The Devastation of Leadership
Generals Killed At Gettysburg: Battle Summary Included. Edit by Joe Mieczkowski. Illustrations, Photos, Appendix, Index, 2020, 152 pp., Pedia Press, pediapress. com, softcover. $23.90.
Reviewed by Joseph Truglio
Unlike most battle books, this one is more a human interest story concerning eleven men whose deaths had a great impact on the war effort of both sides.
The first several pages contain an overview of the campaign and battle. This should familiarize the novice reader with the events that take place. Next comes several paragraphs on the battle’s effect inflicted on the armies, nations, etc. This section encompasses about one third of the book. It is well annotated and has a sufficient bibliography for further study.
The next section contains a brief history of the battle, the casualties, and short biographies of the principal characters lost. It is presented in chronological order. The information is brief, but succinct and amply annotated. Again, there is a strong bibliography for further study.
The final section covers the retreat and a death bed promotion.
Overall, there is much to learn here, especially for novice students of the battle. Its format allows students to carry it with them as they travel the battlefield and study events. The documentation presented makes further research an easy task.
This book is a unique publication. Although I personally am not a big fan of Wikipedia, this tool may give the growing number of self-publishing authors an easier way to reach their target audience. My only criticisms, and they are minor, are the need for stronger editing and perhaps a lower price. I feel that $25 may be a bit out of reach for younger students. Despite that, I highly recommend you get a copy for your library. Better yet, give a copy to a younger student and send him/ her on a journey of learning more about American history.
Joseph Truglio, of Manchester, N.J., is a retired Motion Picture Technician who has a lifelong interest in the Civil War. He is currently President of the Phil Kearny CWRT in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J.
Gettysburg Guides’ Book Offers Focused, Thorough Narrative of Peach Orchard Fight
Gettysburg’s Peach Orchard: Longstreet, Sickles, and the Bloody Fight for the “Commanding Ground” Along the Emmitsburg Road. By James A. Hessler and Britt C. Isenberg. Maps, photos, notes, index, 381 pp., 2019. Savas Beatie, savasbeatie.com. $34.95.
Reviewed by Noah F. Crawford
Gettysburg’s Peach Orchard: Longstreet, Sickles, and the Bloody Fight for the “Commanding Ground” Along the Emmitsburg Road demonstrates that there is still much for even the most avid student of the battle of Gettysburg to learn about that crucial engagement. Licensed Battlefield Guides James A. Hessler and Britt C. Isenberg, both authors of other books on the battle’s second day, provide a page-turning, precise narrative of the fighting in and around Joseph Sherfy’s famous Peach Orchard. More importantly, the authors forward a compelling argument that at Gettysburg “no other single terrain feature can claim such far-reaching impacts as the Peach Orchard.”
The majority of the monograph discusses the fighting in the Peach Orchard and the fields immediately to its north and northeast between 3 and 7 p.m. on July 2, 1863. The authors provide a thorough discussion of the bombardment before and during James Longstreet’s assault and principally examine the fight between Union units under Charles Graham and Andrew Humphreys and Confederate brigades under Joseph Kershaw and William Barksdale. The importance of these actions, they argue, is that “the ground gained in and around the Peach Orchard was a lynchpin of Lee’s July 3 plans.” However, Confederate officers misunderstood the “limitations of this position” as an artillery platform, and for all the terrible fighting, “neither side was helped by Sickles’s advance to the Peach Orchard.”
The authors’ expertise and familiarity with the battlefield shines through in their writing. Hessler and Isenberg embrace modern identifiers when describing locations of events; for example, they describe the location of an artillery battalion as “50- 75 yards east of modern West Confederate Avenue.” Such descriptions allow visitors to the battlefield the benefit of situating historic events within the current battlefield geography and what they see around them.
The authors zoom in on such a small geographic area and short span of time to focus on recognizable, but oft-overlooked individuals. How often do history buffs hear about the martinet Andrew Humphreys’ profanity or his marginalized brigadier Joseph Carr being described as the “model colonel?” What of the dispute between two Confederate battery commanders that almost led to a duel on July 2nd that was only averted because of the fighting in which both officers participated that afternoon? Dozens of monographs relay the mortal wounding of the 21-year old “Boy Colonel” Henry Burgwyn on the first day of battle, but what of 21-year old Colonel Edward Bailey who commanded the 2nd New Hampshire in the desperate fight for the Peach Orchard? As famous is the tragic story of John W. Culp, the Confederate soldier who ironically fought and died on the hill that bore his family’s name; far less known is the story of Henry Wentz, who unlimbered his cannon in the Peach Orchard mere feet from his boyhood home where his parents at that moment huddled in the basement. These fascinating anecdotes provided by Hessler and Isenberg bring the lives of the soldiers who fought at the Peach Orchard to life.
The authors add their voices to the historiography that examines James Longstreet’s merits and mistakes. While critical of Longstreet’s poor communication that at times resulted in uncoordinated, sequential attacks, the authors refute accusations of Longstreet “sulking” by opining that “He was a professional soldier acting as he felt his military duty required…” The authors criticize many of Sickles’ actions, but they assert that the “theory that political aspirations motivated Sickles’s advance” is “unsubstantiated.” They also point out that many of his subordinates and enlisted men avidly defended their corps commander’s actions in the postwar disputes.
A possible shortcoming is that for a book that emphasizes the value of a particular piece of ground, relatively little is said about this ground itself. Besides comparing its height to nearby Little Round Top, few metrics of the ridge’s elevation are given—critical information when considering the area as an artillery platform as many officers deduced. Readers might also wonder about the foliage and vegetation of the Peach Orchard’s surrounding area; how the Peach Orchard contrasted with neighboring pastures, gardens, groves, and plowed fields is not discussed.
For its ability to situate the reader within the historic and modern geography of the Peach Orchard, this book is especially useful for the battlefield visitor seeking a detailed work of the fighting there. Armchair readers will also benefit from its fascinating illumination of little-known accounts and personalities as well as its argument regarding the position as the “lynchpin” of Lee’s critical July 3rd decisions.
Noah F. Crawford is a graduate student at Virginia Tech; he studies the experiences of refugees and the intersections of social history and military history in the Civil War’s Eastern Theater.
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Slave, Soldier, Decent Man
Carrying the Colors: The Life and Legacy of Medal of Honor Recipient Andrew Jackson Smith. By W. Robert Beckman and Sharon S. MacDonald. Illustrated, notes, appendix, bibliography, Westholme Publishing, 2020, 261 pp., cloth $28.
Reviewed by Wayne L. Wolf
Born a slave in 1842, the property of Elias Smith, his white father, Andrew Jackson Smith escaped from slavery in January 1862 when he learned he was to be sent to the Confederate Army to work on fortifications. Successfully reaching the lines of the 41st Illinois Volunteer Infantry, he was hired as a servant by Dr. John Warner and traveled with him and the 41st to witness the action at Forts Henry and Donelson, as well as the Battle of Shiloh. He then returned to Clinton, Ill., to assist Dr. Warner who was recovering from an intestinal illness. This task accomplished, he left Clinton, traveled to Massachusetts, and joined the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (Colored).
From his enlistment until his discharge in 1865, he served in both the Quartermaster Department and with the Provost Marshal’s Office. The service for which he would eventually be awarded the Medal of Honor took place while he was stationed in the Sea Islands off South Carolina. Both at the Battle of Grimball’s Causeway, and the charge of the 55th at Honey Hill, where he carried the colors after the original color bearer was killed, exhibited the bravery required to earn the nation’s highest honor. Throughout his entire military career, he was never censured, served with valor and commitment, and was highly praised by his commanding officers. A paucity of paperwork would deny him the Medal of Honor for over six decades.
His remarkable story did not end upon his discharge. He returned to his native Kentucky and resumed farming, tobacco growing, raising livestock, buying and selling land. He also gave back to his community by donating land for a cemetery, helping to feed those in need, treating children to candy, and giving loans to those in need. This remarkable life story would have been lost if his papers had not lovingly been preserved by his daughters Geneva and Coruth. After years of keeping his life’s papers in a safe spot, they turned to Smith’s grandson Andy Bowman to gather all additional relevant documentation and begin haunting politicians with a demand for recognition of his grandfather’s service. Finally, with the help of two Illinois members of Congress, Thomas Ewing and Richard Durbin, he was successful in finally gaining the necessary legislation to permit President Clinton to award Andrew Jackson Smith the Congressional Medal of Honor in January 2001.
This book is one of the best biographies of an individual USCT soldier to reach the market in recent memory. It is very readable, well documented, and hard to put down. It begs the reader to delve further into the history of the 55th Massachusetts. Two good books to achieve this goal would be Noah Andre Trudeau’s Voices of the 55th: Letters from the 55th Massachusetts Volunteers, 1861– 1865 and Burt Wilder’s The 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Colored. This book is highly recommended for any Civil War enthusiast, especially those with an interest in the contributions of black soldiers to the Union victory.
Wayne L. Wolf is Professor Emeritus at South Suburban College, past President of the Lincoln-Davis CWRT, and author of numerous books and articles including Soldiers, Sailors and Scoundrels of the Civil War and The Last Confederate Scout.
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Dear Delia: The Civil War Letters of Captain Henry F. Young, Seventh Wisconsin Infantry. Edited by Micheal J. Larson and John David Smith. Maps, photos, notes, index. 319 pp. University of Wisconsin Press, 2019. uwpress.wisc.edu. $29.95.
Reviewed by Jonathan W. White
The Civil War correspondence of Capt. Henry F. Young of the Iron Brigade should be on the bookshelf of every reader interested in Civil War military history. Young’s letters offer a company-level officer’s perspective of the war from August 1861 to November 1864, including detailed accounts of his experiences at Second Manassas, Antietam, Gettysburg, the Overland Campaign, and the siege of Petersburg.
Young’s writing is lively and perceptive. Early in the war he described how the men of his regiment, the 7th Wisconsin, disliked their German colonel. “The trouble is he cant command americans,” wrote Young, because they could not understand his orders. “Then he gets mad as thunder and raves and belows like a mad bull; and abuses all the officers for not anticipating his damned dutch command.”
Young quickly became hardened by combat. In September 1862, he wrote his wife that he “can go to sleep with a fight raging within a mile of me,” but he always had a tender word for his family and longed to be with them. “My dear little woman if I am so unfortunate as to fall my last thoughts will be of you and the dear ones,” he wrote in May 1864. One of the saddest moments in the book comes when he learns of his daughter’s death at the end of the war.
Throughout the war, Young expressed strong patriotic sentiments. “I am going to see this war through if I come out not worth the first damed red cent,” he wrote in November 1861. “I would rather spend the last drop of blood I have and let my wife and children have the free government of the united states to live in than to have our government and institutions broken up and be worth millions.”
For Young, the war was about preserving the Union. “We are fighting for to crush out rebellion, not for the abolition of slavery,” he wrote in December 1861, but, he then added, “every man of common sence [sic] knows that as the army advance, the slaves of every Rebble [sic] will be set free.” When Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862, Young admitted that “I dont know what effect [it] will have on the South. But there is one thing certain it is just what was wanted.” Nevertheless, he maintained a very negative view of African Americans, telling his wife that he would never command black soldiers “for reason they are the infernalist set of cowards in the world,” and, “The great majority of them would prefer to be slaves rather than fight for their liberty.”
Young’s impressions of southerners are revealing. Upon entering the town of Falmouth, Va., in April 1862, he wrote, “Nearly every white woman was crying, for they all have friends in the Rebble [sic] army, and all the darkies were dancing for joy.” He resented southern Unionists, who, he said, “are union only while we are here. They are a cowardly sneeking [sic] set of Devils, that would submit to annything [sic] rather than fight”
Throughout his letters Young expressed strong feelings about the Union’s political and military leaders. He wanted to serve under generals who would fight and he got frustrated by how frequently Union commanders were replaced. “They are eternally changing changing,” he complained. “They will displace a good officer that has been tried, for some political favourite that never seen a field of Battle. It is enough to make a man desert and damn the whole institution.”
After Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, Young heard soldiers “swear they would never go into another fight, that they did not volunteer to fight for negroes.” Young never wavered in his support for Lincoln’s reelection in 1864, but his letters reveal how support among many Union soldiers was less stable. If Lincoln did not enforce the draft, Young wrote during the long, terrible summer of 1864, “Mc[Clellan] will get a large soldier vote.” More importantly, however, the Democrats’ decision to nominate a Peace Democrat for vice president “hurt the McClellan tickett [sic] with the soldiers.”
Dear Delia is one of the finest collections of Civil War correspondence to appear in recent years. It is expertly edited and annotated, and the letters touch nearly every aspect of the soldier experience during the Civil War. Highly recommended.