Battle Of Bull Run Research Articles

America's Corporal: James Tanner in War and Peace by James Marten

Reviewed by: America's Corporal: James Tanner in War and Peace by James Marten Frances Clarke (bio) America's Corporal: James Tanner in War and Peace. By James Marten. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2014. Pp. 199. Cloth, $69.95; paper $24.95.) James Tanner—Civil War veteran, political kingmaker, and popular orator—was very much a product of his time and place: his fame did not outlast the nineteenth century. Yet this makes him a fascinating subject for a historical biography that seeks to illuminate the particular preoccupations, activities, and attitudes that nourished his celebrity during his own era. In James Marten's fast-paced, gracefully written study, Tanner's life offers a unique vantage point for examining Gilded Age politics, society, and culture. Born in a small village in New York State, Tanner entered the Union army at the age of seventeen and was promoted to corporal the following year—a rank he proudly claimed for the rest of his life. His regiment (the Eighty-Seventh New York Infantry) saw almost no battlefield service during his enlistment. But Tanner was unlucky enough to have both legs taken off below the knee by an exploding shell during the Second Battle of Bull Run. Marten vividly describes Tanner's experiences as he endured an operation, transportation northward, treatment for gangrene, and then life as a disabled veteran. He goes on to chart how Tanner threw himself into the study of stenography only a few months after the amputation of his legs, revealing the remarkable drive that marked the rest of his life. Having learned to walk on prosthetic limbs, Tanner worked in various state-government positions, got married, trained as a lawyer, and then secured a [End Page 722] position in the U.S. Custom House in Brooklyn. In this role, he made a name for himself as a plainspoken but enthralling public speaker—a talent he used in stumping for the Republican Party, which rewarded him with an appointment as tax collector of Brooklyn. It was as a spokesman for white Union veterans, however, that Tanner gained public and political clout. In an era when the veteran vote helped decide elections, Marten explains, Tanner's popularity among veterans enabled him to become part of an "inner circle" of lawyers, newspapermen, and current and former politicians who "chose candidates and plotted" for the Republican Party (63). The substantial role he played in helping elect Benjamin Harrison to the presidency in 1888 saw Tanner appointed to the position of commissioner of pensions—a role he used to push for a dramatic expansion of veterans' pensions, causing a backlash that forced his removal only a year later (and turned Tanner into an enduring symbol of the Gilded Age spoils system). His career finally culminated in his election as national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the North's largest veterans organization. Marten's lean biography packs in an immense amount of information and analysis while effortlessly carrying readers along. Indeed, part of the pleasure of reading this work lies in its condensed detail, covering everything from the cauterization of wounds and the fitting of artificial limbs to the steps involved in filling out a pension application. Marten offers substantial historical evaluation throughout as well, but he subsumes it beneath the surface of his story. In detailing Tanner's political experience, for instance, Marten is also analyzing the way politics worked in this period: how voters cast their ballots, how campaigns operated, how patronage was distributed. In discussing Tanner's appeal among veterans, he is scrutinizing how celebrity was created at the time: through entrepreneurialism, the cultivation of political and press connections, and immense amounts of public lecturing. And in identifying Tanner's appeal among veterans, he adroitly unites his story with a series of larger themes, ranging from post-war concepts of manhood, citizenship, and veterans' political roles to Civil War memorialization. Marten's ability to cover such a wealth of detail and such a range of themes without sacrificing narrative pace means that his wonderful biography will appeal to generalist and specialist readers alike. The one aspect of Tanner's life that I wish had been covered more...

Emory Upton: Misunderstood Reformer

At the time of his tragic death at his own hand in March, 1881, Emory Upton had emerged as the foremost military thinker in the United States Army. Born to a deeply devout Methodist family outside Batavia, New York, Upton attended Oberlin College in Ohio prior to entering the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Upton graduated in the Class of May 1861 and served on Gen. Daniel Tyler’s staff during the First Battle of Bull Run. The following month, Upton transferred to Battery D, 2nd U.S. Artillery. He fought in the Seven Days’ Battles around Richmond and in the Maryland Campaign. He headed the Artillery Brigade of the First Division in the VI Corps during the Battle of Antietam.

The Detmold Knife and the Empty Sleeve.

During and after the Civil War, the empty sleeve became a metaphor for veterans returning to a life they once lived easily, which was now a struggle. Few activities are as basic to daily life in Western cultures as eating with a knife and fork. The use of a traditional knife and fork pairing, though, requires the use of two hands in a fairly complicated series of maneuvers. Thus, one of the most necessary tools in the alternative toolkit of an upper-limb amputee is an eating utensil for one hand. After Admiral Horatio Nelson of the British Royal Navy lost an arm in battle in 1797, he used custom eating utensils. These implements, known as Nelson knives, consisted of a fork–knife combination on a single handle, the short knife blade holding the place of a fourth tine. Custom orders of this type were not within the means of most American Civil War veterans, and a more utilitarian utensil was devised by Dr. William L. Detmold. Detmold was a New York surgeon of some wealth and prestige, having developed an innovative surgery for clubfoot. Detmold helped to organize the U.S. Army Medical Corps for service in the Civil War, and he served as professor of military surgery and hygiene at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. Detmold wrote and lectured regularly on the injuries of war, especially gunshot wounds to various parts of the body. Detmold volunteered as a civilian surgeon at the First Battle of Bull Run. He became interested in amputation and prosthesis after his experience on the field, and this led him to invent the Detmold knife (Fig.1), an adaptive utensil that would help one-armed veterans rebuild the skills they needed to eat unassisted. The Detmold knife was manufactured by George Tiemann and Company (New York, New York) and was supplied by the U.S. Government to veterans of the Civil War after the loss of an upper limb. The Detmold knife was steel with a wooden handle and included a soft case for carrying when dining outside the home. Detmold’s design differs somewhat from the Nelson utensil, in that the fork portion consists of short tines carved out of the knife blade. Over time, a knife-and-fork utensil was developed in the United Kingdom that, although called a Nelson knife, resembled a Detmold knife. Utensils of this type are still available for purchase in the United Kingdom and Australia. The Detmold knife was acquired by the Army Medical Museum (now the National Museum of Health and Medicine) MoGer International in support of the National Museum of Health and Medicine, Defense Health Agency, 2500 Linden Lane, Silver Spring, MD 20910. Ms. Bradford, an employee of MoGer International, serves as Museum Specialist at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. The U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, 820 Chandler Street, Fort Detrick, MD 21701-5014 is the administering acquisition office. Award number W81XWH-13-C-0016. The National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM), a Department of Defense museum founded as the Army Medical Museum in 1862, is committed to documenting the nation’s military medical heritage while sustaining a repository of contemporary medical technology to advance military medicine. This series of articles illuminates objects and collections of interest to AMSUS readers. For more about the NMHM, visit www .medicalmuseum.mil. The contributor hereby certifies the contribution to be a work of the U.S. Government, which has been prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of his or her official duties, and therefore precluded from copyright protection under 17 USC §105. The contribution is in the public domain by operation of laws of the United States. The opinions and assertions contained herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the NMHM or the Department of Defense (DoD), any of the military services or other DoD components or any other government agencies, and does not constitute an endorsement by the DoD of any of the opinions expressed, or any information, products or services contained therein. doi: 10.7205/MILMED-D-15-00550 FIGURE 1. 150812-A-MP902-015. Civil War amputees used this adaptive knife and fork designed by W.L. Detmold and produced by George Tiemann and Company. The knife is currently on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, MD. (M-129.00018) (Disclosure: This image has been manipulated using dodging and burning techniques. It has been cropped to emphasize the subject.) (National Museum of Health and Medicine photo illustration by Matthew Breitbart/Released).

Book Review: Mathew Brady: Portraits of a Nation, by Robert Wilson

Mathew Brady: Portraits of a Nation. Robert Wilson. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2013. 288 pp. $28 hbk.It was a pleasure to read Robert Wilson's biography of Mathew Brady, the nineteenth- century photographer best known for his portraits of Abraham Lincoln and his Civil War images.Wilson's biography includes a timeline of the evolution of photography and the ebb and flow of the Civil War, along with a portrait of upper class social life in New York City and Washington, DC, in the 1800s. Wilson is the editor of The American Scholar and a widely published author whose work includes magazine articles, reviews and op-eds, and a biography of the American geologist and mountaineer Clarence King.I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of photogra- phy or the Civil War, as well as its use as required reading for any history of photography or mass communication history course. It is well written and edited and reflects carefully footnoted research into Brady's life and the evolution of photography in the United States.This biography's well-supported theme is that Brady is the single most important person in nineteenth-century American photography and that he should also be consid- ered the father of photojournalism. Wilson insightfully addresses three common myths about Brady throughout his book to capture reader attention: (1) that Brady alone was responsible for most Civil War era photographs; (2) that Brady was not a photographer at all (due to his poor vision) and simply took credit for photographs taken by others; and (3) that Brady moved dead soldiers and used other unethical methods to make more powerful photos.Early chapters account for Brady's early life growing up on a farm in upstate New York, including his damaged eyesight due to illness, his first exposures to art, and his business experiences after he moved to New York City. By the time he first opened a photography studio in 1841, Brady had retail skills, artistic abilities, and a willingness to experiment with improving the technology and aesthetics of photography. Wilson documents throughout this book that Brady was also a master of self-promotion who knew well the value of proximity to celebrities of his time.I commend this book for its well-reproduced black-and-white illustrations and a sixteen-page color insert, and recommend the chapters describing how and why Brady's life changed in 1861 from his fame as a photographer of artistic portraits to being one of the first-if not the first-photographer and commercial distributor of war photography.Wilson describes in detail Brady's first and unpleasant wartime experiences at the first Battle of Bull Run, and how he did not return to the field until 1863. Brady hired photographers such as Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan (among others) to photograph the brutal consequences of battle. I particularly recommend chapter 11's account of the impact of photos of the war had at the time, starting after the battle at Antietam when Gardner's photos of dead soldiers first emerged. …

Walt Whitman and Civil War Washington

Walt Whitman and Civil War Washington Kenneth M. Price Walt Whitman famously described his visits to thousands of wounded Civil War soldiers in Memoranda During the War, a volume with a largely ignored subtitle: “Written on the Spot in 1863-’65.” I want to highlight that subtitle and its emphasis on space and time—its geo-temporal specificity—to ask what it meant to have a writer of Whitman’s sensibilities thrust into the nation’s capital city in the final three years of the war, when it had become a city of hospitals. More wounded soldiers were treated in Washington, DC, than in any other city, and Whitman, a visitor to dozens of hospitals, gravitated toward the epicenter of suffering. He spent most of his time at Armory Square Hospital, which hosted the worst cases and had the highest death rate. At a time of unprecedented maiming and killing, Whitman engaged in the work of healing. Leaves of Grass, his poetic masterpiece, intertwined the physical bodies of men and women and the symbolic body of the nation and saw in both a capacity to embrace contradictions and diversity while still remaining united and whole. Both the nation and Whitman’s poetic project were at risk as he confronted innumerable broken and battered bodies. In this new context, he reassessed the possibilities for poetry, the future of democracy, and even the efficacy of affection, a quality that he had always believed sustained civil society. Faced with massive destruction, in what ways did Whitman succeed and fail in making meaning of it, in finding reasons for hope? The crisis of war remade both Whitman and Washington, DC. The city more than tripled in size from 63,000 to 200,000 inhabitants and underwent profound change, as the maps available on the Civil War Washington digital site illustrate; once a relatively quiet town with a busy political season, it absorbed a new and year-round population of soldiers, bureaucrats, prostitutes, adventure-seekers, merchants, doctors, nurses, and undertakers. During the course of the War, forty thousand fugitive slaves, known as “contrabands,” fled to the nation’s capital: they often resided in camps run by the government and charitable organizations and many worked on military projects. (The term “contraband of war,” used by General Benjamin Butler in 1861 to refer to former slaves who reached Union lines, became widely adopted thereafter.) The routine of life in the city was frequently interrupted by military drills and the [End Page 121] fear or rumor of imminent Confederate attacks. From the First Battle of Bull Run, Confederate armies continually threatened Washington as part of General Robert E. Lee’s strategy of taking the war to the north. Lee’s offensives of 1862 and 1863, leading to key battles at Antietam and Gettysburg, were meant to threaten Washington, to encourage the numerous Southern sympathizers in the North, and to challenge President Lincoln’s administrative authority. In response, Lincoln ordered the creation of a 37-mile ring of forts and batteries, effectively transforming the capital city into a citadel (Winkle xii). Prior to coming to Washington, Whitman had experienced a life far removed from armed conflict. He had spent the pre-war years in the New York area where he had worked as a printer, school teacher, journalist, occasional politician and stump speaker, and a successful builder of homes. He was a remarkably competent and effective builder: he sold homes for profit, established his mother and the extended family under her care in a dwelling he constructed in Brooklyn, and arrested the family’s economic decline (Roper 54–66). He also mastered the lingo of building with its grounding in concrete particularity, and this approach to language informed his breakthrough book of poetry, Leaves of Grass, published in 1855: he wanted his style to be as stout as a plank, as sturdy as a crossbeam. Yet if Whitman’s language was often concrete—even earthy—it could also reach to the stars. Or as Ralph Waldo Emerson explained, Whitman’s writing was a “remarkable mixture of the Bhagvat Ghita and the New York Herald” (Sanborn 144). Writing with great resourcefulness across verbal registers, Whitman established himself as a poet...

Historians' Forum: The First Battle of Bull Run

Historians' Forum: The First Battle of Bull Run

Elizabeth Stoddard’s Civil War: “Gossip from Gotham” and the San Francisco <em>Daily Evening Bulletin</em>

In a letter written to her friend Edmund Clarence Stedman on 20 March 1862, Elizabeth Stoddard expressed admiration for his war letters, written with ease and spirit, that had been published in the New York World. Stedman, who was at the time serving simultaneously as war correspondent for the World and pardon clerk in the US Attorney General's office in Washington, DC, had earned a reputation as a journalist with his letter on the first battle of Bull Run, which was reprinted extensively and republished in pamphlet form almost immediately after the battle. In this letter, Stoddard lamented her own lack of similar opportunities, complaining, If only some newspaper would engage me to write a few seat-of-war letters! I could do them well I know. But there seems to be no luck for me. Stoddard scholars have taken the author at her word here, perhaps because a handful of periodical publications and the 1865 appearance of her second novel, Two Men, did not indicate a gap in her body of work. In the introduction to my own edition of Two Men, I dismissed Stoddard's desire to write feminine seat-of-war as an unfulfilled ambition (xxxv--xxxvi). Like others before me, I assumed that the Daily Alta California letters (seventy-five articles published between 1854 and 1858) and her late work for the Independent represented Stoddard's only contributions to the field of journalism and read the Alta letters as an apprenticeship of sorts to her real work, the writing of novels, poetry, and short fiction. However, in 2008, while working simultaneously on an edition of Stoddard's letters and a project on Stoddard's friend and fellow writer, Elizabeth Akers Allen, I came across a familiar voice in the pages of the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin. Following a hunch, I printed out a series of twenty-two letters published between May 1862 and March 1863 attributed to the Bulletin's, Correspondent and, using internal evidence and her personal correspondence, proved that they were, in fact, written by Stoddard. (1) The Bulletin letters are, in many ways, a continuation of the work she had done for the Alta. As in the Alta letters, Stoddard wrote reviews of books, plays, and musical performances; she recounted her attendance at social affairs; and she responded to local and national news, often cataloguing items she found in other newspapers. Her work is distinguished that of other Bulletin correspondents by being titled Gossip Gotham rather than Letter from a city such as New York (a title already taken by a male correspondent) or Washington. As in the Alta, her gender is further highlighted with the label Correspondent. Yet, in both series, Stoddard reclaimed and clarified that authorial persona for her audience, differentiating her work that of other newspaper writers of the day. In her first column for the Alta, published on 8 October 1854, for example, she attempts to distinguish herself other female letter writers: This being my first essay to establish myself in the columns of your paper as one of our own, I debate in my mind how to appear most effectively, whether to present myself as a genuine original, or adopt some great example in style: such as the pugilism of Fanny Fern, the pathetics of Minnie Myrtle, or the abandon of Cassie Cauliflower. ... On the whole I conclude not to attempt the ornate at present, but to send you letters containing facts and opinions. (Letter a Lady Correspondent) In her initial letter for the Bulletin, published eight years later, Stoddard similarly disturbs her readers' expectations of a Correspondent by claiming for herself the role of war correspondent, or prose-troubadour, whose adventures might compete with those of her male counterparts for her readers' attentions (12 May 1862). Stoddard was acutely aware of the masculinized, romanticized nature of war correspondence. …

Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run (review)

Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run (review)

The Battle of Bull Run

The Battle of Bull Run

The Civil War and Reconstruction: a documentary reader

Acknowledgments. Introduction. I: Causes: . 1. [William Lloyd Garrison], Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1833. 2. Henry Highland Garnet, Address to the Slaves of the U.S., 1843. 3. John C. Calhoun, Address of the Southern Delegates to Their Constituents,1849. 4. William H. Seward, Irrepressible Conflict, 1858. 5. Ballou's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, Slaves Picking Cotton, 1858. 6. John Brown, Last Speech, 1859. II: Disunion to War: . 1. South Carolina, Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina, 1860. 2. John J. Crittenden, Crittenden Compromise Proposal, 1860. 3. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Jefferson Davis about to Become Provisional President of the Confederacy, 1861. 4. Daniel Decatur Emmett, I wish I was in Dixie's Land, 1860. 5. Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, 1861. 6. Alexander H. Stephens, Cornerstone Speech, 1861. 7. Mary Boykin Chesnut, Approaching Conflict at Fort Sumter, 1861. III: Battles:. 1. William Howard Russell, First Battle of Bull Run, 1861. 2. Walt Whitman, 1861, 1861. 3. William Monks, Battle of Wilson Creek and Guerilla War in Missouri, 1861-1862. 4. S. Dana Greene, The Monitor Battles The Virginia (Merrimac), 1862. 5. David H. Strother, Battle of Antietam, 1862. 6. Frank A. Haskell, Battle of Gettysburg, 1863. 7. Timothy O'Sullivan, Union Dead on the Gettysburg Battlefield, 1863. 8. Samuel E. Hope, Black-White Guerilla War in Florida, 1863. 9. James Longstreet, Battle of Chickamauga, 1863. 10. Robert E. Lee, Surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, 1865. 11. Ulysses S. Grant, General Report of Operations, 1865. IV: Soldiers' Experiences:. 1. Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, A Woman in the New York Volunteers, 1862-1863. 2. Spencer Glasgow Welch, Preserving Discipline in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1863 3. Unattributed Photograph, Union Soldiers Recovering from Wounds, 1864. 4. Frank Holsinger, Union Soldiers under Fire, 1862-1864. 5. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Religion and the Daily Lives of Union Soldiers in Alabama, 1864 6. Charles Minor Blackford, A Confederate Officer Observes the Siege of Petersburg, 1864 7. James S. Brisbin, U.S. Colored Cavalry in Virginia, 1864. 8. Unidentified U.S. Sanitary Commission Official, On Soldiers and Prostitutes, City Point, Virginia, 1864. 9. Eliza Frances Andrews, A Confederate Woman on Union Prisoners at Andersonville, 1865. V: Homefronts: . 1. Mary A. Ward, Confederate Women Prepare Their Men for War, 1861. 2. Regis de Trobriand, Corruption in Washington, D.C., 1862. 3. Julia A. Wilbur, Contraband Camps in Alexandria, Virginia, 1863. 4. [Dora Miller], Life in Besieged Vicksburg, 1863. 5. Sallie Brock Putnam, Richmond Bread Riot, 1863. 6. Illustrated London News, New York City Draft Riot, 1863. 7. John Greenleaf Whittier, Barbara Frietchie, 1864. VI: Political Perspectives: . 1. Julia Ward Howe, Battle Hymn of the Republic, 1862. 2. Horace Greeley and Abraham Lincoln, Union War Aims, 1862. 3. Joseph E. Brown, State Sovereignty in the Confederacy, 1862. 4. Abraham Lincoln, Emancipation Proclamation, 1863. 5. Clement L. Vallandigham, Northern Opposition to the Civil War, 1863. 6. Frederick Douglass, Men of Color to Arms, 1863. 7. Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, 1863. 8. Bromley and Company, Democratic Caricature of Republican Racial Policy, 1864. 9. Robert Barnwell Rhett Jr., War for Slavery, 1865. 10. Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, 1865. VII: The Trans-Mississippi West:. 1. U.S. Congress, Homestead Act, 1862. 2. John S. Smith, Sand Creek Massacre, 1864. 3. United States and Sioux Nation, Treaty of Fort Laramie, 1868. 4. Andrew J. Russell, Joining of the Rails, Promontory, Utah, 1869. VIII: Reconstruction:. 1. Abraham Lincoln, Presidential Reconstruction, 1863. 2. Alexander Gardner, African-American Refugees Amid Ruins of Richmond, 1865. 3. State Convention of the Colored People of South Carolina, Memorial To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, 1865. 4. Thaddeus Stevens, Congressional Reconstruction, 1865. 5. United States, Reconstruction Amendments. 6. National Woman Suffrage and Educational Committee, An Appeal to The Women of the United States, 1871. 7. Elias Hill, Ku Klux Klan Terrorism, 1871. 8. Albion W. Tourgee, Failure of Reconstruction, 1879. Suggested Reading...

Sudley Church, Used as a Hospital During the Battle of Bull Run

Sudley Church, Used as a Hospital During the Battle of Bull RunStefan C. Schatzki1Audio Available | Share

Donnybrook: The Battle of Bull Run, 1861

Donnybrook: The Battle of Bull Run, 1861

The Third Battle of Bull Run: The Disney's America Theme Park (a)

The Third Battle of Bull Run: The Disney's America Theme Park (a)

Letters

favor narrative over analysis. Throughout the book, brief attempts toplace Sharon's story in broader historical perspective and to engage the current historical literaturegenerally remain undeveloped. For example, Makley startshis seventh chapter on "The Ophir Debacle" with the observation that American economic devel opment had longdepended on government aid and thuswas rarelyan example of the laissez faireindividualismmen likeSharon supposedly characterized (p. 103). True enough. Yet, the chapter actually saysalmost nothing about the federal government's role in thedevelopment of theComstock. These brief nods toward the broader historical context often feel like later additions to the book, leaving them poorly integrated into the overall narrative. Indeed, contrary to Makley's assertion,Rockefeller and Carnegie arguably created a typeof corporate capitalism that was a significantdeparturefrom Sharon's largely traditional, ifhypertrophied, approach tobusiness. Ifhis evidence indicates otherwise, thenhe fails tomake the case here. Nonetheless, Makley has some good stories to tell.The book provides a detailed picture of how an emigrant from Smithfield,Ohio, with few means but considerable daring and energy was able to consolidate control over a good portion of one of the richest silver strikes in American history. Makley isequally thorough inhis tellingof the crisis that almost scuttled William Ralston's seemingly invulnerableBank of California in 1875. Sharons role in salvag ing the bank, and thus avoiding widespread economic calamity, was typical of theman ? Sharon managed to enrich his own bank account while doing an indisputable public service. Makley's penchant forstorytellingover analysis also serveswell in the laterchapters of thebook,which aremostly devoted to Sharon's somewhat bizarre attempts toavoid sharinghis wealth with a formermistress claiming to be his legalwife. Academic historians, though,will find the lackof analysis of such topics as Sharon's term as a U.S. senator more than a little frustrating. Why would aman so obviously bent on power make so littleuse of a Senate seat forhis own ends, actually deigning tovote in less than one percent of all roll calls?Makley does not really tellus. Still, thisbook will be useful to academics specializing in the histories of theComstock, Nevada and California, western business, and, of course, Sharon himself. Likewise, a popular audience will enjoyMakley's tales of power, corruption, and scandal. Historians interested in the broader history of theAmerican West, though, will probablybefrustratedby thebook's narrow focus and lack of analytical depth. Timothy J.LeCain Montana State University,Bozeman _LETTERS To theEditor: Your biographical sketch of Isaac Stevens, which introduces the fall 2005 issue, while necessarily short, does not do justice to this brave soldier,who played such an important role in the settlement of the West in the days leading up to thenation's CivilWar. Stevens graduated at the top of his class at West Point and served as an army officerdur ingthe Mexican War. In 1853, hewas appointed governor of the Washington Territory and in 1857was elected as the territory'sdelegate to Congress. As theCivilWar commenced, Stevens returned to army lifeserving as colonel, then brigadier general, and finallymajor general of the 79th New York Highlanders. The article concludes simply: "On September 1,1862, he died at thebattle ofChantilly."While accurate, not all ofyour readers maybe familiar with that battle or of General Stevens's bravery. In thefinal days ofAugust 1862,the armies of theNorth and the Southmet in the Second 638 OHQ vol. 107, no. 4 Battle of Bull Run, fought near Manassas, Virginia, less than fifty miles from Washing ton, D.C. The battle raged back and forth throughout theday ina driving rainstorm,and by nightfall on August 30 the drenched and demoralized Union armywas in retreat and fellback about tenmiles to a fortifiedridge above Centerville, a key crossroads connecting northernVirginia to Washington, D.C. The next day,Confederate General Stone wall Jackson organized his troops and began tomarch around thenorth side ofCenterville. In thebattlefieldconfusion, neither armyknew where the otherwas positioned or what they planned to do next. General Stevens led his New York Highlanders north and east from Centerville looking for theConfederate army. On the afternoon ofMonday, September 1,he found themon the south slope ofOx Hill inan area known as Chantilly. With no more than four thousand troops under his command, Stevens ordered a sur prise attack against Jackson'sfifteenthousand...

US Civil War Print Culture and Popular Imagination

Because the crisis of the Union was a crisis of representation, studies of the literature and culture of the US Civil War inevitably struggle with questions of inclusion and exclusion: whose view- points should be preserved among the victors and the vanquished? Who has the authority to speak, both in terms of the capacity to transmit experience and in terms of moral sanction? Should civilians be trusted to represent the experiences of combatants? Should pro- slavery views share the platform with abolitionist perspectives? How do we evaluate white representations, both Northern and Southern, of black experience? Where can we find authentic repre- sentations of African-American wartime experience? What do women have to say about the from the home front or the hospi- tals? What genres are best suited for the cultural tasks of making meaning and memory from chaotic events? Should nonfictional forms—personal narratives, letters, diaries, photographs—have a privileged place in testifying to the realities of war? What function do poetry and fiction serve in shaping and expressing wartime expe- rience and in postwar attempts at forging a usable past? If the real war did not or cannot make its way in(to) the books, as Walt Whitman suggests, then how can we convey at least a suggestion of the necessary shortcomings in representations of suffering, trauma, and loss (778)? The calculus of selecting and valuing Civil War-era texts is complicated by the fact that this deadliest of conflicts coincided with the rise of mass media and an outpouring of visual and verbal repre- sentations of wartime experience. Telegraph, steamship, and railroad enabled rapid transmission of news and widespread dissemination of ephemeral print materials throughout the North and, to a lesser degree, the South. The home front's hunger for unadulterated news and images from the battlefields blended with a fascination with as spectacle, fantasy, entertainment extravaganza: Herman Melville figured this unnerving interfusion in his poetic treatment of the pic- nic party in the May that attended the First Battle of Bull Run (59).

Resident And Faculty Involvement In Tactical Emergency Medical Support: A Survey Of U.S. Emergency Medicine Residency Programs

Resident And Faculty Involvement In Tactical Emergency Medical Support: A Survey Of U.S. Emergency Medicine Residency Programs

Forgotten Valor: The Memoirs, Journals, and Civil War Letters of Orlando B. Willcox

Forgotten Valor: The Memoirs, Journals, and Civil War Letters of Orlando B. Willcox. Edited by Robert Garth Scott. (Kent, Ohio, and London. Kent State University Press, c. 1999. Pp. xxxii, 720. $49.00, ISBN 0-87338-628-0.) Forgotten Valor is a whale of a book. Rarely are collections of personal papers so extensive or carefully edited without support of National Historical Publications and Records Committee. More than that, these papers are genuinely new, the largest collection of Civil War papers to surface in half a century (p. xiii), and editor Robert Scott's tale of discovery, sort historians dream about, will brighten any scholar's day. Two hundred fifty pages of Forgotten Valor treat Orlando B. Willcox's life from childhood through U.S. Military Academy, where he graduated in class of 1847, and his service in Mexico, Florida, a variety of eastern garrisons, and on western frontier. It provides scholars with a broad-ranging look at antebellum army, intimate views of operations in Army of Potomac, and of civil-military relations across antebellum and Civil War eras. Yet book is not for Civil War scholars alone. It is a highly self-conscious personal narrative woven together over two decades by complex tensions between religious self-discipline, domestic and romantic sensibilities, and gendered sociability. The papers include many memoirs Willcox wrote, largely between 1885 and 1905, which he intended to form his autobiography, as well as his journals and letters from 1841 through 1865. These materials were and are arranged in chronological order in which events took place, and Scott has retained Willcox's practice of appending journals and letters to pertinent chapters. Because Willcox sometimes wrote more than one memoir of an experience--for example, capture of Alexandria, Battle of Bull Run, and year he spent as a prisoner of war--Scott has used most comprehensive accounts and inserted supplementary material from others, using a system of brackets to identify insertions. Thus a typical chapter begins with Willcox's memoir, usually short for antebellum period, then concludes with letters, almost entirely from Civil War and including letters both to and from Willcox, and intermittent journal entries. Scott sometimes provides introductions, particularly for Civil War period, and his extensive footnotes both clarify references and identify places and individuals. The most significant antebellum chapters are those on Willcox's service in Third Seminole War, virtually sole published primary account by a regular officer, and on his service as one of commanders of force involved in rendition of fugitive slave Anthony Burns, only primary account by a regular officer involved in this event, only case in which regular army was employed to enforce Fugitive Slave Law. Apart from these, Willcox paid little attention to military affairs, writing primarily of his extensive social engagements, romantic longings, and ever-uncertain religious state. …

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 …”

A War of the People: Vermont Civil War Letters (review)

BOOK REVIEWS69 the Chattahoochie [sic] River, September 4, 1864" (245), Fleharty announces the fall ofthe Southern bastion to the victorious national armies commanded by William T. Sherman. Then quite abruptly, with the apparent close of the campaign , he concluded his series of letters and stopped writing to the newspapers. Fleharty informed his readers that his reasons to discontinue his war dispatches were "weighty and most decidedly confidential" (246). The decision to quit sending newspaper dispatches, however, did not end Fleharty's war experiences, for he continued to serve faithfully to the conclusion of the war, marching with Sherman to the Sea and in the advance through the Carolinas. A number of the impressions Fleharty recorded about the final western campaigns, provided in a number of personal letters, are incorporated by the editors in their detailed and generous introduction. Jottings From Dixie provides a welcome study of Fleharty's entire life— from prewar through postwar experiences. The press dispatches illustrate a remarkably open and perceptive mind. Beyond thoughtful accounts ofregimental activities, Fleharty often informed his readers about the natural history and historic sites of the South—such as a personal investigation of the Stones River battlefield—he took the opportunity to visit when off duty. Extremely Uterate, the descriptions arid insights into soldiering during the turbulent years of civil war are clearly written and helped reveal to his audience a people and a society most of them would never have the opportunity to experience. In recent years, more and more historians have become aware of the great value of wartime letters to newspapers in helping our generation understand the Civil War. The collection of soldier-correspondent letters by Sgt. Maj. Stephen F. Fleharty provides a compelling and interesting narrative ofthe daily challenges facing the common Civil War soldier. It is unfortunate that the young man chose to quit his soldier-correspondent duties with the fall ofAtlanta—but who are we to judge such a personal decision? Rather, the reader should consider it most fortunate that the provocative impressions this entertaining Illinois soldier deemed important to record have finaUy been published for the enjoyment of future generations. Stacy D. Allen Shiloh National Military Park A War ofthe People: Vermont Civil War Letters. Edited by Jeffrey D. Marshall. (Hanover, N.H.: University Press ofNew England, 1999. Pp. xviü, 357. $25.00 paper.) Writing to his son, William Jr., on July 29, 1861, William Young Ripley of Rutland, Vermont, reflected on the results and significance of the first Battle of Bull Run. "This is a war of the people, and the men at Washington—will find that they are only agents int he matter" (40). Jeffrey D. Marshall, university archivist and curator of manuscripts at the University of Vermont, has taken his 70CIVIL WAR HISTORY title and his cues from Ripley's letter. This volume includes over 140 carefully selected letters from Vermont soldiers of every rank and civilians of every economic and social class. Marshall foUows the Civil War from its earliest days through the beginnings of the disbanding of the Union army in June 1865. He drew his sources from an estimated nine thousand extant letters in ten public research institutions and three private collections. Correspondents include Vermont soldiers and officers in the infantry, cavalry , and artillery, musicians, one of the 150 Vermont African American soldiers , a French Canadian who enlisted in a Vermont regiment, chaplains, the parents, siblings, wives, and friends ofsoldiers. The soldiers write on the march, sometimes using a cartridge case or saddle as a writing desk, and form tents and barracks. They write to say that they have survived; to express optimism, discouragement , patriotism, piety, and occasionally their prejudices. They describe details and sometimes the seamier sides of camp life and the dehumanizing viciousness of soldiering. They recount their experiences in battles, comment on what they read in newspapers or letters from home, and quell or report rumors . Often they reveal how little they themselves know of what is happening or has happened in the events in which they participate. They write to request boxes ofprovisions, occasionally to request bottles of Uquor that they can sell at great profit, and most of all to request letters from home...