Booknotes: Rebel Correspondent

New Arrival:
• Rebel Correspondent by Steve Procko (Steve Procko Productions - Author, 2021).

Arba F. Shaw enlisted in the 4th Georgia Cavalry (Avery's) just after he turned eighteen years of age and served in its Company F for the duration of the war. From the description: "At the beginning of the twentieth century, Arba F. Shaw was a fifty-seven-year-old farmer. On a chilly December day in 1901, he put pen to paper to write his memories of being a Rebel private in the 4th Georgia Cavalry (Avery), C.S.A. He completed writing his account in February 1902. His local newspaper, the Walker County Messenger, in Lafayette, Georgia, published his account in more than fifty articles from 1901 to 1903." Extensively edited by Steve Procko, that collection of remembrances has now been published in book format under the title Rebel Correspondent. According to Procko, Shaw's "eyewitness accounts are perhaps the only written record of some of the day-to-day activities" of his regiment available today.

In January 1863, the 23rd Georgia Cavalry Battalion completed its reorganization and expansion into a full regiment, the new unit being the 4th Georgia Cavalry (Avery's) [to be differentiated from the 4th Georgia Cavalry (Clinch's) regiment of the same number, a mix-up that took some time to resolve and is explained in Chapter 14]. The regiment fought in the Chickamauga, East Tennessee, and Atlanta Campaigns. Escaping the "siege" of Savannah, Avery's 4th was reorganized again and redesignated the 12th Georgia Cavalry, which fought during the 1865 Carolinas Campaign before surrendering at Bennett Place with the remnants of the Army of Tennessee. Shaw himself was wounded at the Battle of New Hope Church. Returning to the unit after a convalescence, he was badly wounded again only five months later.

Procko retains the original serialized presentation of Shaw's newspaper-published memoir. Further organized into chapters, those parts are italicized and extensive bridging text (a dense amount of material that could easily fill an entire book on its own) inserted between each installment. Both memoir and text are footnoted. While contextualizing Shaw's experiences within the wider war around him, Procko's text additionally serves as a parallel history of the regiment. It also tells the tale of the memoir itself while also being chock full of additional biographical details for Shaw and other members of his unit. There's no bibliography available to offer some kind of instant impression of the amount of additional research that went into all of the above, but a glance through the footnotes gives off a favorable vibe. Numerous photographs, historical illustrations, and area maps are also sprinkled throughout the text. The final chapter is a compiled roster of Shaw's Company F. While scarce records render it incomplete, for those individuals that are included there is quite a bit of information provided.

Booknotes: Armistead and Hancock

New Arrival:
• Armistead and Hancock: Behind the Gettysburg Legend of Two Friends at the Turning Point of the Civil War by Tom McMillan (Stackpole Bks, 2021).

The "brother versus brother" appellation attached to the American Civil War has always had both literal and figurative meanings. One of the most often cited examples of close Old Army comrades (professional brothers) separated by conflicting allegiances is the friendship between Union major general Winfield Scott Hancock and Confederate brigadier general Lewis A. Armistead. Knowledge of the pair's relationship entered the popular imagination most after the publication of Michael Shaara's historical novel Killer Angels and the Gettysburg movie adapted from it, but the story certainly had a long history before that. As author Tom McMillan notes in his new book Armistead and Hancock: Behind the Gettysburg Legend of Two Friends at the Turning Point of the Civil War, the topic received a modern shot in the arm with the publication of Bruce Catton's Army of the Potomac trilogy. According to McMillan, though mention of the Armistead and Hancock friendship first appeared in published form in 1880, Catton's Glory Road was the first book to use Almira Hancock's Reminiscences (1887) as a source for the famous California farewell dinner story featured in both novel and movie. Of course, the best stories always receive the most scrutiny and apparently some contrarian writers have even come to the conclusion that the two were not friends.

In Armistead and Hancock, McMillan "sets the record straight. Even if their relationship wasn’t as close as the legend has it, Hancock and Armistead knew each other well before the Civil War. Armistead was seven years older, but in a small prewar army where everyone seemed to know everyone else, Hancock and Armistead crossed paths at a fort in Indian Territory before the Mexican War and then served together in California, becoming friends—and they emotionally parted ways when the Civil War broke out. Their lives wouldn’t intersect again until Gettysburg, when they faced each other during Pickett’s Charge."

Creative license and invented dialogue are part and parcel to historical novels and movie adaptations, and McMillan finds no evidence to support there being any truth behind the sentimental Armistead-Hancock scenes displayed in the movie in the midst of campaign and battle. However, the author's research has arrived at the certain conclusion that the pair were indeed friends beginning in 1844 with their frontier service together in Indian Territory. On a side note, the book's appendix casts serious doubt on Armistead ever having the nickname "Lo." That moniker only appeared in the controversial Pickett letters published by that general's wife, a collection that Gary Gallagher has deemed inauthentic and "worthless as a source."

More from the description: "Part dual biography and part Civil War history, Armistead and Hancock: Behind the Gettysburg Legend clarifies the historic record with new information and fresh perspective, reversing decades of misconceptions about an amazing story of two friends that has defined the Civil War."

Review - "The Siege of Vicksburg: Climax of the Campaign to Open the Mississippi River, May 23-July 4, 1863" by Timothy Smith

[The Siege of Vicksburg: Climax of the Campaign to Open the Mississippi River, May 23-July 4, 1863 by Timothy B. Smith (University Press of Kansas, 2021). Hardcover, 19 maps, photos, illustrations, orders of battle, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xxvii,537/751. ISBN:978-0-7006-3225-1. $45]

Of the three standard histories of the 1862-63 Vicksburg Campaign—Ed Bearss's The Vicksburg Campaign (3 Vols, 1985), Warren Grabau's Ninety-Eight Days: A Geographer's View of the Vicksburg Campaign (2000), and Michael Ballard's Vicksburg: The Campaign that Opened the Mississippi (2004)—Bearss's third volume by a wide margin covers the military aspects of its static phase in greatest detail. Though A.A. Hoehling's Vicksburg: 47 Days of Siege (1969) was an early attempt at presenting the story of the siege in the words of its participants, modern book-length treatments of the siege itself are mostly just a recent phenomenon mainly spearheaded by Southern Illinois University Press, with Ballard's Grant at Vicksburg: The General and the Siege (2013)¹ being an episodic examination of the topic and Justin Solonick's excellent Engineering Victory: The Union Siege of Vicksburg (2015)² focusing closely on the historical context and mechanics of siege warfare as practiced during the campaign. Most recently, the slender volume Vicksburg Besieged (2020)³ was published as part of SIUP's Civil War Campaigns in the West essay anthology series, and it is also useful. However, Timothy Smith's new book The Siege of Vicksburg: Climax of the Campaign to Open the Mississippi River, May 23-July 4, 1863 marks the publication of the first truly comprehensive narrative history of the six-week siege of the Hill City fortress.

In what has become a hallmark of Smith's work, research for this study is firmly grounded in primary sources with a strong emphasis on original archival research. Indeed, the bibliography lists hundreds of manuscript collections housed in repositories located all across the country. All of this material is used effectively to create a rich (and at nearly 550 pages quite lengthy) narrative full of diverse perspectives, from the ground-level eyewitness accounts of private soldiers, low-ranking officers, and affected civilians on up to those of the top-level military and political decision-makers of both sides.

Smith's The Siege of Vicksburg picks up where his previous book The Union Assaults at Vicksburg: Grant Attacks Pemberton, May 17–22, 1863 (2020)⁴ left off, with the end of active field operations and the beginning of siege operations. The tools, features, and strategies of siege warfare, for both besieger and besieged, are discussed, as is life in the trenches, day and night, for both sides. The physical and psychological effects of constant bombardment as well as many other forms of privation and danger imposed by the siege upon civilians trapped within Confederate lines are examined. Day to day conduct of the siege, with Union forces digging multiple approaches and ultimately mining the enemy forts while Confederate forces struggled with stopping them through countermining and other measures, is addressed at length. The many vital roles assumed by the US Navy in bombarding the city, patrolling the waterfront, keeping Grant's army abundantly supplied, ferrying reinforcements to the front, and even contributing to the land batteries, are all duly documented and fully appreciated for their collective impact.

Volume III of the Bearss trilogy examined each of the thirteen siege approaches in standalone sections totaling around one hundred pages. Even more extensive detailing and mapping of all of those approaches probably ranks high on the wish lists of many readers of this book, but Smith instead provides more representative coverage. However, he does selectively go into more depth on two of the major approaches (Logan's and Ewing's). The Union approaches as a whole are mapped from a bird's-eye perspective of the entire line surrounding Vicksburg, but those two, the former leading to the June 25 and July 1 mine explosions on Third Louisiana Redan and the latter culminating in Stockade Redan mining and countermining operations near the conclusion of the siege, are closely detailed in the text and supported with a pair of good maps. Smith would undoubtedly agree with historian Jonathan Steplyk⁵ and others that the near limitless amounts of ammunition supplied to Union sharpshooters and cannoneers during the siege, combined with Confederate strictures on unnecessary firing, had a collectively suppressive effect that had a major impact on southern inability to slow the pace of many of the Vicksburg siege approaches. The view advanced by some that Confederate units not countering Union saps with sustained fire of their own (even when that kind of ammunition expenditure was encouraged from above) represented a sign of collapsing morale among many defenders does not appear to be hold much stock with Smith, who does not directly address the matter.

The study confirms earlier work regarding inadequate numbers of engineering officers in Grant's army hampering progress of siege operations. That deficiency made some areas move forward faster than others and also resulted in a wide variance in quality of works along the front. Smith, like others, also notes that General McClernand's Thirteenth Corps siege front in particular lagged behind the other two corps, attributing that slower pace to the general's lack of professional military experience and knowledge of military engineering. Headquarters exasperation over Thirteenth Corps progress likely contributed in some way to bringing Grant's long-standing determination to relieve McClernand to a boil, though obviously the commanding general found McClernand's violation of army regulations prohibiting publication of official reports without permission to be a better excuse for getting rid of him. That well-known episode is also addressed in the book.

After Grant invested Vicksburg with a line of circumvallation, he immediately set out to construct an outward facing line of countervallation. This Siege of Alesia-type arrangement was effective in both tightly hemming Pemberton inside the Vicksburg defenses and strongly keeping General Joe Johnston's relief army a safe distance away. Grant's efforts at securing the Mechanicsburg Corridor northeast of Vicksburg (Johnston's only really viable avenue of approach to Grant's rear) as well as the Big Black River crossings directly east of Vicksburg are recounted in far more detail than Johnston's relief efforts, as meager as they were in energy and threat level. Johnston and his actions mostly hover at the periphery of the narrative before finally coming into play at the end. Like most historians of the campaign, Smith castigates Johnston's 'do-nothing' attitude along with his stubborn unwillingness to assume his responsibility as the senior officer in the theater when it came to planning and coordinating either a relief effort or a breakout attempt. The author's view that Johnston's belated early-July advance to the Big Black with his entire command was likely just a cynical show of force intended to forestall expected criticism of his inability to prevent Vicksburg's fall is an opinion difficult to refute based on the general's defeatist behavior and attitude up to that point. One might wish, though, that Smith had delved more into the realistic options available to Johnston earlier in the siege during the brief window of opportunity that existed between the topping off of Johnston's troop levels and the arrival of overwhelming Union reinforcements. In his own defense, Johnston was likely correct that Pemberton mostly doomed himself by heeding the president's order to hold Vicksburg over Johnston's order to evacuate before becoming invested, but, as the author maintains, doing nothing at all was entirely unacceptable whatever the slim chances of success. Confederate efforts aimed at relieving Vicksburg from the west side of the Mississippi are beyond the scope of Smith's study, though they were addressed at length in Bearss's study and also to a lesser extent Grabau's. This book ends with the July 4 surrender of Pemberton's army, the paroling of the defenders, and the immediate reaction far and wide to that decisive end to the campaign. It does not continue on with extensive looks at any of the major post-Vicksburg actions such as General Sherman's second "Siege" of Jackson, though interested readers can be referred to existing coverage of those events from authors Bearss/Grabau⁶ and Jim Woodrick⁷.

Smith agrees with Solonick that Vicksburg essentially fell to General Grant's digging before general starvation actually forced a surrender. No one can know with any degree of certainty if the big attack prepared for July 6, which would have been touched off by massive mine explosions and launched from parallels in many places almost touching Confederate outer ditches, would have been the complete success supposed by many. However, there seems little doubt that that prospect, combined with the overall deterioration in the fighting condition of the defenders through constant frontline duty, short rations, and disease, weighed heavily in the minds of Pemberton and his division commanders. According to Smith, by the time of the surrender Pemberton still had around five days of rations squirreled away in reserve for any possible breakout attempt. In his recent book Civil War Supply and Strategy (2020)⁸, Earl Hess came to the conclusion that Pemberton's inability to stockpile vastly more supplies in Vicksburg represented a particularly egregious failure of leadership, and it would have been interesting to get Smith's opinion on that matter, too.

The siege operation that captured Vicksburg is clearly an expansive enough topic to easily fill several large books, yet it is difficult to imagine another author matching the level of comprehensiveness displayed in Smith's single-volume treatment. The Siege of Vicksburg will unquestionably come to be regarded as the standard history of the concluding phase of the campaign. Already the author of major works covering the Battle of Champion Hill, the two Vicksburg assaults, and now the siege, Smith is currently in the midst of researching and writing an epic campaign series that will fill in the remaining gaps and provide readers with an exhaustive new military history of the entire operation from start to finish. Given the superlative quality of Smith's existing work, there is every expectation that this ambitious project, when finished, will rank among the Civil War literature's enduring classics.

Titles referenced above (with review links, if available):
1 - Grant at Vicksburg: The General and the Siege by Michael B. Ballard (SIU Press, 2013).
2 - Engineering Victory: The Union Siege of Vicksburg by Justin S. Solonick (SIU Press, 2015).
3 - Vicksburg Besieged edited by Steven E. Woodworth and Charles D. Grear (SIU Press, 2020).
4 - The Union Assaults at Vicksburg: Grant Attacks Pemberton, May 17–22, 1863 by Timothy B. Smith (UP of Kansas, 2020).
5 - Both Steplyk's chapter in Vicksburg Besieged and Solonick's Engineering Victory credit the high-volume, suppressive effects of Union sharpshooting for progressive deterioration of defender morale and fighting readiness.
6 - The Battle of Jackson May 14, 1863, The Siege of Jackson July 10-17, 1863 and Three Other Post-Vicksburg Actions by Edwin C. Bearss and Warren Grabau (Gateway Press for Jackson Civil War Round Table, 1981).
7 - The Civil War Siege of Jackson, Mississippi by Jim Woodrick (The History Press, 2016).
8 - Civil War Supply and Strategy by Earl J. Hess (LSU Press, 2020).

Booknotes: Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Spy

New Arrival:
• Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Spy: The Civil Wars of John R. Kelso by Christopher Grasso (Oxford UP, 2021).

From the description: "A former Methodist preacher and Missouri schoolteacher, John R. Kelso served as a Union Army foot soldier, cavalry officer, guerrilla fighter, and spy. Kelso became driven by revenge after pro-Southern neighbors stole his property, burned down his house, and drove his family and friends from their homes."

Kelso's "Auto-Biography," the surviving part of it up to 1863, was recently edited by historian Christopher Grasso and published by Yale University Press. That book, 2017's Bloody Engagements: John R. Kelso’s Civil War, also won the following year's A.M. Pate Award. Grasso's Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Spy: The Civil Wars of John R. Kelso, with its le Carré-inspired title, is the first full biography of a "complex figure and passionate, contradictory, and prolific writer."

Kelso certainly had an eventful life expressed through wide-ranging interests and ideological drives. More from the description: "During Reconstruction, Kelso served in the House of Representatives and was one of the first to call for the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. Personal tragedy then drove him west, where he became a freethinking lecturer and author, an atheist, a spiritualist, and, before his death in 1891, an anarchist."

It seems that personal conflict of all kinds was integral to his existence. "The Civil War remained central to his life, challenging his notions of manhood and honor, his ideals of liberty and equality, and his beliefs about politics, religion, morality, and human nature. Throughout his life, too, he fought private wars--not only against former friends and alienated family members, rebellious students and disaffected church congregations, political opponents and religious critics, but also against the warring impulses in his own character."

Grasso's treatment of "Kelso's life story offers a unique vantage on dimensions of nineteenth-century American culture that are usually treated separately: religious revivalism and political anarchism; sex, divorce, and Civil War battles; freethinking and the Wild West." That's quite a combination.

Coming Soon (October '21 Edition)

**NEW RELEASES¹** Scheduled for OCT 2021:

• Rebel Correspondent by Steve Procko.
• The USS Tecumseh in Mobile Bay: The Sinking of a Civil War Ironclad by David Smithweck.
• Rites of Retaliation: Civilization, Soldiers, and Campaigns in the American Civil War by Lorien Foote.
• The Cacophony of Politics: Northern Democrats and the American Civil War by Matthew Gallman.
• To Address You as My Friend: African Americans' Letters to Abraham Lincoln edited by Jonathan White.
• Voices of the Army of the Potomac: Personal Reminiscences of Union Veterans by Vincent Burns.

Comments: The Procko book is out already, and the Booknotes entry for it will appear soon. It's funny how quickly October went from the first or second busiest month for Civil War releases to mostly a placeholding reservoir for early publication dates. By the time the spooky season actually arrives, the shortlist of survivors is akin to a battle line that took a buck and ball volley at ten yards.

¹ - These monthly release lists are not meant to be exhaustive compilations of non-fiction releases. They do not include non-revised/expanded reprints of previously published books, special editions not distributed to reviewers, and digital-only titles. Works that only tangentially address the war years are also generally excluded. Inevitably, one or more titles on this list will get a rescheduled release (and they do not get repeated later), so revisiting the past few "Coming Soon" posts is the best way to pick up stragglers.

Booknotes: Civil War Witnesses and Their Books

New Arrival:
• Civil War Witnesses and Their Books: New Perspectives on Iconic Works edited by Gary W. Gallagher & Stephen Cushman (LSU Press, 2021).

In 2019, LSU Press published Gary Gallagher and Stephen Cushman's Civil War Writing: New Perspectives on Iconic Texts. That essay collection reexamined the enduring influence of a number of men and women whose Civil War writings reached eager readers through a number of fiction and non-fiction forms, including histories, novels, journals, memoirs, and biographies. Intended audience is always an important factor in considering these historically significant writings, and Gallagher and Cushman's new companion volume Civil War Witnesses and Their Books: New Perspectives on Iconic Works, also "features the voices of authors who felt compelled to convey their stories for a variety of reasons. Some produced works intended primarily for their peers, while others were concerned with how future generations would judge their wartime actions. One diarist penned her entries with no thought that they would later become available to the public."

Eight essays explore the works of five men and three women. Freshly reassessed in them are General Longstreet's memoir From Manassas to Appomattox; Henry Wilson’s three-volume The History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power (1872-77); Phoebe Yates Pember’s narrative of her time as a Chimborazo Hospital nurse; the "origins and substance" of McClellan's Own Story; Maria Lydig Daly's Diary of a Union Lady 1861–1865; John Billings’s Hardtack and Coffee; Elizabeth Bacon Custer’s series of memoirs of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and western Indian Wars (1885-1890); and, finally, Lee staffer Walter Taylor's seminal influence on Confederate history and memory through his books Four Years with General Lee (1877) and General Lee, His Campaigns in Virginia, 1861-1865, With Personal Reminiscences (1906).

More from the description: Civil War Witnesses and Their Books "shows how some of those who lived through the conflict attempted to assess its importance and frame it for later generations. Their voices have particular resonance today and underscore how rival memory traditions stir passion and controversy, providing essential testimony for anyone seeking to understand the nation’s greatest trial and its aftermath."

Booknotes: William Barksdale, CSA

New Arrival:
• William Barksdale, CSA: A Biography of the United States Congressman and Confederate Brigadier General by John Douglas Ashton (McFarland, 2021).

From the description: "An aggressive and colorful personality, William Barksdale was no stranger to controversy. Orphaned at 13, he succeeded as lawyer, newspaper editor, Mexican War veteran, politician and Confederate commander." In addition to possessing a civilian background common to so many Civil War volunteer generals, Mississippi's Barksdale also practically lived the stereotype of the southern Fireater. "During eight years in the U.S. Congress, he was among the South's most ardent defenders of slavery and advocates for states' rights. His emotional speeches and altercations--including a brawl on the House floor--made headlines in the years preceding secession. His fiery temper prompted three near-duels, gaining him a reputation as a brawler and knife-fighter."

Unlike so many other political generals, however, Barksdale earned a more than solid record as a combat commander to go along with his violent off-the-battlefield exploits. "Arrested for intoxication, Colonel Barksdale survived a military Court of Inquiry to become one of the most beloved commanders in the Army of Northern Virginia. His reputation soared with his defense against the Union river crossing and street-fighting at Fredericksburg, and his legendary charge at Gettysburg."

John Douglas Ashton's William Barksdale, CSA: A Biography of the United States Congressman and Confederate Brigadier General is the "first full-length biography" of the general and "places his life and career in historical context." The first six chapters cover Barksdale's prewar life and career. The rest of the volume recounts Barksdale's military career, first as colonel of the 13th Mississippi at First Bull Run and Ball's Bluff/Edward's Ferry and then as commanding general of the Mississippi Brigade (he replaced General Richard Griffith, who was mortally wounded on June 29 during the Seven Days) until his own death from wounds suffered on July 2 at Gettysburg. His actions as brigade commander during the rest of the Seven Days, the 1862 Maryland Campaign, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg are addressed in some detail in the volume, all supported by an excellent set of maps. The bibliography is impressive-looking in its depth and variety of sources listed.

Various book-related news items

1. Gene Salecker is a major figure in keeping the history of the Sultana steamboat disaster alive. In addition to being an avid artifact collector, he is the historical consultant for the  Sultana Disaster Museum of Marion, Arkansas and is the author of the best regarded (I believe) book on the topic, 1996's Disaster on the Mississippi: The Sultana Explosion, April 27, 1865. Twenty-five years later, Salecker has taken advantage of all of the source material that has emerged since then and created a new history titled Destruction of the Steamboat Sultana: The Worst Maritime Disaster in American History. This is not a revised anniversary edition but an entirely new study. I've been told that it, among many other things, provides a lot of new evidence that the tragedy's death toll is lower than previously thought. Like his earlier book, this one will be published by the Naval Institute Press and is currently scheduled for a March 2022 release.

2. A short while ago I favorably reviewed "We Gave Them Thunder": Marmaduke’s Raid and the Civil War in Missouri and Arkansas by William Garrett Piston and John Rutherford, which was officially released in August in paperback. I've now learned that there is also a Special Library Limited Edition for those who want a hardcover copy. It's a thick book that's worth the format upgrade.

3. Award-winning biographer Elizabeth Leonard (her book Lincoln's Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky shared the 2012 Lincoln Prize) has now set her sights on another major Union figure, one even more controversial. Scheduled for an April 2022 release from UNC Press, Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life "chronicles Butler's successful career in the law defending the rights of the Lowell Mill girls and other workers, his achievements as one of Abraham Lincoln's premier civilian generals, and his role in developing wartime policy in support of slavery's fugitives as the nation advanced toward emancipation." The book "also highlights Butler's personal and political evolution, revealing how his limited understanding of racism and the horrors of slavery transformed over time, leading him into a postwar role as one of the nation's foremost advocates for Black freedom and civil rights..."

4. Also from the new UNC Press catalog is Jeffry Wert's The Heart of Hell: The Soldiers' Struggle for Spotsylvania's Bloody Angle (May 2022). The brutal mass brawl there is considered by many to have been the war's largest-scale and most terrible example of sustained, close-contact fighting. Wert's book "draws on the personal narratives of Union and Confederate troops who survived the fight to offer a gripping story of Civil War combat at its most difficult." There's no doubt that the book will be more than just description, and I will be interested to see what insights Wert's account might have to contribute to our ongoing investigation of the nature of Civil War combat.

Review - "Decisions of the Seven Days: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battles" by Matt Spruill

[Decisions of the Seven Days: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battles by Matt Spruill (University of Tennessee Press, 2021). Softcover, 23 maps, photos, illustrations, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. Pages:xvii,229. ISBN:978-1-62190-674-2. $29.95]

With the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia heavily reinforced to its peak fighting strength, the series of battles fought outside Richmond from June 25 to July 1, 1862 (the "Seven Days") were collectively epic in scale. Spatially and temporally close enough together to arguably be regarded as a single running battle, the costly nature of these actions was stunning by early-war standards, with over 20,000 Confederate losses weighed against over 16,000 Union casualties. The vast differential in killed and wounded (a much higher proportion of Union losses were in battle prisoners and scooped up stragglers, all eligible for later exchange) was not what the Confederate high command had in mind for their offensive, which was designed to destroy all or part of the Army of the Potomac. Nevertheless, the strategic results of the campaign, which transferred the theater's active front from the gates of one capital to the other, significantly altered the course of the war in the East.

The standard history of the Seven Days is Brian Burton's now two-decade old study Extraordinary Circumstances. That critical week of fighting between the well-matched armies of Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan is now the subject of the latest volume in University of Tennessee Press's Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series. Supplementing Burton's fine narrative account of the campaign, Matt Spruill's Decisions of the Seven Days: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battles uses the well-honed critical decision system developed for the series to go from describing and analyzing "what happened" during a particular event to answering the question of "why did it happen, or what caused it to happen?"

For the uninitiated, the series defines a critical decision as one that is "of such magnitude that it shaped not only the events immediately following, but also the campaign or battle from that point on" (xiv). More about this (including the full range of decision categories) can be read in the following CWBA reviews of earlier Spruill series entries linked here and here.

Spruill's sixteen critical decisions of the Seven Days are distributed among four key time intervals: "Before the Battles" March 17-June 15, 1862 [6], "Mechanicsville and Gaines' Mill" June 26-27 [3], "White Oak Swamp and Glendale" June 29-30 [4], and "Malvern Hill and Retreat" July 1 and Beyond [3]. While the June 25 battle at Oak Grove is understandably not involved in a critical decision and arguably lacked much in the way of meaningful impact, it remains a bit odd that the reader is not given notice of it in the book. Three of the decisions are strategic, four are operational, eight tactical, and one (Confederate president Jefferson Davis's decision to appoint Lee to lead the Army of Northern Virginia) personnel related. Nine are Confederate decisions and seven Union, a balance perhaps indicative of the campaign's back and forth shuffling of opportunities for seizing the operational initiative.

In Decisions of the Seven Days, analysis of each critical decision closely follows the standard organizational format developed for the series. Discussion proceeds through five subheadings—Situation, Options, Decision, Result/Impact, and Alternate Decision/Scenario. The first and typically the lengthiest section, Situation describes the state of affairs at a crossroads moment in the campaign or battle. It provides readers with the background information necessary to recognize and evaluate the decision Options (in this case, two to four in number) that immediately follow. The historical Decision is then outlined very briefly before the Result/Impact section recounts what happened and how those events shaped the rest of the battle and beyond. The Situation and Result/Impact sections quite often reference other decisions in a meaningful way, further reminding readers of their interconnectivity and the cascading consequences of critical decisions made earlier. Not present for every decision, the optional Alternate Decision/Scenario section delves into alternative history conjecture based on choices not made.

For the purposes of the review, we'll look at one decision from each of the four groupings. Having six of sixteen decisions in the pre-Seven Days period serves as yet another reminder that the course and outcomes of major campaigns are greatly affected by the top-level decisions that precede them by days, weeks, or months. In this example, that involved the critical decision of the Lincoln administration to divert General Irvin McDowell's large First Corps from its movement to join McClellan and instead redirect it to the Shenandoah Valley in an attempt to trap Stonewall Jackson's small army there. It's a common observation among wags, and even otherwise thoughtful historians, that sending McDowell to McClellan would not have mattered because he wouldn't have done anything with it anyway, but Spruill sagely points out that McDowell's presence north of Richmond alone would have imposed tremendous challenges to an enemy earnestly seeking to avoid a siege. Such a movement, by both greatly extending and massively strengthening the Army of the Potomac's right, would have rendered infeasible Lee's most favored plan (that being a turning movement against the enemy's only open flank). McDowell's march south would interpose his large command between Jackson and Lee, preventing a junction advantageous of maneuver similar to the combined effort undertaken historically. Of course, as the author correctly observes, that alternative decision would not have guaranteed Union victory, but it would have unquestionably led to a very different continuation of the campaign. How Jackson might have been used in that situation is interesting to reflect upon.

From the second group, the decision surrounding McClellan's next course of action after his defeat at Gaines's Mill is one of the rare four-option discussions. Both of the first two retreat options, toward the then current forward supply base of White House Landing or further down the Peninsula to Fort Monroe, would involve recrossing the Chickahominy River in the face of an aggressive enemy. McClellan's historical choice of a rapid retreat to the James River was safer, but the road network formed choke points of potential usefulness to the enemy. The final alternative, that of launching an all-out offensive toward Richmond while the bulk of Lee's army was temporarily isolated north of the Chickahominy is the big 'What If' of the campaign that has been endlessly debated ever since that time. Arguably, it is too often presented as a sure thing leading to the fall of Richmond, but it is clear to the author (and nearly everyone else) that it was a lost opportunity that McClellan, rendered entirely defensive-minded by Gaines's Mill, never really seriously considered. That it would have involved a commitment of the army to an assault on a fortified city without first having secured a new line of supply and communications is a matter worthy of some consideration, although it should be said that McClellan had already set in motion contingency plans for a change of base prior to the Seven Days.

The third decision involves Robert E. Lee's critical decision over where to use his reserve, General John B. Magruder's command, to best effect during the June 29-30 fighting period. By the 30th, McClellan's army occupied a long, and in places somewhat thin, line stretching from Malvern Hill to White Oak Swamp. On the other side, Lee's army had three divisions (James Longstreet's, Benjamin Huger's, and A.P. Hill's) converging on McClellan's center at the Glendale crossroads and Theophilus Holmes's division marching down the River Road toward the steep western face of Malvern Hill. Magruder was his reserve and Lee had to decide which attack it would back up, Glendale or Malvern Hill. In the author's view this was a critical decision that would greatly impact the fighting on June 30th, a day of combat that some consider to have been Lee's best opportunity to cripple or destroy the Army of the Potomac. Initially ordered to support Holmes, an act that violated the principle of war dictating that the reserve should be used to support operations along the main axis of attack (in this case, the assault on the Union center), Magruder ended up, through a series of orders that sent his men marching and countermarching about, influencing events on neither part of the field. In Spruill's judgment, Magruder could have had a decisive impact on the Glendale battlefield, though the fact that Huger never got into the action there already significantly lessened the chances of achieving a major break in McClellan's line there.

The 'July 1 and beyond' period decision sampled here examines the order from army general in chief Henry Halleck to evacuate the Army of the Potomac from the Peninsula and bring it back to the US capital front. Weighing the three options of (1) remaining north of the James to renew the advance on Richmond, (2) crossing the army to the south side of the James and attacking Richmond's lifeline through Petersburg, and (3) ordering McClellan to evacuate his army from the Peninsula and return to the Washington front, the section cogently summarizes the advantages and disadvantages each option held for continuing the campaign in Virginia for the balance of the season. While the first two options both required levels of command and movement coordination hitherto absent from operations in the East if resumption of the campaign against Richmond was to continue, the third option clearly conceded the initiative to Lee, who took full advantage of the opportunity to attack John Pope's Army of Virginia during its brief period of isolation. On paper, this can be regarded as one of the worst decisions of the war, but that must be balanced against the complete absence of trust and confidence that existed by that time between the Lincoln administration and the commander of its top army.

The volume's over two-dozen maps are mostly brigade and division scale. While that lack of small-unit detail present in the author's other books might disappoint some readers, the higher scale does fit within the level of decision-making addressed in the study. As is the case with all series volumes, an extensive driving tour (complete with orientation, documentary support in the form of official reports, and context specifically tied to the decision analyses explored in the main body) is provided along with orders of battle for both armies.

In Decisions of the Seven Days, Matt Spruill once again demonstrates a keen eye for identifying and exploring the type and character of critical decisions that shaped the course of Civil War campaigns. The Seven Days possesses perhaps more than its share of grand lost opportunities that have been heatedly debated over the past century and a half. McClellan's controversial decision to retreat after Gaines's Mill and questions surrounding June 29-30 being Lee's greatest opportunity to destroy the Army of the Potomac comprise two of the war's greatest 'what-if' moments, and Spruill handles those and more with well-informed and admirably level-headed understanding. Recommended.

Booknotes: The Horse at Gettysburg

New Arrival:
• The Horse at Gettysburg: Prepared for the Day of Battle by Chris Bagley (Gettysburg Pub, 2021).

From the description: "Horses are unique because they are flight animals; equines are prey not predator. Yet, from the earliest recorded histories we see these animals used as implements of war. At Gettysburg, these animals were used as mounts for officers, staff, couriers and cavalry. Some were used by the artillery, while others the often-mundane task of pulling supply wagons and ambulances. They required sound handling skills and a great deal of attention to keep them healthy. Sources often quote the number of horses present and the number lost, but there is more to their story. These animals were prepared for battle like the armies who fought here."

With abundant color photography, Chris Bagley's The Horse at Gettysburg introduces readers to the breeds and colorations of the horses used by both armies. It then discusses horse procurement, training, and care before moving on to an equine-oriented narrative of events from the Pennsylvania campaign before, during, and after the Battle of Gettysburg. Illustrations comprise a great multitude of monument and landscape photographs along with numerous period artworks, all reminders of the key role horses assumed in nearly every aspect of nineteenth century military support and conveyance.

More from the description: "The field, terrain features, chaos of battle, weather and the distinct attributes of the horse are utilized to reveal a narrative that provides a unique perspective of this battle as well as many of its monuments."

Booknotes: Bulldozed and Betrayed

New Arrival:
• Bulldozed and Betrayed: Louisiana and the Stolen Elections of 1876 by Adam Fairclough (LSU Press, 2021).

The 1876 Hayes vs. Tilden presidential race is clearly one of the most contested and controversial national elections in our history. "Examining the work and conclusions of the Potter Committee, the congressional body tasked with investigating the vote," author Adam Fairclough’s Bulldozed and Betrayed: Louisiana and the Stolen Elections of 1876 "sheds new light on the events surrounding the electoral crisis, especially those that occurred in Louisiana, a state singled out for voter intimidation and rampant fraud."

More from the description: "The Potter Committee’s inquiry led to embarrassment for Democrats, uncovering an array of bribes, forgeries, and even coded telegrams showing that the Tilden campaign had attempted to buy the presidency."

Of course, the election is most infamous for the 'corrupt bargain' that sent Hayes to the White House in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the former Confederacy, a deal that essentially ended Reconstruction. More: "Testimony also exposed the treachery of Hayes, who, once installed in the White House, permitted insurrectionary Democrats to overthrow the Republican government in Louisiana that had risen to power during the early days of Reconstruction."

I don't know much about this topic, so it's unknown to me if this is the first study to most specifically look at the part of Louisiana, one of the four states involved with the 20 disputed electoral votes, in all this.

Booknotes: The River Batteries at Fort Donelson

New Arrival:
• The River Batteries at Fort Donelson: Construction, Armament and Battles, 1861-1862 by M. Todd Cathey & Ricky W. Robnett (McFarland, 2021).

The celebrated Union winter 1861-62 campaign up the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers that seized forts Henry and Donelson has received a number of full-length treatments, the latest and best authored by Timothy Smith, but The River Batteries at Fort Donelson: Construction, Armament and Battles, 1861-1862 is the first standalone study of the artillery defenses that did their job so well during the initial phase of the Union army and navy's combined assault on the fort.

From the description: "Unprepared for invasion, Tennessee joined the Confederacy in June 1861. The state's long border and three major rivers with northern access made defense difficult. Cutting through critical manufacturing centers, the Cumberland River led directly to the capital city of Nashville. To thwart Federal attack, engineers hastily constructed river batteries as part of the defenses that would come to be known as Fort Donelson, downstream near the town of Dover. Ulysses S. Grant began moving up the rivers in early 1862. In last-minute desperation, two companies of volunteer infantry and a company of light artillerymen were deployed to the hastily constructed batteries. On February 14, they slugged it out with four City-class ironclads and two timber-clads, driving off the gunboats with heavy casualties, while only losing one man."

Authors Todd Cathey and Ricky Robnett detail the construction of the Confederate batteries, the garrison units who manned them, and the military actions they participated in. The text is supported by numerous maps and illustrations. The appendix section offers a collection of biographies of men associated with the river batteries, casualty lists for both sides, and an ordnance inventory table for Jan-Feb 1862. A quick perusal of the bibliography reveals a wide selection of primary and secondary sources.

Booknotes: Lincoln and Native Americans

New Arrival:
• Lincoln and Native Americans by Michael S. Green (SIU Press, 2021).

Michael Green's Lincoln and Native Americans is the latest volume from SIU Press's Concise Lincoln Library, which is an extremely prolific series that "brings together expert scholars to elaborate on the life, times, and legacy of Abraham Lincoln." As mentioned before on the site, the library's collection of compact, tightly focused books "brings fresh perspectives to well-known topics, investigates previously overlooked subjects, and explores in greater depth topics that have not yet received book-length treatment."

In the introduction, Green reminds us that David Nichols's Lincoln and the Indians: Civil War Policy and Politics (1978) remains the only full-length treatment of the subject but notes that that classic work (which is certainly due for an update) does not tell us much about the time before Lincoln was elected president. Green's own "evenhanded assessment explains how Lincoln thought about Native Americans, interacted with them, and was affected by them."

Though it's far too easy to get away with criticizing past national leaders for not having the priorities we might wish them to have had during period of intense crisis, Lincoln clearly "was not what those who wanted legitimate improvements in the lives of Native Americans would have liked him to be." To be fair, though, the author maintains that Lincoln "revealed none of the hatred or single-minded opposition to Native culture that animated other leaders and some of his own political and military officials. Lincoln did far too little to ease the problems afflicting Indigenous people at the time, but he also expressed more sympathy for their situation than most other politicians of the day."

More from the description: "At best, Lincoln’s record is mixed. He served in the Black Hawk War against tribes who were combating white encroachment. Later he supported policies that exacerbated the situation. Finally, he led the United States in a war that culminated in expanding white settlement. Although as president, Lincoln paid less attention to Native Americans than he did to African Americans and the Civil War, the Indigenous population received considerably more attention from him than previous historians have revealed." ... "In addition to focusing on Lincoln’s personal and familial experiences, such as the death of his paternal grandfather at the hands of Indians, Green enhances our understanding of federal policies toward Native Americans before and during the Civil War and how Lincoln’s decisions affected what came after the war. His patronage appointments shaped Indian affairs, and his plans for the West would also have vast consequences."

The book's final chapter "weighs Lincoln’s impact on the lives of Native Americans" and also engages in some 'what-if' analysis of how things might have been different had Lincoln not been assassinated at the beginning of his second term in office.

Booknotes: A Scottish Blockade Runner in the American Civil War

New Arrival:
• A Scottish Blockade Runner in the American Civil War: Joannes Wyllie of the Steamer Ad-Vance by John F. Messner (Whittles Pub, 2021).

The research on Civil War blockade running has made it abundantly clear that the venture could be immensely profitable for shrewd investors and ambitious seafaring entrepreneurs on both sides of the Atlantic, with most vessels crewed by British subjects. John Messner's A Scottish Blockade Runner in the American Civil War: Joannes Wyllie of the Steamer Ad-Vance documents a notable example from the northern reaches of the United Kingdom.

From the description: "Born in 1828 near Kelso in the Scottish Borders, Wyllie went to sea as an apprentice seaman in 1852 and quickly rose through the ranks. By 1862 he had gained his masters certificate in Liverpool, and there he took command of his first vessel, the Bonita. He sailed for Nassau, then a booming port involved in running contraband through the Union blockade of the Confederate States, at that time fighting in the American Civil War. Sailors from Britain rushed to man these vessels as great fortunes could be made if a successful run was made into a Confederate port."

More: "On the return journey, two agents of the State of North Carolina, Thomas Crossan and John White, were travelling to Britain on the orders of Governor Zebulon Vance to purchase ships to run the blockade. This set Wyllie's career as a blockade runner on course. White and Crossan arranged the purchase of the Clyde-built paddle steamer Lord Clyde and, just five months after docking in Liverpool as commander of the Bonita, Wyllie took command of the Lord Clyde, (cleverly) renamed the Ad-Vance. He was aboard from the start of the vessel's new career until her capture in September 1864."

As long as they were smart enough not to arm their vessels or attempt to fight their way through the blockade, captured runners would eventually be released to try again. That was the case with Wyllie. "Two more commands of blockade runners followed; he was captured again and then evaded the American authorities through an ingenious, and at sometimes unbelievable, escape to Scotland." After the war, Wyllie briefly returned to the sea before finally settling into a more terrestrial occupation as a Scottish farmer.

The book offers "(t)he most comprehensive history of the Ad-Vance ... from the day she left Glasgow until her capture off the Carolina coast." In researching the project, Messner explored archives located in multiple countries including Australia, Ireland, Canada, Bermuda, the UK, and the United States. Being abundantly illustrated with photographs, archival illustrations, maps, and color plates, the volume is aesthetically attractive as well. There's a great variety of documentary extras, data tables, ship histories, and more in the appendix section, too. Nice looking book.