Civil War Battles Research Articles

The Class of 1861: Custer, Ames, and Their Classmates after West Point

George Armstrong Custer wrote about his friend Pierce Manning Butler Young, who left West Point to become a Confederate general: remember a conversation held at table at which I sat during winter of '60 '61. I was seated next to Cadet P. M. B. Young, a gallant young fellow, a classmate of mine, then since war an intimate valued friend a major-general in Confederate forces during war a member of Congress from his native State [Georgia] at a later date. The approaching war was as usual subject of conversation in which all participated, in freest most friendly manner. . . . Finally, in a half jocular, half earnest manner, Young turned to me delivered himself as follows: 'Custer, my boy, we're going to have war. It's no use talking: I see it coming. All Crittenden compromises that can be patched up won't avert it. Now let me prophesy what will happen to you You will go home, your abolition Governor will probably make you colonel of a cavalry regiment. I will go down to Georgia, ask Governor Brown to give me a cavalry regiment. And who knows but we may move against each other during war. . . .' Lightly as we both regarded this boyish prediction, it was destined to be fulfilled in a remarkable degree.Ralph Kirshner has provided a richly illustrated forum to enable West Point class of 1861 to write its own autobiography. Through letters, journals, published accounts, George Armstrong Custer, Adelbert Ames, their classmates tell in their own words of their Civil War battles of their varied careers after war.Two classes graduated from West Point in 1861 because of Lincoln's need of lieutenants, forty-five cadets in Ames's class in May thirty-four in Custer's class in June. The cadets range from Henry Algernon du Pont, first in class of May, whose ancestral home is now Winterthur Garden, to Custer, last in class of June. Only thirty-four graduated, remarked Custer, and of these thirty-three graduated above me. West Point's mathematics professor librarian Oliver Otis Howard, after whom Howard University is named, is also portrayed.Other famous names from class of 1861 are John Pelham, Emory Upton, Thomas L. Rosser, John Herbert Kelly (the youngest general in Confederacy when appointed), Patrick O'Rorke (head of class of June), Alonzo Cushing, Peter Hains, Edmund Kirby, John Adair (the only deserter in class), Judson Kilpatrick (great-grandfather of Gloria Vanderbilt). They describe West Point before Civil War, war years, including Vicksburg campaign battle of Gettysburg, courage character of classmates, ending of war.Kirshner also highlights postwar lives, including Custer at Little Bighorn; Custer's rebel friend Rosser; John Whitney Barlow, who explored Yellowstone; du Pont, senator author; Kilpatrick, playwright diplomat; Orville E. Babcock, Grant's secretary until his indictment in Whiskey Ring; Pierce M. B. Young, a Confederate general who became a diplomat; Hains, only member of class to serve on active duty in World War I; Upton, the class genius.The book features eighty-three photographs of all but one of graduates some of nongraduates. Kirshner includes an appendix entitled Roll Call, which discusses their contributions lists them according to rank in class.George A. Plimpton provides a foreword about his great-grandfather, Adelbert Ames-Reconstruction governor of Mississippi last surviving Civil War general-and President Kennedy.

Outside the Southern Myth.

Noel Polk, the Faulkner scholar and academician, is a native of the small Mississippi city of Picayune. In his career as an international scholar and traveler and in his role as a teacher and a professor of literature he has moved beyond his origins while continuing to be nourished by his hometown roots. Like many other southern men he doesn't fit the outside world's stereotype of the southern male. I almost invariably see myself depicted in the media as either a beer-drinking meanspirited pickup-driving redneck racist, a julep-sipping plantation-owning kindhearted benevolent racist, or, at best, a nonracist good ole boy, one of several variations of Forrest Gump, good-hearted and retarded, who makes his way in the modern world not because he is intelligent but because he's - well, good hearted. In Outside the Southern Myth Polk offers an apologia for a huge segment of southern males and communities that don't belong in the media portraits. His town was not antebellum. There were no plantations. No Civil War battles were fought there. It had little racial divisiveness. It was one of the thousands that mushroomed along the railroads as a response to logging and milling industries. It was mainly middle-class, not reactionary or exclusive. While evoking both the pleasures and the problems of his past-band trips, a yearning for cityscapes, religious conversion, awakening to the realities of fundamentalist fervor- Polk offers himself, his family, and his town to exemplify an aspect that is more American than southern and a tradition that is not mired in the past. As he explores the ways in which his experience of the South defined him, he concludes that his life has been experienced in a parallel universe, not in a time warp. He and many like him exist outside the southern myth. Noel Polk is the author of Children of the Dark House: Text and Context in Faulkner (University Press of Mississippi) and editor of the Reading Faulkner Series and of eleven Faulkner texts for Random House, The Library of America, and Vintage International.

Civil War Journal: The Battles (review)

3i8CIVIL war HISTORY In Rebel Georgia, Professor Boney presents a succinct popular history of the turbulent Civil War period in the Empire State. His presentation of the secession crisis and subsequent mania, though pared down for the layman, is cogent and eloquent. Every facet of the war as it affected the state is covered as he shows the progress of the conflict as reflected in events in Georgia: The state's industrial efforts to meet the rising demands of the military, the sometimes maverick Governor Joseph Brown, the paralyzing shock of the Great Invader, the erosion of the people's will; all are presented in engaging prose. Key Confederate figures from Georgia, military and political, are discussed in their proper time and milieu, albeit one wonders just what General John B. Gordon did at Chancellorsville that had him "emerging as one of Lee's ablest lieutenants" (38). He had already proven himself at Sharpsburg the year before and was to do much more in 1864-65. Another eminent Georgian, General William T. Wofford, neglected by the author, accomplished more at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg than Gordon and busied himself in early 1 865 feeding the people and restoring law and order in northwest Georgia. The author ties the past to the present with frequent similes which deal with popular movies and/or well-known works of twentieth-century literature such as All Quiet on the Western Front. Eminently readable, this book does much to provide the reader with a closer understanding ofthe tumultuous years of 1 86 165 in Georgia. Gerald J. Smith Paine College Civil War Journal: The Battles. Edited by William C. Davis, Brian C. Pohanka, and Don Troiani. (Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1998. Pp. xii, 468. $29.95.) The "Civil War Journal" series has been enjoyed by many viewers of the History Channel. This volume, the second ofthree, is an attempt to convert some of the televised episodes into book format. In the documentary style made famous by Ken Bums, narration is interspersed with comments from historians and other specialists, as well as briefquotations from persons who participated in or observed the action. Illustrations are an integral part of virtually every page. Most chapters include a map and occasionally several. All of this suggests a nice book appropriate for the Civil War enthusiast. But this volume has significant problems, beginning with the selection of contents. No one would argue that a book focused on Civil War battles should, or even could, include every one. Nor is it likely thy anyone would object to including Fort Sumter, First Manassas, the Monitor vs. the Virginia. Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chickamauga and Chattanooga. But these comprise only eight out of seventeen chapters. While it is perhaps helpful to have a chapter on "The Foot Soldier's Life," there are two more chapters on book reviews319 the "Iron Brigade" and the 54th Massachusetts regiment (no Confederate unit receives its own chapter). Even worse is an excessive concentration on Gettysburg. Undoubtedly Gettysburg was an important battle, but should it receive /oar chapters? Only one ofthese chapters is actually devoted to the battle, the others focus on the civilians, selected "unsung heroes" who died during or soon after the battle, and Lincoln and his "Gettysburg Address." This does not seem to be in keeping with the alleged focus on battles. Furthermore, after the Chickamauga-Chattanooga chapter (which barely mentions Chickamauga) only one campaign is included—Franklin and Nashville in late 1864. How can a book on Civil War battles omit Shiloh, Chancellorsville, everything in the eastem theater after Gettysburg, and all of Sherman's campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas?To present Franklin and Nashville as the only battles after 1 863 gives a very strange picture of the Civil War indeed! Each of the numerous illustrations is accompanied by a caption, frequently long enough to function as a sidebar. Some of the information in these captions is very useful, explaining the illustration or expanding upon the text. At other times it is repetitious of text material. Unfortunately, there are numerous discrepancies between the text and the captions. For example, did Farragut's boats break the chain across the Mississippi River below Near...

Grant Wins the War: Decision at Vicksburg (review)

book reviews319 the "Iron Brigade" and the 54th Massachusetts regiment (no Confederate unit receives its own chapter). Even worse is an excessive concentration on Gettysburg. Undoubtedly Gettysburg was an important battle, but should it receive /oar chapters? Only one ofthese chapters is actually devoted to the battle, the others focus on the civilians, selected "unsung heroes" who died during or soon after the battle, and Lincoln and his "Gettysburg Address." This does not seem to be in keeping with the alleged focus on battles. Furthermore, after the Chickamauga-Chattanooga chapter (which barely mentions Chickamauga) only one campaign is included—Franklin and Nashville in late 1864. How can a book on Civil War battles omit Shiloh, Chancellorsville, everything in the eastem theater after Gettysburg, and all of Sherman's campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas?To present Franklin and Nashville as the only battles after 1 863 gives a very strange picture of the Civil War indeed! Each of the numerous illustrations is accompanied by a caption, frequently long enough to function as a sidebar. Some of the information in these captions is very useful, explaining the illustration or expanding upon the text. At other times it is repetitious of text material. Unfortunately, there are numerous discrepancies between the text and the captions. For example, did Farragut's boats break the chain across the Mississippi River below Near Orleans on April 20, 1862 (caption, 127), or April 24 (text, 129). There are also questionable assertions (that Nebraska was admitted as a free state, 6), and countless careless errors. For example, in the maps of the second and third days at Gettysburg Lee's army is indicated by a U.S. flag and Meade's by a Confederate one! The map captions are so small as to be almost unreadable. It is a shame that this book has so many careless errors, because the general Civil War enthusiast for whom this book is intended is often a person who is interested in the minute details of the Civil War. He will really want to know whether Gettysburg's citizen hero John Bums was sixty-nine when he fought in that battle (293) or seventy (287). But he will not find out from this book. Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein University of Tennessee, Knoxville Grant Wins the War: Decision at Vicksburg. By James R. Arnold. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. Pp. xi, 387. $30.00.) Grant Wins the War is a compelling account of the Vicksburg campaign, which combines the best elements of popular and scholarly history. Prolific military historian James R. Arnold writes with verve and style, explains matters (such as the vast distances, geographical obstacles, and resultant logistical nightmares that plagued armies and navies in the west) that generally have been ignored or slighted by previous popular writers, and moves the complicated story along at a brisk pace. His literary effort rests on a solid foundation of research in both 320CIVIL WAR HISTORY manuscript and printed sources. The result is the best one-volume history of the struggle for Vicksburg yet published. Arnold depicts the triumvirate of Union leaders—Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and David D. Porter—as talented men who worked unusually well together but were not without a full complement of flaws and quirks. He depicts the situation on the Confederate side in a very different light. Joseph E. Johnston and John C. Pemberton come across as defeatist mediocrities unfit for their positions; the former a moral coward, the latter possibly a physical one. When the Vicksburg campaign began, the Confederates had nearly every advantage imaginable, but when it ended they had suffered their most catastrophic defeat of the war. Arnold convincingly demonstrates that the difference was leadership. The author has written previously about Grant and Union soldiers, so it is not surprising that his focus is on the overland aspects of the Vicksburg operation, especially the fast-moving events that transpired once Grant gained a foothold on the east bank of the Mississippi River. He presents a coherent narrative of the movements of both Union and Confederate armies and provides thorough accounts of the desperate little battles at Port Gibson, Raymond, and Jackson in which outnumbered Confederate...

Linking Geology and Social Studies - Civil War Battles for Southwestern Virginia's Lead and Salt

Geoscience teachers are uniquely positioned to explore linkages between the natural sciences and social studies such as history, economics, and geography. Developing such connections is important because geologists, like all natural scientists, need to explain better to students and the general public why science is important and how it affects our lives. To illustrate how this might be done, relationships among geology, geography, and Civil War history in southwestern Virginia are presented.Virginia's mineral contributions to the Confederacy were substantial, especially the production of lead and salt. Lead operations in Wythe County in southwestern Virginia produced this strategic metal from Mississippi-Valley type sulfide deposits hosted in Cambrian carbonate rocks of the Valley and Ridge. Ultimately, one-third of all the lead used by the Confederacy was obtained here. Nearby Saltville, also in the Valley and Ridge, provided from Mississippian evaporites an estimated twothirds of all Confederate salt. Federal military strategists rated the lead and salt operations and the railroad over which these strategic minerals moved as the top three military targets in this quadrant of the state. Consequently, a number of important military actions occurred as the North sought to destroy the South's single most important sources of lead and salt.The linkages developed herein suggest new ways for geoscience teachers to reach a variety of significant audiences, including students, faculty colleagues, and administrators on campus, as well as laypeople beyond the campus community. Promoting geoscience literacy and raising awareness about our profession is something in which all geologists should participate.

Facing fearful odds: the siege of Wake Island

Although the siege of Wake Island was not one of World War II's biggest campaigns, it had a profound psychological effect on the course of that struggle. This was the battle that first raised American spirits in the dark weeks immediately following Pearl Harbor. For sixteen suspenseful days, 449 U.S. Marines, assisted by a handful of sailors and soldiers and a few hundred civilian construction workers, withstood repeated attacks by numerically superior Japanese forces. Although Wake finally fell on 23 December 1941, its garrison made the Japanese pay an embarrassingly high price for a tiny coral outpost. Based on interviews with over seventy American and Japanese participants, the riveting, you-are-there narrative pulsates with the crack of rifles, the stutter of machine guns, the roar of cannon, and the concussion of bombs. This is military history from the bottom up, an unforgettable reading experience told from the perspective of enlisted men and junior officers who manned the front lines. Gregory J. W. Urwin is a professor in the department of history at the University of Central Arkansas. His publications include Victorious: Civil War Battles of General George Armstrong Custer (Nebraska 1990), The United States Cavalry: An Illustrated and United States Infantry: An Illustrated History, 1775-1918.

Shades of Blue and Gray: An Introductory Military History of the Civil War (review)

60CIVIL WAR HISTORY treatment. Stoneman himself attributed much of his poor showing on a disastrous raid during the Atlanta campaign to prostration from blood loss. Welsh has produced an impressive volume—exhaustively researched and painstakingly prepared. A glossary of the most frequently encountered conditions and terms from the era's outdated medical nosology is included to assist the modern reader. Also useful is a sequence section that includes the dates of wounds, accidents, and deaths inflicted as well as geographic locations. Like Medical Histories of Confederate Generals, this volume will have a wide appeal to those interested in the Civil War and medical history. James O. Breeden Southern Methodist University Shades ofBlue and Gray:An Introductory Military History ofthe Civil War. By Herman Hattaway. (Columbia: University ofMissouri Press, 1997. Pp. xii, 28 1 . $29.95.) Herman Hattaway's Shades ofBlue and Gray is a concise, intelligent, and enjoyable overview of military affairs in the Civil War. Neither a textbook nor a scholarly monograph, it is essentially an extended essay that reflects the author's interests, experiences, and personality. Hattaway hopes his book will provide a "good grounding in fundamental Civil War military history" for recruits new to the field and a "distillation of my thinking and my ideas" for veterans in need of a refresher (ix). In that, and in much more, he succeeds. While it is not possible to summarize Hattaway's take on every aspect of the Civil War, readers familiar with his earlier work on Northern victory and Southern defeat will find few surprises. The book opens and closes with surveys of pre- and postwar military developments in the nineteenth century, especially the rapid pace of technological change and the slower but equally significant growth of military professionalism. In the course of analyzing most of the major campaigns and battles, Hattaway examines such topics as the emergence of "hard" war, the development of army-sized raids, and the strengths and weaknesses of key commanders. He writes, for example, of Henry Halleck's superb but underappreciated managerial skills and of the "blinding exhilaration" that gripped R. E. Lee after Chancellorsville and affected his performance at Gettysburg. But this reviewer's favorite passage is Hattaway's suggestion that Richard Ewell had "severe mental problems" (143). According to the author, Ewell not only looked like a bird, he thought he was a bird. This assertion should make for a fascinating recasting of the struggle for Culp's Hill. Shades ofBlue and Gray is not without a few flaws. In such a brief book the amount of ink wasted on the faddish but insignificant topic of women soldiers is annoying, especially when so little is included about the war on the water. While Hattaway notes the development of mines and submarines, he has relatively little to say about the wide array of maritime and riverine activities car- BOOK REVIEWS6l ried out by the navies ofboth sides. Hattaway devotes a disproportionate amount of space to events in the eastern theater, an oddly old-fashioned approach that is a particular sore point with this reviewer. On the other hand, the unorthodox annotated bibliography is a welcome feature. Included are novels, picture books, and musical recordings along with the usual dry-as-dust scholarly tomes. (Note to all: future bibliographies of this sort will have to include CD-ROMS, computer games, and internet websites.) Quibbles aside, Shades of Blue and Gray is a thoughtful, informative, and sometimes provocative book that incorporates much recent scholarship and successfully fits the Civil War into the larger context of military developments in the early industrial era. William L. Shea University of Arkansas at Monticello Civil War Generalship: TheArt OfCommand ByWJ. Wood. (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1977. Pp. xii, 269. $59.95. Chroniclers of Civil War battles are not always good military historians, and vice versa. W J. Wood shows himselfadept at both in this insightful study of six Civil War commanders and how they coped with the unprecedented problems they faced. He beams with a discussion of that perennially interesting question of whether the Civil War was a modern war. His answer is that it both was and was not. It was, in his words, "the sandwiched war" (1...

Guide to the Battle of Shiloh (review)

book reviews251 fortysomething readers!), as are George Skoch's masterful maps. The endnotes and index contribute to the narrative's effectiveness and appeal to scholarly and general audiences. Gary Gallagher, a history professor at Pennsylvania State University, has again shown why he is a master editor-historian. These fresh, engrossing interpretations deserve book-length expansion. Gallagher and his colleagues have paved the way for the writing of "new" history of the "old" war. Ervin L. Jordan, Jr. University of Virginia Guide to the Battle of Shiloh. Edited by Jay Luvaas, Stephen Bowman, and Leonard Fullenkamp. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996. Pp. 253. $12.95.) The format of the series known as The U.S. Army War College Guides to Civil War Battles is based on a combination of comparison eyewitness Union and Confederate reports, supplemented by detailed maps, to interpret combat tactics , maneuvers, assaults, obstacles, achievements, and failures associated with several pivotal battles of the American Civil War. In this new volume, the authors journey across the Appalachians to the West and tackle the savage and confusing Battle of Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, fought in April 1862. Following the formula used in earlier volumes on Gettysburg, Antietam, Chickamauga, and Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg, the Shiloh text is primarily based on lengthy extracts from the Official Records, to the exclusion of other primary sources. For over half of the twenty-five tour stops selected to represent random phases of the combat, several detailed and thought-provoking eyewitness impressions relate the fighting experienced at Shiloh. The combination of Federal and Confederate reports give an "on the ground," chronological context for the battle and provide insight into the physical and psychological obstacles that challenged Civil War soldiers in combat. However, at many tour stops, comparison reports for both Federal and Confederate combatants are not presented. In many sections where only Federal, or only Confederate, reports are presented, the user has no opportunity to place the one-sided extracts in context relative to the overall "face ofbattle" experienced by both armies at that location. Thus, the image of Shiloh presented for the user is unbalanced, with several important phases of combat somewhat distorted. In addition, narrative extracts from postwar publications by Confederate colonel William Preston Johnston are incorporated as if they relate firsthand experience of Shiloh. The uninformed reader could falsely assume that Colonel Johnston (son ofthe Confederate Army commanderAlbert Sidney Johnston) was present and witness to the combat he describes. In fact, Colonel Johnston was stationed in Richmond, Virginia, on April 6 and 7, 1862, where he served as a military aide to President Jefferson Davis. This fact is never acknowledged for the reader. 252CIVIL WAR HISTORY The most unfortunate problem with the book is with the troop position maps. These maps, intended to be vital resources to assist the user in reconnoitering the ground where the battle was fought, are critically flawed and contain many errors. They are difficult to read and contain no contour topography or elevation information. This provides a two-dimensional (flat) view of the rugged terrain that governed the formation and the direction of the battle, as fought, on the Shiloh plateau. A modern overlay of Shiloh National Military Park, which illustrates current conditions for both forest and fields, is used as the base map. Beyond random identification of a few principle creeks, roads, and the Tennessee River, no geographical referencing ofthe important 1862 cultural landscape features is provided. Identifying these historical landscape features—the boundaries of fields and wood lines; primary roads, farm lanes, and traces; and over seventy log homes, barns, and churches—interprets the Shiloh plateau as experienced by the soldiers in 1862. On many of the maps, a number of the primary roads and creeks are not identified; and, although 90 percent ofthe roads present today are the same historic routes used by the armies in 1862, the authors incorrectly cite these as modern roads "built to take the visitor around the battlefield ." Besides not adequately citing terrain features on the maps, several army organizations (regiments, brigades, and batteries) are incorrectly identified, and/ or, their movements and positions are incorrectly located in context to both time and space for various phases of battle...

Blood and Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest

For decades before the Civil War, Southern writers and warriors had been urging the occupation and development of the American Southwest. When the rift between North and South had been finalized in secession, the Confederacy moved to extend their traditions to the west-a long-sought goal that had been frustrated by northern states. It was a common sentiment among Southerners and especially Texans that Mexico must be rescued from indolent inhabitants and granted the benefits of American civilization. Blood and Treasure , written in a readable narrative style that belies the rigorous research behind it, tells the story of the Confederacy's ambitious plan to extend a Confederate empire across the continent. Led by Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor, later a governor of Arizona, and General H. H. Sibley, Texan soldiers trekked from San Antonio to Fort Bliss in El Paso, then north along the Rio Grande to Santa Fe. Fighting both Apaches and Federal troops, the half-trained, undisciplined army met success at the Battle of Val Verde and defeat at the Battle of Apache Canyon. Finally, the Texans won the Battle of Glorieta Pass, only to lose their supply train--and eventually the campaign. Pursued and dispirited, the Confederates abandoned their dream of empire and retreated to El Paso and San Antonio. Frazier has made use of previously untapped primary sources, allowing him to present new interpretations of the famous Civil War battles in the Southwest. Using narratives of veterans of the campaign and official Confederate and Union documents, the author explains how this seemingly far-fetched fantasy of building a Confederate empire was an essential part of the Confederate strategy. Military historians will be challenged to modify traditional views of Confederate imperial ambitions. Generalists will be drawn into the fascinating saga of the soldiers' fears, despair, and struggles to survive.

Review: Guide to the Battle of Chickamauga. The U.S. Army War College Guides to Civil War Battles, by Matt Spruill

Book Review| October 01 1995 Review: Guide to the Battle of Chickamauga. The U.S. Army War College Guides to Civil War Battles, by Matt Spruill Guide to the Battle of Chickamauga. The U.S. Army War College Guides to Civil War BattlesMatt Spruill Dennis K. McDaniel Dennis K. McDaniel Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar The Public Historian (1995) 17 (4): 128–129. https://doi.org/10.2307/3378406 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Dennis K. McDaniel; Review: Guide to the Battle of Chickamauga. The U.S. Army War College Guides to Civil War Battles, by Matt Spruill. The Public Historian 1 October 1995; 17 (4): 128–129. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3378406 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe Public Historian Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1995 Regents of the University of California and the National Council on Public History Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Civil War Reenactors and the Postmodern Sense of History

Remarkably, Din of Civil War Is Growing Louder, declared an April 1990 New York Times headline to a short piece on the popular American passion for the Civil War. James McPherson is quoted as having been astonished by its persistence and growth. What is truly astonishing, however, is that anyone found this popular phenomenon in any way remarkable, even before the enormous success of Ken Burns' series on PBS and in video rental. For more than a decade now any gathering of three or more Americans--well, outside the confines of New York City and Princeton--includes at least one Civil War buff.Accounts of his passion commonly focus on the contention that the Civil War was the most important event in American history. Shelby Foote, who has achieved the authority of stardom in this realm, suggests that It resonates with so many things, and it is really no wonder, because that's what defines us...the Civil War is what made us the nation we (Remarkably). Ministers of civil religion of every stripe routinely play variations on this same theme.This passion is mediated in a variety of ways within American popular culture. Perhaps most notable is the consumption of such popular periodicals as Civil War Times Illustrated and The Civil War News; of the host of civil war books, reputedly now published at the rate of one and a half per day Remarkably); and of an increasing number of movies and television series. Thousands of Americans also participate in Civil War Round Tables, and courses on the Civil War are among the most popular offerings at colleges and universities. Tens of thousands annually visit Civil War battlefields like Shilo, Perryville, Gettysburg, Cedar Mountain, Bentonville and Fredericksburg. The collection of war-related artifacts of all kinds and of period documents, especially personal letters, is intense and extensive. The collection of period objects and reproductions of every description associated with the Civil War flourishes. In sum, the Civil War industry(1) is indisputably a significant element in the American popular culture.Civil War reenactors are a major subset of this cultural enterprise. Reenacting began in the 1950s (Turner 123), and while it is difficult to assess the current extent of this enthusiasm, one published estimate suggests that some 30,000 people regularly take part in recreating Civil War battles (Remarkably) and other events, often called encampments and skirmishes which, while not attempting to replicate specific occurrences, see to recreate Civil War camp life and military action. The notices of these events n the Camp Chase Gazette The Voice of Civil War Reenacting) and the Blue and Gray Magazine (For Those Who Still Hear the Guns) reveal that a reenactment of one kind or another takes place on virtually every weekend of the year. Their scale ranges from a simple demonstration involving as few as a dozen riflemen for a city's fall festival to the large-scale recreation of a specific battle, like the annual Perryville Reenactment which takes place on the October weekend closest to the anniversary, on the same ground as did the 1862 event and includes an elaborate encampment and employs over a thousand effectives, serving as infantry, cavalry and artillery, with people playing the roles of the several commanders and occasionally of particular common soldiers.Thirty thousand is likely a conservative estimate, as suggested by the increasing number and size of events and the boom in the trade in the paraphernalia required to create the atmosphere of authenticity. Attention to details of dress, arms and equipment, to forms of address, posture and movement, and sometimes even to speech are more often than not prized and painstakingly researched by the typical reenactor. Reenactors served as extras and made a large part of the popular audience for Glory, and they generally approved of the film's attention to detail, its authenticity.While a satisfactory demographic analysis has yet to be done, reenacting appears to be a remarkably democratic enterprise with respect to social class, If not race and gender. …

The Meaning of the Civil War

The Civil War lasted four years; the debate over its meaning and significance continues. During the last century and in the first part of this one the discussion oscillated between those who saw the war, often in moral terms, as the working out of the end of slavery and those who praised the triumph of constitutional government. In 1927 Charles and Mary Beard called the war the Second American Revolution, soon others argued that a blundering generation had made the war, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in the aftermath of World War II, embraced the conflict in moral terms. In reviewing the historical debate in Americans Interpret Their Civil War (1954), Thomas J. Pressly concluded that the participants had understood the war's meaning as well as or better than later historians. In the 1960s a younger generation of historians announced the birth of the new social history.1 Their principal purpose was to study the lives of ordinary people. Caught up in the fervor of the civil rights movement, they eagerly examined slavery in all its aspects and replaced the then prevailing view that Reconstruction had been a failure with the morally drawn conclusion that it had been a betrayal. They virtually ignored the Civil War. They ignored this war, I believe, for several reasons. First, they rejected war philosophically as part of the civil rights movement's commitment to nonviolence. Second, they had no desire to be associated with the military historians who were then helping to stage nostalgic centennial reenactments of Civil War battles. Third, they insisted upon studying the lives of ordinary people, and the Civil War, as conceived at the time, meant the study of politicians, generals, and battles in which the voices of ordinary people were all

The Civil War Battlefield Guide (review)

book reviews185 Aside from these oversights, Dawson's work is a well-balanced reference source to this period in American military history. On the whole, it provides a good departure point for the study of the army's place in American society and the liabilities it faced as it attempted to execute its multidimensional mission in the post-Civil War era. James W. Geary Kent State University The Civil War Battlefield Guide. Edited by Frances H. Kennedy. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990. Pp. 317, $29.95 cloth; $16.95 paper.) Just at a time when interest in Civil War battlefields is receiving increased national attention, when battlefield preservation has become the "hottest " and most popular preservation issue in Washington, The Conservation Fund has brought forth an outstanding guide to some 65 Civil War battlefields and campaigns, using essays on the subjects from an outstanding array of Civil War historians and other less expected authors. U.S. Senators Sam Nunn of Georgia and John Heinz of Pennsylvania, and CIA Director William Webster (whose grandfather was mortally wounded at Perryville) join with historians of the caliber of James McPherson, James I. Robertson, Stephen Sears, Ed Bearss, Gary Gallagher , William C. Davis, Ludwell Johnson, Richard Sommers, Herman Hattaway, the father-son team of Harry and Donald Pfanz, and literally dozens of others to present the best one-volume coverage of Civil War battles ever available anywhere. Under the able editorship of Frances Kennedy, the director of the Civil War Battlefield Project of The Conservation Fund (the Virginia-based group that acted as agent for the recent Mellon Foundation gift of over one hundred thousand acres, including several significant Civil War sites, to the National Park Service), the book is eminently qualified for the hoary, cliched recommendation, "... deserves a place on every Civil War buff's bookshelf." This book, in fact, could easily form the core of any Civil War buff's bookshelf, for the person who is primarily interested in Civil War battles can find no better primer than The Civil War Battlefield Guide. Photos show modern landmarks compared and contrasted with those same scenes in the 1860s. The individual field maps are drawn on modernday U.S. Geological Survey topographical maps with troop movements colored in, while the maps for the seven "campaign essays" were reproduced using originals in the Library of Congress. Not only is the book excellent both in content and in presentation, but the price is a good one. Proceeds will go toward the preservation 186 CIVIL WAR HISTORY of the very battlefields this unparalleled guide will enable you to study and understand. Jerry L. Russell Civil War Round Table Associates ^tY Wm m ...

"We Will All Be Lost And Destroyed": Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Civil War.

"We Will All Be Lost And Destroyed": Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Civil War Eric T. Dean, Jr. Since the conclusion of the Vietnam War, psychiatrists, politicians, and the public at large have come to see the Vietnam veteran as beset by a wide variety of problems, from alcoholism, drug abuse, divorce, homelessness, and unemployment, to anxiety disorders and suicide. According to the prevailing view, the Vietnam veteran's problems relate primarily to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a psychological condition caused by exposure to warfare. Returning from Vietnam with jangled nerves, the veteran's PTSD was aggravated by an indifferent and even hostile reception by the civilian population. Even his own government tried to ignore him, refusing to recognize problems related either to PTSD or to Agent Orange, and private employers shunned him as maladapted and dangerous. PTSD is evidenced by symptoms of rage, guilt, flashbacks, nightmares, panic, depression, and emotional numbing, and violent manifestations of the disorder have seized the public's attention. Prompted in part by efforts of Vietnam veterans' organizations, the American Psychiatric Association has recognized PTSD as a mental disorder.' Psychologists estimate that approximately five hundred thousand to 1.5 million of the three million Vietnam veterans may suffer from symptoms of PTSD.2 Advocates such as Robert Jay Lifton have described Vietnam veterans as unique in being "alienated" and "different from veterans of other wars"3 who seemingly did not suffer from "delayed stress." 1 American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , 3d ed. (Washington, D.C: American Psychiatric Association, 1980), 236-38. 2 C. Peter Erlinder, "Paying the Price for Vietnam: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Criminal Behavior," Boston College Law Review 25 (Mar. 1984): 305. 1 Robert Jay Lifton, Home From the War; Vietnam Veterans; Neither Victims nor Executioners (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), 35. Civil War History, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, c 1991 by the Kent State University Press POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER139 A corollary of this theory suggests that the problems of the Vietnam veterans would have been alleviated had the public welcomed them home as they did veterans of the First and Second World Wars.4 In sum, then, the theory holds that combatants in previous American wars usually were not subjected to the kind of stress that would result in permanent psychological damage, or, if they were, a warm homecoming ameliorated such problems. To anyone familiar with the American Civil War, the suggestion that Vietnam was unique in producing psychiatric casualties is suspect. Accounts of Civil War battles routinely refer to "dead bodies everywhere." The reaction of the soldier was often one of horror: "You must imagine the scene—I cannot describe it. The roar was unearthly; there is no better word for it. I shudder at the slaughter."5 If Civil War soldiers experienced combat trauma equal to, or more severe than, that of Vietnam, did these soldiers and veterans also suffer from something equivalent to PTSD? If such psychiatric casualties did occur, was the situation ameliorated after the war by a sympathetic civilian population? While the literature on the Civil War is voluminous, little or no attention has been paid to the phenomenon of psychiatric casualties in that conflict.6 This paper will investigate the ways in which psychiatric casualties were understood in the Civil War era, and it will further demonstrate that Civil War soldiers and veterans suffered both during and after the war from significant acute and delayed stress problems. Compared to more recent and expansive ideas of stress disorders and community mental health, the Civil War generation had a very narrow concept of insanity. Prior to the nineteenth century, in fact, the insane were usually lumped together with other socially dependent groups such as paupers, widows, or the physically disabled, and supported within the local community. Later, with the rise of the asylum, the insane were singled out and removed to the rapidly appearing insane asylums, 4 See "Psychiatric Problems of Vietnam Veterans," USA Today, Aug. 1981, 6; "The Forgotten Warriors; A Nation Begins to Understand, as the Viet Nam Vets Wait for Their Parade," Time, July 13, 1981, 18-25. ! Regis De Trobriand, Four Years with the...

Custer Victorious. The Civil War Battles of General George Armstrong Custer

Custer Victorious. The Civil War Battles of General George Armstrong Custer

The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 (review)

276CIVIL WAR HISTORY passage of Admiral Farragut's fleet past it, and of Banks' bloody, uncoordinated , unsuccessful assaults against it. The final chapter argues the Banks-Grant point in a "what if section which is interesting but unprovable. Had Banks been successful in his early assaults at Port Hudson, Hewitt contends, hewould havebeen able to link up with Grant and, by virtue of rank, would have superceded him, become thehero of Vicksburg, and eventually become commanding general ofthe entire Union army. Hewitt also argues herethat black performance at Port Hudson was instrumental in causing the North to accept the idea of black troops. Unfortunately he does not prove this point either. Hewitt tacks his brief discussion of these contentions onto his main effort: describing what happened when Union and Confederate forces clashed over Port Hudson on land and river. Hewitt does a good job in describing the fighting. He does not sugarcoat the horror of war; in one place, for example, he notes that "Blood, brains, and other parts of human bodies covered the Richmond" (p. 92) . He graphically depicts what happened to Union sailors and soldiers on both sides who were caught in the slaughter: they suffered horrible wounds and died awful deaths. They also ran; they pillaged; they scavenged ; they deserted. Officers gave stupid orders and stubbornly refused to change them in the face of the most obvious human and geographical obstacles. Human beings died, futilely charging into areas where no human could expect to survive. Hewitt clearly shows that fighting at Port Hudson was not romance and glamour; it was chaos and gore and death. Anyone desiring a detailed account of the skirmishes that took place around Port Hudson will find this book satisfying reading. More maps would have helped provide a clearer understanding of all the military maneuverings, but Hewitt's fine prose carries the reader along despite this deficiency. In recent years, during what has to be considered a renaissance in Civil War batde historiography, many new books of this kind have appeared. This one is thoroughly researched and well written and is aworthy example of the best of this genre. Still, the question has to be asked: just how many Civil War battles really need this kind of detailed treatment? John F. Marszalek Mississippi State University The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856. By William E. Gienapp . (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Pp. xi, 564. $35.00.) The years between 1852 and 1856 were among the more tumultuous in the political history of the United States. William E. Gienapp in his impressive study of the origins of the Republican party captures that book reviews277 tumult—the great complexity of issues, events, emotions, interests, and personalities—while providing a clear interpretative focus. This is political history at its best and will be the starting point for future studies of the politics of the 1850s. Gienapp's achievement does not lie in the creation ofa new interpretation of the rise of the Republican party. He follows in the path of Joel Silbey, who over two decades ago emphasized the importance of ethnocultural issues in antebellum politics, and Michael F. Holt, whose Political Crisis of the1850s (1978) provides the intellectual framework for The Origins of the Republican Party. Rather than developing a new explanation for the political realignment of the 1850s, Gienapp's great strength lies in the depth and breadth of his research, in his methodology, and in his impressive argument for Holt's thesis. Gienapp analyzes the actions of party leaders, contemporary assessments of political developments, and a huge array of election returns to provide a comprehensiveview of the progress of realignment at the state and national levels. Targeting nine northern states for close study, he supports his findings with an appendix of tables. The political realignment of the 1850s involved the replacement of the second American party system, comprised of national Whig and Democratic organizations, with a southern-oriented Democratic party and an exclusively northern Republican party. It also involved considerable shifting of party allegiances and the politicization of new voters. Like Holt, Gienapp argues that this took place in two distinct stages. In the first, prior to 1854, local ethnocultural issues...

Custer Victorious: The Civil War Battles of General George Armstrong Custer.

Custer Victorious: The Civil War Battles of General George Armstrong Custer.

Custer Victorious: The Civil War Battles of General George Armstrong Custer (review)

Custer Victorious: The Civil War Battles of General George Armstrong Custer (review)

Custer Victorious: The Civil War Battles of General George Armstrong Custer

Custer Victorious: The Civil War Battles of General George Armstrong Custer

Stones River—Bloody Winter in Tennessee

On December 31, 1862, some 10,000 Confederate soldiers streamed out of the dim light of early morning to stun the Federals who were still breakfasting in their camp. Nine months earlier the Confederates had charged the Yankees in a similarly devastating attack at dawn, starting the Battle of Shiloh. By the time this new battle ended, it would resemble Shiloh in other ways it would rival that struggle s shocking casualty toll of 24,000 and it would become a major defeat for the South. By any Civil War standard, Stones River was a monumental, bloody, and dramatic story. Yet, until now, it has had no modern, documented history. Arguing that the battle was one of the significant engagements in the war, noted Civil War historian James Lee McDonough here devotes to Stones River the attention it ahs long deserved. Stones River, at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, was the first big battle in the union campaign to seize the Nashville-Chattanooga-Atlanta corridor. Driving eastward and southward to sea, the campaign eventually climaxed in Sherman s capture of Savannah in December 1864. At Stones River the two armies were struggling desperately for control of Middle Tennessee s railroads and rich farms. Although they fought to a tactical draw, the Confederates retreated. The battle s outcome held significant implications. For the Union, the victory helped offset the disasters suffered at Fredericksburg and Chickasaw Bayou. Furthermore, it may have discouraged Britain and France from intervening on behalf of the Confederacy. For the South, the battle had other crucial effects. Since in convinced many that General Braxton Bragg could not successfully command an army, Stones River left the Southern Army torn by dissension in the high command and demoralized in the ranks.One of the most perplexing Civil War battles, Stones River has remained shrouded in unresolved questions. After driving the Union right wing for almost three miles, why could the Rebels not complete the triumph? Could the Union s Major General William S. Rosecrans have launched a counterattack on the first day of the battle? Was personal tension between Bragg and Breckenridge a significant factor in the events of the engagement s last day? McDonough uses a variety of sources to illuminate these and other questions. Quotations from diaries, letters, and memoirs of the soldiers involved furnish the reader with a rare, soldier s-eye view of this tremendously violent campaign. Tactics, strategies, and commanding officers are examined to reveal how personal strengths and weaknesses of the opposing generals, Bragg and Rosecrans, shaped the course of the battle. Vividly recreating the events of the calamitous battle, Stones River Bloody Winter in Tennessee firmly establishes the importance of this previously neglected landmark in Civil War history. James Lee McDonough is professor of history at Auburn University, and author of Shiloh In Hell before Night, Chattanooga A Death Grip on the Confederacy, and co-author of Five Tragic Hours: The Battle of Franklin.