Army Of Virginia Research Articles

Radical Sacrifice: The Rise and Ruin of Fitz John Porter by William Marvel

Reviewed by: Radical Sacrifice: The Rise and Ruin of Fitz John Porter by William Marvel Zachery A. Fry (bio) Radical Sacrifice: The Rise and Ruin of Fitz John Porter. By William Marvel. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. Pp. 472. Cloth, $35.00.) William Marvel’s books are iconoclastic. They dismantle idols and resurrect the persecuted, in the process asking historians to reconsider cherished and persistent interpretive trends in the field. Lincoln’s Autocrat: The Life of Edwin Stanton (2015) depicts Secretary of War Edwin Stanton as the malevolent architect behind many of Lincoln’s policies, while Lincoln’s Mercenaries: Economic Motivation among Union Soldiers during the Civil War (2018) adds a dose of practicality to the debate on Union soldier [End Page 287] motivation. Marvel’s latest work, a biography of vilified Union corps commander Fitz John Porter, revisits the Civil War’s most notorious court-martial and spotlights a great sin in American military justice. Fitz John Porter gained notoriety among Republicans and hard-war advocates for his loyalty to George McClellan, who, in Marvel’s words, represented the professional army’s resistance to “turning the war into an abolition crusade” (xi). The chaos and calamity of Second Bull Run entangled Porter with the pro-Lincoln circle of John Pope, who used Porter as a convenient scapegoat for Union tactical failures on August 29 and 30, 1862. The charges leveled at Porter by Pope (but really by Stanton, the true villain in Marvel’s story) included disobedience of direct orders and cowardice in the face of the enemy. The combination of a politically motivated court, procession of questionable witnesses, and proscription of exculpatory evidence doomed Porter to a guilty verdict and ended his military career. The former general spent the rest of his life seeking retrial, finally gaining vindication under the Grover Cleveland administration. Marvel performs yeoman’s work sifting through the complicated events of August 29 that brought Porter to grief. Attached to Pope’s Army of Virginia from McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, Porter cooperated with Irvin McDowell to hold the Union left that day at Second Bull Run. The bewildering “joint order” from Pope, arriving at midday, ordered Porter and McDowell to advance “toward” the Confederate right, then halt in preparation for a potential withdrawal that night. Porter and his subordinates realized that James Longstreet’s wing of Lee’s army had arrived in their front, complicating any hope of reaching their assigned objective. A flurry of couriers back and forth brought little clarification to Pope’s intent, and the commanding general’s unequivocal attack order failed to arrive until nearly dusk, by which point it was virtually useless. Calling Porter’s hesitancy “disobedience” was shaky at best, but it was enough for Stanton to spring the trap against McClellan’s chief lieutenant. Radical Sacrifice presents a thorough and convincing case that Porter’s true transgression in the eyes of his political persecutors was in fact aligning with McClellan and supporting Democratic policy. Porter wrote prolifically to Democratic confidants, some of whom thoughtlessly trumpeted the alarming extent of his anti-administration bent. Marvel’s Porter is a victim of Republican villainy, a scapegoat not so much for Pope but for Lincoln, whose confidence in the “brash and beefy” Army of Virginia leader spelled disaster at Manassas (139). This depiction is vintage Marvel, whose witty writing style breathes new life into the battle action and courtroom drama. But this same style sometimes exacerbates a jaundiced view of Republican politicians and leads to some downright daring assertions. “The man later [End Page 288] castigated as a traitor to the Union cause did more to preserve that Union than any of those officers who later judged him unworthy to remain among them” (xv), he observes in defense of Porter, leading the reader to wonder just how such a comparison is to be measured. Regarding Union veterans in the years after Porter’s conviction, Marvel notes that some were supportive of the fallen Fifth Corps leader while others were ambivalent or hostile. “Unfortunately for Porter,” he adds disturbingly, “reviling an alleged traitor is an effective traditional means of signaling patriotism for those who have no other...

The First Republican Army: The Army of Virginia and the Radicalization of the Civil War

The First Republican Army: The Army of Virginia and the Radicalization of the Civil War

John H. Matsui. The First Republican Army: The Army of Virginia and the Radicalization of the Civil War.

John H. Matsui. The First Republican Army: The Army of Virginia and the Radicalization of the Civil War.

The First Republican Army: The Army of Virginia and the Radicalization of the Civil War by John H. Matsui

The First Republican Army: The Army of Virginia and the Radicalization of the Civil War by John H. Matsui

The First Republican Army: The Army of Virginia and the Radicalization of the Civil War by John H. Matsui

Reviewed by: The First Republican Army: The Army of Virginia and the Radicalization of the Civil War by John H. Matsui Robert Hunt The First Republican Army: The Army of Virginia and the Radicalization of the Civil War. John H. Matsui. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016. ISBN 978-0-8139-3927-8. 240 pp., cloth, $39.50. As all students of the Civil War know, the Jacksonian age had universalized a white male democratic political culture. When thousands of volunteers joined the military in 1861, the newly enlisted soldiers refused to surrender what they saw as their rights as citizens. In the face of this, West Point officers like George B. McClellan had no chance to control the war with their exclusive expertise. This is the starting point for John Matsui's The First Republican Army. As Matsui argues it, in John Pope's Army of Virginia the soldiery's desire to make the war its own was combined with the congressional Republican urgency to construct a radical army as a counterweight to McClellan. The result, Matsui insists, was a Republican army from the privates up to Pope—the first radicalized military organization of the war, the author insists. Unfortunately, Matsui pursues his thesis with more enthusiasm than judgment. Specifically, the author creates a simple binary. In his portrait, McClellan and his Army of the Potomac pursued a Democratic conservative war. They were particularly unwilling to tangle with slavery. At the other pole, Matsui insists that the Army of Virginia from top to bottom embraced the congressional Republican vision. However, to create his dualism Matsui turns the Republican worldview, antislavery, and hard war into interchangeable parts. When these elements are separated properly, Pope's army looks quite different from what Matsui intends. Of course, congressional Republicans intended to make a partisan instrument of Pope's army. Moreover, as Matsui contends, the force had a sizeable contingent of Germans, a few midwestern regiments, and some abolitionist officers like Abner Doubleday. However, despite Matsui's insistence, this did not make the army Republican. If the term has meaning, then a majority of the officers and men had to share that party's faith in the globalization of free labor. And Matsui produces a few quotations to this effect (14–15, 112). But the bulk of the sources go elsewhere. As well, Matsui demonstrates that a few soldiers were sympathetic to the plight of slave [End Page 427] refugees (102–4). One would expect this, of course, but such incidents did not make the army Republican, radical, or ideologically antislavery. Judging by the author's quoted sources, the Army of Virginia's soldiery wanted hard war. This desire was created by contact; very early in their campaigning the North's soldiery rejected the folly of reunion war. Confronting recalcitrant southern civilians along with guerillas, northern soldiers were readily convinced that the entire white South was in rebellion. Add in the citizen volunteer's notorious resistance to any form of West Point discipline, and you had soldiers willing to use looting as a weapon and eager to use slaves to help prosecute the war. For page after page in Matsui's text, the sources describe this turn toward hard war. The result of this, however, was not a conversion to Republicanism but a citizen-soldier strategy to deconstruct the Confederacy. Every white American alive at the time knew how the South's economy had been created. Regardless of their politics, every soldier understood that building the country, North and South, had depended on labor, private property, and transportation and communication links. Thus, the Union army could destroy the Confederate rebellion simply by reversing the process described in Walter Johnson's River of Dark Dreams (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2013). Without question, such a war was destructive, but it was not necessarily antislavery in principle or radical in some Republican sense. Democrats as well as Lincolnites embraced it. Moreover, there was nothing exclusive to the Army of Virginia in this turn toward hard war. Soldiers in the western armies subverted the so-called rosewater policy at the same time the Virginians did, and for the same reasons. Rejecting McClellan was no different than...

The First Republican Army: The Army Of Virginia And The Radicalization Of The Civil War

The First Republican Army: The Army Of Virginia And The Radicalization Of The Civil War

The Leadership of Ulysses S. Grant: A General Who Will Fight by Harry S. Laver (review)

Reviewed by: The Leadership of Ulysses S. Grant: A General Who Will Fight by Harry S. Laver Susan J. Covert The Leadership of Ulysses S. Grant: A General Who Will Fight. By Harry S. Laver. (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2013. 195 pp. Cloth $32.50, ISBN 978-0-8131-3677-6.) The development and growth of leadership skills is the focus of Harry S. Laver’s detailed study of Ulysses S. Grant’s military career. The author begins with Grant’s life as an undisciplined cadet, takes the reader through the battles he [End Page 137] commanded and ends with Grant as the commanding general of the United States Army. The author argues that leadership skills are not always innate, but can develop and evolve through experience. In the introduction, Laver defines analytical determination as a common denominator among most successful military leaders and describes two schools of thought used to conclude whether Grant displayed analytical determination or sheer stubbornness. He cites the work On War by Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, which describes analytical determination as a “great force of will.” Laver uses this book to show the reader how Grant developed analytical determination and utilized that skill to win a war that was endemic with faulty commanding generals. In his first battle, Grant moved against the Confederate outpost at Belmont, Kentucky, and while he racked up a victory, he displayed little authority or understanding of the broader strategic objectives of the fight. He was already displaying a strong tenacity, but as he continued to lead armies into battle, he also demonstrated his ability to learn from his mistakes. He grew as a leader with each battle, shedding any self-doubt and learning how to probe and find the enemy’s weakness. Grant believed that the Union’s only chance of winning the war was to take the initiative and to push forth as vigorously as possible. This philosophy had many critics labeling Grant as coldhearted about the loss of his men, but Laver deftly argues for Grant’s ability to shift his strategy to incur the smallest losses, as he demonstrated at the siege of Vicksburg. With his promotion to major general, Grant assumed leadership of the command of the Western armies and demonstrated a keen understanding of the operational situation of the armies. His display of mature leadership and ability to adapt his strategy to the constantly changing conditions both on and off the battlefield provide evidence of his analytical determination. In 1864, Grant was promoted to lieutenant general, a rank that had not been used since George Washington, and assumed the command of all Union forces. Grant developed a strategy for a five-part assault on Confederacy and shifted the target from capturing Richmond to pursuing Lee’s Army of Virginia. When Grant accepted Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, he treated the Confederates with respect and, according to the wishes of President Lincoln, agreed to lenient terms. The Leadership of Ulysses S. Grant: A General Who Will Fight does fulfill the objective of proving to the reader that Grant exhibited an ability to learn and mature as a military strategist and leader. The work’s contribution to the body of work detailing Grant’s military career would have been enhanced by more detailed analysis of the growth of Grant’s critical thinking and strategic planning. Another enhancement that would have been helpful would have been detailed battle maps showing troop placement to help broaden the reader’s understanding. [End Page 138] Susan J. Covert Canton, Ohio Copyright © 2014 The Kent State University Press

War in Earnest: The Army of Virginia and the Radicalization of the Union War Effort, 1862

War in Earnest:The Army of Virginia and the Radicalization of the Union War Effort, 1862 John H. Matsui (bio) "War is . . . a continuation of political activity by other means," wrote the nineteenth-century Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz in what now amounts to a classic maxim regarding the nature of warfare.1 The American Civil War witnessed its share of politics interfering with and shaping military operations, not least because for the first time in recorded history the mass armies on both sides were composed of citizen-soldiers who were politically enfranchised, literate, and vocal about for what they fought. In other words, politicians and generals did not shape war policy separated from and uninfluenced by the opinions and actions of common fighting men. By the summer of 1862, white Union soldiers and their elected company-and field-grade officers serving in Virginia expressed increased dissatisfaction with the policy of West Point-trained generals to respect the property of civilians who openly aided Confederate forces and scorned the federal government.2 A significant part of this property consisted of the nearly 500,000 [End Page 180] slaves in the Commonwealth, composing almost a third of the Virginia's population. These northern soldiers found slavery appalling even as they remained unwilling to accept African Americans as fellow citizens.3 "War in earnest" was the desire of one New Englander on July 30, 1862. Having "played at war" in 1861, Union soldiers now recognized that the purpose of "war is to destroy, not protect an enemy."4 Rather than rely solely on a top-down or a bottom-up perspective, this article involves analysis of the shifting political ideology of both military elites and enlisted men in the summer of 1862. A word on the article's structure is due. The alliance between Radical Republican politicians and Republican-leaning generals against Democrats (northern and southern) and slavery is the initial focus. The article then turns to the frustrations of Union soldiers at lenient Federal policies toward southern civilians and their growing opposition to slavery via exposure to self-emancipated slaves. Regardless of their antebellum political convictions, by July 1862 volunteer soldiers and their (mostly) elected officers demonstrated increasing willingness to implement harsh policies toward Confederate civilians. The goals of politico-military elites and citizen-soldiers converged in a shared dream of revolution, of remaking the lazy South in the North's image as a year of conciliation was thrown back in the faces of Union occupiers. Internecine politics and slavery both enjoy increasing focus in recent historiography of the American Civil War. In his study of the Confederate army of Northern Virginia, Joseph Glatthaar notes that "politics and generalship went hand in hand in Lee's army" much the same way as in Union armies, and he pays attention to the politics of promotion at the field and company levels. Glatthaar also includes more coverage of slavery as an ideological motivation for Confederate soldiers than previous studies of the main rebel army.5 In Bell Wiley's classic study of the Union's common soldiery, politics [End Page 181] and slaves were only two items on a long laundry list of topics of soldierly conversation and correspondence.6 By contrast, "three in ten Union soldiers" in the study sample assembled by James McPherson for his 1997 analysis of why northern soldiers fought, understood within "the first eighteen months of the war" that the "abolition of slavery was inseparably linked to the goal of preserving the Union."7 Chandra Manning's 2007 book builds on McPherson's text and "rescues slavery from the periphery of soldiers' mental worlds, where subsequent generations have tried to relegate it." This article follows in McPherson's and Manning's scholarly footsteps, particularly with regard to soldiers' increasing awareness of the necessity of destroying slavery as well as Confederate armies to defeat the rebellion in the first year of the war. It also adheres to Manning's view that many Union soldiers were ahead of their president in seeing that the Union "must reform rather than merely preserve itself," a reformation or reconstruction that necessarily involved emancipation.8 Yet Gary Gallagher's recent cautionary comments on...

Germination of the federally endangered Michaux's sumac (Rhus michauxii)

The federally listed Michaux’s sumac ( Rhus michauxii Sarg. [Anacardiaceae]) is one of the most endangered shrubs in the southeastern US. The endangered status of this fire-adapted species may be primarily attributed to fire suppression. Many hard-seeded plants in fire-adapted ecosystems can survive high temperatures and germinate in response to scarification caused by high fire temperatures. Unfortunately, little is known about the germination strategy of Michaux’s sumac. Using seeds collected from Virginia Army National Guard, Maneuver Training Center, Fort Picket, that were subsequently manually scarified, we discovered that imbibition of intact seeds was prevented by endocarp impermeability. We then examined if dry heat, as an analogue for wildfire, could be used to break this physical dormancy. Replicated ( n = 3) dry heat treatments applied at 60, 80, 100, 120, and 140 °C (140, 176, 212, 248, and 284 °F) for 5 and 10 min durations, as well as a nontreated control, yielded no germination after 4 wk. All seeds were subsequently manually scarified. During the next 4 wk, a range of 47.8 ±4.8 to 56.7 ±12% germination was observed for scarified seeds of the 60 and 80 °C (at 5 and 10 min) treatment groups, not significantly different than the 61.6 ±6.2% germination observed with scarified control seeds. Very low germination was observed when seeds were exposed to 100 °C for 5 min; all longer duration and higher treatment temperatures were lethal.

Recent Journal Articles

Recent Journal Articles Wendy A. Swik U.S. Military Academy Library The bibliography is compiled by the systematic search of approximately four hundred periodicals, a check of several general journal bibliographies, and the welcomed contribution of interested subscribers. Many times older citations will be included simply because the compiler had not come across them earlier or, more frequently, because the periodicals are behind publication schedule. Those wishing to be assured of having their articles listed in this section are urged to notify the compiler. References should include the following: author(s), full title (including subtitle), name of periodical, volume number, issue date, and pagination. Address all contributions to Wendy Swik, Military Affairs Librarian, U.S.M.A. Library, West Point, NY 10996–1799. General Military Affairs Cassidy, Robert M. "Winning the War of the Flea. Lessons from Guerrilla Warfare." Military Review Special Edition, October 2006, 2–7. Cole, Merle T., and Donald R. Davis. "'We can take it': Organizational Evolution of the 150th Cavalry West Virginia Army National Guard." Military Collector & Historian 59 (Spring 2007): 8–15. Hill, Tony. "Trials and Tribulations—Some British Long-Range Guns of the Mid-19th to Mid-20th Century." Journal of the Royal Artillery 133 (Spring 2006): 43–48. Klinger, Janeen. "The Social Science of Carl von Clausewitz." Parameters 36 (Spring 2006): 79–89. Sepp, Kalev I. "Best Practices in Counterinsurgency." Military Review Special Edition, October 2006, 8–12. Ancient and Medieval Warfare Cooper, Stephen. "An Unsung Villain: The Reputation of a Condottiere." History Today 56 (January 2006): 19–25. Dumolyn, Jan. "The 'Terrible Wednesday' of Pentecost: Confronting Urban and Princely Discourses in the Bruges Rebellion of 1436–1438." History: Journal of the Historical Association 92 (January 2007): 3–20. [End Page 1002] 1500–1815 Military Affairs Cormack, Andrew. "The Uniform of Officers of Independent Companies in the Later Eighteenth Century." Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 84 (Autumn 2006): 215–22. Davidson, Ian. "Some Comments on the Traditional Historiography of the Black Watch, 1725–1815." Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 84 (Autumn 2006): 223–35. Rees, John U. "'Knowledge Necessary to a Soldier': The Continental Officer's Military Reading List, 1775–1778." Military Collector & Historian 59 (Spring 2007): 65–71. Stroock, Will. "Marlborough's Art of War." Strategy & Tactics 238 (September 2006): 6–17. Weaver, Philip D. "Sam Wire and the Cow-boys." Military Collector & Historian 59 (Spring 2007): 47–51. Zlatich, Marko. "A Miniature Portrait of Major James Hamilton (1750–1833)." Military Collector & Historian 59 (Spring 2007): 4–7. 1816–1869 Military Affairs Chartrand, René. "The Forces of Imperial Brazil in the Triple Alliance War, 1865– 1870." Military Collector & Historian 59 (Spring 2007): 28–46. Grandchamp, Robert. "'The appearance of a gang of Chinamen': A Study of the Uniforms Worn by Brown's Battery B, First Rhode Island Light Artillery." Military Collector & Historian 59 (Spring 2007): 58–61. Green, Jennifer R. "Networks of Military Educators: Middle-class Stability and Professionalization in the Late Antebellum South." Journal of Southern History 73 (February 2007): 39–74. Lyons, Marco J. "Pragmatic and Skilled Leadership: General George H. Thomas at Stones River." Infantry 95 (May-June 2006): 32–40. Ray, Fred L. "Civil War Sharpshooters." Infantry 95 (May-June 2006): 18–21. Sullivan, David M. "The War of the Triple Alliance, 1865–1870." Military Collector & Historian 59 (Spring 2007): 23–27. 1870–1920 Military Affairs Black, John. "'Supermen and superwomen': The Army Pay Services and the First World War, 1914–1920." Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 84 (Autumn 2006): 260–80. Foley, Robert T. "What's in a Name?: The Development of Strategies of Attrition on the Western Front, 1914–1918." Historian 68 (Winter 2006): 722–46. Fowler, Michelle. "'Death is not the worst thing': The Presbyterian Press in Canada, 1913–1919." War & Society 25 (October 2006): 23–38. Grandhomme, Jean-Noel. "Internment Camps for German Civilians in Finisterre, France (1914–1919)." Historian 68 (Winter 2006): 792–810. Habib, Douglas F. "Chastity, Masculinity, and Military...

General John Pope, A Life for the Nation

Ambitious and outspoken, John was one of the most controversial figures to hold high command during the Civil War, Reconstruction, and in the American West. General John Pope: A Life for the Nation is the first full biography of this much maligned figure, who played crucial roles in both the Eastern and the Western Theaters of the Civil War. Renowned Civil War scholar Peter Cozzens has mined Pope's own memoirs and a wealth of other primary sources to provide a complete picture of this gifted strategist. Uncovering new information about Pope's pre- and postwar career and his path to power, Cozzens delineates the political environment that surrounded and provided the context for his actions. Cozzens examines Pope's early career first as commander of the Army of the Mississippi and then as leader of a hastily formed Army of Virginia against Robert E. Lee. After his famous defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, was sent to the frontier. There, he held important commands on the western plains over the next twenty-four years, all the while struggling to clear his reputation of the events at Second Bull Run. A principal architect of the Red River War, which broke the resistance of the Southern Plains Indians, espoused humanitarian treatment of subjugated tribes and was recognized as one of the army's leading authorities on Indian affairs. In place of the simplistic caricature that has satisfied most historians, Cozzens has crafted an accurate, humane, balanced portrait of a complex man involved with the most complex issues of his day. A monumental work on a long-neglected figure, General John Pope offers a fresh look at a key nineteenth-century military leader as well as the most detailed analysis available of Federal leadership during the Second Bull Run campaign.

Presidential address: “These united colonies are …”

Presidential address: “These united colonies are …”

The Military Memoirs of General John Pope

Union general John Pope was among the most controversial and misunderstood figures to hold major command during the Civil War. Before being called east in June 1862 to lead the Army of Virginia against General Robert E. Lee, he compiled an enviable record in Missouri and as commander of the Army of the Mississippi. After his ignominious defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, he was sent to the frontier. Over the next twenty-four years Pope held important department commands on the western plains and was recognized as one of the army's leading authorities on Indian affairs, but he never again commanded troops in battle. In 1886, Pope was engaged by the National Tribune, a weekly newspaper published in Washington, D.C., to write a series of articles on his wartime experiences. Over the next five years, in twenty-nine installments, he wrote about the as he had lived it. Collected here for the first time, Pope's war reminiscences join a select roster of memoirs written by Civil War army commanders.

Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas (review)

BOOK REVIEWS349 Additional chapters outline very well the medical aspects of the Crimean war, with its importance for American military medicine, and the FrancoPrussian war. The roles of Florence Nightingale and of Jean-Henri Dumont and his Red Cross organization are also reviewed. Hard-to-find material on the medical care for Americans involved in the Phillipine Insurrection, Spanish-American War, and the border conflicts with Mexico in 191 1 provide insight into our medical involvement there and do a real service for the general reader. I think that one of the most valuable contributions of Farmcarts to Fords is the very excellent collection of illustrations and photographs. The many graphic pictures related to transportation of the wounded in World War One bring home the stark reality of the medical problems encountered and the transition between horse-drawn vehicles and modern times. I found this section to be well written and the most fascinating part of the book. I would recommend this publication to readers interested in the development of triage systems for transportation of the wounded. It can certainly serve as a very good textbook for a course in the history of military medicine. Ralph C. Gordon Michigan State University Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas. By John J. Hennessy. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993. Pp. xiv, 607. $27.50.) The Battle of Second Manassas rarely has attracted much attention from military historians. Squeezed in between the Army of Northern Virginia's ferocious assaults during the Seven Days battles to save Richmond and the bloodiest day of the war along the banks of Antietam Creek, Second Manassas has too often served as a postscript to the Union's command problems in the wake of George McClellan's leadership, as a prelude to Robert E. Lee's invasion of the North, or simply as a more costly repeat of the first great battle of the Civil War. John J. Hennessy argues convincingly that Second Manassas was in itself "a campaign of high stakes" at a time when the war's outcome still remained far from decided. Return to Bull Run picks up the military situations in the eastern theater where Robert K. Krick's outstanding Stonewall Jackson and Cedar Mountain ends, in mid-August 1862, and follows the paths of the two armies through the end of the intense battles from August 28 through August 30. Hennessy is adept at explaining the rapidly changing strategic picture of that summer and places it within the context of important political and diplomatic actions outside the Virginia theater of war. There simply is no better analysis ofthe complex maneuvering of the two great armies as they jockeyed for position along 350CIVIL WAR HISTORY the river banks, mountain gaps, and farm fields in the rolling country of northern Virginia in the last two weeks of August 1862. One of the special strengths of Hennessy's analysis is his perceptive insights into the character and competence of the rival commanders and their senior subordinates. Describing Union general John Pope, commander ofthe Army of Virginia, as both self-promoting and politically astute is not new, but rarely do we see the connection between personal views and professional performance so clearly drawn. An ardent Republican with Radical leanings in a generally conservative officer corps, Pope applied his political views as well as his military knowledge in planning his campaign in Virginia. His orders to round up and detain suspected Confederate sympathizers, to remove all protection previously granted to private houses and property, and to hold Southern civilians responsible for any losses suffered by Union troops at the hands ofthe persistant guerrilla bands ofnorthern Virginia revealed the hardline approach to fighting that made him, at least for a while, the darling of the Radicals. Of Pope's subordinates, only a few of whom (such as cavalryman John Buford) shone during the campaign, Gen. Irvin McDowell comes off most poorly; according to Hennessy, McDowell was responsible for "one of the worst tactical errors of any Civil War battle" (466) when his meddling with troop dispositions helped precipitate the collapse of the Union line and the rout of the...

Building a Legend and Prolonging a War: Another Look at Two of Robert E. Lee's Victories

Second Manassas and Chancellorsville marked important milestones in Robert E. Lee's rise to preeminence among Confederate generals. Lee achieved success against long odds in both operations because of his talent and audacity, superior performances from subordinates, and incompetentUnion generalship. His victories, in turn, lifted Confederate civilian morale and helped lay the groundwork for a popular belief that the nascent nation's future depended to a significant degree on him and his army. Return to Bull Run and Chancellorsville 1863 present the first modern treatments of these events. Between them, they illustrate the strengths of good campaign history as well as weaknesses that have led many academic historians to criticize the genre as a whole. Hennessy's book draws on an impressive array of unpublished material and ranks with the best work of its kind. It begins with a discussion of political and military concerns that shaped the Lincoln administration's decision to open a second front in Virginia inJuly 1862. While George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac remained below Richmond, John Pope transferred from the Mississippi to lead the new Union Army of Virginia in the northern part of the state. Pope's Republican politics placed him at odds with McClellan and other Democrats, and he issued orders that alienated conservatives in the Union army. He called for seizure of rebel property, punishment of anyone sheltering Confederate guerrillas, and other actions that intimidated civilians in Virginia. Usually portrayed as an inept braggart whose threats against Confederate civilians betrayed a roguish personality, Pope emerges in Hennessy's analysis

Spouse support, career continuance, and family life in the reserve components: A study of members and spouses of the virginia national guard

Although membership requirements and aspects of family life for members of the reserve components of the United States armed forces differ from those of active force members, most of the previously existing empirical information about the role of spouse support in career continuance decisions of reservists has come from studies of active components' members and their spouses. The present study analyzed the survey responses of 2,427 married members of the Virginia Army National Guard and 1,540 spouses of Virginia Guard members. Data analysis suggested that the spouses of Guard members were very strongly committed to career continuance and indicated a stronger preference for longevity with the Guard than the members themselves. Multivariate procedures indicated spousal support was a consistent predictor of a member's intention to remain in the Guard even when demographic, military environment, and quality-of-life variables were controlled. Implications of these findings for future research and for family policy and procedures in the reserve components are discussed.

Fred anderson. A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia. 1984. Pp. xii, 274. $25.00

Journal Article fred anderson. A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia. 1984. Pp. xii, 274. $25.00 Get access Anderson Fred. A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia. 1984. Pp. xii, 274. $25.00. Robert K. Wright, Jr. Robert K. Wright, Jr. Virginia Army National Guard Woodbridge, Virginia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 91, Issue 1, February 1986, Pages 174–175, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/91.1.174-a Published: 01 February 1986

Civil War Humor: Bill Arp

Professor Anne M. Christie is a member of the English Department in Agnes Scott College, Decatur , Georgia. Her doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago was a comprehensive study of BUI Arp, from a part of which this article is adapted. Civil War Humor: Bill Arp ANNE M. CHRISTIE the most popular a??. war humorist produced by the South was Charles Henry Smith, a Georgia lawyer who wrote under the pseudonym of Bill Arp. Highly effective as a satirist of the North, he supplied for his section an outlet for pent-up emotions comparable to that furnished the North by David Ross Locke and James Russell Lowell. Through the medium of newspaper letters written before and during his service in the Army of Virginia and as refugee with his family from the enemy when the Northern army captured his home town of Rome, Georgia, he "became the accepted mouthpiece of the Southern people in all questions touching the relations of the antagonists in the Civil War."1 In addition, he pointed the way through humor to the correction or endurance of bad situations at home connected with the running of the Confederate and State governments and the Southern conduct of the war. In return for these services the South accorded him such popularity that William Henry Hayne remarked in 1882, "His letters first appeared in 1861 and were welcomed by a large circle of readers. During the war every soldier in the field knew Bill Arp's last."2 And Henry W. Grady, Smith's friend and colleague on the staff of The Atlanta Constitution, could say in 1878: I doubt if any papers ever produced a more thorough sensation than did the letters written by Major Smith during the war. It is true that they had a certain local pungency that added zest and that a pronounced sectional feeling inflamed their reception into a triumph, but they were funny in themselves and 1 John Morris, in Edwin Anderson Alderman, Joel Chandler Harris, and Charles William Kent, (Editors) The Library of Southern Literature, 16 volumes and supplement (Atlanta: The Martin Hoyt Company, 1907-1924), XI, p. 4886. 2 "The Tale Tellers," Atlanta Constitution, November 12, 1882. 103 104ANNE M. CHRISTIE they will repay perusal now just as richly as when they were fresh struck from the coinage of his brain.3 Among many confirmations of this opinion is that furnished in 1892 by the Gainesville, Georgia, Eagle, which declared: "For more than twentyfive years no man, not excepting Henry Grady, has had the ear of the Southern people as has 'Bill Arp.' "4 I. THE NORTH AND THE WAR Had Smith not been extremely loyal to the South he might never have written at all. As the editor of the Rome (Georgia) Courier remarked on June 30, 1874, "His genius was born of our severest troubles. . . . His mission . . . was to produce the broad grin of humor and smooth the wrinkles of sad misfortunes." Stirred by Lincoln's order of April 15, 1861, for dispersal of rebel troops within thirty days, Smith, then a circuit judge at Rome, wrote an answer to it as though I was a good Union man and law-abiding citizen, and was willing to disperse if I could; but it was almost impossible, for the boys were mighty hot, and the way we made up our military companies was to send a man down the lines with a bucket of water and sprinke the boys, . . . and if a feller sizzed we took him and if he didn't sizz we didn't take him. Smith later described the reception of this "answer" and told how he, on this same occasion, acquired a pen name from one William Earp, typical Georgia cracker resident of his home town of Rome, who had overheard the reading of the letter. He changed the spelling of the name to Arp as a partial disguise. This is his account. I thought the letter was right smart and decently sarcastic, and so I read it to Dr. Miller and Judge Underwood, and they seemed to think it was right smart, too. About that time I looked around and saw Bill Arp standing at...