Haskell of Gettysburg, His Life and Civil War Papers (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS Haskell of Gettysburg, His Life and Civil War Papers. Edited by Frank L. Byrne and Andrew T. Weaver. (Madison, Wis.: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1970. Pp. vu, 258. $6.95.) Of all the personal battle accounts of the Civil War none is better known or more highly considered than Frank Aretas Haskell's description of Gettysburg. It has been reprinted so often, condensed, and made use of in so many ways that it has become almost commonplace. And yet an author would be criticized if he wrote on Gettysburg without using Haskell . The fact that Haskell wrote on more than just Gettysburg has been known only to those few scholars who have explored his letters at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Fortunately, this situation, which had narrowed the contribution of Haskell, has now been extremely well remedied by Frank L. Byrne and the late Andrew T. Weaver. We now have the compleat Haskell, thanks to the diligence of Professor Weaver of the University of Wisconsin and the equal diligence of Frank L. Byrne, of Kent State University, who revised and completed Weaver's unfinished work, adding his own research . For the first time Haskell's life is delineated from his early days as a Vermont farm boy and school teacher, through his years at Columbus , Wisconsin, and then Dartmouth, to a career in law and politics at Madison, and eventually the Civil War. Frank Haskell was much more than the author of a battle piece. We learn of his ambition and desire for place. We learn of his sensitivity and his perception, which enrich his writings. From the thirty manuscript letters or essays, aside from his famous one, we see an observant Haskell writing one of the better descriptions of South Mountain and of Second Fredericksburg, a neglected portion of the Chancellorsville campaign. A lengthy account of Bristoe Station adds measurably to the scanty literature on that very important campaign . Just before Bristoe, Haskell could write, "... we sometimes dream when peace shall come again and spread her white wings over the land. When will it? Will it ever? . . ." Certainly these personal letters, probably not written as much for possible publication as the longer essays seem to be, are a highlight. In them the life and feelings of a staff officer in the Iron Brigade, and later at the division and corps levels, are revealed. There is no necessity to describe or comment on the Gettysburg mono175 176CIVIL WAR HISTORY graph. But it must be pointed out that the editors have wisely used Haskell's original manuscript which is in the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission collection. The editors' careful footnoting has pointed out the differences between the original and the version printed by the Wisconsin History Commission. The scholarly, detailed footnoting and research displayed throughout add depth and significance to the volume. The photographs have been chosen to fit Haskell's life and are not the hackneyed ones of Gettysburg. Detailed maps of South Mountain, Second Fredericksburg, and Bristoe Station would have been useful. It is tantalizing to conjecture what eyewitness Civil War accounts Haskell might have produced had he not been felled at Cold Harbor. The proof of the value of this volume of the existing works of Frank Haskell will be seen in years to come as author after author adds to his own work more and more of the words of the Wisconsin soldier, taken from this source. E. B. Long University of Wyoming Sovereignty and an Empty Purse: Banks and Politics in the Civil War. By Bray Hammond. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970. Pp. 400. $10.00.) Shortly after completing the manuscript of this book Bray Hammond died, concluding a varied career that had both carried him to high office in the Federal Reserve system and allowed him to win the Pulitzer Prize in History with his massive and magisterial Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War. In Mr. Hammond's last book he has described the economic crises of the Union and the responses of Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln's first Secretary of the Treasury, the members of Congress, the financial community and the...