“What shall I read next?”
In the late 1930s Douglas Southall Freeman explained how, after Gone With the Wind, folks asked him to recommend other books about the wartime South. Initially, he would suggest “the aperitifs and not the heavy works,” he once explained. But they kept wanting more recommendations.
In further response, Freeman compiled a list entitled “A Confederate Book Shelf,” which he appended to his The South to Posterity: An Introduction to the Writing of Confederate History (1939). He catered his suggestions to those “who do not aspire to become specialists but wish to have a moderate familiarity with the literature.”
Dr. Freeman—he earned his Ph.D. in history at Johns Hopkins—wrote with his characteristic modesty. His Confederate book shelf not only features works of possible interest to those with a “moderate familiarity”; he offers one of the earliest definitive rankings of Southern war-works published in the three generations after the conflict.
Of course, “A Confederate Book Shelf” is today three-quarters of a century old. But to me, that’s one of its charms, as I re-read its entries for this column.
When, for instance, was the last time you thought of John W. Thomason’s Jeb Stuart (1930). It’s one of just nineteen “notable biographies” which Freeman chose to list. I bought my copy decades ago (for $6.50!) after Professor Wiley recommended it in one of his great lectures I attended at Emory.
I was not surprised to find among his fourteen “distinguished personal narratives” Robert Stiles’ Four Years under Marse Robert (1903). I happen to own a third edition (Neale Publishing Company, 1904), and it’s one of the prized volumes on my own Confederate book shelf.
From it comes one of my favorite stories. Jubal Early was a division commander in Jackson’s corps when “after a hard day’s march,” Stiles writes, General Early got the note as seen in the upper right text box.
Stiles comments that only Old Jube—and maybe Jeb—could have gotten away with “such an impertinent note to Jackson.”
Just as you would expect, Mary Boykin Chesnut’s A Diary from Dixie made the list of “Interesting Narratives by Women.” And Freeman was looking at the original edition of 1905. Think of what he would say about the modern version (1981), as edited by C. Vann Woodward!
The conscientious compiler lists his almost sixty titles in a halfdozen categories, without offering evaluating comment. There’s an exception: “those who make their first adventure in the field,” he writes, “will do well to start with Robert S. Henry’s Story of the Confederacy.” When this volume, published in 1931, was reissued five years later, Freeman asked if he could write a Foreword. Bobbs- Merrill quickly agreed, and so in its 1936 edition we read Freeman’s appreciation of Henry’s history: “I regard The Story of the Confederacy much as John Addington Symonds did the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini—at present the book with which to begin one’s study of the period it covers and the book to which to return when everything else on the subject has been read.” Wow!
Look closely at the “Some Notable Biographies” section and you’ll notice that Dr. Freeman did not include his own four-volume R. E. Lee, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1935. When Ralph G. Newman of the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago reprinted “A Confederate Book Shelf” in one of his catalogs in 1947, he corrected the self-effacing compiler’s omission by including all of the books which Dr. Freeman wrote, edited, or contributed to.
Indeed, it was Freeman’s “Confederate Book Shelf” which prompted Newman to ask, “But what about Billy Yank’s books?” In answer, Newman assembled “A Union Book Shelf,” which was published in the first three issues of Civil War History (March-September 1955).
We’ll look at Newman’s bibliography in our next column.
Steve Davis of Atlanta is a regular contributor to Civil War News and is the Book Review Editor. His new book, A Long and Bloody Task: The Atlanta Campaign from Dalton through Kennesaw Mountain to the Chattahoochee River May 5-July 18, 1864, has just been published as part of Savas Beatie’s Emerging Civil War paperback series. The companion volume, carrying the Atlanta Campaign to the city’s surrender on September 2, 1864, will be published later this year. Headquarters 2d Corps, A. No. –Va. To Gen. Jubal A. Early, Commanding Division:
General—Gen. Jackson’s compliments to Gen. Early, and he would like to be informed why he saw so many stragglers in rear of your division to-day.
A. S. Pendleton, A. A. G. 2d Corps. “To which,” Stiles notes, “Old Jube promptly dictated and sent the following reply:” Headquarters Early’s Division, A. No.—Va. To Col. A. S. Pendleton, A. A. G. 2d Corps:
Colonel—General Early’s compliments to General Jackson, and he takes pleasure in informing him that he saw so many stragglers in rear of my division to-day, probably because he rode in rear of my division. Jubal A. Early, Commanding Division. Respectfully,