– Reviews of Civil War Books – Stephen Al Stone’s Life As Lee Is Entertainin Reviewed by Robert L. Durham
GeneraLee Speaking: My Life as a Living Historian. By Allan K. Stone. Photos, 232 pp., 2016,
Let me start off by saying that Al Stone is a raconteur extraordinaire. This volume is written in a conversational style that makes one feel that he/she is sitting with Al while spins out his stories and anecdotes. Allan has led an unusual and interesting life. Al and I are the same age but he has packed a lot more life into the same number of years than I could have ever hoped for. This volume starts with a chapter Al calls “Antebellum,” before the war. The Civil War that is. He tells of his early life but I w most drawn into his adventures in
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de our readers with timely analysis o Reference Work Describes Vietnam. Due to space limitations,
and a desire not to bore the reader with Vietnam war stories, he did not provide many details. What he did tell, I found anything but boring I have a strong feeling that there is enough material for an additional book if he will but write it. He was awarded the Bronze Star, the Army Commendation Medal with an Oak Leaf Cluster, and the South Vietnamese military campaign ribbon with three stars. After Vietnam, he and the love of his life, Shirley, opened a privat investigation agency. Some of his stories from when he was a PI could probably fill an entire book on their own if told in full. This brings us to his “other career as Robert E. Lee. His physical resemblance to Lee is uncanny. When he first started going to reenactment with his wife, they dressed in civilian clothing of the Civil War period. At a reenactment, while sitting in th tent of the living historian portrayi Gen. Robert E. Lee, a courier came up to deliver a message. He presented the message to Al Stone. When Stone told him that he wasn’t General Lee, and indicated the fellow who was, the courier said, “I don’t know who he is, but YOU’RE General Lee.” This and other occurrences led Al to decide to adopt the persona of the famous Confederate general. Already a student of the war, he began to study all he could find about Lee. Slowly, he perfected his performance until he “became” Lee to a lot of people. Stone is not only a reenactor, but an actor, who can be
Twain) and Sam Waterston (Abraham Lincoln). He portrays General Lee in numerous venues. In 2015, after the 150th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox, Al hung up his uniform and began portraying Lee as a civilian. This is a fun, and interesting, i terpretation of what it feels like a means to be a living historian. Not only does the reader find out about Stone’s adventures as a Lee impressionist; in many ways, this book reads like a travelogue. It describe some of the towns where he has presented Lee in a way which makes you want to visit. Not only that, but Al describes a recommends restaurants and the like, sometimes even telling the reader whom to look up while visiting. One of the places he performed (and added to his bucket list) was a paddle wheeler. His take on that experience makes me want to add it to my own bucket list. As you can tell, I like this book Not only did I find inside stories o what it’s like to be a living histor an, I also learned a lot of facts ab General Lee that were new to me. I recommend picking this one up.
Robert Durham of Centerville, Ohio, has been a student of the Civil War since visiting the Gettysburg Battlefield as a Boy Scout. He’s written articles for several magazines. His latest piece treats the 116th Pennsylvania at Fredericksburg.
CSA Cabinets And Secretaries Reviewed by Jay Jorgensen
Confederate Cabinet Departments and Secretaries. By Dennis L. Peterson. Photos, appendices, notes, bibliography, index, 286 pp.,
Dennis Peterson’s Confederate Cabinet Departments and Secretaries is a valuable reference book for all readers with an interest in the government of the Confederacy. The author reminds us that his book “is not intended to be an exhaustive, definitive academic textbook on the Confederate cabinet. It is merely a survey, an attempt to provide in one place basic information about the Confederate government that rarely is covered elsewhere.” In this regard it more than succeeds. Jefferson Davis had six departments in his cabinet: Justice, Treasury, War, Navy, Post Office and State. In that respect it mirrored the departments in Lincoln’s cabinet, save for Lincoln’s additional cabinet position of Secretary of the Interior. As in the case of the United States Publishers/Authors: Please send your book(s CWN Book Review Editor, Ste 4090 Audubon Drive, Marietta,
government, Davis’s departments were established to help him conduct his work in an orderly fashion. Davis initially encouraged his cabinet officers “to express their opinions frankly with him, to run their depar ments as they saw fit, choose their own subordinates—and be responsible for their own actions.” Yet in reality, Davis tended to meddle and micro-manage every aspect of the government. In six sections, one for each of Davis administration departments, Peterson surveys what the department was, how it operated, and how successful or unsuccessful it was in accomplishing its functions. These overviews are a particular strength of the book. Each section provides pertinent biographical information about the various department heads. Sixteen men served at one time or another as a secretary. During the life o the Confederacy there was frequent turnover of cabinet positions, excep in two departments. Stephen Mallory was the only Secretary of the Navy, and John Reagan served throughout the war as the hea of the Postal Department. Both Justice and the War Department had five different leaders. One officer, Juda Benjamin, served in three different departments as secretary during the war—Justice, War, and State. The biographical information on each secretary is well researched an well written. Readers get a complete review of the person’s life, as well as the impact each man made on his department. Peterson’s Confederate Cabinet Departments and Secretaries thus offers readers much helpful information on the inner workings of the Confederate government.
Jay Jorgensen of Colonia, N.J., is author of Gettysburg’ s Bloody Wheatfield (2002).
An Indispensable Liberty: The Fight for Free Speech in Nineteenth-Century America. Edited by Mary M. Cronin. Illustrations. 310 pp., 2016, Southern Illinois Univer-
An Indispensable Liberty examines free speech, the free press, an free expression in the 19th-century. Eleven authors provide essays profil ing First Amendment controversies. They argue that 19th-century Americans earnestly debated the limits o the country’s civil liberties, perha more ardently than citizens do today In their introductory chapter, Mary Cronin and Sandra Davidson emphasize their book’s modern appeal. “Freedom of expression is not determined in a vacuum,” they write, “and the more one understands history, arguably the more one can address the problems of expression tha still simmer and erupt.” Civil War enthusiasts might be a little disappointed. Only five of th 11 essays address First Amendment
issues from the Civil War era. The remaining six essays describe free expression during the period more generally. Those essays deal with such issues as newspaper libel cases anti-obscenity laws, labor activism, women’s suffrage, the National Defense Association (a Gilded Age organization that defended free speech), and the Davis v. Massachusetts case. The Civil War era essays deal wit a variety of interesting subjects, i cluding suppression of abolitionist newspapers, the Lincoln administration’s relationship with the pres newspapers under Union occupation, the Confederate Congress’s relationship with the First Amendment, and Reconstruction-era newspapers. However, readers should be aware that the essayists are not trained historians. Nearly all of them are professors of communication, journalism, or media studies. This gives the book something of a onesided tone. The essayists’ expertise refreshingly allows them to place
First Amendment issues at the center of their analyses, but because this volume included no historians, important Civil War issues get relocated into the background. In some ways, the first five essays are a mix of excitement and
lman Took Back disenchantment. They emphasize the external threats to the First
Amendment—anti-abolition mobs, the Union and Confederate governments, and Union military authorities—but not the internal ones. Not all of the essayists make it clear that the greatest threat to fr dom of the press was the press itsel By overemphasizing the roles played by vigilante mobs, generals and politicians, the writers ignore the mos systematic effort to destroy freedom of the press, the influential journa ists who egged on legitimate authori ties to kill rival publications. For instance, in describing the Lincoln administration’s checkered history with newspaper suppression, one essayist laments that the administration represented a paradox because it superintended one great expansion of human freedom— emancipation—while simulta ously supervising the “most intense degree” of newspaper suppression in American journalism history. Inclusion of proper context—a healthy discussion of the state of the 19th-century press—might have solved that writer’s befuddlement. Prior to the war, journalists seldom adhered to professional scruples. They ran down their political opponents, published unreliable reports, plagiarized articles and maintained a rancorous atmosphere of party politics. The Civil War provided an opportunity for editors to make use of their atmosphere of petty jealousy, painting political dissent with brush of treason. It should be said that not all of the essayists avoid discussing the
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First Amendment’s inconsistent relationship with the preservation of
the American Republic. Arguably the best essay, Mary Cronin’s analysis of the 1897 Supreme Court case Davis v. Massachusetts, reveals the ways that civil liberties and the p lic good came into conflict. In 1887, police arrested the Rev William F. Davis for haranguing people in Boston Common—part of a larger effort by Protestant minis to saturate the city with anti-Cath propaganda. A former abolitionist, Davis defended his public speaking by claiming that the law he had pur portedly violated—proselytizing in Boston Common without a permit— violated his First Amendment rights Davis lost his case when the Supreme Court decided that preservation of the public good—the maintenance of law and order—trumped Davis’s civil liberties. Cronin’s e say reminds readers that free speec did not always stand in high regard in a society that ardently pledged preserve the public good. The popularity of the First Amendment was always a product of its own times. Criticisms aside, An Indispensab Liberty is a well thought-out volume which reminds us that the First Amendment formed a crucial component of the Civil War generation’ way of thinking. Its contributors a exactly right. If we want to give t First Amendment value today, we should understand how a previous generation valued it 150 years ago.
Timothy J. Orr is assistant professor of history at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.
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Vessel & Avoided Slavery Reviewed by Joseph A. Derie
The Rest I Will Kill: William Tillman and the Unforgettable Story of How a Free Black Man Refused to Become a Slave. By Brian McGinty. Notes, illustrations, inde 256 pp., 2016, Liveright Publishing
This book tells the story of how free black sailor rescued his vesse from a Confederate prize crew. The crew was taking the vessel to a Southern port to sell it and i cargo, and sell William Tillman int slavery. On July 7, 1861, the armed sailing vessel Jefferson Davis, carryin a C.S. letter of marque that granted it privateer status, captured th schooner S.J. Waring, a U.S. flagge merchantman three days out of New York on a voyage to South America.
The unarmed Waring and its nineman crew quickly surrendered without bloodshed. The vessel was looted of usable items, and the Waring’ three officers and two of its crew were taken aboard the Jeff Davis. A prize crew of three officers and tw crew members boarded the Waring and set sail with its valuable carg for Charleston or another port in t Confederate States.
Among the crew left behind on the Waring was cook/steward, William Tillman, a free black man from Delaware and a seasoned sailor. Having sailed to Southern ports before the war he knew much about slavery and how slaves were treated. Refusing to allow himself to be taken south and sold into bondage, Tillman recaptured the vessel three days after the Waring was taken. He killed or injured the three prize officers with a hatchet he had concealed and, with assistance from another crew member, threw them overboard. The two remaining prize crew members were confined below. Five days later, with Tillman the acknowl edged leader, the Waring sailed back into New York Harbor. Tillman’s triumphant return, coming just after the Union disaster at Manassas, made him one of the Civil War’s early Union heroes. The resulting Admiralty trial kept Tillman in the public’s eye for months. The court case was to determine whether Tillman and the remaining Waring crew were due money for salvage under the laws of the sea fo recovering the vessel, or were just doing their duty and deserved no reward. Paralleling this were the trials the captured Davis crew from the Waring and other Confederate privateers to determine whether they were pirates or prisoners of war. In the the courts rendered a mixed verdict, but no one was hanged as a pirate. Much of the volume comes directly from the records of the Admiralty trial. Other parts are from newspapers, census and other records and the little that is known about
Tillman’s life before and after the war. There is no record of him serving with the U.S. Colored Troops. Of interest is the fact that althoug Tillman was awarded salvage, how much and whether it was ever paid is unknown. This book is apparently intended for Civil War buffs and the general public who might be interested in a good story. For that reason, much of what the author writes about secession and slavery will not be new to readers familiar with the Civ War. Nonetheless, it is an interesti and well-written account of William Tillman, a forgotten hero.
Capt. Joe Derie is a longtime Civil War buff with a special interest in Civil War naval history and the Civil War in the West. He is a retired USCG officer and a licensed Merchant Marine officer, currently self-employed as a marine surveyor and marine accident investigator in Portland, Ore.
Business Of Slavery In Rhode Island Reviewed by Wayne L. Wolf
Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island. By Christy Clark-Pujara. Map, photos, notes, index, 205pp., 2016, New York University Press, http://nyupress.org $
From 1636 until it was abolished 1842, slavery, both Indian and black dominated Rhode Island’s business endeavors. Slavery fueled its economy, built its infrastructure, provid slaves and raw materials to other co onies as well as Europe and the West Indies, and was responsible for the rapid growth of the rum industry, th manufacture of Negro cloth, and the extensive Atlantic slave trade. Christy Clark-Pujara uses the North’s smallest state as a microcosm of how slaves led their lives, rebelled against their enslavement, and fueled the growth of Rhode Island’s economy. It is a story vastly different from Southern plantation slavery, yet bears many of the same elements of economic interest, rebellion and struggle as its Southern counterpart. Dark Work provides a plethora of historical data to support the autho premise that the business of slavery encouraged the perpetuation of the slave trade, slowed the drive toward emancipation, and prohibited blacks from attaining full citizenship. Additionally, diaries, letters an court documents interweave personal stories of defiance to illustr
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how slaves affected their own path to emancipation. Rhode Island, long neglected by scholars of slavery, is thus added to the rich Northern literature on the subject, including seminal works by Christian Koot on the Atlantic Slave trade and Beverly Tomek’s work on emancipation and the anti-slavery movement. Together these works show that Northern states shared with their Southern neighbors a lively slave trade, slave business, and symbiotic relationship that enriched the slave owner and grew the industrial base in the North. The myth that slavery was only a Southern sin is dispelled. The peculiar institution reached beyond mere economics. It also provided class distinctions, allowed white residents to feel superior because of their whiteness, and established two societies in America—one white and superior the other black and inferior These premises are traced from the beginnings of slavery in the colonial era. The impoverishment, alienation and exploitation of blacks are all di cussed as well as the abolition movement and how black family structure suffered from the system’s cruelties. To illuminate these trends, the author provides voluminous data on autonomous African Mutual Aid Societies, the struggle for integrate schools, and blacks’ quest for voting rights and full citizenship. Only one small data error occurs in this section, as the amount of property owned by blacks in Rhode Island
search is laudable and confirms the author’s thesis. This work is particularly appropri ate for scholars of the Atlantic slav trade, the origins of Northern abolitionism, and the aspirations of slave and free blacks in both the Colonial Era and antebellum America.
Wayne L. Wolf is Professor Emeritus at South Suburban College (South Holland, Ill.) and author of numerous Civil War books and articles including Two Years Before the Paddlewheel and Soldiers, Sailors and Scoundrels of the Civil War.
Civil War Era Views Of Constitution Reviewed by John Foskett
Liberty & Union: The Civil War Era and American Constitutionalism. By Timothy S. Huebner. Illustrated, photos, maps, tables, notes bibliography, index, 576 pp., 2016,
Anyone who studies the Civil War sooner or later encounters a parado In the context of secession and the war, the two sides held irreconcila views, but both traced those views the same founding fathers and to th same two seminal documents which they authored. Thus a confirmed Confederate, just like his committed Yankee opponent, could with a straight face invoke George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution as justification for secession or for in response. In a well-written and wide-ranging survey, Professor Timothy S. Huebner explains this conundrum by tracking it from the antebellum period through the Civil War, endin with Reconstruction. He shows how the two fundamental, and opposing, perceptions of “constitutionalism” found tangible expression when they collided in the forms of slavery and of union. He adds as a consistent undercurren a third viewpoint which in broad context ultimately prevailed—black Americans’ notion that equality and freedom for all lay at the heart of
source documents. As Huebner explains, the founders failed to resolve the basic questions of slavery and the nature of union, accounting for divergent, conflicting beliefs during the antebellum period. Simply put, those in the slaveholding South took the view that slaveholders’ rights lay at the core of the Constitution and that the matter of Union was subordinate and voluntary. In the North, on the other hand, i was understood that the founders had created a single, irrevocable Union of the constituent states from which none could simply choose to leave. As statutes (primarily in the form of fugitive slave laws) and Supreme Court decisions increasingly seemed to come down on the Southern side of this debate, strife was inevitable and it touched off in the winter and spring of 1860-61. Huebner shows that war resolved this conflict firmly on the side of Union, the abolition of slavery, and the freedom and (to some extent, at least) equality of black Americans under law. Ironies were abundant. For example, Abraham Lincoln began the war as a constitutionalist who believed that a federal union and the toleration of slavery where i existed were compatible elements of the founders’ structure. At the end, of course, he was transformed into a leader who decided that the Constitution vested in th President the authority to end slaver through his war powers and to enact a legal framework which realized the promise of equality in the Declaration—all while dramatically expanding the power and role of the federal government. Those who established the Confederacy witnessed an ironic change in their own constitutional ideals prior to suffering eventual defeat. Huebner relates the South’s struggle to accommodate “state’s rights” with the war-driven need for greater central authority and even the prospect of limited emancipation. As Huebner shows, the postwar Reconstruction era saw significant legal gains for newly-freed black Americans in the realm of civil rights, primarily through the enactment of constitutional amendments. While corresponding social and
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political rights would prove harder to come by in what was still a largely racist culture, Huebner con cludes that the questions of libert and union had been altered forever and that a more uniform and modern constitutional vision had taken hol Huebner’s endnotes reveal his us of extensive primary and reputable secondary sources. While there is no bibliography, he provides a bibliographic essay which refers to many of the sources which he consulted. Especially given the breadth of subject matter, Huebner’s writing i smooth and his narrative style make for easy reading. His discussion of legal enactments and judicial decisions renders them readily understandable for non-lawyers. Huebner skillfully weaves a range of social cultural and political information into the narrative. While he necessarily devotes sev eral pages to military events durin the war, that portion of his book c profitably be skimmed or even ignored by knowledgeable Civil War students without cost to fully comprehending the remainder. Huebner’s purpose seems not to present new information so much as to take a vast amount of known facts and gather them into a common theme. There are occasional departures from the conventional wisdom. For example, Presidents Ulysses Grant and Rutherford Hayes both come across as stronger advocates for the nation’s new black citizens than has generally been conveyed. This is a highly recommended “view from 30,000 feet” of the way in which Americans’ understanding of their constitutional origins transmogrified in the middle of the 19th century. It is very worthwhile reading.
John Foskett is a practicing attorney in Boston with a lifelong interest in the Civil War. He is descended from Isaac Foskett, who served for three years in the Engineer Battalion with the Army of the Potomac. In addition to numerous reviews in this newspaper, he has given a Civil War Roundtable presentation on the subject of Civil War field artillery tactics.
Dedicated to the Common Soldiers Who Fought in
Inventing Loreta Velasquez: Confederate Soldier Impersonator, Media Celebrity, and Con Artist. By William C. Davis. Phot notes, bibliography, index, 358 p 2016, Southern Illinois Universit
In 2013, PBS aired a documenta film called “Rebel,” which purpor ed to tell the story of Loreta Ja Velazquez, a Cuban immigrant who dressed as a man and fought for t Confederacy during the Civil War. Based largely on Velazquez’s popular 1876 memoir, The Woman in
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alesquez Battle, the film was named an honorable mention for the Erik Barnouw Award of the Organization of American Historians. “Rebel” concedes that some aspects of Velazquez’s story may be embellished or untrue, but depicts her as a generally reliable victim of a deliberate smear campaign by leading Confederate veterans who sought to silence her story. The film asks provocatively, “What made her so dangerous she has been virtually erased from history?” In other words, what was it about this Latina woman—or Hispanics in general—that led whites t suppress her story? And yet the premise of this ques tion is flawed. Velazquez never suf fered from suppression. True, Confederate Gen. Jubal Early privately questioned her veracity, but he did nothing to censor her voice. In fac her memoir appeared in three editions that were widely reviewed in newspapers throughout the nation. And her story has appeared in books and articles many times since it fi appeared in 1876. In truth, the film may say more about the filmmakers’ contemporary political agenda regarding America’s current debates about immigration and race than it does about Velazquez. Indeed, this new biography points out that “the filmmakers compromised objectivity by editing out the historians’ caveats about
ons and mortars primarily to World War II. Artillery
Lauretta’s story.” (In the interest of book like this. Drawing from his ex- Hospital, in Washington, D.C., from full disclosure, I participated in a tensive knowledge of the war itself, 1912 until she died in 1923. public discussion with “Rebel’s” di- he deftly combed through Lauretta’s Inventing Loreta Velasquez could rector following a screening at my various and entangled fictions, turn- not have been written a generation university in March 2016.) ing the many inconsistent, implausi- ago. Indeed, the blossoming of digIn this path-breaking new biog- ble and conflicting fragments into an itized newspapers made Davis’s reraphy, acclaimed historian William engaging life story. search possible. And he has packed C. Davis reveals that The Woman in In the process Davis sheds new this book—including the extensive Battle is an utter fabrication. light on things that historians thought footnotes—full of his findings. Whereas Lauretta (as he spells they knew for certain about Lauretta. At the same time that Davis show her name) claimed to have been a A number of historians, for example, the inconsistencies and falsehoods Cuban-born, aristocratic immigrant cite a document at the National Ar- in Lauretta’s story, he does so wit who served in the Confederate army chives in which Union Gen. Robert a certain sense of humility, acknow and then doubled as a Union spy, Da- C. Schenck appointed an “Alice Wil- edging the limitations of the avail vis shows that she was likely a native liams” a “special agent” in Baltimore able record and the many unknowns of New Orleans who earned a living in November 1863. that may never be answered. as a prostitute before the Civil War. Davis persuasively argues that No longer should historians ever She claimed a number of different this appointment was for a different rely on The Woman in Battle when birthplaces throughout her life and person because Lauretta was living in they write about women in combat may not have even been Hispanic. Indianapolis at the time that Schenck or women and the Civil War. From During the war she traveled around issued the order in Baltimore, the this point forward, those who wish the North and South occasional- signature does not match Lauretta’s, to know the story of “Loreta Janeta ly dressing as a soldier and always and she never went by the name Velazquez” should turn to Inventing spinning a tale for reporters. “Alice.” Loreta Velasquez: Confederate SolIn many ways, the research for Quite importantly, Davis is the dier Impersonator, Media Celebrity, this book must have been far more first historian to uncover Lauretta’s and Con Artist. complex than is typical for a modern later years. She remained a con artbiography. Not only are the sources ist into the 20th century, scheming Jonathan W. White is associate scarce, but Loretta changed her name to defraud investors throughout the professor of American Studies at and her story many, many times. United States. According to Da- Christopher Newport University “Every time she told her story, it vis, she targeted men “who thought and author of several books on changed,” writes Davis. As she trav- themselves too shrewd to be fooled the Civil War, including Midnight eled the country both during and in business and [who] would be re- in America: Darkness, Sleep, after the war she told reporters “un- luctant to admit their victimization and Dreams during the Civil War, countable cocoons of myth [that] she by filing charges.” which will be published by the would spin around the modest and Suffering from poverty and de- University of North Carolina Press often unseemly facts of her life.” mentia toward the end of her life, she in March 2017. Only a historian of Davis’s ability became an inmate at St. Elizabeth’s and experience could have written a Cannon safety, artillery history, places to visit, projectiles, fuses, equipment, book reviews, shoot Publishers/Authors: reports, how-to articles, and artillery news U.S. and abroad. Please send your book(s) for review to:
A Memory of Muskets Chloe Ellefson Mystery #7 From bestselling author Kathleen Ernst comes a new Chloe book of love, lies, and regret in the 1860s — and murder in the 1980s. The award-winning Chloe series stars a reluctant sleuth, museum curator Chloe Ellefson, and her cop boyfriend Roelke McKenna. The new mystery introduces his maternal great-grandmother.
Facing the prospect of an oppressive life in her native Germany, 16-year-old Rosina agrees to marry, sight unseen, an immigrant German farmer living in a far off place called Wisconsin.
The American Civil War begins as Rosina sails across the ocean. The war’s impact, and the secrets she carries into her marriage, lie at the heart of the book — and send mystery and peril echoing through time into the modern lives of Chloe and Roelke.
Chloe books are available as trade paperback and ebooks from
independent bookstores, BAM, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.
Gettysburg Day 2 Guide Is Informati Reviewed by Jay Jorgensen
Don’t Give an Inch: The Second Day at Gettysburg. By Chris Mackowski, Kristopher D. White and Daniel T. Davis. Maps, 192 pp.,
Don’t Give an Inch: The Second Day at Gettysburg is one of the lat in the ever-growing excellent Savas Beatie Emerging Civil War Series.
Authors Chris Mackowski and Kristopher White are the cofounders
of Emerging Civil War, and coauthor Daniel Davis is its managing editor. The series provides excelle
adable readable accounts of important engagements during the Civil War, and this book continues that pattern The fighting at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, saw some of the fiercest fighting during the entire battl This book focuses on the action on the southern end of the battlefield. Little Round Top, Wheatfield, Peach Orchard and Cemetery Ridge would become part of the military lexicon because of the incredible efforts of soldiers that day, both North and South. This book’s format is that of a driving tour of the battlefield. Beginning at the Seminary Ridge Museum, readers will follow the action over a series of 10 stops, ending th tour at the High Water Mark. The authors provide well-written narrative accounts for each of the stops, givi
tour participants a good understanding of the action. The text is not limited to the ba tle action itself. The authors inclu interesting side notes about things
that have occurred to the landscape subsequent to the completion of the Gettysburg Campaign. By way of example, at Stop #3 the authors discuss the statue of Gen. James Longstreet which was erected in 1998. Similarly, they present interesting
information at Stop #6 relating to Round Top Park and the Gettysburg Electric Railway. Another interesting component of the book is the inclusion of side
stories about some of the participan involved in the action. Soldiers like John Bell Hood, Gouverneur Warren, Paul Semmes and Samuel Crawford are presented by way of a brief outline and a photograph. In addition to the tour, the auth have included four extensive appendices. One of them is a walking tour of the Wheatfield, designed to enhance the readers’ tour experience of this very confusing part of the b tlefield. One appendix deals with th famed “Rebel Sharpshooter” photograph taken by Alexander Gardner shortly after the battle. Don’t Give an Inch is a wellwritten, fast-paced guide that provides readers with a good introduction to the fighting on July 2. The book is not designed to be a detailed account of the battle actio
– Harry Pfanz’s Gettysburg: The Second Day remains the definitive work. Nonetheless, these authors have written a cohesive tour accoun which people interested in the batt should read. The text is enhanced by excellent maps prepared by Hal Jespersen. There are many current photographs of the battlefield, although some o them are a bit on the dark side. St they serve as an enhancement to the tour. The footnotes and sources for the book are to be listed on th
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Emerging Civil War Series websit although as of Sept. 23 they had been posted. This book is an excellent add to the growing literature on the tle of Gettysburg and is well wo the purchase price.
Jay Jorgensen’s Gettysburg’s Bloody Wheatfield (White Mane, 2002) received the BachelderCoddington Literary Award from the Robert E. Lee Civil War Roun Table of Central New Jersey.
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Douglas Southall Freeman’s “Confederate Book Shelf,” published in 1939, led Ralph G. Newman of the
pose a Union counterpart. Newman talked about the project with Sher man biographer and fellow Chicagoan Lloyd Lewis, who was interested But Lewis’ death in 1949 shelved… er, postponed it. So Newman on his own compiled what he hoped would be “an acceptable list of books relating to
Northern participation in the war the sixties.” It was published in
very first three issues (March, Ju and September 1955) of Civil War History, the quarterly academic jo nal being produced then by the Sta University of Iowa. Newman’s listing is much longer
than Freeman’s. Indeed, the compil er quickly acknowledged that he ha
included almost as many titles in one category (“Personal Narratives
Diaries and Letters,” fifty) as ha Freeman in his entire compilation (fifty-eight).
The Union Bookshelf: A Selected Civil War Bibliography. By Mullins
The complete “Union Book Shelf” includes more than 175 volumes. Newman broke most of them into a few categories (e.g., “Reference
Works,” “Notable Biographies”), but almost a third, published in S
tember 1955, were lumped together: everything from war causes to nava
topics to women’s roles to newspaper reporters. The eclecticism its
ic ’ s C orner no evaluative comment on his entries, allowing them to stand on th own. Exception is his comment on books about Ulysses S. Grant. “No
Union list of personal narratives could possibly begin without the st ry of the victorious general,” New-
man wrote. Indeed, he claimed that Grant’s two-volume Personal Memoirs (1885) “belong in any list of great American books.” Newman considered his book shelf as preliminary, a work-inprogress. “The reader is reminded,” he wrote in June 1955, “that these
listings are by no means final or definitive.” He encouraged comments and recommendations from Civil War History readers. In
subsequent issues of the journal, however, one does not see a mailbag
of responses leading to an updating or lengthening of “The Union Book
Shelf.” Sort of as an addendum, though, Newman in December 1955 published a listing of his favorite the category of “Civil War Fiction” (yes, Gone With the Wind is among his six “best,” as is The Red Badge Courage). Once more, he asked Civil War History readers to send him their lists of six best novels of t war. But again, he got no responses worthy of publishing, at least as I
see in the first several years of t journal. Its issue of June 1957 car
Newman’s “Basic Lincolniana,” best books on the president, but after t
the Chicago bibliophile ceased his columns altogether. So Newman’s “Union Book Shelf” stands as it was published in mid-
1955. A mere perusal will confirm how, more than a half-century later
the books he thought important before the Civil War Centennial
in many cases still are. Example is Bruce Catton’s trilogy on the Army
of the Potomac: Mr. Lincoln’s Army (1951), Glory Road (1952) and A Stillness at Appomattox (1953). Some entries remind us of how the Union won the Civil War in the first place, e.g., George E. Turner Victory Rode the Rails (1953). At the same time, Newman’s listing from the 1950s attests to just far the military history of the war
progressed. Earl Schenck Miers’ The Web of Victory: Grant at Vicksburg (1955) is the only title treating o of the most decisive campaigns of the Civil War. Nowadays, with the accomplished work of Michael Ballard, Terrence Winschel and others, no purposeful student would even think of going to Miers’ entertaini
but dated volume. A generation later, we might not
Michael Mullins and Rowena Reed compiled The Union Bookshelf: A
Selected Civil War Bibliography (Wendell, N.C.: Broadfoot’s Book-
mark, 1982). It lists nearly 250 books, including such expected clas sics as Sherman’s and Sheridan’s
memoirs, but also magna opera like John J. Pullen’s The Twentieth
Maine: A Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War (1957), which the compil-
ers rate as “the best unit history the Civil War.”
Such glowing commendations, of course, risk being engulfed by
the tides of time. For me, the fact that bibliophiles can still speak o
lanta is a vil War New w Editor. H Bloody Task
New Study Of Atlanta Battle Offers Solid N Reviewed by Stephen Davis
Slaughter at the Chapel: The Battle of Ezra Church, 1864. By Gary Ecelbarger. Maps, illustrations, appendices, notes, bibliography, index, 288 pp., 2016, University of
It’s not very often that two authors turn out books on the same subject within a year or so of one another. William J. Cooper’s Jefferson Davis, American appeared in 2000; Felicity Allen’s Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart preceded in 1999. Noah Andre Trudeau’s Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage was published in 2002; Stephen W. Sears’ Gettysburg arrived the following year. Sometimes the writers are aware of each other’s work-in-progress, sometimes not. I can’t recall knowing that Richard McMurry was writing a summary of the Atlanta Campaign when I was writing mine. His Atlanta 1864 came out in 2000, my Atlanta Will Fall in 2001. I, therefore, did not cite Richard’s book in my notes. But in my bibliographic essay, which I wrote just before we went to press, I acknowledged it, adding that Atlanta 1864 “offers benefits that my own slight book will not afford.” It helped that Richard and I share many of the same views and interpretations about the Atlanta Campaign. You can see the quandary. Another writer has just beaten you to the punch, publishing his book before yours. What do you do? It’s happened again. Earl J. Hess’ The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta (Chapel Hill, 2015) was published last year. Gary Ecelbarger, Slaughter at the Chapel: The Battle of Ezra Church, 1864 has just come out (University of Oklahoma Press, 2016). My task as reviewer of Ecelbarger’s new book is to keep Professor Hess’ in mind. They’re both very good works, setting forth the basic story of Ezra Church in sound, authoritative narrative, well buttressed by documented research. They both explain the battle fought July 28, 1864, west of Atlanta in greater detail than any previous work. They make some of the same points, such
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rrative And Good Maps as how the Confederate attacks achieved greater success at some places than the previous literatur has noted. They also offer clarify ing maps to dissect the fighting, though those in Ecelbarger’s study drawn by professional cartographer Hal Jesperson, are better. In mid-July 1864, Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s three armies, 100,000 officers and men, had pushed to within five miles of Atlanta, the Confederacy’s secondmost important city. The alarmed Southern government relieved Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, commander of the Army of Tennessee, and replace him with Gen. John B. Hood. The Confederate forces, some 60,000, were secure in strong fortificatio surrounding the city. Sherman woul not attack them there, but instead set out to cut the railroads bring supplies into Atlanta. After wrecking the rail line le east to Augusta, Sherman aimed for the last one, the Macon & Western running south. On July 27, Maj. Ge Oliver O. Howard’s Army of the Tennessee started marching toward it, west of the city.
Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard. (Library of Congress)
Hood determined to block the Yankee advance by sending two of his three infantry corps on the attack. But it would not be a fron one. On the morning of July 28, Lt Gen. Stephen D. Lee (just arrived from Mississippi) was ordered
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to march his troops out west of Atlanta on the Lick Skillet Road and take a defensive position at a key crossroads near Ezra Church, toward which the enemy was heading. Lee was to hold the enemy in check on the 28th while Lt. Gen. A. Peter Stewart guided his corps behind and beyond Lee, then on the next day launched a flank attack against the Federal right (westmost) flank. So far, so good.
Lee was assigned the task of moving out to secure the junction on the morning of July 28. He was to merely hold Sherman at bay, not attack him that day. Stewart, meanwhile, would move two of his divisions (Walthall’s and Maj. Gen. William W. Loring’s) out along the Lick Skillet Road and set up to attack the Union flank and rear on the morning of July 29 (Hess, pp. 40-41). Hood revealed to Lee that on July 28, he would order him to march his new corps out onto Lick Skillet Road…. While Lee’s corps…confronted the vanguard of Sherman’s attempt…General Stewart would march out….on July 29,…pass behind Lee’s two divisions, and gain Sherman’s right flank. Once this was attained, Stewart would…attack him in flank (Ecelbarger, pp. 51-52). Hood’s plan fell apart on July 28 when Howard’s troops reached Ezra Church first, dug in on high ground, and prepared to be attacked. “At 11:30 A.M. the entire defensive line of the Army of the Tennessee [was] formed,” Ecelbarger affirms. When
Lee brought his troops up, he ordered his infantry forward as they arrived, all without notifying Hood at his headquarters, then three mile away. The resulting piecemeal, uncoordinated Confederate frontal
were unfortunately sucked that after noon, were predictably repulsed with heavy loss to the Southerners. The six-hour battle of Ezra Church ended as a relatively easy defensive Union victory. Casualties were predictably lopsided: about 3,000 killed, wounded and missing for the Confederates;
But here is where the disagreemen begins. “Historians have uniformly criticized Lee for starting the battle i the first place and for conducting i in piecemeal fashion,” concludes
Hess. And historians (including McMurry and myself) have indeed so criticized Lee, with Hess joining in. “Lee wrecked Hood’s plan to set up a flank attack on Howard,” Hess affirms, criticizing his “unwise decision to launch major attacks on Howard” (172-73, 202). In his new history, however, Ecel barger diverges from this consensus on Hood’s battle plan and Lee’s execution of it. “Hood himself revealed almost nothing about his plan in his after-action report and in his memoirs,” the author concedes. His only documentation is a line in General Lee’s after-action report: “On the 28th, about 11 a.m., I received orde to move out on the Lick Skillet road and check the enemy, who was then moving to our left” (OR, Vol. 38, Part 3, p. 762). Hood adds nothing more in his report, stating only tha Lee “was ordered to hold the enemy in check on a line nearly paralle with the Lick Skillet road, running through to Ezra Church” (OR, Vol. 38, Part 3, p. 632). This is not much to go on, but from it Ecelbarger does the very worst thing he could: he speculates —imagines is not too strong a word —concerning Hood’s plan. The ambiguous directive “check the enemy” needed a specific endpoint named to accomplish that check….Hood did provide a specific endpoint to define what “check the enemy” meant; he most likely reviewed those instructions by showing Lee a map of the region three miles from where they stood and defined the exact place where he wanted
him to deploy (Ecelbarger, p. 56). Gary Ecelbarger is an accomplished historian, so why he would presume to know that Hood specified where he wanted Lee to lead his
work is also the basis of the author statement that Hood “most likely” showed Lee “a map of the region.” Students of the Atlanta Campaign know that, unlike Sherman’s officers who had slews of maps at their disposal, the Confederate forces had precious few; no wartime Southern
ever come to light. Then in an equally soaring flight the author presumes to know just where that “specific endpoint” was: “the high ground aligned ‘nearly par allel with the Lick Skillet road’ bu
nearly half a mile above it” (p. 56). Again, there is no documentation to support this—neither map nor proof that C.S. troops had earlier reconned the area—but the point is important for Ecelbarger. Stressing that Hood wanted Lee to seize the heights north of the road—which by late morning of the 28th were occupied by Union infantry—allows the author to explain Lee’s decision to attack them there. “If Lee vacillated or took eve an additional half hour or so to reconnoiter the area,” he argues, “thos heights would more likely be lost to the Confederates—so would Lee’s mission and Hood’s plan” (p. 72). So Lee ordered his infantry forward in their frontal assault, and repulse. Ecelbarger knows exactly what he is doing here. He fudges when he claims that Hood’s report “clearly stated…the specific point that Hood wanted Lee to occupy,” but, as we have seen, it clearly does not. Then, when he adds that this revelation “somehow has been overlooked for 150 years since Hood mentioned it” (p. 241 n. 5), he invites us all to i fer that there’s good reason for this Hood did, in fact, no such thing. The author, unfortunately, compounds his new misinterpretations by boasting of them in his Introduction. “This study,” he writes, “offer conclusively a single reason for this battle’s one-sided failure by arguing for a completely different scapegoat for that loss” (p. 6). By this, means that he exonerates S. D. Lee, the story’s customary fall guy—who, by Ecelbarger’s reasoning, was only following orders—and blames J. B. Hood, the commanding general, as “the primary culprit.” “Hood com-
mitted an unrecoverable error,” the author asserts, by waiting too long on the morning of July 28 to order Lee’s troops out to Ezra Church. This blunder, he charges, “was arguably his biggest mistake of the cam-
Ecelbarger has a penchant for hyperbole; recall his observation in hi previous book that July 22, 1864, the date of the battle of Atlanta, was “The Day Dixie Died.” Calling Hood’s two-hour delay in ordering Lee out his “biggest mistake of the campaign” is, as he himself admits,
Which brings us back to last year’ study of Ezra Church. Because of Ecelbarger’s strained interpretations next time I reach for a book on the battle of July 28, it’ll probably be Earl Hess’.
Decision at Tom’s Brook: George Custer, Thomas Rosser, and the Joy of the Fight. By William J. Miller. Illustrated, photos, maps, notes, bibliography, index,
Author William J. Miller has produced a well-written and well-researched monograph on the cavalry battle at Tom’s Brook, one of the lesser-known yet still significant e gagements of the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign. He places Tom’s Brook in its proper context in relation to the broader campaign. He also examines the friendship and careers of two of the prominent Union and Confederate officers on that bat tlefield—George Armstrong Custer and Thomas L. Rosser—and the impact that the battle had on both the reputations and on the reputations o the Union and Confederate cavalry that fought there. Miller contends that Custer and Rosser “possessed the crucial trait the warrior—they enjoyed the fight.” Prior to the October 1864 battle, bo men “had followed similar trajectories,” and “were well on the road to ward achieving the dreams of martial glory they had nurtured and shared a West Point.” Following Custer’s overwhelming victory at Tom’s Brook, his star continued to rise while that of the humiliated Rosser declined. Though he became wealthy in the postbellum years as a railroad developer, the ex-Confederate general entered into a bitter literary battle with o er veterans over responsibility for
the Tom’s Brook defeat. “As time passed,” Miller writes, “his name became ever more firmly connected with the most widely remembered defeat in the history of the Confederate cavalry.” The battle of Tom’s Brook took place in the aftermath of the Sep-
tember 1864 Union victories at Winchester and Fisher’s Hill. After defeating Jubal Early’s army in those two battles, the Yankee cavalry of Philip Sheridan’s army next focused on destroying any resources in the Shenandoah that might benefit Southern forces.
Twenty-four-year-old Georg Custer, described by the author as “the right man in the right place,” commanded one of the mounted
divisions that enthusiastically carrie out Sheridan’s orders. Early ordered his cavalry to harass the Federals as they moved slowly down the Valley. This included the recentlyarrived Rosser, placed temporarily in command of the wounded Fitzhugh Lee’s division. As background, Miller next provides a detailed summary of Rosser’s career to that point, from his 1861 resignation from West Point just weeks prior to graduation, to his subsequent command of a cavalry regiment and brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia. Rosser earned accolades for his aggressive leadership, but he also bickered frequently with superiors, including his mentor Jeb Stuart. Miller contends that “honor and the necessity of fighting for it” represented the “dominant theme” of Rosser’s life. Typical of his self-con fidence or braggadocio is the fact that, shortly after reaching Early’s command, either Rosser himself or one of his supporters dubbed the young general “The Savior of the Valley.” Confederate cavalry under Rosser and Lunsford Lomax skirmished vigorously with the Federals on Oct. 6-8. Infuriated by the Yankees’ devastation of the Valley, the Confederates executed a number of captured Union troopers who fell into their hands. During the period preceding the fighting at Tom’s Brook, Miller faults Jubal Early for not designating a chief of cavalry to coordinate the operations of his mounted forces. From surviving correspondence, however, it appears obvious that Early desired his cavalry to ascertain Sheridan’s future intentions and to “strike a blow” against the Federals if possible. Union forces instead would strike first, with Sheridan angrily ordering his cavalry commander Alfred Torbert to advance two divisions under Custer and Wesley Merritt against the harassing Rebels. On the Valley Pike Merritt’s division faced a smaller force under Lomax, while to the west at Coffman’s Hill along the Back Road Custer faced off against his former classmate Rosser. Before the fighting began Custer famously advanced in front of his
“A must-have reference too to understand the second day Gettysburg, July 2:
Follow the movements of each U regiment and battery during the ent minute-by-minute basis. 164 full pa detailed maps depict the battle
lines, removed his hat and bowed ostentatiously towards Rosser, who then returned the salute. It was a poignant touch of chivalry in a war becoming ever more brutal. Miller does an excellent job of describing the confused fighting tha followed at Coffman’s Hill and along the Valley Pike. At both locations the Federals ultimately turned the Confederates’ flanks and forced thei withdrawal. Rosser’s command put up a stiffer fight but was eventuall overwhelmed and fled in confusion. Miller colorfully describes the battle’s conclusion, with Federal cavalry chasing their quarry 20 mile southward in what Confederate Col. Thomas Munford aptly called “’more a contest of speed than valor.” History records the rout as the Woodstock Races. The author writes that Tom’s Brook represented a final vindication for Union cavalry in the east. “Having learned well from their early defeats and embarrassments,” he writes, “the Federals had . . . produced a mounted arm superior in equipment, logistics, organization, tactics, and leadership.” Whil Yankee cavalry may have gained “parity” with their Southern counter parts in 1863, it was at Tom’s Brook where they “assumed . . . the mantle of mounted supremacy previously owned by the Confederates.” William Miller’s Decision at Tom’s Brook should be considered a model history of a small-scale Civil War battle. In 240 pages he places the engagement in the broader context of both the war and the 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign. He provides vivid character studies of the leaders on both sides, pa ticularly Custer and Rosser, and his concluding chapter, documenting Rosser’s postwar life and the former general’s efforts to defend his wartime record, is especially well done Decision at Tom’s Brook is a significant contribution to the scholarship on cavalry operations in the Eastern Theater and on the Confederacy’s unsuccessful defense of the Valley during the war’s final months
David J. Coles is Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Longwood University, Farmville, Va.
and Confederate 24 hour period, often on a aps with an additional 9 ever before attempted.
Our Family Dreams: The Fletchers’ Adventures in Nineteenth-Century America. By Daniel Blake Smith. Photos, notes, index, 275 pp., 2016, St. Martin’s
More than 200 years ago, two brothers left their family farm on the Vermont frontier in search of their own versions of the American Dream. Though separated by hundreds of miles and vastly different beliefs and ideologies, Elijah and Calvin Fletcher maintained an extraordinary life-long bond. Based on Calvin’s journal spanning 50 years and nearly 5,000 pages and hundreds of family letters, this intriguing tale chronicles two branches of the Fletcher family as they struggle to find their places the old South and on the new wester frontier. Despite the economic hardships of raising a large family, Jesse an Lucy (Keyes) Fletcher cultivated a central belief that hard work alone did not guarantee success and usefu ness. Fully aware of the challenges of obtaining formal education for a 15 of their children, the Fletchers cused their energies and their fina es on educating Elijah at Middlebury, Dartmouth and the University of Vermont. When a teaching position took him to central Virginia, the family rejoiced in his impending success. Five years later, 17-year-old Calvi left home under very different circumstances. Frustrated and resentfu of his parents’ lack of concern for
scholarly ambitions, Calvin struck out for the western frontier.
Determined to avoid the suffocating poverty he left behind, Calvin a tended school and studied law under James Cooley. Calvin’s adventurous spirit and obsession with self-improvement eventually took him to Indianapolis where he pursued law, banking, farming, land speculation, and public office. He worked tirelessly for universal public educatio abolition, and temperance. In contrast, Elijah quickly found his place among the Southern aristocracy. Abandoning his New England anti-slavery roots, he married into a prominent family and retreated into the daily responsibilities o managing a network of plantations and hundreds of slaves. Although Calvin disagreed with his favorite brother’s collusion wit slavery, he remained Elijah’s closes friend and confidant. Upon Elijah’s death in 1860, his daughter Indiana gained control of his vast landholdings and other property. During the Civil War, the Fletche found themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. Calvin secured weap ons for Indiana troops, was elected the Indianapolis Freedmen’s Aid Society, and enthusiastically supporte arming slaves. Three of his sons served in Indiana regiments. One of them spent four months as a prisoner of war in Richmond. While Elijah’s children did not aid the Confederacy, their Uncle Calvin refused to vouch for their loyalty. Throughout the narrative, Smith expertly interweaves the Fletchers’ human drama, spanning three generations, into the timeline of early American history. While Our Family Dreams may seem like a family history on the surface, Calvin, the family’s most prolific writer, emerges as the most prominent figure. Through him, the Fletchers’ story unfolds gradually, exposing and humanizing an extraordinary, and at the same time, ordinary American family. Smith’s blend of exhaustive research and artful storytelling makes for an enjoyable and informative read.
With this issue we welcome reviewer Krista Castillo, manager of the Fort Negley Visitors Center and Park in Nashville, Tenn., and president of the Nashville Civil War Round Table. Fort Negley, built during the Union occupation of Nashville, was the largest inland
masonry fortification constructed during the war.
Gettysburg Day 2 In Soldiers’ Word Reviewed by Jason M. Frawley
“Stand to It and Give Them Them Hell”: Gettysburg as the Soldiers Experienced it From Cemetery Ridge Ridge to Little Round Top, July 2, 1863. By John Michael Priest. Maps photos, notes, index, 528 pp., 201
Gettysburg is one of the most over-studied topics in American ap history. Massive tomes and concentrated essay collections have been published on each of the three day
of the great battle, and literally sands of books and articles have o been written on the overall cam- t paign. Despite the crowded field, both ambitious academics and eager enthusiasts continue their efforts
leave their marks on Gettysburg’s historiography. While the prospects may seem co dim for saying anything new about
recently published his second mono graph on Gettysburg. His first was Into the Fight: Pickett’s Charge a
Gettysburg (2002). His most recent installment is “Stand to It and Give tysburg as the Solienced it From Cemetery Round Top, July 2,
A retired high school history Priest has published a books on other Civil War campaigns and battles, and according to Edwin C. Bearss, he has distinguished himself as the Ernie TPyle of Civil War soldiers, given his his is unlike any other Gettysburg book you will ever read. Instead of a dry recitation
facts, “Stand to It and Give Them Hell”: Gettysbur penchant for presenting history from the Soldiers Experienced it from Cemetery Ridge to
Round Top, July 2, 1863 chronicles the desperate
marching, fighting, command decisions, and sufferi their perspective. as depicted in the letters, memoirs, diaries, and
postwar recollections of the men from both armies who struggled to control that “hallowed ground.” T Priest’s rank-and-file approach invaluable methodology uses the words of those who lived these events to paint a rich tapestry of per continues in “Stand to It and Give courage, cowardice, failures, and triumphs. John Michael Priest, dubbed the “Ernie Pyle” the Civil War soldier by legendary historian Edwin Them Hell.” As he notes on the T FROM
C. Bearss, wrote this book to help readers 2, 1863 understand and experience, as closely as possible book’s opening page, this “is the stothrough the written word, the stress, exhaustion, suffering, and sheer terror of that fateful day in Pennsylvania. Readers of all interest levels will ry of what happened from Cemetery deeper appreciation of the personal sacrifice made privates and generals alike. The hundreds of word portraits are supported Ridge to the Round Tops on July 2, by 58 detailed original maps, most on the regiment level. In addition to illustrating the tremendous 1863, from the perspective of the troop congestion in the Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard, and Devil’s Den, they accurately establis
by regiment or by company, the extent of the Feder men who fought there.” skirmish line from Ziegler’s Grove to the Slyder farm, and portray the final Confederate push again Priest makes it clear that he began the Codori farm and the center of Cemetery Ridge,
against which three Confederate divisions (in what popularly known as Pickett’s Charge) would his work “with no specific goal or unsuccessfully attack on the final day of fighting July 3.
“Stand to It and Give Them Hell” is a book ab thesis in mind except to learn more combat as seen through the eyes of those who waged it. There is no glamour here, and no adventure. No about the action as seen through the are there accusations, axes to grind, or second-
guessing from the comfort of an easy chair. Instea Priest’s most ambitious book offers the brutal, he eyes of the men who were there,” wrenching story of a slice of America’s greatest b as described by those who marched, fought, bled, and he has “no proverbial ‘axe to and died there. These are their stories, and ones will long remember. grind,’ no cause to defend, and no underlying agenda.” While some readers will be disfind that the book is by a compelling thesis, ke for a stirring narrative mmon soldiers’ experiences
he southern end of the battlefield d day of fighting at Getch to be fair is Priest’s . Somewhat disorienting is Priest’s n to break up his chapters into
vignettes. For example, Chapter Eight, a 37-page chapter that from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m., into 29 subsections. The
ile such an approach might on the silver screen given f commonly employed film
transitions, it could make for a be wildering read for the uninitiated. “Stand to It and Give Them Hell” is packed with great information an wonderful anecdotes, but someone relatively new to Gettysburg should probably start with something less dense and with fewer abrupt shifts the narrative. One thing that is very evident i Priest’s passion for his subject. H attention to detail, demonstrated
er is also quite impressive as even cursory glance through his bibliogr
Again, while readers should prob ably begin their journey into the
study of Gettysburg with Allen C. Guelzo’s Gettysburg: The Last In-
ton’s The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command (1968), and while
one may prefer the organization and style of Harry W. Pfanz’s exhaustiv
Gettysburg: The Second Day (1998) if interested in those specific eve there is much to appreciate about a to learn from “Stand to It and Give Them Hell,” especially pertaining t the common soldiers’ experience.
Jason M. Frawley, Ph.D., is a history professor at Tarrant County College, Northwest Campus, in Fort Worth, Texas. He most recently published a chapter on the Battle of Port Gibson in Steven E. Woodworth and Charles D.
March 29-May 18, 1863, and he continues to conduct research
Confederate soldiers and Union civilians during the Gettysburg Campaign.
