Sharps Firearms: The Percussion Era, 1848–1865. Bibliography, endnotes, index, 439 pp., 2019. Northwood Heritage Press. $100 hardcover. Reviewed by Joe Bilby
Sharps At first glance, Firearms: The Percussion Era, 1848–1865 resembles what used to be called a “coffee table” book, back in the days when people who treasured books would often place large attractive illustrated volumes on their living room coffee tables for guests to peruse while they were waiting for the percolator to perk.
Although abundantly illustrated with outstanding photographs and artwork, this book is, however, much more than a “coffee table” volume. It is, in fact, a definitive scholarly work on the subject by Roy Marcot, Edward W. Marron Jr. and Ron Paxton, with vital assistance by the late Joe Poyer, all noted firearms history specialists. The authors had over a dozen experts in various historical areas review the manuscript before publication to assure that the work met the most rigorous standards of scholarship.
This book, one of a proposed four-volume series on Sharps firearms, has been endorsed by the American Society of Arms Collectors as “a definitive work on the history of this iconic American arm of the 19th Century” and the Sharps Collectors Association as “the new and definitive standard of Sharps firearms research, reference and history.” The American Society of Arms Collectors saw the work as such an important and essential volume that it provided the authors with a publication grant.
Beginning with photographs of Christian Sharps’ original patent model, the authors, using invaluable primary sources, proceed to provide what is indeed the definitive account to date, and most likely forever, of the iconic American breechloader. Every percussion version of the Sharps is covered in incredible detail, with text and illustrations, from the original patent model of the gun through the 1849 and 1850 sporting rifles and the 1851 military carbine to the 1863 New Model carbines and rifles.
The authors provide a separate narrative for each percussion variant, from conception to production and use in the field, and each chapter has abundant endnotes for further reference. It is not often that I can declare a publication the last word on a historic subject, but Sharps Firearms: The Percussion Era, 1848–1865 certainly merits that designation. It is and will remain the “go to” book on the Sharps from its inception through the Civil War era and belongs on the bookshelf of any collector or historian of the era. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
The Laws of “Civilized” Warfare at Work
Reviewed by Stephen Davis
Most authorities today accept the figure of 750,000 American soldiers who died in the Civil War, based on J. David Hacker’s seminal article in Civil War History, 2011. Many similarly accept James M. McPherson’s estimate of 50,000 war-related civilian deaths(Battle Cry of Freedom, 1988).
Yet the American Civil War could have been a lot deadlier, as Aaron Sheehan-Dean argues in his new, thought-stirring study, The Calculus of Violence: How Americans Fought the Civil War. One of his most enlightening points is to place our conflict in global context. Twenty million people died in China’s Taiping Rebellion of 1850–64; Mexico’s Caste War of the Yucatan killed 35 percent of the area’s population. Instead, if you posit the 1860 U.S. population as 31 ½ million, the war-related death toll of 800,000 places American mortality, 1861–1865, at less than 3%—far less harsh, by international context.
This comparatively lower death toll resulted, as Professor Sheehan-Dean elaborates, from both North and South agreeing to fight a war restrained by accepted international norms—indeed, the laws of “civilized” warfare. This meant treating captured enemy soldiers as prisoners of war (and not hanging them), not warring against hostile civilians and (with some notable exceptions) respecting their property.
As we know, lethal violence sprang out of control, according to the author, due to several unforeseeable developments during the war, chief among them: 1) Confederates’ acceptance of guerrilla warfare in Unionoccupied territory or areas of divided loyalties; and 2) Northern emancipation policy and use of African American soldiers.
There was another factor, though, one that I find the most interesting: how the two sides characterized their own war efforts and principles, and how they characterized the enemy. Opinion leaders on both sides— politicians, ministers, editors— cast their causes as righteous, castigated their enemies as savage barbarians, and viewed themselves as noble victims. “On both sides,” the author asserts, “people espoused a greater sense of moral virtue as the war progressed.” Another way of looking at it (and here again I’m borrowing from
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McPherson’s writing), each side saw itself as fighting for a vision of American values—they just defined those values differently.
Back in 1991, Ted Turner’s film Gettysburg had a marketing slogan: “Same land, same God, different dreams.” You could add to that, same mode of justifying war.
Certified Antietam Battlefield Guides Joseph Stahl and Matthew Borders have found a creative way to publish fresh material on a topic which has been thoroughly covered by others. If you think that you’ve read enough about the battle of Antietam such
In Memoriam: James I. “Bud” Robertson Jr.
“History is the greatest teacher you will ever have,” James I. “Bud” Robertson Jr. often told his students. If history is the greatest teacher, many of them might have argued, then he was the second greatest.
Robertson, Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at Virginia Tech, died on Nov. 2 after a long illness. He was 89 years old.
Robertson used vivid stories to bring the American Civil War to life not just for generations of Virginia Tech students, but also for millions across the world through his award-winning books, frequent television appearances, popular radio essays, and passionate advocacy of history.
Dr. Bud, as he liked to be called, grew up poor near the train tracks in Danville, Virginia, with dreams of becoming a railroad engineer. Yet when he asked for a railroad job at the age of 17, the yardmaster, who knew him well, told him to go to college first. The rest is literally history.
Robertson went on to earn a bachelor’s in history from Randolph-Macon College and a master’s degree and doctorate, also in history, from Emory that nothing new can be learned, this book should cause you to reconsider. Using Stahl’s extensive collection of carte de visite photographs purchased by Union soldiers, the authors have turned out a reasonably-priced book which any student of Antietam will want.
Stahl and Borders have selected these artifacts for thirty-six Union soldiers who served in the battle of September 17, 1862. None are familiar figures. Thirtyfive served in infantry regiments and one in a field artillery battery. The book is cleverly organized in six chapters, each focusing on a geographic sector in a generally north-to-south sequence: the Cornfield, the East Woods, the West Woods, the Sunken Road, Burnside’s Bridge, and the Final Attack. Although Union General George McClellan’s plan was for simultaneous coordinated attacks, that plan fell apart and the result is that the authors’ geographic sequence also neatly fits the battle’s chronology.
Six soldiers are selected for each chapter. Each chapter begins with a brief description of the action on that part of the field, accompanied by an excellent map prepared by Bradley Gottfried
During the 100th anniversary of the Civil War, President John F. Kennedy asked Robertson to serve as executive director of the United States Civil War Centennial Commission. At the time, the committee was foundering under the pressure of both the emerging civil rights movement and regional differences. Robertson used his diplomatic talents to shepherd 34 state and 100 local centennial committees into organizing a successful and dignified commemoration.
During his 44 years at the university, he taught more than 25,000 Virginia Tech students. In several instances, he ended up teaching three generations of the same families.
“Dr. Robertson was a remarkable person who shared his life and gifts with so many,” said Virginia Tech President Tim Sands. “His service to the nation, the commonwealth, his profession, and the Virginia Tech community is unparalleled. We are incredibly fortunate to have had the great benefit of his talents for so many years. May we carry Dr. Robertson’s passion for discovery and spirit of service forward in his honor.”
and used in his Maps of Antietam book. Each soldier’s carte de visite is then published (front and back). The text contains a brief history of his unit and its origins; its actions in the battle; a brief biography of the soldier and, if known, his specific experiences at Antietam; as well as, finally, a highly detailed analysis of his uniform and accoutrements depicted in the photograph, including deductions as to when it was taken if the date is unknown.
The book concludes with an appendix that contains the battle report of each represented unit in the Official Records if one was prepared. The authors have made extensive use of published and archival primary sources for their research and the annotations in the endnotes are comprehensive. They also furnish brief summaries of the campaign both before and after the battle.
This book is a superb contribution to the literature on Antietam. Its unique approach makes it a nice supplement to the growing number of works covering the battle. The geographic sequence, with its coincident chronology, gives the text a narrative quality which might otherwise be absent. As noted, none of these soldiers are familiar faces. That said, a few subsequently attained brevet ranks of brigadier general or major general. One was mortally wounded at the battle, dying in November 1862. The soldiers’ subsequent experiences in the war displayed heroism, in a few instances questionable conduct, and in some cases the all-too-frequent debilitation or death due to disease. The soldiers shown are from thirteen New York units; seven Massachusetts units; four each from Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New Hampshire; two from Ohio; and one each from Rhode Island and Maryland.
The authors and the publisher should be credited with a nice achievement here. If there is a way to calculate “value per page,” this book is in a top ranking. It is strongly recommended for anyone with an interest in the battle of Antietam.
John Foskett is a practicing attorney in Boston with a life-long 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 of books covering a variety of Civil War topics, he has done Civil War Roundtable presentations on the subject of Civil War field artillery tactics.
Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America. By W. Caleb McDaniel. Illustrations, index, notes, 340 pp., 2019. Oxford University Press, www.oup.com/ us. $27.95 hardcover.
Reviewed by Wayne L. Wolf
The genesis of this book started as an interview by reporter Lafcadio Hearn writing for the Ripley Bee newspaper. He interviewed Henrietta Wood in 1876 about her experience as a former slave, free resident of Ohio, and then again a slave in Kentucky, Mississippi and Texas. What is unique about this slave narrative is the lawsuit seeking damages from Zebulon Ward, the man she held responsible for kidnapping and selling her. After years of legal maneuvering, Henrietta was awarded $2,500 for her wages during her second captivity—the largest restitution ever won by a former slave for an illegal abduction. This princely sum allowed Henrietta and her son to move to Chicago, buy a home, and send her son to law school.
W. Caleb McDaniel’s well-researched and annotated story of Henrietta’s life goes beyond the typical narrative of a slave’s experience. Within her story, he weaves several connected themes that place her story in the context of the social and cultural milieu of both antebellum and Reconstruction America. He clearly details the story of her abductor Zebulon Ward’s rise to multimillion dollar entrepreneur through slave trading, running the South’s contract prison systems and thoroughbred horse racing. Thus he creates a vivid contrast between the struggles of free blacks in the Civil War era, as well as with Redeemers in Reconstruction America, and the ease with which white Southerners relied on State Rights and scant federal intervention to rebuild a society where skin color still determined social acceptance and reward.
Finally, the author recognizes the inability to confirm many details in Henrietta’s slave narrative due to the paucity of public records as well as the enforced silence of both slave owners and the judicial system. Newspaper accounts sensationalized slave narratives to satisfy readers’ desire for lurid details and frequently could not authenticate names, dates or experiences. They simply added “fake news” where appropriate to sell their papers. Yet in today’s society, where the topic of racism is raised almost daily, Henrietta’s story of her extraordinary tenacity in the face of legal and social roadblocks remains a standard by which society’s quest for equality can be measured.
McDaniel’s narrative is a well-written story, superbly annotated to sources objective in their presentation of disputable facts and memories. It is notable for raising historical issues still unresolved today. For the historian, the book’s price of $27.95 in cloth is well worthwhile. Moreover, the story raises substantial avenues for further research.
Wayne L. Wolf is Professor Emeritus at South Suburban College and the author of numerous Civil War texts and articles. His current research involves discovering and publishing previously unknown solders’ letters which highlight the experiences of the common soldier.
British Blockade Running for Adventure and Profits —Until it Wasn’t
British Blockade Runners in the American Civil War. By Joseph McKenna. Maps, photos, correspondence, notes, bibliography, index, 217 pp., 2019. McFarland & Company, Inc., www.mcfarlandpub.com. $49.95 softcover.
Reviewed by Joan Wenner, J.D.
This British author of five books captures not only the Confederacy’s relationship with Britain, but also the time when Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of the Southern ports. Union Navy Secretary Gideon Welles had advocated a “federal mandate,” simply closing Southern ports on the theory that a country could not blockade itself. A “blockade” would be bound up by legal definitions and terms under the 1856 Treaty of Paris.
Lord Lyons, Britain’s minister to Washington, pondered the effect of his country acknowledging “the Southern Confederacy as a de facto sovereign state.” This implied the possible conferring of power to raise foreign loans and purchase supplies from neutral nations. While clarifications were initially sought of its validity, “the president had declared a blockade, therefore there was a blockade, even though there was a shortage of ships to maintain it.”
In McKenna’s work readers are given a fascinating and in-depth look into the world of Britain’s political and power brokers, their contracts and contractors, and their “relationships” with the Confederacy. Also considered is the importance of the cotton trade, along with the smart and daring seafarers aboard the hundreds of blockade-running ships. As confusion at first reigned across the Atlantic, it soon became clear that great profits could be made by innovative accounting, large dollar loans floated, shipbuilding, and transshipments of a truly stagger
COMMAND DECISIONS
ing amount of essential supplies for the Confederacy. The game was on for profits, and prizes.
IN AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR
The book is loaded with interesting facts. For example, the steamer Fingal, carrying 5,000 Enfield rifles and armed with two 4-½ inch rifled guns and two steel boat guns, became the first ship to run the blockade. Unlike the tons of vessels to follow, it flew the British flag. Within a week of the blockade’s proclamation, two other British ships evaded capture and sailed unimpeded into Charleston.
Among lords and leaders, shipbuilders and shippers, bankers and businessmen of note, agents congregating in Liverpool and elsewhere, there was delicate and not-so delicate maneuvering. A key participant was the Confederate Navy’s man in Europe, James Dunwoody Bulloch. Born near Savannah, he became a USN midshipman at age 16, but like numerous others he resigned and returned to the South. Ordered to Europe, he processed an astonishing number of production orders for the Confederacy. Read all about him.
Lastly, McKenna devotes a full fifty pages to the ships that ran the blockade—names and descriptive details that make for interesting reading. Altogether this indicates the sheer magnitude of blockade runners’ efforts to arrive at the major Southern ports with their precious cargo.
British Blockade Runners reads like a nine-chapter adventure novel with spies, surveillance and skullduggery. Of course, the main story involves daring exploits of the blockading and the blockade-running ship captains—but it’s true. The author’s information is gleaned from many sources, including the U.S. Official Records, British national and regional newspaper reports, the British National Archives and various books. Indeed, even the Chapter Notes make for an illuminating read, whatever one’s side may be in the conflict.
Reviewed by Salvatore Cilella
“These forms, crushed and torn out of all human semblance, are our brothers…the scars we carve and with steel or burn with powder across shuddering land, are scars on the dear face of the Motherland we love.” (Anon.)
Alexander Gardner may have introduced war’s ugly but truthful record of untold carnage never before seen by the public, but as Allison Johnson argues, the American print culture kept it front and center. Johnson takes on what she calls “the canonical” writers and histories of the war, insisting that the periodicals and print matter of mid-19th century America tell a more complete story—in Walt Whitman’s words, the parts of the war that he thought would never get “into the books.”
We rarely think of periodicals such as Harper’s Weekly, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated News, Southern Punch, and The Southern Literary Messenger as purveyors of the physical aspects of the war. But Johnson has mined the weeklies and smaller local papers for evidence that wounds suffered on the field were almost as injurious as the reporting and the recording of those wounds. She cites several documented cases, where family members, reading the casualty lists in the local paper, experienced actual physical distress. Perusing wartime newspapers became a regular ritual. Absence of one’s name on the list meant another week or month of worry from “not knowing.” It was no better, of course, when the list included a loved one. New technology, the telegraph, heightened the emotionally disturbing news rushed to families back home awaiting word of loved ones on the battlefield. The misinformation listing a fallen family member with the same name or, worse yet, reported dead and later showing up very much alive, was emotionally devastating.
Johnson’s slim volume is only four chapters long. In the first, and longest chapter, she writes convincingly of the feminine/ maternal symbolism of the icon Columbia or Lady Liberty. The author argues that the media raised the image of Columbia, interjecting the “maternal feminine” for both sides of the struggle. Similarly, in the second chapter, she argues that the media were responsible for the elevation of the slave and freedman from victim to full manhood and citizenship. Their bodily wounds and deaths were markers to a higher social standing.
In chapter three, Johnson highlights William Oland Bourne, news editor, philanthropist, and hospital volunteer. In 1865 and 1866, Bourne sponsored a contest called the “Left Arm Corps.” He challenged all maimed Union veterans who lost their right arms in battle to enroll in a penmanship contest using their left arm. The contest aimed to not only instill a renewed sense of usefulness to the maimed soldier, but pride in their badge of honor (their lost limb) which helped save the Union. Their work produced prodigious amounts of poetry and some decent prose. As author Johnson states, Bourne’s contests “testify to survival and loss, successful adaptation and painful readjustment.”
Her last chapter deals with the carriers of news—newspapers, periodicals and the telegraph— and her title says it all: “Spirit Wounds and Invisible Bullets.” Johnson argues that much of “Civil War literature is female” and that news accounts were primarily consumed by women, there-by making them the recipients of “invisible bullets” and “spirit wounds.” Johnson does not mention that not every man, North or South, fought during the war; more so in the North than in the Confederacy. Therefore, some men remained home and grief was not the sole province of women. The author contends that the “wounded” women were counterpoints to Columbia and Lady Liberty and that purveyors of news from the front blurred the “line between public and private.” She argues that the analogy comes around, full circle. It’s a tidy summation but one that remains elusive.
The book is an important addition to our understanding of how human beings suffered at the hands of other human beings and the long-lasting effects of battle wounds on those who are both directly and indirectly involved. The author has done a masterful job in assiduously mining the myriad resources. She has balanced the evidence of the written word, particularly poetry, with periodicals’ illustrations. I wish that her editor had taken a firmer hand in translating the material from a Ph.D. dissertation into a more accessible read. Occasional lapses into “extreme academese” detract from the otherwise cogent narrative.
Other than these academic lapses, this book offers a creative insight into a relatively obscure subject.
For further reading see Aaron The Calculus Sheehan-Dean, of Violence: How Americans Fought the Civil War (Harvard University Press, 2018) and Stephanie McCurry, Women’s War: Fighting and Surviving the American Civil War (Belknap Press, 2019).
Salvatore Cilella is the retired CEO of the Atlanta History Center. He is the author of Upton’s Regulars (University of Kansas Press, 2009) and editor of The Selected Correspondence of General Emory Upton, 2 volumes (University of Tennessee Press, 2017). The latter is the recipient of the 2019 Founder’s Award, American Civil War Museum. He is currently editing the love letters of Emory and Emily Upton, documenting their brief and tragic two-year marriage (University of Oklahoma Press), due out next spring.
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Mounted with its rider Horse 1. King Philip 2. Duke 3. Little Sorrel 4. Jeff Davis 5. Jerry 6. Skylark 7. Traveler 8. Rienzi 9. Black Bess 10. Cincinnati Rider a. James E.B. Stuart. b. Ulysses S. Grant. c. Nathan B. Forrest.
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d. Robert E. Lee. e. William T. Sherman. f. Philip H. Sheridan. g. Thomas J. Jackson. h. John B. Hood. i. John H. Morgan. j. Leonidas Polk.
Answers found on page 46.