Book Reviews

Book Reviews — December 2018

Originally published December 2018 · pp. 36–41

Irregular Warfare in Appalachia Kirk’s Civil War Raids Along the Blue Ridge. By Michael C. Hardy. Appendix, notes, index, 189 pp., 2018. The History Press, www.historypress.net. $21.99 paperback. Reviewed by John Martin McMillan Civil War News book reviews provide our readers with timely analysis of the latest and most significant Civil War research and scholarship. Contact Stephen Davis, Civil War News Book Review Editor. Email: [email protected].

Historians Kenneth Noe and Shannon Wilson, in their edited volume The Civil War in Appalachia, compare the scholarship on the Civil War in the Southern mountains to the “unusual atmospheric phenomena” known as acoustic shadows. Because of these strange atmospheric conditions a battle made no sound even to close observers. The literature on the Civil War in Appalachia makes similarly limited noise in the overall narrative of the war, even though the region encountered all facets of the Southern war experience: regular and irregular warfare, privation, subjugation, and emancipation. Michael C. Hardy’s Kirk’s Civil War Raids Along the Blue Ridge gives more voice to the region by tracing the story of a bitter and violent guerrilla conflict that raged in the heart of Appalachia. Hardy’s work also contributes to the Civil War sub-field of guerrilla studies, which has seen a recent surge in attention by scholars such as Matthew Stith, Joseph Beilein, and Matthew Hulbert. Divided into seven chronological chapters, Kirk’s Civil War Raids Along the Blue Ridge examines a contiguous twelve-county area along the border region between east Tennessee and western North Carolina. Hardy argues that the “inner civil war waged along the border mountain counties had an impact on the Confederate war effort as a whole.” Rebel soldiers in other theatres of war needed the border region’s vital resources, especially railroads, salt works and lead mines. As able-bodied men departed from the border counties for military service, local families were left to care for and defend themselves. With the return of Confederate deserters and the presence of a divided population, the region devolved into “a guerrilla war in its truest form.” Carefully defined and consistently used throughout the book, Hardy divides the participants of the region’s guerrilla war into four distinct categories: guerrillas, partisans, bushwhackers and dissidents. Each group waged ruthless conflict, thereby making the region a lawless no-man’s land. Tennessean and Union raider George W. Kirk was the most notorious partisan and “thus the center of the whirlwind created by his actions and those of men like him.” Kirk effectively raided Confederate camps and sympathizers in western North Carolina. Kirk’s actions and Confederates’ reactions are a central theme of the book. Kirk’s Civil War Raids Along the Blue Ridge does an excellent job of placing the TennesseeNorth Carolina border region into a larger context. Analyzing the region’s 1860 presidential election returns and votes concerning state secession conventions, Hardy demonstrates the divisions and hesitation within the border counties. The suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in east Tennessee and the passage of the Confederate Conscription Act in the early spring of 1862, Hardy contends, “changed the nature of the war for those living along the North Carolina-Tennessee border.” With limited regular military operations in the region, the border counties collapsed into violent chaos. Further, as Hardy acknowledges, “even as the end came for the larger war, there was no peace in the mountains.” Hardy might have offered more investigation of the postwar period to obtain a deeper understanding as to why “the war in the mountains continued to rage” when Confederates had surrendered their forces to Union authorities. Overall, Kirk’s Civil War Raids Along the Blue Ridge is an excellent narrative history of the Civil War along the border of North Carolina and Tennessee. With that said, local lore and “stories passed down by descendants of participants” underpin many of the work’s accounts. More substantial research in county court records, Adjutant General papers, or Provost Marshal records would ground the book more solidly in the primary source materials. Despite the imperfect source base, however, Hardy has revealed a region worthy of more scholarly attention. Hardy also includes a helpful appendix that examines the role of African Americans in the border war, illuminating a fruitful avenue of study. Kirk’s Civil War Raids along the Blue Ridge has brought the war in the border region to life, placed it in the context of the larger Civil War, and illustrated the hardships and violence those living in the border counties experienced. Hardy captures this in a narrative that reveals how uncivil warfare can be. John Martin McMillan is a Ph.D. student and graduate teaching assistant in the Department of History at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. His master’s thesis examined the role of the natural environment on the early military campaigns in West Virginia during the summer and fall of 1861.

A half-century ago, Mary Elizabeth Massey reviewed the historiography of the Confederate home front and remarked about wartime journalism that “there is no volume devoted entirely to the newspapers in a state or in the Confederacy.” Since then, I’m happy to relate, the scholarly literature has begun to fill that void. Centerpiece is J. Cutler Andrews’ The South Reports the Civil War (1970), but there have been more specialized studies as well. Barbara Ellis’ The Moving Appeal: Mr. McClanahan, Mrs. Dill, and the Civil War’s Great Newspaper Run (2003) covers the MemphisGrenada-Jackson-AtlantaMontgomery Appeal. William B. Styple, ed., Writing & Fighting the Confederate War: The Letters of Peter Wellington Alexander Confederate War Correspondent (2002) features the columns of the Savannah Republican’s star reporter. Excellent scholarship is to be found in Carl Osterhaus’ Partisans of the Southern Press (1994) and in Patricia G. McNeely, Debra Reddin van Tuyll and Henry Schulte, eds., Knights of the Quill: Confederate Correspondents and Their Civil War Reporting (2010). Van Tuyll’s The Confederate Press in the Crucible of the American Civil War (2012) shows just how far we’ve come since Dr. Massey made her observation in 1965. Joining Professor van Tuyll (who teaches at Augusta College) as one of the leading scholars of Confederate journalism is J. Ford Risley. At the University of Florida he wrote his doctoral dissertation on Georgia newspapers during the war. Today a professor in Penn State’s College of Communications, Risley is author of Civil War Journalism (2012). Peter Alexander and Felix de Fontaine (reporter for the Columbia South Carolinian) are generally considered the best Confederate newspapermen, but Professor Risley makes a good argument that Melvin Dwinell (1825–1887) should be similarly regarded. A Vermonter by birth, Dwinell moved to Georgia in 1853. Two years later he bought into the Rome Courier, a weekly paper printed in a flourishing town fifty miles northwest of Atlanta. In 1856 he became sole owner and editor. Just before the war the Courier began publishing three times a week. When hostilities erupted, Dwinell joined a local company, which elected him second lieutenant. After his unit was called to Virginia, he turned the paper over to his assistant editor, B.G. Salvage. But Dwinell’s work for the Tri-Weekly Courier did not cease. At least once a week he wrote long letters from the front, addressed to “Dear Courier” that Salvage published faithfully. All told, Dwinell would write nearly two hundred letters until October 1863, when he resigned his commission to take a seat in the Georgia legislature. For this volume Professor Risley has transcribed all of Dwinell’s correspondence directly from the Courier’s pages. He has sprinkled in a few missives from Dwinell to relatives (found today in the Georgia Archives). The editor has organized the letters in eleven chronological chapters. At the start of each he summarizes Dwinell’s service during that time and calls attention to some of his writings. “Like the good newsman he was,” Risley notes, “Dwinell recognized that what readers back home wanted more than anything was news about family, friends, and neighbors serving in the army.” Risley adds helpful endnotes to explain his subject’s references. For example, after the battle of Manassas, Dwinell wrote home that “Clarke, Dwayne and Hargrove were buried on the field near where they fell. Norton and Stovall were carried to Manassas Junction…and will be buried there or sent home.” The editor adds details about Norton, but not on the four others named by Dwinell. A bit more research into the roster of the Rome Light Guards, Dwinell’s company in the 8th Georgia, would have disclosed that J.B. Clark, J.F. Duane, Dewitt C. Hargrove and George T. Stovall were all killed on July 21, 1861. When the war settled into dreary camp life in late ‘61, Dwinell kept his readers informed of his comrades’ activities. In a letter dated Nov. 24, 1861, he observed how the men were being entertained by watching artillery duels and “playing base ball.” The 8th Georgia, part of Col. George T. Anderson’s brigade in Lee’s army, fought in the Seven Days and at Second Manassas. After Lee’s victory on August 29-30, Dwinell wrote his paper,

Letters from a Talented Confederate Newspaperman Dear Courier: The Civil War Correspondence of Editor Melvin Dwinell. Edited by Ford Risley. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index, 338 pp., 2018. University of Tennessee Press, www.utpress.org. $57.95 hardback. Reviewed by Stephen Davis

“the crisis of this war now seems at hand, and with Heaven’s blessing we hope soon to see a favorable issue.” The regiment did not march with Lee into Maryland, and missed major action at Fredericksburg. As part of Hood’s division at Suffolk, the Georgians also missed Chancellorsville. At Gettysburg, Lieutenant Dwinell incurred a flesh wound in his left arm, not serious enough to prevent him from joining the long procession of walking wounded back to Winchester. Several days after the battle he wrote his paper that at Gettysburg “the carnage was greater probably than on any other field since the commencement of this wicked war.” Dwinell’s reporting from the field was not so much about military events as about what he saw and heard. A good example of this comes from his letter to the Courier written from Fredericksburg on Dec. 31, 1862, in which he comments on the traits of soldiers in Lee’s army from different states. (“Virginians…. seldom say ‘yes sir’ or ‘no sir’ but almost invariably respond, ‘yes indeed’ or ‘no indeed,’ as the case may be.”) In the same missive he comments, “it is wonderful what a rage cant phrases and peculiar sayings and doings, there are in the army.” He explained a few of them. “It is probable no exaggeration to state that ‘here is your mule’ has been said a hundred million times by soldiers in this army, during the past year.” Dwinell remarked upon soldiers’ jokes on the theme of “come out of that—I know you are in there,” as in tall hats or big boots. “One of the most ridiculous examples of this, that has come under the writer’s observation was, in case of a man having a very long goatee, who was thus addressed: ‘spit out that horse—I know he is in there, for I see his tail.’” Professor Michael Gray, editor of the “Voices of the Civil War” series, in which the University of Tennessee Press publishes Dear Courier, writes in his Foreword that Ford Risley’s edition of Melvin Dwinell’s newspaper letters constitutes “one of the finest volumes by a Civil War correspondent.” I most heartily agree. Stephen Davis is Book Review Editor for Civil War News. At the Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression, held in Chattanooga on November 8-10, he presented a paper entitled “The Atlanta Intelligencer Covers the War: Report on a Work in Progress.”

Sam Houston’s Final Days, More or Less Exiled: The Last Days of Sam Houston. By Ron Rozelle. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index, 205 pp. 2017. Texas A&M University Press. www.tamupress.com. $29.95 cloth. Reviewed by Kenneth W. Howell

Texas history is replete with a pantheon of heroic figures, including famous military leaders, politicians, statesmen and adventurers. Among these notables, Sam Houston is perhaps the most celebrated Texas personality. The subject of numerous biographers, such as Marquis James, Llerena B. Friend, Randolph B. Campbell, and James L. Haley, Houston is generally portrayed as Texas’ most indispensable man, essential to the founding of the republic in 1836 and later its annexation to the United States in 1845. Though most scholars mention Houston’s flawed character, they generally focus more attention on his accomplishments, placing the “Hero of San Jacinto” in a favorable light. In many ways, Ron Rozelle’s Exiled: The Last Days of Sam Houston follows this same trend, despite examining the darker days of Houston’s political career. Rozelle, a noted Texas author, presents Sam Houston’s life and career in a concise, well-written biography, designed to focus on his latter days in national and state politics. The volume is broken up into two parts: Part One, titled “1850,” covers Houston’s early life, providing a significant amount of background information leading up to the Texan’s first major speech in Congress on the Compromise of 1850. Part Two, titled “1857–1863,” follows Houston’s failed gubernatorial campaign in 1857 through his death in 1863. It is interesting to note that Rozelle devotes only a few brief paragraphs to Houston’s political activities between 1850 and 1857. It was during this period that the Senator Houston fell out of favor with many of the radical Democrats in his home state by casting a negative vote on the infamous Kansas-Nebraska bill. One might argue that such a pivotal moment in his career deserves closer examination. The author, however, does a laudable job of covering Houston’s triumphant return to Texas politics with his victory in the 1859 gubernatorial election, and his subsequent decline when he refused to endorse his state’s decision to secede from the Union in 1861. Following the vote on secession, Houston’s political enemies forced him out of office, leaving him to live in a self-imposed exile for the remainder of his life. While focusing on Houston’s political career in his final days, the author also examines the relationship between Houston and his immediate family, especially his wife Margaret. In fact, this may be one of the more interesting aspects of this study. Rozelle discusses in detail how Sam met his future bride, their courtship, the birth of their children, and the hardships Margaret endured while her husband served in the United States Congress. Margaret chose to remain in Texas and attend to family affairs rather than move to Washington, a decision that led to long absences from her beloved husband. Rozelle does a masterful job of describing the heartache that Sam and Margaret shared during these periods of separation. Through excerpts from letters exchanged between the couple, the author reveals an emotional side of Houston that is often missing in other biographies. While Exiled: The Last Days of Sam Houston is not a definitive study of this famous Texan, it is a well-written biographical sketch of Houston’s life and career, focusing on the final decade of his life. This study will appeal to the general reading public as well as students of Texas history. Kenneth W. Howell is a Professor of History at Blinn College. He is the author and editor of several books on Texas history, including Seventh Star of the Confederacy: Texas during the Civil War, 1861–1865, Still the Arena of Civil War: Violence and Turmoil in Reconstruction Texas, 1865–1874, and Single Star of the West: The Republic of Texas, 1836–1845. Currently Dr. Howell is working on a biography of General Philip H. Sheridan.

Interesting War Letters; Excellent Editing An Aide to Custer: The Civil War Letters of Lt. Edward G. Granger. Edited by Sandy Barnard and Thomas E. Singelyn. Maps, photos, footnotes, index, 252 pp., 2018. University of Oklahoma Press, oupress.com. $39.95 cloth. Reviewed by Gould Hagler

Edward G. Granger was a young Michigander who joined the cavalry in August 1862 and served for a year as a junior officer in the 5th Michigan Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. A year later he joined the staff of General Custer, the new commander of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade. As we read Granger’s letters to his mother, sister and other family members, we camp with him in northern Virginia, go raiding on various missions (sometimes chasing John Mosby), fight at Gettysburg, Buckland Mills, and Mine Run, and ride with the cavalry through the bloody Overland Campaign. Sandy Barnard, a prolific independent scholar who focuses on Custer and Little Big Horn, edited this well-done volume of 44 letters compiled by Thomas Singelyn, a retired dentist and artifact collector. Much of the letters’ content is mundane, of course, but interesting items pop up often enough to hold the reader’s attention and shed light on those little corners of history that would remain dark without such letters. We hear about some politicking as officers jockey for advancement. We meet a few drunks and incompetents. We see half-buried body parts protruding from the ground after Second Bull Run and learn how to construct proper accommodations for winter encampment. We discover that “Chaplains in the Army are always men who were not fit to preach at home,” though one of the clergymen “is a first-rate man in a fight” and another “can’t be beat at drinking whiskey.” In case we didn’t already know, we learn that the regular rations could be supplemented with foodstuffs taken from “families with Secesh proclivities,” sometimes “without money & without price.” On one occasion a citizen also donated a saddle. Photos of Custer sometimes accompanied the letters home. Custer being Custer, I am sure that many Michigan families received such souvenirs. Barnard has done a superb job in putting Granger’s scribblings in context. The introductory material and the footnotes reveal to us the broader picture beyond the dollops of paint brushed onto the canvas by the young lieutenant. The editor explains the military action and, in addition, includes detailed biographical information on almost every character we encounter, military and civilian. Barnard dug deep into many sources to create this context. In one footnote he cites five sources giving information on a chaplain whom Granger mentions once and does not even name.

The book’s introduction states that Granger’s letters “would provide an insider’s intimate view of the evolution of the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry from an amateurish collection of near circus riders who lacked a precise combat role in the early years of the war into an increasingly polished force that seized the momentum from its enemy and became dominant.” This statement may raise some readers’ expectations unreasonably. If one is looking for insightful analysis and carefully considered commentary on this evolution, one is likely to be disappointed. Granger lacked the training, maturity, and seniority to manage this dissection, and his letters do not claim to offer it. The letters are, nevertheless, of significant interest to students of the war. Barnard and Singelyn have performed a valuable service in making them available. Granger’s last letter of significant length, written to his sister Mollie, includes a detailed account of what Granger did and saw at Trevilian Station (July 1864). After Trevilian, Custer’s brigade and the others of the division floated down the James and up the Potomac, then marched into the lower Shenandoah Valley. Granger did not have an opportunity to tell the homefolks about Sheridan’s Shenandoah Campaign. On August 16, while carrying an order from Custer to two regimental commanders, he dashed into battle on a new mount, one known to be troublesome and difficult to control. The lieutenant was last seen being carried by the wild horse into Confederate lines. When Granger was reported missing in action Custer wrote a kind and hopeful letter to the family. Not until July 1865 was the family certain that Edward was not captured but killed, and that the wild ride at Crooked Run was his last. Gould Hagler is a retired lobbyist living in Dunwoody, Ga. He is a past president of the Civil War Round Table of Atlanta and the author of Georgia’s Confederate Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation, published by Mercer University Press in 2014. Hagler speaks frequently on this topic and others related to different aspects of the Civil War and has been a regular contributor to CWN since 2016. He can be reached at [email protected].

Samuel Mitcham introduces this volume by saying that his primary purposes for writing this are to describe the Vicksburg Campaign from a Confederate standpoint and to analyze the generalship of Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton. He promises not to write a “politically correct” book, which I believe he means a book that is written from a Union standpoint. There are a few items that struck me as decidedly politically correct, such as referring to blacks working on the Vicksburg fortifications as African-Americans instead of slaves. At one point, Mitcham refers to Union soldiers as abolitionists, a term by which many of these Western troops would probably have taken offense. Do not expect to read mini-biographies of Ulysses S. Grant or any other Federal general. Do expect to read mini-biographies of many of the Confederate generals, especially Pemberton. Except for making a point of describing Northern atrocities before, during, and after the siege, Mitcham is even-handed in writing about the campaigns to capture Vicksburg and Port Hudson. He even describes Grant as a genius for being able to take Vicksburg from Pemberton. The most blame for losing Vicksburg is put at the feet of General Joseph E. Johnston. Pemberton later said that the greatest mistake he made was in taking orders from Johnston. This volume does a smooth job of telling the intricate story of the various efforts Grant made to take Vicksburg: several attempts to seize it from the bayous in the rear, and digging a canal to bypass Vicksburg completely. Finally, he marched his men down the west (Louisiana side) of the Mississippi River. Admiral David D. Porter ran the guns of Vicksburg with his gunboats and the transports to get south of the city. From there, he ferried Grant’s troops to the Vicksburg side of the river. Grant’s final campaign before the siege was brilliant, Pemberton waited in vain for help from Johnston’s troops at Jackson, Mississippi. There were several severe battles fought to keep the Federal troops at bay. Finally, with the promise of cooperation from General Johnston, Pemberton made a last stand in front of the Big Black River, against his better judgment. His Southern troops were badly cut up before retreating into the Vicksburg fortifications. Mitcham’s account of the siege is outstanding, giving a good idea of what the Southern troops and civilians went through daily. As the rations got more and more scarce, the Confederates were put on half, then third, rations. The soldiers and people were reduced to eating mule meat at first, then cats, dogs and rats. At the end, rats were considered a delicacy and were hung up in butcher shops for sale. The soldiers said they tasted like squirrel. The city and the trenches were under almost constant bombardment; the trenches were safer from cannon fire than the city. Life in the city was spent in caves dug into the sides of the hills, often with carpets, furniture, and decorations. Life in the trenches was spent with the constant danger of Union sharpshooters, who took a toll on the regiments, and the attrition rate was terrible. This is a good book, but not great. It will appeal mainly to readers who are intensely pro-Confederate. It suffers from a lack of footnotes to provide sources for the information contained therein; there are many quotes without attribution. I enjoyed the book but would not recommend it to all. Robert L. Durham has been a devoted military (especially the Civil War) buff for many years. He has written several articles for publication in various historical magazines and internet blogs, including CWN. His newest is an article that will appear in the next issue of Gettysburg Magazine. He is retired from almost 40 years’ service with the Defense Logistics Agency, as a computer specialist—employed all over the world, setting up communications systems for Foreign Military Sales countries.

The Confederate Side of the Siege of Vicksburg Vicksburg: The Bloody Siege that Turned the Tide of the Civil War. By Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr. Hardcover, photos, maps, notes, bibliography, index, 402 pp., 2018. Regnery History, www. RegneryHistory.com. $29.99. Reviewed by Robert Durham