive feet first into a lifelong avocational passion. In addition to becoming a certified Antietam and South Mountain Battlefield Tour Guide, Stotelmyer has also entered the realm of book authorship, the most recent being Too Useful to Sacrifice: Reconsidering George B. McClellan's Generalship in the Maryland Campaign from South Mountain to Antietam (2019) [site review]. Tackling a variety of related topics with intensive research and fresh eyes, Stotelmyer has established himself as a strong new voice in interpreting the campaign's storied history. That earlier book introduced some interesting angles through which numerous established views and interpretations regarding George McClellan's conduct during the 1862 Maryland Campaign were questioned and reappraised. In similar vein, though not centered on McClellan this time, is Stotelmyer's third book, also an essay compilation, titled From Frederick to Sharpsburg: People, Places, and Events of the Maryland Campaign Before Antietam. It was released last year through the Antietam Institute's publishing arm (link).

It has often been repeated that Confederate hopes for sparking a popular uprising in Maryland received the wet blanket treatment in the western part of the state, including the town of Frederick where pro-Confederate sympathies were heavily muted even in the presence of Robert E. Lee's advancing army. Citing an abundance of first-hand accounts and period observations that challenge that common assessment, Stotelmyer's opening essay finds more than enough evidence to suggest that the overall reaction of the citizens of Frederick might better be described as "mixed." The author also offers several convincing reasons underpinning supporter skepticism against coming forward (even from the most pro-Confederate segments of the local population), perhaps the most common one being practical self-preservation given that there were no indications that a permanent military presence was either possible or ever countenanced. The Confederates had the same insurmountable problem that summer and fall in Kentucky. Interesting ancillary factors are also raised, one being the negative optics (and olfactory sense) presented by the ragged, sun-baked, dirty, and half-starved appearance of Lee's army. A good point not often mentioned surrounds the lack of foresight in prominently bringing forward and employing Confederate Marylanders (thousands of whom were distributed throughout the Army of the Northern Virginia) as both campaign ambassadors and local recruiters. The be fair, though, there was very little time between Second Manassas and entry into Maryland for organizing such an effort.

No one seriously believes the Barbara Fritchie legend today, at least the version revealed in the popular John Greenleaf Whittier poem. Backed by a wide-ranging review of eyewitness accounts and other relevant contemporary sources, Stotelmyer shows how convincingly the whole story can be soundly debunked. Like he does in all of his essays, Stotelmyer also sends his investigation down a number of interesting side alleys. For instance, he revives the case of Mary Quantrell, a Frederick citizen who apparently did defiantly wave the U.S. flag at passing Confederate troops. Like the Fritchie myth, there are many versions of the Quantrell story that have been passed down since the end of the war, and Stotelmyer looks at those with a critical eye, too. The essay also reminds us not to look past the real facts of Fritchie's long life, and it is worthy of remembering that even if the legends were not true in fact they did fit her real personality. In the end, even Whittier himself was forced to admit later in life that details of his famous poem could not withstand scrutiny, his mistaken knowledge of the facts most likely a consequence of good faith "blending" of incidents.

Jeb Stuart continues to receive a great deal of criticism for his conduct during the early stages of the Maryland Campaign. Stotelmyer and recent Stuart biographer Edward Longacre both agree in persuasive fashion that Stuart did fine work in screening Lee's army but proved less responsible when it came to providing Lee with timely information about the location and movements of the leading elements of McClellan's Army of the Potomac. That's a common enough view. The substance of their arguments are similar, though Stotelmyer is more broadly scathing in his accusations and general beliefs regarding Stuart's partying ways and how much his pursuit of personal amusements were responsible for the dereliction in duty. On the other hand, Stotelmyer also does credit to some degree Union cavalry performance improvements for helping mask McClellan's movements from enemy eyes. Most overlooked, in Stotelmyer's estimation, was the Confederate failure to properly employ Sugar Loaf Mountain as a far-seeing observation platform. In the writer's view, both Stuart and Lee were chiefly culpable, with the latter not having a single staff officer at army headquarters tasked with intelligence gathering and getting that information to the decision-makers in the high command. There was one in the making, but he was in Richmond and not in Maryland with the army. In general, Stotelmyer presents a picture of an entire Confederate army possessing a "false sense of security," convincing themselves (without any evidence beyond mere supposition) that they had plenty of time before the federal army could regain its footing and react seriously to their Maryland incursion. If an egregious intelligence blunder did occur as Stotelmyer alleges, he was nevertheless unable to uncover any documentary evidence in regard to precisely where the information breakdown occurred between point of observation (as made from the captured signal station atop the mountain) and Lee's headquarters desk. In lieu of that, after insisting upon the impossibility of missing the vast clouds of dust that must have been kicked up by McClellan's advance, the reader is left with a strong list of reasonable possibilities deduced by the author.

The fourth essay revisits the interminable debates surrounding numerous aspects of Lee's Special Orders No. 191. As is generally the case in his work, Stotelmyer is more than willing to fill blank spaces in the documentary evidence with bold (but not overbearing) assertions and possible scenarios that might differ with more common interpretations of events and intentions. Avenues of informed conjecture outlined in the chapter include the author's discussion of the degree to which Orders No. 191 might have been adjusted to mollify James Longstreet's objections and the differences in both intentions and expectations between Lee and Stonewall Jackson (and how much discretion the latter was granted by the former) when it came to the army's planned approach to dealing with the stubborn Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry garrisons. While the Battle of South Mountain unquestionably would have turned out differently had Lee kept Longstreet's command nearby at Boonsboro rather than sending it to Hagerstown, Stotelmyer suggests that the dispersal essentially consigned the campaign to failure and erased from the realm of possibility what could very well have been a major Confederate victory in the mountain passes.

Civil War history is replete with accounts of both respectful and disrespectful disposition of enemy slain, and among the latter lies the Fox Gap legend of Wise's Well. According to the story, local resident Daniel Wise took advantage of the going rate paid for civilian-assisted burials (said to be $1 "per head") and on September 15 pitched dozens of Confederates (alleged numbers vary) into his own well, which was most likely dry and unfinished at the time. Citing a multitude of sources immediate to the incident, Stotelmyer's research, however, points to Union burial parties (by some accounts highly intoxicated to steel themselves for the grisly task) performing the deed a day later on September 16, and that there were at least 58 bodies unceremoniously disposed of in the well. The accumulated evidence for that is convincing, but we're still left with some secondary accounts that Wise admitted to being associated with the matter. Finding no evidence that Wise was even present along with the fact that he was never paid a dime by the government, Stotelmyer raises the possibility that Wise, who was not particularly well off and whose cabin was wrecked by the battle and its aftereffects, briefly floated some level of responsibility for the burials in hopes of getting official recompense for his personal property disaster. One of the oddest side notes to this whole story is that the Wise family actually converted the well into a drinking water cistern after the remains were removed for official reburial in 1874.

High-ranking officer shootings such as those that laid low Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville, John Reynolds at Gettysburg, and John Sedgwick at Spotsylvania were momentous events that always raise questions surrounding precise circumstances and responsibility. Another exalted personage to add to the list is Major General Jesse Lee Reno, who was mortally wounded at Fox's Gap. Stotelmyer's chapter meticulously retraces both the events of the fighting at Fox's gap and the possible scenarios behind Reno's demise. In the end, after weighing all the conflicting evidence, Stotelmyer is forced to admit that no clear-cut conclusion is possible (now or probably ever) regarding which side shot Reno or even where exactly the general was hit. More important in the grand scheme of things is how Reno's death might have shaped subsequent events. In terms of the effect Reno's demise had on the course of the campaign, the author speculates that it is highly possible that the fighting on the Union left at Antietam would have unfolded very differently, perhaps decisively so, had Reno lived and the resulting high command confusion not occurred.

That very command confusion (mainly between Jacob Cox, who assumed Reno's post, and Ambrose Burnside, whose wing command was suspended by McClellan after South Mountain) is the subject of the seventh and final main essay. In it the author cites conflicting understandings of duties and responsibilities as having a major impact on the deployment of Ninth Corps divisions at Antietam and the timing of their attacks. There is plenty of blame to go around, but the piece argues that much of the criticisms historically attached to George McClellan and his staff have been misplaced (much of the author's viewpoint on that particular matter is in opposition to what Scott Hartwig maintains in I Dread the Thought of the Place). Stotelmyer seems willing to lend credence to the impression that Burnside was sulking (state of mind always being a hazardous thing to speculate upon) after his perceived demotion and, generally speaking, in the wake of Reno's death didn't do enough to clear up for Cox the wing/corps's "ambiguous bifurcated command structure" (pg. 290).

While the main body of the book ends after the seventh essay, there's much more on the author's table. The appendix section (A through K) yields a compilation of numerous essays of varying length. These include freshly detailed examinations of a series of smaller-scale September 9-13 engagements (at Sugar Loaf Mountain, Frederick, Hagan's Gap, and Quebec Schoolhouse), new looks at some old stories and legends, and even some poetry. The author also explores how the pain, discomfort, and limitations imposed upon Lee by his significant arm, wrist, and hand injuries suffered during a post-Second Manassas accident might have affected the commanding general's physical capabilities, mental state, and judgment during the ensuing Maryland Campaign.

This is another fine collection of insightful and challenging essays from Steven Stotelmyer. One can argue with some of his conclusions, and disagree here and there with certain speculative paths taken, but the depth of research and ability to sift through conflicting evidence and construct valid arguments either in support of or in opposition to traditional narratives are both prominently displayed. Another strong release from the Antietam Institute's growing catalog of original publications, this volume is recommended reading for every student of the Maryland Campaign.

Review - "Animal Histories of the Civil War Era" by Earl Hess, ed.

[Animal Histories of the Civil War Era edited by Earl J. Hess (Louisiana State University Press, 2022). Hardcover, illustrations, notes, index. Pages:vii/277. ISBN:978-0-8071-7691-7. $45]

In the new essay anthology Animal Histories of the Civil War Era volume editor and heavy contributor Earl Hess provides us with the first book-length attempt at integrating, in a more formal manner than before, the academic disciplines of animal history and Civil War history. The result is thirteen essays exploring that interdisciplinary crossover as applied to topics before, during, and after the Civil War. The contributing writers are, as Hess describes them, three animal historians with an interest in Civil War history and eight Civil War historians with an interest in animal history. The clear emphasis is on fostering professional ties between largely disengaged disciplines, but the volume could also appeal to those readers outside the academy who have a more than casual interest in emerging areas of study.

Many Civil War readers are at least passingly familiar with the general story behind the antebellum US Army's failed experiment with camel transport, but Michael Woods's opening chapter argues that the idea of using camels in the US (particular in cotton growing areas of the Deep South) was more widespread than previously thought. Several importation schemes surrounding the use of camels as plantation beasts of burden are discussed in his essay, but the writer goes even further in suggesting that those plans were deeply intertwined with the activities of radical proslavery expansionists. The degree to which that connection is integrated with, rather than incidental to, so-called Slave Power conspiracies remains debatable, but it's at the very least suggestive of the kinds of interdisciplinary approaches the anthology wants to promote.

As interesting as camels might be, it's obvious that horses and mules, due to their essential support roles in army supply, transport, and mobility, remain by far the Civil War historical literature's most prominent source of big animal engagement. In this volume, David Gerleman provides readers with an excellent introduction to Civil War horse and mule physical requirements, procurement systems, welfare, physical treatment, and field use. Previously published conclusions regarding Union veterinary care practices being tardy and inadequate are reinforced, yet overall the US system of managing its army's animal motive power was clearly superior to that of its opponent and an important element in Union victory. Undoubtedly drawn from the research behind his upcoming study of Civil War artillery, Earl Hess's first anthology contribution offers a brief glimpse into the world of artillery horses and the heavy demands made upon them. Abraham Gibson follows that with an insightful perspective on the Confederate Army horse supply, maintenance, and replacement policies and practices that reached crisis levels by the middle of the war. Both the Gibson and Gerleman essays offer illuminating contrasts between Union and Confederate military horse management.

The Civil War literature is slowly expanding its horizons when it comes to examining human and animal world interactions in areas beyond the latter's capacity for transmitting disease (about which some fine work has been done). Heavily influenced by Kelby Ouchley's Flora and Fauna of the Civil War (2010), another Hess piece offers an interesting survey of the diversity of soldier-wildlife interactions in the field. Mark Smith gets more specific in the following chapter in his discussion of bees, explaining how they informed both directly and metaphorically the lives and rhetorical perspectives of the Civil War-era generation.

In the anthology's section on animal use as food, Jason Phillips summarizes the interdependency between the southern pig and human populations. Along the way, Phillips points out some significant differences between the sections when it came to hog range management and pork packing. Accompanying that are insights into what the outbreak of war meant to the South's pork supply, which was heavily dependent prewar on northern and Border State imports, both of which were quickly shut down once fighting erupted. Every Civil War student knows that army food supply, quality, and preparation was inconsistent on both sides, and another Hess article, written from a vegetarian perspective, discusses the ways in which unbalanced, meat-centric soldier diets inhibited their personal health and, by extension, their military effectiveness.

A pair of chapters look at canine roles and influences. In Joan Cashin's brief summary of dog exploitation during the war, she comes to the conclusion that they were "weaponized" to a greater extent than commonly believed. In the Civil War-era literature, dogs are frequently discussed in the context of their bloodhound work tracking runaway slaves, anti-Confederate "Brush Men," and escaped Union POWs, but Lorien Foote also reminds us how practically and culturally important they were to game hunting and general security across the South from large plantations to subsistence farms. Critically, she extends that examination into the postwar period when unregulated dog ownership sparked legislative concerns (with all their political, class, economic, and racial implications) over controlling canine numbers and the alleged toll those animals took on livestock (specifically the sheep industry). A wide range of abatement proposals, ranging from taxation all the way to lethal measures, were debated.

Many different animal species were adopted as unit mascots during the conflict, and Brian Matthew Jordan uses the story of "Old Abe," the venerated eagle mascot of the 8th Wisconsin, as a case study highlighting the longstanding bonds forged between Union veterans and those animals. In a strong reminder that the roots of anthropomorphizing pets has a long history, the Old Abe story also reveals how some 8th Wisconsin veterans believed that the eagle came through association and shared experience to communicate the same partisan ideological attitudes held by its human comrades. A time during which animals intersected with national politics and ongoing debates over the role of government is interestingly expressed through Daniel Vandersommers's examination of the 1888-91 congressional debates (which frequently took on sectional overtones) regarding the proposed establishment of a national zoo in Washington, D.C. Finally, Paula Tarankow uncovers the postwar story of the celebrated entertainment duo of horse talent "Beautiful Jim Key" and his ex-slave performance handler William Key. Tarankow argues that their popular traveling show helped transform old views on equine intelligence as well as, perhaps, deeper connections between human and animal ethical understanding.

Society's views on animal sentience and ethical expectations regarding the limits of animal exploitation are, of course, ever evolving, and Hess and his contributors point readers toward unresolved debates over animal agency as well as differing conclusions surrounding the degree to which Civil War traumas and experiences transformed popular views on animal treatment and conservation. Drawing connections between animal history studies and a number of established Civil War history sub-disciplines, Animal Histories of the Civil War Era is an engaging introduction to "animal-centered" Civil War history in its currently nascent form. Only time will tell what future depth and direction Civil War animal history might take, but this volume certainly provides ample food for thought for those prospective scholars who might be interested in embarking on that journey toward a new branch of Civil War scholarship.

Review - "The Oxford Handbook of the American Civil War" by Foote & Hess, eds.

[The Oxford Handbook of the American Civil War edited by Lorien Foote and Earl J. Hess (Oxford University Press, 2021). Hardcover, 51 maps, notes, bibliography, index. Pages:xiv,689. ISBN:978-0-19-090305-3. $150]

The Oxford Handbook of the American Civil War is a new addition to the prolific Oxford Handbooks series, the broad aim of which is to "offer authoritative and up-to-date surveys of original research in a particular subject area." Series volumes "give critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates, as well as a foundation for future research." In an essential step toward meeting those lofty goals, contributing editors Lorien Foote and Earl Hess have gathered nearly three dozen colleagues to craft 39 essays charting the military progress of the war. In keeping with one of the major mandates of the series, many of the chapter authors in this volume are leading authorities on the particular topic(s) upon which they write (ex. Brian McKnight on the fighting in Appalachia, Kenneth Noe on the 1862 Kentucky Campaign, Scott Hartwig on the Maryland Campaign, and so on).

It's difficult enough to find the space in a review to discuss at even a basic level each chapter in a standard-sized anthology of eight to twelve essays, but this massive tome encompassing nearly forty entries makes that task impossible, so we'll have to stick with broad strokes. Unlike most general military histories of the war, Foote and Hess's handbook compilation offers a very satisfying mix and balance of coverage across all three primary theaters of war (East, West, and Trans-Mississippi). The chapters are arranged in chronological fashion, and it is not completely out of line to frame the resulting treatment as one of the most comprehensive single-volume military histories of the war, even if it lacks by its very nature a connecting narrative.

Most chapters are centered upon one or more major military campaigns. In addition to more traditional content and interpretation along the lines of leadership, politics, operations, and tactics, each essay incorporates on some level additional "New Military History" topics and themes thrust into the mainstream over the latter part of the past century as well as more recent "War and Society" developments. This integrative approach is most prominently displayed through the vast majority of essays having at least some engagement with emancipation scholarship and its multitude of research branches. A great host of other intersections between more traditional military history and current trends in academic Civil War scholarship—among the latter the literature examining hard war effects in both urban and rural settings, race, the natural environment, gender, class, geography, loyalty, and citizenship—are broadly exhibited. Individual essays as well as the volume's fine general introduction persuasively extol the benefits of the interdisciplinary approach and are encouraging of fruitful directions Civil War scholarship might take in the future. Emphasizing both planned and unplanned elements of connectivity at local, state, and national levels, the collection effectively shows that every campaign to some degree produced lasting reverberations worthy of ongoing study. Critically, through all of this it is made clear to the reader that military history needs to retain its central influence within the expansive modern landscape of Civil War scholarship.

There are a small number of more theme-driven essays in the book (ex. those covering "Bleeding Kansas," the Civil War in Indian Territory, postwar occupation, and the naval blockade of southern ports), but, as mentioned above, a decision was made to construct the great majority of chapters around either a single campaign or multiple campaigns linked together. Though that structuring is very effectively implemented and remarkably thorough, it does mean that some important but more diffuse military topics are perhaps undeservedly relegated to background status. As just one example, while several chapters integrate the unconventional war into the main discussion (one of the better ones is Joseph Beilein's assessment of the war's only significant attempt at officially coordinating the efforts of guerrillas and conventional forces in a major campaign), one might argue on the basis of the huge body of scholarly work built up over the past couple decades that the guerrilla war deserves a chapter of its own. That said, however, in a thick tome already approaching 700 pages in length, a line must undoubtedly be drawn somewhere.

The notes and bibliography placed at the end of each chapter fulfill scholarly requirements and usefully steer the handbook's target audience toward the best candidates for further reading. Also, present in the volume is a sound appreciation of cartography as an essential element of military history presentation. The book's 51 maps, all created by noted Civil War cartographer Hal Jesperson, offer both necessary geographical lessons as well as solid visual representations of the large-scale movements involved in the various campaigns described in the text.

Under the expert guidance of co-editors Foote and Hess, The Oxford Handbook of the American Civil War, through its critical engagement with current trends in the military and social history scholarship and its noteworthy identification of topics meriting further exploration, succeeds admirably at fulfilling the challenging mandates of OUP's Handbook series. Those qualities as well as the highly accessible nature of the writing makes this handbook excel as a broadly useful guide to the present state of the Civil War military history literature.

Review - "Their Maryland: The Army of Northern Virginia From the Potomac Crossing to Sharpsburg in September 1862" by Alexander Rossino

[Their Maryland: The Army of Northern Virginia From the Potomac Crossing to Sharpsburg in September 1862 by Alexander B. Rossino (Savas Beatie, 2021). Hardcover, 9 maps, photographs, illustrations, footnotes, appendix section (A-F), bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xiv,262/323. ISBN:978-1-61121-557-1. $32.95]

Pointing out that the existing volume of published Maryland Campaign and Antietam battle literature is second only to that of Gettysburg is stating the obvious, and no one is foolish enough to argue that the subject matter is understudied. However, major avenues of interpretation go in and out of style, evidence (new and old) is routinely being critically reviewed with fresh eyes, and emerging branches of history continue to engage with existing writing in ways little emphasized before or perhaps overlooked altogether. All of those factors and more ensure that coverage of any Civil War military history topic remains ever evolving and never truly settled. Created in that tenor of questioning prior assumptions and crafting alternative interpretations from existing lines of research and reasoning is Alexander Rossino's Their Maryland: The Army of Northern Virginia From the Potomac Crossing to Sharpsburg in September 1862. Based on primary sources, Rossino's chapters offer clearly different views on a number of topics. Each discussion also displays fruitful engagement with the best and most influential secondary works, notable inclusions being Joseph Harsh's multi-volume treatment of the campaign, the classic Carman manuscript (which has been edited twice for publication since 2008, first by Joseph Pierro in a single volume and soon after in a trilogy from Tom Clemens), and the first volume of Scott Harwig's exhaustive new (and still in-progress) account of the Maryland Campaign. Not another narrative-format history, Rossino's book addresses specific issues and themes related to Lee and his army in Maryland mainly through standalone discussions, though there are some connective threads present.

Confederate reasoning behind launching a late-summer offensive into Maryland in 1862 has been well explored at this point, with many interpretations acknowledging the same list of factors but differing on degree of emphasis. Using contemporary and memoir source evidence from Lee's army, Rossino powerfully argues for renewed weight being placed on Lee's hopes and expectations that his army's presence in western Maryland would lead to a pro-secession uprising and a flood of recruits. Significantly, that recentralization of political goals helps render Lee's overwhelmingly criticized decision to stand and fight at Antietam more understandable, and perhaps more rationally defensible. Lee clearly believed the military and political rewards possible from a great victory on northern soil justified hazarding a pitched battle with a major river at his back. Critics benefiting from hindsight can certainly disagree with that, and many do, but what was behind Lee's motivation to fight behind Antietam Creek is undoubtedly more complex than personal ego, meeting honor's demands, or military hubris (though the general's assumption that McClellan's army was too disorganized and demoralized to threaten the southern army with outright annihilation proved dangerously misplaced). In a lot of ways, Lee's hopes and expectations in Maryland contemporaneously mirrored Braxton Bragg's in Kentucky, though each commander reacted to the disappointing results of their respective high-risk Border State campaigns in very different ways. Given how often the specter of foreign recognition is raised as a possible outcome of Lee winning a major victory on northern soil after his army's triumphal summer campaigns in Virginia, it is curious that questions regarding whether diplomatic possibilities influenced Lee's decision-making in Maryland are left out of Rossino's political analysis, which sticks to the domestic sphere.

The next chapter plots when and where all of the major pieces of the Army of the Northern Virginia crossed the Potomac. Carefully noted are the many differences between the author's interpretations and those of prior writers and historians. Of particular moment are the places in the essay's narrative of events where Rossino's fresh examination of the sources respectfully disagrees with Harsh and Hartwig. In similar vein, Rossino also charts the locations of the camping sites of Lee's army around Frederick, which also differ in many specifics from prior accounts. While not profoundly necessary knowledge needed to gain a better understanding of the campaign as a whole, such details are shown in the book to impact at least one enduring mystery—the one revolving around who lost Special Orders No. 191, exactly where the document was left, and what its carrier might have been doing when it happened. Rossino does not pin down any of that with certainty, but his meticulous analysis of the evidence arguably widens the range of possibilities (or, to think about it a different way, narrows some probabilities).

Rossino is largely correct in arguing that today's writers, partially taking their cue from period accounts written by either mocking Unionists or disgruntled Confederates, place too much emphasis on the hostile reaction of western Maryland's population to the presence of Lee's army and their rejection of southern paper currency in exchange for food, clothing, and supplies. Referencing many examples, the author convincingly reorients the reader toward a more accurate representation of a mixed popular urban and rural reaction to hosting Confederate soldiers, and he notes that many merchants accepted Confederate money willingly. What was clear to everyone at the time, however, was that there would be no significant enrollment of Maryland men into the ranks of Lee's depleted army. Obviously, the pro-Union stance of much of the population had a lot to do with that, but the author persuasively cites the transient nature of the army's presence in the state and its outward appearance as two additional major hindrances deserving of more attention. Rossino could easily have pointed to other examples from the war, such as Sterling Price's temporary stay in western Missouri in the fall of 1861 and Bragg's aforementioned experiences in Kentucky, as proof that proslavery Border States under pro-Union state governments would yield few recruits unless Confederate armies exhibited a proven ability to displace federal military occupation long term. On the other matter, the physically worn down and bedraggled appearance of the average Confederate soldier in Lee's army by September 1862 likely chilled the ardor of many a prospective Maryland recruit. Indeed, Rossino cites several Maryland accounts that linked the state of the individual soldier with that of his cause.

One chapter returns to a recent dispute over the famous photographic image of a dense column of Confederate infantry temporarily halted in the streets of Frederick. In it Rossino offers evidence to support the traditionally accepted September 1862 date over its July 1864 challenger. For example, the direction the column is facing ranks among the more compelling pieces of evidence cited in the essay. Interestingly, there is no mention in the essay of anyone having investigated whether the Rosen dry goods and clothing store (its large business sign prominently displayed in the image) has known dates of operation, though it is nearly impossible to imagine that someone has not done that digging already.

Lee very briefly considered a return to Virginia after South Mountain before changing his mind upon hearing of Harpers Ferry's imminent fall. There is some debate over what Lee considered his remaining options to be, but Rossino argues that the evidence strongly supports the conclusion that Lee, from the 15th onward, never seriously explored alternatives beyond concentrating his army for a defensive stand behind Antietam Creek. In response to the question of why Lee (the "King of Spades") then did not entrench his army for the coming onslaught, the author cites the lack of digging tools (supposing that much or most them were sent away with the army supply trains), the rocky soil, and the constant shifting around of formations (along with the late arrival of Jackson) prior to Hooker's opening attack on the morning of the 17th as reasonable answers.

Rossino also reexamines the primary sources to trace Lee's own movements and activities on the 17th. Emphasis is placed on the moments when, after the battle proved to be desperate in nature, Lee personally involved himself in the fighting at the tactical level. As elsewhere in the book, the author carefully notes (in either main text or footnotes) where his interpretations of events and their timing differ from others (for these matters in particular, the writings of Harsh and Carman). The chapter makes a strong case that Antietam should be added to the short list of Civil War battles where Lee dangerously exposed himself at the front in order to stave off disastrous breakthrough. The discussion is also accompanied by an informative series of maps that trace Lee's likely movements throughout the day as well the locations of events described in the text.

As one can readily see from the above, there is no single thread that runs through all of Rossino's chapters; however, it is clear that one of the chief goals of the exercise is to revive the role political objectives held in Lee's mind during the planning stages of the Maryland Campaign and the general's subsequent decision to offer battle at Sharpsburg. The book's in-depth revisitation of this subject will probably leave many readers surprised to learn (if Rossino's characterization of the trend is accurate) the degree to which political considerations have fallen out of favor in recent publications. Rossino also presents a reasonably sound argument for seeing Lee's unwavering decision to make a defensive stand at Antietam not as a foolhardy gesture based on a poor reading of his enemy, but rather as a decision in close alignment with the military and political considerations behind his launching of the campaign in the first place. Casual readers might get bogged down in the drawn-out argumentation involved in some chapters, but those familiar with the campaign's major studies, even if they disagree with some links in the author's chain of analysis, will recognize the formidable nature of Rossino's evidence-based challenges to influential views on a variety of issues related to Lee's army, Lee himself, and the Maryland Campaign as planned and fought.

Review - "Southern Strategies: Why the Confederacy Failed" by Christian Keller, ed.

[Southern Strategies: Why the Confederacy Failed edited by Christian B. Keller (University Press of Kansas, 2021). Hardcover, maps, photos, chapter notes, index. Pp. 275. ISBN:978-0-7006-3218-3. $34.95]

It is tempting to take conflict analysis paradigms developed by and for today's national security professionals and test their strength and validity against historical belligerents and the wars they fought long ago. Employing timeless elements, the DIME model of strategy analysis seems to be a particularly appropriate candidate for such an exercise, and the way it is used in Southern Strategies: Why the Confederacy Failed exposes in fresh ways a number of well-recognized shortcomings in Confederate strategic thinking and execution.

Over the more than 150 years that have passed since the end of the Civil War, historians have proposed a great multitude of factors that help explain Confederate defeat. Many of them go in and out of fashion and no two scholars will ever rank their relative significance in the same order. However, everyone will agree that key flaws and mistakes in Confederate civilian and military leadership and strategy contributed mightily to the downfall of the rebellion. Essays in Southern Strategies explore how those faults impacted the four instruments of national power represented in the DIME model, the "synchronicity" of which is necessary to maintain that power in wartime and achieve strategic goals. The Diplomatic, Informational (on both fighting and home fronts), Military power, and Economic instruments of a nation's strategic DIME must all work hand in hand to achieve defined ends (in the case of the Confederacy, independence and international recognition). Though each is focused on a single instrument, all six essays in the book stress that synchronicity and many showcase, directly or indirectly, the Confederacy's doom-inducing inability to counteract failures in one DIME facet with achievement in the others. Importantly, each contributor also fully recognizes that it is just as important for a warring power to understand the opponent's DIME (and seek ways to undermine it) than it is to try to successfully manage its own.

Volume editor Christian Keller's opening essay reminds readers straight away of the impact of contingency on the Confederate strategic DIME. As readers of Keller's award-winning 2019 book The Great Partnership: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Fate of the Confederacy know, the author strongly believes that the successful Lee-Jackson command team (part of the 'M' in DIME) represented the Confederacy's best chance to achieve military success in the eastern theater, and Jackson's death was a heavy blow to southern hopes for independence and diplomatic recognition. Much of the argumentation and conclusions presented in that earlier book are summarized again here, but there is also a renewed look at a counterfactual situation in which Jackson, fresh off his Spring 1862 Shenandoah Valley exploits, has his invasion plan for Maryland and Pennsylvania approved. In reasoning that a successful movement north would have had significant diplomatic impact abroad, boosted domestic morale, and, if it successfully damaged the Pennsylvania coal industry as intended, injurious effects on the Union economy, the chapter also incorporates other DIME elements into the discussion. Keller is fully aware that the pressure on Richmond exerted by the Army of the Potomac advancing up the Peninsula likely required Jackson's presence there and giving Jackson all of the reinforcements he wanted impractical, but the author also reasonably argues that a narrow window of opportunity did exist for a bold, though more modest-sized, counterstroke. On the other hand, if one subscribes to the common view that Jackson's Valley campaign had reduced the general to a state of physical and mental exhaustion by the beginning of the Seven Days, it can be questioned whether Old Jack was up to conducting a long raid fraught with danger. Indeed, in theorizing how such a movement by Jackson during the latter half of 1862 might have turned out, Keller readily acknowledges the situation to be one where "counterfactual clouds become so dense that to speculate further begs incredulity" (pg. 40). Still, it can be a useful mental exercise to imagine how such an operation could have effected both Confederate and Union DIME instruments.

Eric Johnson's chapter provides both a wonderful summary of post-Industrial Revolution methods available for war financing and an insightful comparison between successful Union fiscal strategy and disastrously unsuccessful Confederate fiscal policy. In contrast to the Lincoln administration, which possessed an existing national revenue-raising bureaucracy and adopted a suitable combination of new taxes, bonds, and paper money issuance to finance the war, the Davis government was unable to overcome traditional sectional opposition to national tax levying, and its newly organized Treasury Department was not up to the task of putting the war effort on sound enough financial footing before being overtaken by rampant inflation. The 1864 balance of 5% war financing revenue from taxation, 30% from bonds, and 60% through paper money printing contrasted sharply and unfavorably with Union funding estimates of 60% bonds and short-term loans, 21% taxes, and just 13% paper money. Apart from the singular success of the Erlanger loan, Confederate defeats, hyperinflation, and diminishing confidence in the viability of the rebel movement made bonds an unappealing investment in relative short order, and the overreliance on paper money printing furthered the economic death spiral. Though naturally focused on the 'E' instrument, the chapter effectively incorporates additional context in the form of Union and Confederate diplomatic efforts (the former much more effective than the latter), Union intelligence operations abroad, and naval blockade effects on the Confederate DIME.

Special Orders 191 often dominates discussion of how intelligence contributed to Confederate defeat in the 1862 Maryland Campaign, but Kevin McCall's detailed examination of the 'I' in the Confederate DIME at a critical moment in the history of the war draws attention toward challenges to Confederate strategic, operational, and tactical intelligence that stemmed from the abrupt shifting of the theater of war from friendly Virginia to mostly hostile Maryland. Using modern military intelligence terminology, McCall interestingly and convincingly outlines how rapid change in the army's operational space upended every aspect of Lee's established Virginia-based intelligence gathering system (including human, communications, and open source collection). The writer also holds previously reliable Jeb Stuart directly responsible for much of Lee's blindness. According to McCall, after successfully establishing a screen, Stuart failed to go further and obtain operational and tactical-level information regarding enemy strength, locations, and key terrain to evaluate and report to his commander. Naturally, it is understood that operating in enemy territory is more difficult than operating in friendly territory, but the chapter clearly demonstrates that multi-level intelligence failures as well as unavoidable short-term barriers contributed heavily to the squandering of a strategic opportunity (the possible dimensions of which are certainly up for debate). As accomplished by the other contributors, McCall also successfully integrates other instruments of the Confederate and Union DIME (primarily diplomatic and military components) into his 'I'-focused examination. He also includes an appendix that provides a new perspective on the Lost Order controversy from a counterintelligence perspective that envisions the possibility, though purely speculative, that the loss of the document was not accidental.

Erik Anderson boldly sees the role of diplomatic failure in the overall misalignment of the Confederacy's strategic DIME as "the most critical issue" that held the breakaway republic back from achieving its goal of independence. Unlike most diplomacy discussions found in the Civil War literature, Anderson's centers on what the paradigm shift in post-Napoleonic Wars Great Powers statecraft and diplomacy meant to Confederate officials seeking European recognition. After reading Anderson's explanation of how international relations goals and priorities among European powers had profoundly altered the diplomatic landscape by the mid-nineteenth century, one arrives at a fuller realization of the true scope of the impediments that Confederate diplomats needed to overcome. The strategic partners that the Confederate government sought (mainly France and Britain) catered to their own best interests not by weakening rivals through far away foreign entanglements but rather by striving to maintain hold on their own domestic power, by blunting nationalistic movements on the continent that threatened peace for themselves and their neighbors, and through preserving the continental balance of power. Though France did insert itself into Mexican affairs, Britain especially had little stomach for military adventures in North America that could threaten its ability to uphold the empire's central concerns in domestic and "near abroad" spheres. That said, much of the essay focuses on matters that the Confederate government had more ability to control. Anderson does agree with those that maintain that the Confederacy still did have a narrow window of opportunity in 1861-62 to take advantage of its still robust military strength (accentuated by victories in the East not yet diminished by disasters in the West) and coordinate that with a strong diplomatic push. That never happened because, as Anderson keenly observes, the Confederate government moved too slowly, made very poor choices in diplomat selection, and never articulated a message that could help mitigate foreign opposition to slavery. In not understanding geopolitics and where European interests primarily lay (and thus devising influence-seeking diplomatic initiatives that could take those into account), Confederate leaders did not manage to integrate diplomacy with the other elements of DIME, such missteps including underfunded propaganda efforts in the informational sphere and an economically and diplomatically disastrous (though unofficial) cotton embargo.

Of course, strategy is pointless if it is never applied, and in the military instrument that action is performed operationally and tactically. Chris Compton's reassessment of Robert E. Lee's pursuit of strategic goals in the summer of 1863 presents the Army of Northern Virginia's commander as well informed regarding the Confederacy's overall strategic position and restates the many arguments both for an against reinforcing the West versus going on the offensive in the East. Using the modern FAS-R (feasibility, acceptability, suitability, and risk) paradigm for testing strategy, the essay author has determined that Davis administration approval of a northern offensive had defensible underpinnings and Lee's conduct of the operation was mostly sound. In Compton's view, both Lee and Davis displayed conscientious understanding of the risks to the strategic DIME that such bold action imposed. Compton persuasively argues that Lee managed the operation reasonably well during planning, preparation, and in the early stages of execution before his summer strategy decisively unraveled at the climactic phase of operational and tactical execution (through a combination of subordinate actions, Lee's own mistakes, and the determined efforts of the enemy). In the competing schools of thought regarding the extent of Lee's strategic myopia, risk-taking, and overreliance on the offensive, Compton's essay is a solid ally to the more traditional positions espoused by Gary Gallagher, D.S. Freeman, and others, and a pretty formidable challenger to the most strident parts of the harshly critical revisionist literature that has become widely accepted.

While the bulk of the book addresses affairs east of the Appalachians, the final chapter offers a trenchant critique of Confederate strategy west of the Mississippi River. Centering once again on the military power instrument, essay author Michael Forsyth highlights the key ways in which the Davis administration failed to closely integrate Trans-Mississippi affairs into the Confederate DIME, perhaps most notably by appointing a string of district and departmental commanders lacking compatible strategic vision (though, to be fair, one could argue that Davis's pool of qualified candidates was very shallow). In judging strategic affairs within the department, Forsyth keenly observes that the Trans-Mississippi commanders, isolated as they were, tended to the view the defense of the department as a strategic end of its own rather than an integral part of national strategy, and this flawed command thinking was only abetted by the Confederate president and his successive secretaries of war. According to Forsyth, the depth of that myopia was demonstrated most clearly by the lack of cooperation during critical moments of the Vicksburg Campaign, but the post-Vicksburg establishment of a vast, essentially self-ruling department under General Edmund Kirby Smith that essentially pursued its own strategic DIME proved almost as harmful. Smith's department was clearly limited in what it could do to assist the West but, according to Forsyth, it nevertheless failed to grasp national-level strategic opportunities when they did arise (ex. during the 1864 Red River Campaign and Camden Expedition) in favor of meeting more localized defensive goals. In Forsyth's view, the trans-Appalachian departmental system as created by the Davis administration (with the Mississippi Valley serving as both critical invasion corridor and administrative boundary) and the consistently poor leadership appointments to it left the vast region west of the Mississippi critically disconnected from the Confederate DIME.

Authored by seasoned individuals possessing decades of military/national security service and/or extensive experience in professional military education as student and teacher, the essays in Southern Strategies demonstrate the usefulness of the modern DIME model in fruitfully discussing and reappraising the flaws and missteps in Confederate civilian and military strategic leadership. Though they begin with the generally accepted assumption that the fledgling Confederacy possessed enough DIME strength at the beginning of the war to achieve its goals, the essayists nevertheless recognize that the challenges were immense and margins for error decidedly slim. Collectively, volume contributors effectively illustrate how policymaking, planning, and execution breakdowns in one instrument of power placed compensatory burdens on the others that Confederate strategic leaders were consistently unable to mitigate or overcome, even though the war effort overall still proved surprisingly resilient. Of course, it was the contrasting and successful wielding of the United States's DIME power that ultimately crushed the Confederacy (and wouldn't that make for a fitting companion volume), but that is still only part of the equation. All of the essays in Southern Strategies are highly recommended for their freshly formulated insights into arguments new and old regarding the Confederate leadership's role in its own defeat.

Review - "The Enduring Civil War: Reflections on the Great American Crisis" by Gary Gallagher

[The Enduring Civil War: Reflections on the Great American Crisis by Gary W. Gallagher (Louisiana State University Press, 2020). Cloth, photos, illustrations, appendix, notes, index. Pages main/total:xiii,237/292. ISBN:978-0-8071-7348-0. $34.95]

For more than a decade (since April 2009 to be precise), issues of the popular magazine Civil War Times featured a brief topical essay written by noted historian Gary Gallagher. Given carte blanche in terms of content (the only limitation being that each piece had to be no more than 1,000 words in length), Gallagher produced succinct and frequently quite punchy essays exploring many of the subjects that interested him most over his long career inside and outside the academy. In his own words, Gallagher wanted his essays "to expose tensions among parts of the recent literature that cover peripheral or secondary dimensions of the conflict" while also wishing them "to place our contemporary understanding of the Civil War, both academic and popular, in conversation with testimony from people in the United States and the Confederacy who experienced and described it." There are other themes, but those are certainly the most commonly expressed ones. Collecting 71 of those previously published CWT essays (plus two more published elsewhere) is Gallagher's new book The Enduring Civil War: Reflections on the Great American Crisis.

The essays are grouped (with a short introduction to each) into six main themes: "Framing the War," "Generals and Battles," "Controversies," "Historians and Books," "Testimony from Participants," and "Places and Culture." The pieces mostly remain as they were originally published, though Gallagher notes that a small number were further revised (with some likely expanded beyond the original 1,000-word limit). He also added endnotes to the entire collection and restored the titles of many of the essays to their original text (see the appendix for a complete bibliographical roster).

In several essays, Gallagher offers common laments regarding some of the general public's sustained beliefs in Lost Cause tenets when it comes to origins, conduct, and outcomes of the war. He also offers the typical professional historian's refrain about the great majority of avocational readers and authors being only interested in campaigns, battles, and leaders (note: this reviewer views that brand of blanket observation as outdated in its representation of the current day's increasingly small but arguably more diverse Civil War lay reading audience). On the other side of the equation, Gallagher reserves some of his most pointed cautionary judgments for professional colleagues engaged in either certain brands of historical revisionism or laboring in various narrow subspecialties currently in vogue. A sampling includes those social historians who leave military history almost entirely out of their analysis, promote the idea of the "long Civil War," and formulate self-emancipation narratives that minimize to the point of exclusion the role of the Union Army in freeing the slaves. Of the first, Gallagher argues powerfully that the war years cannot be understood in any meaningful manner without some integration of military history into the discussion. Similarly, it is the author's contention that expanding the Civil War far beyond summer 1865 and even into the present day improperly devalues the very significant and permanent accomplishments of the war itself. On the third point, Gallagher, citing evidence, persuasively contends that the Union Army was a primary force in emancipation and ignoring that is a disservice both to it and history. Also, in Gallagher's view, those specializing in Civil War "dark" history, though engaged in important work, too often present the exceptional as the norm (or at least, one might add, leave that impression upon the reader).

Gallagher adopts a number of contrarian views regarding current "fashions" in Civil War scholarship. For instance, in the book he continues to argue for eastern theater primacy and against those in favor of dissolving the barrier between the Civil War on the one side and contemporary Indian Wars and westward expansion on the other. Unmoved by the recent scholarly work of Daniel Sutherland, Clay Mountcastle, and others, Gallagher also forcefully believes that guerrilla warfare had no measurable impact on the course and outcome of the war. Partially related to that is the author's long-held contention that the Trans-Mississippi theater was entirely insignificant. Objections, sometimes even heated responses, to these pieces were raised by readers and scholars (and this reviewer also feels evidence doesn't broadly support a number of them), but in each case Gallagher's stated reasoning behind his own views and interpretations possesses merit worthy of continuing debate.

Gallagher's long tenure as a series editor at UNC Press resulted in the press's acquisition of numerous classic military history studies along with publication of the venerable Military Campaigns of the Civil War anthology series, but it remains a career curiosity that Gallagher himself never tried his hand at a Civil War campaign or battle history. Nevertheless, many of the essays in this compilation are concerned with military topics of personal interest to the writer. These include critiques and comparisons of the generalships of Grant, Lee, Sheridan, Jackson, and others, and several essays address the Battle of Gettysburg on some level.

Numerous essays address books and present recommendations. In them, Gallagher mines his decades of research and study to offer readers short "best of" lists or highlight gems (hidden or otherwise) when it comes to categories like soldier letters, female Confederate writers, publications by veterans who were Harvard graduates, and more. Indispensable diaries (ex. those of Gideon Welles, John B. Jones, Josiah Gorgas, and more) and other wartime accounts are discussed in a number of informative standalone essays. Gallagher also devotes entire essays to memorializing the careers and influential historiographical contributions of important past historians, among them David Potter, Ella Lonn, Harry Pfanz, and Allan Nevins.

The above refers to just a selection of the volume's total range. Gallagher additionally addresses battlefield interpretation and preservation, the depiction of Civil War topics in film, and numerous other subjects at the intersection of history and memory.

The volume is promoted as one that won't likely be read cover to cover in typical front to back fashion, but this reviewer, who doesn't often find books like this appealing, did just that and found the experience to be a thoroughly engaging one. For the most part, Gallagher's essays adopt the attitude one would like to get from a distinguished emeritus historian, one that is curious and respectful of current trends among the profession's more youthful movements but also wary of where those might take us. Exposing readers of all levels to the full range of Gary Gallagher's scholarly interests and attainments as teacher, writer, interpretive pioneer (ex. in the area of Union soldier motivation), media popularizer, guide, and editor, The Enduring Civil War is a recommended collection of viewpoints from one of the true deans of the modern Civil War history profession.

Review - "Vicksburg Besieged" by Woodworth & Grear, eds.

[Vicksburg Besieged edited by Steven E. Woodworth & Charles D. Grear (Southern Illinois University Press, 2020). Hardcover, 6 maps, photos, illustrations, notes, index. Pages main/total:xi,182/200. ISBN:978-0-8093-3783-5. $29.50]

It is the plan of SIU Press to publish five Vicksburg volumes in total for their Civil War Campaigns in the West series. So far three have been released, the first two being 2013's The Vicksburg Campaign, March 29–May 18, 1863 and 2019's The Vicksburg Assaults, May 19-22, 1863. The newest addition, Vicksburg Besieged, addresses a diverse selection of topics related to the six-week siege of the Hill City. Along with series co-editors Steven Woodworth and Charles Grear, contributors to the book's eight essays are Andrew Bledsoe, co-writers Scott Stabler & Martin Hershock, Jonathan Steplyk, Justin Solonick, John Gaines, and Richard Holloway.

Bledsoe kicks off the anthology with a thoughtful reevaluation of U.S. Grant's oft-maligned staff and its effect on the Union army's conduct of the 1862-63 Vicksburg Campaign. Bledsoe accurately contextualizes the makeup of the Grant staff within the all too common Civil War practice of assembling command staffs in which personal relationships (friendships, business associations, political allies, etc.) and loyalty were valued higher than both military experience and demonstrated technical competence. There were notable exceptions (among them the able John A. Rawlins and James H. Wilson), but there was still a great deal of dead weight in the Grant staff by mid-1863. This burdened Grant himself with tasks and responsibilities that should have been borne by junior staff members. Though keen headquarters observer Charles A. Dana believed the army was not run nearly as efficiently as it could have been during the campaign with a more competent staff, it is the measured judgment of Bledsoe and others that Grant himself picked up the slack effectively (there being little evidence that staff deficiencies had an appreciably negative effect on army operations). One wonders to what degree these additional stresses (Grant later complained about how much the additional hands-on effort required during the Vicksburg Campaign taxed him) might have influenced Grant's later decision to adopt the two-headed command structure in the East in 1864-65, the relative strengths and weaknesses of which are still much debated today.

Stabler and Hershock's chapter addresses failed Confederate attempts during the siege phase of the Vicksburg campaign to capture Union outposts situated along the west bank of the Mississippi (specifically, the positions at Milliken's Bend, Young's Point, and Lake Providence). The recent literature (especially Linda Barnickel's Milliken's Bend: A Civil War Battle in History and Memory) has for the first time expansively addressed the major contributions of recently organized black Union troops to the successful defense of those places. Much has also been written about the positive effect the USCTs stationed there had in influencing more favorable opinions (both inside and outside of the Union Army) regarding their general usefulness as soldiers and fighting ability on the battlefield. All of these points are well summarized and reinforced in the essay. It could be argued, however, that the writers overstate how much Trans-Mississippi actions meant to Union victory in the campaign that late in the game (as opposed to much earlier when fighting there could have had a quite significant impact). By June, Grant's logistical network was no longer dependent on holding the Louisiana side opposite Vicksburg. Even if the Confederates captured the west bank outposts that month they had no means of holding them against the might of the Union Navy, which was also well positioned above the below the city to interdict any appreciable resupply and evacuation scenarios.

Jonathan Steplyk, drawing upon his own research in Fighting Means Killing: Civil War Soldiers and the Nature of Combat, evaluates here the siege craft role of sharpshooting and how it played an important part in Union success. His work comes to conclusions similar to those put forth in Justin Solonick's 2015 book Engineering Victory: The Union Siege of Vicksburg. With little to choose between the two sides when it came to shooting skills and weaponry, Union ascendance on the firing line was primarily achieved through sheer numbers and the practically limitless amount of ammunition Grant's excellent logistics apparatus provided. The daily stream of casualties combined with the psychological impact of constantly being under the gun wore down Confederate morale and readiness while also providing daytime cover for advancing Union saps. Mass suppressive fire along the line also freed up Union artillerymen to go about their duties without being constantly harassed by Confederate sharpshooters. The cumulative effect was decisive.

Steven Woodworth's evocative contribution captures the sights, sounds, and activities of nighttime during the six-week siege. Shell and mortar fire were round the clock occurrences, and it was during moonlit nights when Union forces were able to most quickly advance their siege works. Woodworth attributes the many examples of Confederate passivity in the face of Union working parties (even those that closely approached the city's ramparts) to increasingly fatalistic demoralization among the defending rank and file.

Taking some of its content from the author's aforementioned study Engineering Victory, Justin Solonick's chapter examines the Union mine explosions of June 25 and July 1 that collectively wrecked the Third Louisiana Redan but failed to facilitate a breakthrough. In addition to describing the mining operation from start to finish, Solonick also discusses the role of Seventeenth Corps chief engineer Andrew Hickenlooper in the design, planning, and oversight of the mine detonated on June 25 (a subordinate apparently handled the second, smaller mine explosion that was not accompanied by an infantry attack). Though the Confederates effectively sealed off the breach, Solonick suggests that the prospect of additional mine explosions in conjunction with an expected all-out attack (Grant did indeed have one planned for July 6) from the Union army's advanced siege approaches—several of which could produce jumping off points only yards away from the defenders—likely had some influence on Pemberton's decision to surrender.

Vicksburg civilians abandoning their homes for makeshift caves dug into the banks of nearby cliffs and gullies for protection against constant Union naval and land bombardment has easily become the most popular image of how noncombatants experienced the siege. John Gaines discusses this aspect of the siege as well as the shortages of food and supplies that ensured surrender sooner rather than later. Gaines makes a good point that Grant's strategy of attacking the Vicksburg rear first, a movement that cut off the rail line and all roads leading into the city, had the significant added effect of both pushing refugees from the countryside into the defenses and blocking city residents from evacuating. Though incidental to Grant's military goals, the vastly increased burden this action placed on Vicksburg's meager food stockpiles clearly benefited the besiegers.

One essay in the collection, viewed through the lens of Louisiana soldiers, addresses the topic of Confederate general Joe Johnston's Army of Relief. In it, author Richard Holloway recounts the experiences of Louisiana soldiers (in particular, the 19th Louisiana infantry and the Washington Artillery) who arrived in Jackson, Mississippi by early June as reinforcements for Johnston's command. There they joined Johnston's slow advance toward Vicksburg, retreated back to Jackson when news arrived of Vicksburg's surrender, and fought in the July 12 rear guard action that covered the second evacuation of the capital that conclusively ended the long campaign.

Finally, Charles Grear explores how Trans-Mississippi Confederates viewed the loss of Vicksburg. An extension of his earlier work in Why Texans Fought in the Civil War to Arkansas and Louisiana (but not Missouri) Confederate soldiers, Grear's chapter comes to the conclusion that Vicksburg was by far the most significant event affecting the fighting will of Trans-Mississippi soldiers on both sides of the river. According to Grear's research, Trans-Mississippi recruits in general, as residents of the most recently settled southern states, were motivated to fight far from their homes by the desire to protect the extensive family and friend networks they left behind. These Texas, Arkansas, and western Louisiana volunteers supported fighting on both sides of the Mississippi as a pragmatic means of keeping their own homes safe from imminent danger. While disasters at New Orleans, Arkansas Post, Helena, and other places seriously impaired the fighting morale of Trans-Mississippi troops, it was Vicksburg that proved to be the demoralizing event of the highest order. In its profound effect on convincing so many Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana soldiers that faraway service no longer protected their own homes and immediate family members, Vicksburg sparked an unprecedented wave of desertions. While many deserters returned to the service by joining local units west of the Mississippi, many others simply left the ranks for good. Historians and casual students alike love to argue about turning points, and Grear's findings strongly suggest that for a great number of Trans-Mississippi soldiers Vicksburg was not only a turning point but a breaking point.

Topically diverse in addressing matters on and off the battlefield (mostly the former), Vicksburg Besieged is another solid entry in the ongoing Civil War Campaigns in the West series and a notable contribution to our understanding of the still relatively understudied siege phase of the Vicksburg Campaign.