2019 Chancellorsville t’s May and time to think abou tory. My questions and answers rs’ Chancellorsville (Boston, The Union XI Corps had the ill fortune to be positioned o the right flank of the Federal line in the Wilderness. Who was its commander? Lee wrote President Davis on May 4: “I regret to state that General _____was killed. General Jackson was seriously, and Generals Heth and A. P. Hill slightly wounded.” Which Confederate general was killed at Chancellorsville? (a) Lewis Armistead (b) Isaac Trimble (c) William Pendleton (d) Frank Paxton. “My plans are perfect, and when I start to carry them out, may God have mercy on General Lee, for I will have none.” Who said this? The Confederate infantrymen who fired into Jackson’s and A.P. Hill’s parties on the evening of May 2 were from which state? Commander of the Cavalry Corps, Army of the Potomac, was this general, who set out on April 13 in a diversionary raid against the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad. Who? Who was the Confederate surgeon who performed the amputation of General Jackson’s left arm? Commander of the Union V Corps at Chancellorsville Deadlines for Advertising Submissions is the 20th of
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bert E. Lee’s historic e from Stephen W. ). was this major general, who seven weeks later would become commander of the Army of the Potomac. Who? 8. “At Chancellorsville we gained another victory; our people were wild with delight—I, on the contrary, was more depressed than after Fredericksburg; our lo was severe, and again we gained not an inch of ground and the enemy could not be pursued.” Who wrote this? 9. On his way to review the Federal army in early April, this politician heard his dr er cursing at his mules. He asked the driver if he were Episcopalian. No, came the reply; he was a Methodist. “Well, I thought you must be an Episcopalian, because you swear just like Governor Seward, who is a churchwarden.” Who said this? 10. Stonewall Jackson’s cartographer estimated that his march route to get in position for the Confederate fla attack of May 2 was ten to twelve miles. Who was the mapmaker?
Answers found on page 40. Steve Davis is the Civil War New Book Review Editor. He can be contacted by email at:
A Way of Understanding the Lost C Aberration of Mind: Suicide and Suffering in the Civil WarEra South. By Diane Miller Sommerville. Fifteen halftone illustrations, notes, bibliograph index, 448 pp., 2018. University
With the long-awaited demise of the Lost Cause finally upon us it is the job of historians to de pher just why and how it occurred in the first place. Diane Miller Sommerville’s book, Aberration of Mind, helps to make the pictur a little clearer. An associate pr fessor of history at Binghamton University, Sommerville has also written Rape and Race in the Nineteenth-Century South. She places her subject directly in th middle of an America that did not approve of suicide, seeing th person who committed the act as having committed a sin so terribl that forgiveness was outside the bounds of the possible. And yet the hidebound definition of “The Good Death” was being challenged at the same time. Things were not what they had been. Sommerville’s book is divided into three parts: Confederate Men and Women during the Civil War, African American Southerners
in Slavery and Freedom, and Confederate Men and Women in the Aftermath of War. Suicide
was not common prior to the war, but it did exist. Violence was much more common in the South, and white men were raised believing that mastery and control were their birthright. During the war, most Southern men left their homes and joined the war effort. There they faced daily challenges
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such as homesickness, boredom, a lack of privacy, exposure to th elements, illness and malnutrition. During battle they faced th need to prove their manhood in combat and after the battle, many faced injury and death—their own and the deaths of friends and relatives. Would they be able to live up to expectations, or would they tremble in fear, run away or become innervated during their trials? Nineteenth century Southern masculinity was demanding, and a surprising number of men who failed to live up to these ideals chose voluntary death rather than risk wearing the label of coward or failure. Even after the war, when many men returned home disabled in body and/or mind, suicide seemed a viable alternative to living as broken men, unable to provide for a family in a desolated land that no longer seemed like home. They often saw no future at all for them selves and chose suicide rather than live with failure. Women were equally cast adrift. Bred to believe that thei lives were controlled by men, and in exchange for this control they would always be safe and happy, the war came as a shock to everything they knew. Several—one hesitates to say many—women in the Confederacy were unable to cope with what was their new normal and took their own lives. Compared to the total population of the South, suicides were not a significant percentage, but there were enough for some newspapers to refer to a “suicide epidemic.” The issue of suicide among the enslaved population had an added wrinkle. According to Southerners, slaves did not commit suicide because they were all so happy; besides, if they did,
that would indicate that slaves had heartfelt feelings, just like “real people.” Suicide simply
did not fit into the image of sla ery held by many slaveholding Southerners. Reality, of course,
was quite different. Enslaved people who killed themselves did so to put an end to personal abus and over unbearable situations of family dislocation. Each of these situations is amply illustrated by newspaper articles, letters, and diary entries, and accompanied by intelligent discourse. Th
author’s command of these compelling topics is quite deep. Aberration of the Mind is sad, and the information about the sui cides of enslaved people is very troubling. Overall, the sadness and desperation of a conquered people is presented clearly. This book brought me as close as anything has ever done to understanding the need for the creation of Lost Cause mythology. I was particularly struck by the topic itself. I had recently read Julian Carr’s speech given at the June 2, 1913 dedication of the Confederate monument known as “Silent Sam.” It is an ode to the Lost Cause, and specifically mentions the soldiers and home front of the Confederacy:
No nobler young men ever lived; no braver soldiers ever answered the bugle call nor marched under a battle flag and the war between the states was fought, really, by the women who stayed at home. Had they uttered a cry, had they complained, the morale of Lee’s army would have been dissipated in a day.
This sort of attitude led many of those same white men and women to commit suicide, knowing they could not live up to the impossible standards elucidated by Mr. Carr. Rarely do I have much empathy for the South, but Aberration of Mind certainly caused me to consider the plight of those men and women who lost a war and still had to continue forward. For some Southerners, this was simply not possible. They chose death rather than a life of dishonor, often po erty, and confusion. Diane Miller Sommerville’s words and work make the Confederacy and her people as real as they have ever been for me, and often losing a
war is more difficult than winning one when the human heart is factored in. This book is a se
rious step forward in the effort understand the provenance of the Lost Cause.
Meg Groeling received Master's Degree in Military Histo with a Civil War emphasis, in 201 from American Public University. Savas Beatie published her first book, The Aftermath of Battle: Th Burial of the Civil War Dead, in fall of 2015, and she has written First Fallen: The Life of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, which Southern Illinois University Press has con tracted for publication sometime within the next two years. She is a regular contributor to the blog Emerging Civil War.
More Than a Chronology The Last Weeks of Abraham Lincoln: A Day-By-Day Account of His Personal, Political, and Military Challenges. By David Alan Johnson. Photos, index, notes, 384pp., 2018. Prometheus
The first thing that came to mind as I started reading this book is the similarity in style Jim Bishop’s The Day Lincoln Was Shot, written decades ago. However, all that faded as I became engulfed in this unique narrative. The story begins on the day of Lincoln’s second inaugural and ends on the day of his death. An epilogue gives insight into the mood of the nation and what tran spires under the presidency of Andrew Johnson. Each of the forty-three days covered is detaile in separate chapters. Some are only a page or two, while others consist of several to many pages. The length is determined by
1. Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Ho 2. Brig. Gen. Elisha Frankl 3. Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker 4. North Carolina. 5. Maj. Gen. George Stonema 6. Dr. Hunter Holmes McGuir 7. Maj. Gen. George Gordon 8. Gen. Robert E. Lee. The letter to J. William Jon Southern Historical Soci 1877), 154. 9. Pres. Abraham Lincoln. 10. Capt. Jedediah Hotchkiss
events of the day. Each chapter contains several nuggets of info mation not ordinarily seen. For example, “March 17” discusses Lincoln’s use of the “f” word in discussion. This is the first ti ever read of this so boldly. Another chapter describes the first attempt at assassination. more detailed account is of the trip to City Point and the happenings during that voyage. We are given insight into Lincoln’s mindset about the war and its af termath. Also described in detai are the president’s dismay over Mary Todd’s emotional meltdown. Much of her mercurial personality is discussed, along with her relationships with others aboard the ship, the River Queen. Perhaps the most telling aspect concerns Lincoln’s “death dream.” The author talks freely of his dismay in the days before his assassination concerning thi dream, and his resignation to th fate. There is much more! Perhaps the most interesting tale is of incident at City Point, Va. of a possible attempt on his life by John Surratt. Johnson makes a valiant effort to place you inside Lincoln’s thought process through these difficult times. Another fine point is Lincoln’s discussion with General Grant on reconstruction and his position “letting them up easy.” Overall, this is a fascinatin look at the last days of Lincoln life. This effort is another wel come addition to the plethora of works on Lincoln and the Civil War. I heartily recommend that you add this one to your library
Joseph Truglio, of Manchester, N.J., is a past president of the Kearny Civil War Round Table.
22–1894). 35–1900). (1815–1872). e is General Harry Heth’s une 1877, published in the apers, vol. 4, no. 4 (October
Sharpe and the Creation of American Military Intelligence in the Civil War. By Peter G. Tsouras, Notes, bibliography, index, appendices, maps, 582 pp., 2018. Casemate Publishers
Thanks to his copious resear Peter G. Tsouras has produced a study that should motivate a reexamination of scholarship about combat in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia from 1863 to 1865 during the Civil War. His exhaustive biography of George H. Sharpe enhances our knowledge of the Bureau of Military Information (BMI), th intelligence staff of the Army the Potomac and later an integ part of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Gr army command headquarters. In early 1863, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker selected Col. George H. Sharpe, commander of the 120th New York Regiment, to organize an intelligence st Given Sharpe’s temperament and background as a lawyer in civi ian life, this was a wise choi Sharpe assembled a group of scouts and analysts who gather information from a variety of sources and produced timely an accurate reports about the ene
Meade replaced Hooker as army commander in June 1863, the BMI continued to produce intelligence that contributed essentia information facilitating Meade’s victory over Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg. Subsequently, Meade chose to downgrade the role of Sharpe and the BMI as intelligence providers, and ill-a visedly decided to serve as his own intelligence chief. This was a mistake that led to the strateg and tactical advantage shifting i favor of Lee’s army. The troubled relationship between Meade and the BMI led newly appointed General-inChief Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to reassign Sharpe to his staff as chief of intelligence for the Union armies arrayed against Richmond. Unshackled from Meade’s restraints, Sharpe developed an intelligence-gathering network that fed a steady stream of vital information about Lee’s army to Grant that helped him plan and implement effective offensive and defensive operations. The story is told in detail fr the perspective of daring individ uals involved in the collection o information about the strength, disposition, and intentions of Confederate forces—often while operating behind enemy lines in the guise of Southern patriots or combatants. It was Col. Sharpe, however, who recruited, organized, directed, and rewarded these stalwart individuals. Together they collected information that allowed Grant to outmaneuver Lee—despite the fact that Lee was also adept at employing agents to gather information and track enemy movements. Sharpe played an integral role in providing Union army commanders with the intelligence to make sound decisions on the battlefield from Chancellorsville to Petersburg and, eventually, to Appomattox. Yet Hooker, Meade and Grant, to their detriment, di not always use this information
Although this story has been told in part by Edwin C. Fishel in The Secret War for the Union: The Untold Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War (1996) and by William B. Feis’s Grant’s Secret Service: The Intelligence War from Belmont to Appomattox (2005), Peter Tsouras has unearthed numerous primary sources that should lead to a reassessment of current studies regarding the Overland Campaign and the battles in the east that led to the end of the w Thus the author brings George H. Sharpe out of the shadows, and credits him with playing a pivotal role in Union success on the battlefield. He underscores the contention Sharpe was a significant contributor to the Northern victory over Southern forces by highlighting his postwar life as productive citizen, especially in political circles at the state an national level. Sharpe’s admiration for Grant was mutual, and they remained friends and colleagues in later years. Sharpe’s attachment to his wartime regiment, the 120th New York, was also heartfelt, and he was in demand as a speaker for Civil War veteran organizations, as well as civic groups. Tsouras makes a case that the North was unlikely to have been victorious without the BMIproduced intelligence over the fi nal two years of the war. The author is to be commended for documenting the life of George H. Sharpe, and his special talent fo producing actionable intelligence that had a direct effect on the o come of the Civil War.
Thomas J. Ryan is the author of Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign: How the Critical Role of Intelligence Impacted the Outcome of Lee’s Invasion of the North, June-July 1863.
Independence o Annihilation, “The Gallant Sixtieth”: Campaigns of the 60th Virginia Regiment of Infantry. By William L. Caynor, Sr. Maps, photos, footnotes, sources. Two volumes: Vol. I, 44 pages; Vol. II, 500 pages, 2018.
This is a two-volume expansion of a previous one-volume work on this Virginia regiment (2016; 2017). The author is a descendan of several members of the 60th, including the last commander to lead it in battle. Far more than recitation of the regiment’s cam paigns, Volume I is a living doc ument that opens a portal into i times, and introduces the reader to various members of the unit, while integrating them, with interesting personal vignettes, in the broader narrative of events prior to, during and after the w Volume II includes detailed biog raphies, photos, and statistical formation on the members of the command. The 60th Virginia was comprised of men from the counties that now lie on either side of the Virginia – West Virginia border. As such, they faced in battle some of their neighbors and kinsmen who served in Union units from West Virginia, making for them a war that was truly “brother against brother.” The regiment served throughout the war, including the first campaign in the western Virginia mountains in 1861, the bloody Seven Days Battles around Richmond in 1862, and Jubal
Early’s Valley Campaign of 1864. In February of the last disastrou winter of the Confederacy—with the Valley burned by Sheridan, with Lee’s starving but defiant army under siege at Petersburg, and with Sherman’s army burning and raping its way up from Georgia through the Carolinas— the spirit of the 60th Virginia remained undaunted. In “A Message from the Army of the Valley of Virginia,” they unanimously adopted resolutions that justify the title of these volume In Article I they resolved: “That in the beginning of this revolution we volunteered in response to the first call of our country battle for the sovereign right of self-government, and that, after four years of terrible war with t savage foe who seeks our subjugation, we are still firm in ou determination to achieve our independence or to perish nobly struggling for it.” The many images of these men in this work--some in uniform, but many taken long after the war was over—show that they were no “snowflakes” in need of “safe spaces and coloring books” when their fortunes turned against them. They were men of iron in battle, and Mr. Caynor’s work might well be considered as much a character study of the soldiers of the 60th Virginia Regiment as a history of its campaigns. The obviously enormous and detailed research that has gone into these volumes shows the unmistakably personal connection the author has to his subject, and one can t that his thorough, comprehensive and scholarly research has been a labor of love.
H. V. Traywick, Jr., of Richmond, Va., is author/editor of Empire of the Owls: Reflections on the North’s War against Southern Secession (2013); Virginia Iliad: The Death and Destruction of “The Mother of States and of Statesmen” (2016); A Southern Soldier Boy: The Diary of Beaufor Simpson Buzhardt (2017); and The Monumental Truth: Five Essays on Confederate Monuments in the Age of Progressive Identity Politics (2018).
Deadline for submissions and advertising is the 20th of each month for the following
“…a well written, readable accou of a brigade-level engagement”
The Battle of Ball’s Bluff: Al the Drowned Soldiers. By Bill Howard. Maps, photos, endnotes, bibliography, 189 pp., 2018. The
Today Ball’s Bluff battlefield is a small regional park on the banks of the Potomac River near Leesburg, Virginia. Surrounded by urban development, it contain the third smallest national ceme tery in the United States. I hav not been there in a couple of de cades, but I still recall its pr
beauty, the wooded bluffs and th bare, rocky ledges high above th river. Our guide was Kim Holien, the author of the first work I h
ever read about Ball’s Bluff – The Battle of Ball’s Bluff (198 I marveled at the tiny National Cemetery there and thoroughly enjoyed the hike along the trai all the while watching where I placed my feet to avoid possibl stepping on a snake. I cannot h but think what the soldiers fro Massachusetts thought as they scaled the trail from the river the bluffs on October 21, 1861. Bill Howard’s The Battle of Ball’s Bluff: All the Drowned Soldiers, the newest book on the subject, is a well-written, readable account of a brigadelevel engagement on a rocky, wooded ledge above the Potomac River. It involved an impressiv number of Civil War notables, a couple of whom fell during the engagement. Colonel Edward D. Baker (senator from Oregon), a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, commanded wh later became the Philadelphia Brigade and died in battle that day. Eighteen-year-old Second Lieutenant John William “Willie Grout (Company D, 15th Massachusetts), evacuating the wounded to the Maryland side of the Potomac, died while trying swim the current. The plaintive song “The Vacant Chair” was
written in his memory. Oliver Wendell Holmes, son of the Transcendentalist poet, was hit four times during the battle,
including once in the chest. Eleven months later at Antietam he received another one through the back of the neck. The fiery William Barksdale commanded the 13th Mississippi regiment there. Author Howard carefully explains the days preceding the b tle as well as its aftermath. H book is thoroughly illustrated with photographs of the partici pants and has a number of nicel produced, though, small maps. I liked the book and learned some thing I did not know: Battery B, 1st Rhode Island was armed with six bronze 12-pounder rifled James guns. (I had always thought they were 10-pounders.) The Battle of Ball’s Bluff i fascinating account of a footnote in Civil War military history. Occurring three months to the day after First Manassas, i resulted in another Confederate victory in Virginia and a humil ating defeat for the Federal ar
John Michael Priest, of Clear Spring, Md., is the author of, among other works, Antietam: Th Soldiers’ Battle.
A Truly Western Arch Rebel “An Arch Rebel Like Myself”: Dan Showalter and
the Civil War in California Texas. By Gene C. Armistead Robert D. Arconti. Illustrat maps, notes, bibliography, i dex, 246 pp., 2018. McFarlan
Lt. Col. Dan Showalter was a lesser known character in Civil War West and Far West. Perhaps he is best known for ing the small Confederate fo at the skirmish at Palmito R Texas, September 6 and 7, 18
His Confederate service was erwise largely unremarkable. Born in Pennsylvania, prior to his Confederate servic he moved to Mariposa County,
California, working as a miner, and won election to the State Assembly. Voting against a resolution to keep California in the Union, he was challenged to a duel. While he won the duel by killing his opponent Charles Piercy, this made him a fugitive and he escaped first to Los Angles, and then east to join the Confederate forces there. He rose to command a regiment, the 4th Arizona Cavalry. He led his regiment at Palmito Hill or Ranch; but apparently drunk, he was relieved of his command. After the war he moved to Mazatlán, Mexico, and briefly managed a hotel there. He died of lockjaw a a result of a bar fight in 1866. Showalter’s life has proved difficult to document. Authors Gene Armistead and Robert Arconti must be commended on the very extensive research they conducted and the voluminous notes documenting their findings. They utilized a very extensive bibliography. Unfortunatel they were stymied by relatively few documents confirming many portions of Showalter’s life. As a result, they were forced to often speculate as to what likely happened. While this speculation is based on their extensive research, unfortunately it remains speculation.
The authors heavily document Showalter’s time and actions in the California Assembly as well as the duel noted above. They do their best to examine him as a pe son and as a possible alcoholic. For those interested in Showalter himself, the California State Assembly in the 1850’s, and the limited Civil War activities in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, this work will provide a wealth of valuable detail. Lawrence K. (Larry) Peterson is the author of Confederate Combat Commander: The Remarkable Life of Brigadier General Alfred Jefferson Vaughan Jr.; Decisions at Chattanooga: The Nineteen Critical Decisions that Defined t Battle; Decisions of the Atlanta Campaign: The Twenty-on Critical Decisions that Defined the Operation; and Decisions of the 1862 Kentucky Campaign: The Twenty-seven Critical Decisions that Defined the Operation, all p of the University of Tennessee Press’ Command Decisions in America’s Civil War series. He is president of the Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table.
