Book Reviews

Book Reviews — March 2018

Originally published March 2018 · pp. 32–39

Collecting Gettysburg Relics—A Patriot’s Legacy J. Howard Wert’s Gettysburg: A Collection of Relics from the Civil War Battle. By Bruce E. Mowday and G. Craig Caba. Map, photos, appendices, bibliography, index, 144 pp., 2017. Schiffer Publishing, www.schifferbooks.com. $34.99 hardcover. Reviewed by Joseph J. Bordonaro

A shell whistled through the trees, clipping off branches as it came. Exploding, it nearly hit J. Howard Wert, who was guiding General Strong Vincent’s men up Little Round Top. He picked it up, still warm, and thus it became one of the first items of what turned into a fantastic collection of battlefield relics. Wert came by his proclivity towards collecting relics honestly. He grew up in a patriotic family (members fought in all of the American wars from the French and Indian through the War of 1812) who valued their relics of the past and kept them in the family home. Among these treasures from the past were his maternal grandfather’s American Revolution sword; his father’s friend Thaddeus Stevens’ patriotic eagle walking stick, and a special gift from his father Jacob’s friend and Revolutionary War comrade, Benjamin Rush. Dr. Rush gave Jacob President Washington’s official documents box. Another source of family relics were those associated with their anti-slavery efforts. J. Howard’s family was very active in the Gettysburg area’s Underground Railroad. When he was just nine years old, he helped his father assist in the escape of a slave. He guided the carriage containing his father and the escapee through a hideaway on Wolf’s Hill, pursued by slave hunters. Among these relics are a walking stick given to Adam Wert for his assistance in helping slaves escape and a first edition, custom leatherbound Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Attached to the book is a brass paper clip that held Mrs. Stowe’s notes while she was writing this classic. J. Howard Wert took this existing family collection to a whole new level when the Civil War broke out. A local militia man after graduating from Gettysburg College, Wert ended up scouting under the command of Major Granville Haller, of the 7th U.S. Infantry. Haller had been ordered to recruit Gettysburg area citizens to fight the Confederates. His activities during the battle and the relics he collected are covered in great detail in the book. Suffice it to say that he played an important part in the battle and an even more important part in preserving the history of the battle. An article about the collection by Robert Swift appeared in Gettysburg Magazine (#38, Jan. 2008). The article was well written, but only contained two pages of text and two pages of black-and-white photos, so it cannot compare with this book. It would be worth getting a copy of the magazine, however, if you want a very concise summary of J. Howard Wert’s collection as an adjunct to the study of the many color photographs in this book and did not want to read its much longer text. J. Howard Wert’s Gettysburg contains a partial list of books by Wert, which is a nice bonus. His A Complete Hand-book of the Monuments and Indications and Guide to the Positions on the Gettysburg Battlefield is an extremely useful guide to interpreting the meaning of these monuments. It is readily available as a book in print and in a free online Google Books version. Mowday and Caba’s book also contains two samples of Wert’s poetry. Although wildly out of style, extremely patriotic and sentimental in nature, this reviewer found them to be excellent. Especially poignant is “Under the Oaks of Rock Creek. Culp’s Hill: 1853–1863–1883.” The poem takes the reader through time from the peaceful picnic spot that Culp’s Hill was before the Civil

War, through the carnage of the fighting there during the battle of Gettysburg, to the sadness of a survivor’s walk in the woods there. There are only two areas of weakness in this book, which perhaps can be improved in later editions. One is the paucity of maps. There is only one in the book. It would be helpful to have more, including a map showing Wert’s movements on the battlefield during the battle and the location of places mentioned in the text, such as the Wert family farm. The other shortcoming consists of incomplete or missing identification in the captions of items photographed. Twenty-one groups of photographed items contain at least one relic that is not identified. The most glaring omission is the failure to identify the lectern that President Abraham Lincoln used when he gave his Gettysburg Address. It took a bit of research online to find a photo of it to confirm that it is part of the Wert Collection. It is currently on loan to the Union League of Philadelphia and is probably the most valuable item in the entire collection, so the failure to identify it in the book is startling. On the positive side, the text is very well written and the photos are very often placed in conjunction with mention of the items in the text. The photographs themselves are of very high clarity, and are all in color. The book is printed on high-quality, glossy paper and is well bound. All in all, I strongly recommend this book to anyone with any interest in the battle of Gettysburg. It will reward the casual reader as well as the student of the battle. Wert—who joined the 209th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry as lieutenant in 1864—created a magnificent collection of relics related to the battle of

Gettysburg, as well as from earlier periods in U.S. history, and bequeathed it to his son, Howard Houck Wert. He followed the instructions in his father’s will and kept the collection intact. It was kept together by the family over the years until 1957, when it was sold to family friends John and Vanita Cobaugh, who promised to keep the collection together. They in turn sold it, intact, to G. Craig Caba, a past president of the Harrisburg Civil War Roundtable and also of the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association. He is currently the CEO and curator of the J. Howard Wert Gettysburg Collection and has tried very hard to keep the collection intact, going so far as to sue a Gettysburg shop when stolen items (fortunately not important relics) from the collection turned up there. He has now teamed with noted author, Bruce E. Mowday, an award-winning journalist and author, to create this excellent book. And so J. Howard Wert’s patriotic legacy to his country lives on. Joe Bordonaro has been covering events for Civil War News since 2016. A long time Civil War reenactor and living historian, he is currently in training for this year’s 155th Anniversary Commemoration of the Union Army’s Sixth Corps March to Gettysburg, which will involve a march in Civil War uniform, including brogans, from Edward’s Ferry, Maryland, to Little Round Top in Gettysburg National Battlefield.

A Tale of Two Generals A Late Encounter with Reconstruction Worthy Opponents: William T. Sherman and Joseph E. Johnston—Antagonists in War, Friends in Peace. By Edward G. Longacre. Maps, photos, notes, index, 392 pp., 2017. University of Oklahoma Press, www.oupress.com. $24.95 paper. Reviewed by John D. Fowler

William Tecumseh Sherman is generally considered by Civil War historians as one of the best generals of the American Civil War, while his most famous opponent, Joseph E. Johnston, is often considered among the worst. The Atlanta Campaign of 1864 cemented the reputations, good and bad, of both men and created a bond they continued after the war. Through his postwar letters and memoirs, Sherman explained his success while Johnston’s letters and memoirs explained his defeat. Interestingly, both men needed the other to substantiate their accounts and their generalships. Historian Edward G. Longacre’s Worthy Opponents examines this interesting story. Longacre is a prolific scholar, having written 24 books and some 100 journal and magazine articles on the Civil War. His The Cavalry at Gettysburg: A Tactical Study of Mounted Operations during the Civil War’s Pivotal Campaign, 9 June–14 July 1863 (1993) won the prestigious Fletcher Pratt Award as the best book of Civil War nonfiction; his Pickett: Leader of the Charge—A Biography of General George E. Pickett (1995) was a finalist for the Douglas Southall Freeman Award; and his Gentleman and Soldier: The Extraordinary Life of General Wade Hampton won that award in 2004. He also served as a historical advisor to the 1993 motion picture Gettysburg. Worthy Opponents is organized into 18 chapters that present parallel biographies of both Sherman and Johnston. The final chapter is an epilogue that discusses the men in the post-Civil War period until the death of Sherman. Longacre writes well, and he weaves an interesting story. He does not, however, offer anything new on Sherman’s and Johnston’s military histories or their battlefield encounters during the Vicksburg, Atlanta, or Carolinas Campaigns. Indeed, the sections covering the battles are mere summaries of the events without much depth or detail. While the narrative does examine their generalship to a degree, the reader is left wanting more. Moreover, the most disappointing aspect of the book is the short epilogue that chronicles the generals’ postwar relationship. The title appears to promise more than the ten pages given. In sum, Longacre has written a basic biography of both generals that would come in handy for someone who only needs a brief overview with limited detail of these men and their Civil War careers. Despite its brevity, this volume is more effective than the ultra-slim, 94-page attempt at a co-biography of the generals entitled Civil War Enemies, PostWar Friends: William Tecumseh Sherman and Joseph E. Johnston (Charles River Editors, 2013). Those wanting a more detailed account of the lives of both men must consult other biographies. Currently, perhaps the best biographies of William T. Sherman are James Lee McDonough’s William Tecumseh Sherman: In Service to My Country—A Life (2016), Robert L. O’Connell’s Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman (2014), and John F. Marszalek’s Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order (1993). Additionally, while not a biography as such, Burke Davis’s Sherman’s March: The First Full-Length Narrative of General William T. Sherman’s Devastating March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1980) offers great insight into the man and his generalship. Likewise, perhaps the best modern biographies of Johnston include Gilbert Govan and James Livingwood’s Joseph E. Johnston: A Different Valor (1994) and Craig L. Symonds’ Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography (1992). Historians have not delved into Johnston’s life as much as Sherman’s, and there is a need for a new monograph on that general. John D. Fowler, Ph.D, holds the B. J. and Dicksie Bandy Chair of American History at Dalton State College. He is co-editor, with David B. Parker, of Breaking the Heartland: The Civil War in Georgia (2011).

The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896. By Richard White. Maps, photos, notes, index, 941 pp., 2017. Oxford University Press, www.oup. com/us. $35 hardbound. Reviewed by William Harris Bragg

After almost thirty years, the Oxford History of the United States has at last provided the sequel to James M. McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. McPherson’s 1988 book ended with a somewhat suspect anecdote, attributed elsewhere to Rock Island Prison: “In 1865 a black soldier who recognized his former master among a group of Confederate prisoners he was guarding called out a greeting: ‘Hello, massa; bottom rail on top dis time!’ Would this new arrangement of rails last? That is a question for subsequent volumes in this series to ponder.” Given the omission of the white Southern majority, this was a tendentious question, to be sure. Nonetheless, anyone McPherson had made curious about the “Sequel of Appomattox” received almost immediate gratification. Emerging a few months later, the Reconstruction volume of Harper’s competing multi-volume series, The New American Nation, practically collided with McPherson’s Civil War opus, then on its way to becoming the still-reigning bestseller of the Oxford series. That book, Eric Foner’s Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877, was meant to update the matching volume in Harper’s original American Nation series, William A. Dunning’s long-lived Reconstruction, Political & Economic, 1865–1877 (1907; 1962 [paperback]). Inspired by Marxist colossus W.E.B. Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction (1935), Foner set about with some success not only to replace Dunning, but also to destroy him as a respectable historical source. Foner argued that Dunning’s view of Reconstruction was irredeemably racist, but he must also have been displeased by Dunning’s spirited attacks on radicalism and revolution. Although Foner’s Reconstruction became revered and widely assigned in the universities, the Oxford study of Reconstruction met more than its share of delays. Sadly, now that the missing volume has finally appeared, it seems unworthy of such a long wait, given its cursory glance at Reconstruction, its patchwork treatment of the turbulent twenty years that followed, and its emphatic devotion to leftist pieties. Foner’s Reconstruction lives again in the scant eighty pages which form the new book’s major focus on the immediate postwar period; it does yeoman’s service, along with mostly 21st-century secondary sources, especially Gregory P. Downs’ After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War (2015). Judging by the footnotes for the Reconstruction section of the book, it would collapse if Foner and Downs were subtracted. Furthermore, dependence on more doctrinaire recent works often robs the book of necessary context and detail and makes some passages resemble polemic more than history. This is particularly true where white Southerners are concerned. The book presents quite a pitiless view of the impoverished ex-Confederate states through 1896, a land where whites seemingly fell victim neither to sharecropping nor lynching The book’s author, Richard White, elsewhere proclaims himself to be a historian of the American West above all. His chosen subject certainly receives his undivided attention, but White’s disciplinary concentration suggests that much broader expertise was needed to synthesize a historical period of such scope and complexity. Nonetheless, in the academy White’s book has garnered those obligatory hosannas reserved for an orthodox entry in a prestigious, prize-winning series. Only time will tell if approval will also come from that general readership ostensibly targeted since the series’ earliest days under original editor C. Vann Woodward, mentor of current series editor, David M. Kennedy. Unequaled as Southern historian, Woodward regrettably also promoted both presentism in history and conspicuous political engagement for historians. Nonetheless, his initial recipe for the Oxford History volumes called for a balanced mixture of the New History and the Old, the latter characterized by a self-consciously objective narrative, with concentration on historical figures from the “top down,” and emphasis on political, military and diplomatic history. But White, like most contemporary academic historians, strongly favors the New History: left-of-center ideologically, concentrating on “the people” from the “bottom up,” and emphasizing social, racial, and gender themes. Arguably, such history is directed less at a general readership than at White’s fellow university historians and their students, since (although unmentioned among the Oxford series’ goals) the potential for lucrative textbook sales has always been given considerable weight. In terms of actual weight, White’s book will find few challengers. From the first, the Oxford volumes were meant to be lengthy and hefty—“ample” was Woodward’s word. But these tomes, several nearing one thousand pages, have also been described, with some hyperbole, as “hernia-inducing.” White’s style, fortunately, is much less ponderous than his book. He writes compellingly and clearly, while also providing generous flashes of wit. Additionally, his minimalist coverage of Reconstruction aside, his book’s last seven-hundred-orso pages constitute a reasonable outline of the principal events of 1877–96, although fully fleshed with identity liberalism. Gordon Wood, author of the elegant Empire of Liberty (most balanced of the Oxford volumes to date) has advised the present generation of historians to “be less eager to judge the past by the values of the present and less keen to use history to solve our present problems.” Unfortunately, White’s book embodies the practices Wood decries: it relentlessly maintains the politically correct, presentist interpretation of the activist historian. Consequently, it seeks social justice over truth, assigns agency with a lavish hand, demonizes disfavored historical actors and valorizes favorites. Consequently, readers are left less with a convincing factual record of a pivotal period than with a tool deliberately fashioned to affect the present and the future. “If you like this sort of thing,” as Miss Jean Brodie famously said, “this is the sort of thing you will like.” Retired from college teaching, William Harris Bragg has published widely on the Civil War and Reconstruction. Most recently, he has edited, introduced and indexed the recent republication of C. Mildred Thompson’s classic Reconstruction in Georgia.

Inside a Northern Soldiers’ Hospital Recollections of a Civil War Medical Cadet. Edited by Richard M. Reid. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index, 148 pp., 2017. Kent State University Press, kentstateuniversitypress. com. $29.95 cloth.

Reviewed by Jonathan W. White

In 2010, Richard M. Reid published Practicing Medicine in a Black Regiment: The Civil War Diary of Burt Green Wilder, 55th Massachusetts, a wonderful book that reproduces the diary of an assistant surgeon who served in a black regiment from May 1863 until September 1865. Now Reid offers Wilder’s earlier wartime experiences as a medical cadet at the Judiciary Square Hospital in Washington, D.C., through a memoir that Wilder compiled, but never published, more than a half century after the war. Burt Green Wilder was an undergraduate studying anatomy at Harvard in 1862 when he decided to leave Massachusetts for the nation’s capital. Stationed at the Judiciary Square Hospital in Washington, D.C., Wilder served as a medical cadet—a position authorized by Congress to “act as dressers in the general hospitals and as ambulance attendants in the field.” Wilder’s “recollections” describe the hospital setting, the arrival and care of wounded soldiers, surgeries, autopsies, his criticism of doctors, and other events he witnessed. Wilder’s writings give uncommon glimpses into the medical profession during the Civil War era. For instance, when one amputee was rapidly losing weight, a surgeon recommended that “Port wine would be better for him than Sherry, the only kind provided at the dispensary.” Like many Union soldiers, he toured the nation’s capital, even taking in a play at Ford’s Theatre. Along the way, he encountered famous people. Abraham Lincoln once came to the hospital and spoke kindly to every convalescing soldier there. “The President also shook hands with the hospital staff,” recalled Wilder, “and of course we cadets were gratified; but for many years I have felt that presidents and governors should be exempt from official handshaking.” After describing a second meeting with Lincoln— this time at a White House reception—Wilder wrote, “I have often recalled the weary face and much abused hand of the President, and have recently declared my conviction that the time and strength of high officials should be saved for something better than pandering to the snobbishness of the crowd.” By the summer of 1863 Wilder decided to cast his lot with the 55th Massachusetts, a newly formed black regiment. “I have heard that the rebels make dire threats against the officers of colored troops,” he wrote, “but some must go so why not I?” His story continues in Practicing Medicine in a Black Regiment. Wilder’s “recollections” are a hybrid document. When drafting them in the early twentieth century he copied or summarized portions of his original wartime letters to his fiancée, while also incorporating material from a friend’s 1862 diary, postwar correspondence with doctors and patients, original hospital records, and postwar reminiscences written by others who had worked at the hospital. Wilder pulled these sources together, using italics, parentheses, and other notations to indicate the sources of his “recollections.” The editor reproduces the book in the form that Wilder had originally written it (which is good as it helps readers know the sources of the material); however, the format takes some getting used to. One wishes at times that Wilder had offered greater detail when describing some of the people he met or the scenes he witnessed. Nevertheless, readers interested in the medical history of the war will find much to commend this short volume. Jonathan W. White is associate professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University and author of several books, most recently Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams during the Civil War (UNC Press, 2017). Visit his website at www. jonathanwhite.org.

The County Named for Colonel Bartow The Long Civil War in the North Georgia Mountains: Confederate Nationalism, Sectionalism, and White Supremacy in Bartow County, Georgia. By Keith S. Hebert. Maps, tables, endnotes, bibliography, index, 282 pp., 2017. University of Tennessee Press, www.utpress.org. $50 hardcover. Reviewed by Stephen Davis

Bartow County is located in hilly northwest Georgia. Its county seat is thirty-five miles northwest of Atlanta and almost sixty miles south of Chattanooga. The area was settled by whites after the Cherokees were expelled; the state legislature created the county in 1832. Agriculture was the antebellum economic mainstay, yielding wheat, cotton and tobacco. Slaveholding plantations developed in the Etowah River valley; yeoman farmers without slaves tilled the Piedmont uplands. Ore deposits gave rise to iron works such as Mark Cooper’s plant on the Etowah. Completion in 1850 of the Western & Atlantic Railroad, combined with the cotton boom of the ‘50s, brought increased population and prosperity. Not everyone enjoyed the latter, though; tenant farmers comprised a third of households in 1860. This is the backdrop provided by Keith S. Hebert in his The Long Civil War in the North Georgia Mountains. The author, who teaches at Auburn University, came upon his subject naturally. He grew up in Bartow, and went to school there before attending the University of West Georgia (he took his Master’s and Ph.D. at Virginia Tech). Hebert thus brings local knowledge and the historian’s skills to this study. When war came, white men rallied to the Confederate cause. Poor farmers flocked to the colors alongside the well-off valley planters. All were motivated, as Hebert writes, by “kin networks and a desire to defend their homes from Federal invaders.” Beneath this, the author astutely concludes, lay a “shared understanding” of what many Confederates were fighting for: “white supremacy, black inferiority, and optimism that the future protection of slavery might provide an avenue for upper mobility for all white men.” Over 2,000 men from the county joined the Confederate army, including ¾ of those aged 18 to 35. They enlisted in such companies as the Bartow Yankee Killers, and went off to the front, many of them to Virginia with Col. Francis S. Bartow’s 8th Georgia. After Bartow was killed at Manassas, local lawmakers called for the state legislature to change the county name. Originally it had been Cass County, named for Lewis Cass, President Jackson’s Secretary of War (who had helped with the Indian removal). By vote of the General Assembly it became Bartow County; the county seat, Cassville, was also renamed Manassas. War came to Georgia in 1864, when Sherman launched his Atlanta campaign. As Johnston’s army retreated through north Georgia, soldiers from Bartow felt tempted to fall out and slip away. “Many went home,” Hebert writes; “30 percent of all Bartow County soldiers serving in the Army of Tennessee deserted during the Atlanta Campaign, most in May of 1864.” When the Yankees neared, many civilians fled, but a number stayed behind to guard their property. The area’s Unionist minority, of course, was thrilled at the sight of Federal troops, as were slaves. Even when the front moved south as Sherman approached Atlanta, Federals remained in Bartow, guarding the W. & A. Railroad. Civilians coming into contact with the occupiers experienced a baffling range of behavior, both gentlemanly kindness and ruffian cruelty. Fear of looters was constant. Hostilities returned in early October when Hood marched through the area en route (eventually) to north Alabama. Union forces followed, and their presence provoked increased guerrilla attacks, especially along the railroad. Sherman ordered reprisals, including the burning of civilians’ homes; the town of Cassville/Manassas was burned on November 5. When Sherman left Atlanta for the sea, the Federals gave up the railroad. In the vacuum of authority, bands of irregulars and Confederate deserters preyed on civilians, particularly Unionists still in the area. A semblance of order returned when C.S. authorities created a Department of North Georgia, commanded by Brig. Gen. William T. Wofford. Three weeks after Appomattox, Wofford surrendered his troops to Union Brig. Gen. Henry M. Judah at a house in Kingston. It’s still standing, as I saw on a recent visit. Professor Hebert’s research is impressive, from county census records to the papers at Chapel Hill of the Barnsley family (prominent Bartow landowners), to Lucy Cunyus’ county history, to a mountain of scholarly secondary literature. His work, though, is not without error. General Henry Judah appears as “Benjamin.” I was puzzled not to see Jenkin Lloyd Jones’ History of the 6th Wisconsin Battery listed in the bibliography, even though the author refers to it (albeit as “Jenkins”). The Wisconsin artillerymen occupied a fort overlooking the Etowah River for several months. (The earthwork is still there, if you choose to climb up the brambled slope.) Lacking from the index is any listing for Cass or Bartow County; I had to scour for the county’s population in 1860. As a work of local Confederate history, Hebert’s study ranks to me as unmatched. Kudos to this scholarship from a historian who grew up there and, as we often like to say, walked the ground. Steve Davis of Atlanta is a regular contributor to Civil War News and is the Book Review Editor. His book, A Long and Bloody Task: The Atlanta Campaign from Dalton through Kennesaw Mountain to the Chattahoochee River May 5– July 18, 1864, was published as part of Savas Beatie’s Emerging Civil War paperback series. The companion volume, All The Fighting They Want: The Atlanta Campaign From Peachtree Creek To The City’s Surrender, July 18– September 2, 1864, was published Spring 2017.

History Brought to Life Voices from the Civil War: North and South, Men and Women, Black and White. By George J. Bryjak. Suggested Readings, 160 pp., www.georgebryjak.com. $12.99 paperback. Reviewed by Meg Groeling

Let me say right up front—this is a work of fiction. However, this fiction is taken from primary sources and is influenced by some of the newest thinking in secondary sources, such as Michael C.C. Adams’ Living Hell: The Dark Side of the Civil War and Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. Author George Bryjak, a teacher of sociology and criminology at the University of San Diego for twenty-four years, has done a sensitive, scholarly job of weaving together the words of those touched by the war into a manuscript that reads like a one-act play—one I would love to see. Bryjak is, in fact, a playwright as well as a history buff. The premise of Voices is this: twenty-six fictional persons are given a “voice” created from primary sources pertinent to their character. The result is a relatively short (averaging two-tothree pages) piece told in his/her own words. There are thirteen women and thirteen men; half are from the North and half from the South; eight are African-American and two are children. Each piece is preceded by a “short, factual introduction about a particular event or situation,” according to author Bryjak. Then the fictional narrators “provide insight into these events by giving them a face, a voice, and a cohesive story.” I have used Bryjak’s words because they perfectly describe the process by which this book is constructed. Letters, diaries, interviews, and a touch of creativity bring these fictional characters to life. For instance, in the chapter “Take Me Jesus,” a seventy-one year-old black female living on a Georgia plantation in December 1864 expresses the feelings of many when she says, “I stayin’ right here.” Even Sherman’s promise of freedom doesn’t tempt this older slave. She is fully aware that racism and discrimination will continue, North as well as South. All she asks for is a “good rest and a life o’ not bein’ afraid all the time.” Through her words, the reader is transported into the mind of an elderly enslaved woman who has lived on a plantation all her life. Freedom is something she cannot imagine and frankly, she is not certain she can live as a free person. She sings: “Take Me Jesus, Take me now.” Another character is a fifty-two year-old white male preacher who presents a sermon based on the Biblical interpretation used in the South to justify the enslavement of almost four million people. Yet another is an elite Richmond matron during the bread riots of 1863, and still another is a relatively young Union soldier confined to a hospital after the war. He suffers delusional ideas from the stress of nearly being buried alive, intense survivor’s guilt, and sees no future ahead of him worth living. George Bryjak has carefully chosen his characters to represent all ages, both sexes, and many life positions. In his introductions it is impossible to find any political bias one way or another. Each person is an example of many, and is an amalgam of primary sources. This approach has helped him bring each individual “person” to life. They are neither named nor pictured but anyone who has read the collections of diaries, letters and slave interviews will immediately find him/ herself on familiar ground. Rather than toss this book into some heap labeled “Civil War Fiction,” this little gem ought to be read and then reread. After all, fiction is a very common genre with which to introduce any topic, and many will attest that reading a fiction book or viewing a movie was the “gateway drug” into a lifelong passion of some variety. I am hopeful that someone creates a one-act play from its pages. The passages ring so true, and it would be one more way to get others interested in the

Civil War. Also, if the reader can suspend disbelief long enough to take each character at his or her word, this book is a safe way to examine the ideas of those who might have thought differently from the preconceived ideas of others. In today’s politically charged atmosphere, that opportunity is rare. Meg Groeling, bloodnight@aol. com, is a contributor to the blog Emerging Civil War, author of The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead, and is currently working on First Fallen: The Life & Times of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth. She resides in Hollister, Cal.

“Dream A Little Dream With Me” “Cherish and Become a Good Custodian” The Home Voices Speak Louder Than The Drums. By Wanda Easter Burch. Notes, index, illustrations, bibliography, 277pp., 2017. McFarland, www.mcfarlandpub.com. $45 paperback. Reviewed by Joseph Truglio

Reading this book was a new experience for me. I was completely unaware that there was such a study as the dreams of Civil War soldiers. I presume it is the least written aspect of the war. My only other experience is reading the tale of Lincoln dreaming of his death.

This book is very well annotated and researched. It has an ample bibliography, and provides an extensive supply of letters home from participants. The story is broken into 18 chapters covering every aspect from homesickness to fantasy, to portents of life and death. Most readers will surmise that we all have dreams. What is so unique about this book? Well, the “uniqueness” is getting a glimpse into the mindset of ordinary soldiers as they faced troubled times. Many wrote home to allay their fears. We read of their fears and pain of loss. Some even tell of their dreams concerning death in combat. We have read of several prominent participants discussing omens of death. Two such examples are Col. Edward Cross at Gettysburg and the other is Lincoln. Here we see these same issues among common soldiers. The value of this effort is that the student can gain significant insight into the effects that war has on the common soldier and how they are carried with him long after he returns. I found this aspect of the book the most rewarding and feel it can lead to a more complete understanding as to how the stress of war affects the participants. If you have an interest in this aspect of study, by all means get a copy and delve into it. However, there is a caveat: this is a $45 paperback. The cost may prevent the advancement of this genre to a larger audience. Joseph Truglio, of Manchester, N.J., is president of the Phil Kearny Civil War Round Table.

Discovering Virginia’s Colonial Artifacts. By Bill Dancy. Photos, notes, index, 392 pp., 2017. Greybird Publishers, www. americandigger.com. $59 plus $5 shipping. Reviewed by Lawrence E. Babits

As an academic, professional archaeologist I had misgivings about this book because it dealt with an amateur who was a metal detectorist as well. The book alleviated my concerns for just about everything I’d long been taught but since come to see as overly restrictive. The change for the professional archaeological community came with the brilliant work Doug Scott and Rich Fox conducted at the Little Big Horn (Custer’s Last Stand) battle site using volunteer metal detectorists. Their detailed artifact recovery changed our understanding of how the battle was fought as well as moving the professional community to better utilize the equipment and knowledge of collectors. After all, collectors/ metal dectetorists study “their” sites and regions in much greater depth than many archaeologists do. A second aspect was that the time and labor involved by archaeologists using traditional test pitting did not result in recovery of much meaningful data on a battlefield, whereas the metal detector recovered materials that revealed the patterning archaeologists traditionally look for. In this lavishly illustrated, glossy format text, longtime metal detectorist Virginian Bill Dancy provides a very useful “how to” example of good metal detecting. It is divided into four sections, plus nine appendices that more than adequately cover how to locate, recover, conserve and display relics from the past. Four chapters make up Part I – Research and Recovery. These are the key basics to any archaeological effort and his lead-in chapter, “Research is the Key,” should be required reading. Dancy includes archival, cartographic and aerial photography as basic tools. He follows with advice about obtaining permission, something often overlooked before going onsite. His discussion about reading the landscape to find clues matching the research to the prospective site is important for stating the obvious about the often intuitive process of assessing where to dig. His long experience resulted in developing a tool kit that should be emulated as time and finances permit. His discussion of how to find trash pits would help many archaeologists obtain a site’s type collection that could then be used to educate crews about what they find using traditional methodology. At this point, a jump to chapter 25 is important. Dancy focuses on recovering materials. If he were to add sections on photographing trashpits and find sites so as to reveal their stratigraphy, most archaeologists would probably be happy with his effort, even though he does not do this basic recording in lieu of drawing up stratigraphic cross sections of the various layers encountered. He does, however, keep records of what was found and where. Fourteen chapters make up Part II – The Artifacts. This section that will get the most attention from collectors, because Dancy presents what he found here in a series of topical chapters that include coinage, weights, buttons and buckles. His presentation on pipe stems is very good and draws heavily from archaeological material to help interpret them. Since he spends much time with trash pits, he provides sections on non-metal artifacts including glass and ceramics. For the Civil War collector, he includes a short section on post-colonial artifacts. Part III deals with cleaning, documentation and ethics. The first two chapters are pretty basic discussions of cleaning materials without damaging them. The chapter on documentation is interesting because Dancy gives many of his finds to the landowners because they are interested in them. He records materials by site rather than type. He photographs the artifacts and sites where he works and when, after they have been cleaned and stabilized. This recording is computerized and represents a solid data base of historical information. This sort of depth has been made possible by development of digital cameras and GPS locational systems to put artifacts back with their sites. Dancy also publishes a lot of material in relic hunter magazines and posts from detectorist forums. He maintains files of these documentary efforts and says that this text is the ultimate presentation of his finds. Dancy’s display is more personal and cluttered than often sparse museum displays, but mass has a quality of its own. There is a Civil War metal detector museum (White Oak, in Falmouth, Va.) open to the public where D.P. Newton and a host of local collectors present their collections and research in similar fashion. His discussion of ethics is simply stated in the introduction to chapter 22 as “Always do the right thing.” He presents his own code of ethics and his last statement that one should not pursue the hobby for monetary gain mirrors archaeological standards. He advocates reporting sites to local historical authorities and suggests reporting illegal activity. His cooperation with archaeologists has resulted in significant finds and represents a continuation of the efforts first made at the Little Big Horn that are now being practiced in Europe, Britain, and most states. Part IV is a recapitulation of Dancy’s work titled “Best Sites and Finds” that represent the rare items as well “memorable trash pits” he has found. Some Appendices are a surprise because they include key identification marks on clay pipes, mint and assayer marks, and how to preserve coins and iron artifacts through electrolysis as well as a coin inventory, tool check list, and three research case studies. The Index allows rapid searching for artifact types and some sites. Some professional archaeologists will be appalled at excavation site photos and this may turn them away from using this text. That would be a mistake, as there is a lot of very useful information for even experienced metal detectorists and professional archaeologists contained here. The photography is outstanding and presents key artifacts in clear illustrations to aid archaeologists and collectors in identifying finds. Archaeologists routinely use texts on specific artifact types (canteens, bullets and buttons, for example) recovered by antiquarians, relic hunters, and collectors because they represent the broad scale of material culture. Here is much of the same in a single text, collected by one person in Tidewater Virginia. Larry Babits is, among other things, a rear rank private in the First Maryland Infantry and formerly Director of the Program in Maritime Studies at East Carolina University. He worked on Civil War wreck sites including the USS Otsego, Maple Leaf, Star, and CSS ram Neuse. His main areas of interest are the private American soldier and musketry.

A Doctoral Dissertation on Prisons, Prisoners and Those in Charge of Them While in the Hands of the Enemy: Military Prisons of the Civil War. By Charles W. Sanders, Jr. Photographs, notes, bibliography, index, 390 pp., 2017. Louisiana State University Press, www.lsupress.org. $35 softcover. Reviewed by Lee Bailey

Civil War News readers know how terrible conditions were for prisoners in the North as well as the South. They know about the poor rations whose portions were reduced as the war dragged on—or sometimes no food at all. Readers know about the dangerous drinking water, sometimes downstream from latrines, and the smallpox, measles and other communicable diseases which swept through the prison camps. Those illnesses spread quickly because there was seldom enough room in the small prison hospitals to isolate the infected prisoners from those who were in reasonably good health. This is a very well done review of those terrible conditions in the prisons in both the North and the

South, which sometimes meant dozens were buried in mass graves. Those burials, however, sometimes took place only after their surviving comrades, who were poorly-clad and perhaps starving themselves, would take from their bodies any salvageable clothing, blankets, shoes or boots. This book might very well be a “tour de force.” That’s a French expression which means “an exceptional achievement by an artist, author, or the like, that is unlikely to be equaled by that person or anyone else; a stroke of genius. In this reviewer’s opinion it fits those criteria. Yes, I obviously enjoyed reading it despite the fact that doing so was a chore. This lengthy paperback was printed in 2017 following the 2005 hardcover version. But its history goes back to 2001 when it was written as author Sanders’ doctoral dissertation, which degree he was awarded by Kansas State University that year. Those academic roots, necessary for a dissertation, slowed down this non-academic journalist-reviewer. There are footnotes on almost every page. I had to regularly clean my glasses from staring and blinking at the smaller-than-usual type in the book itself, as well as in the footnotes. But that is my only serious complaint about the work. It may seem to be pedantic, but the excruciating detail was probably necessary for a dissertation. Civil War News has often reviewed books about Civil War prisons. What may be new to readers are details of the behindthe-scene intrigues in both Washington and Richmond. They involved the presidents on each side, cabinet secretaries and senior military officers. Their primary goal was to reduce the costs of holding tens of thousands of men in captivity. The fact is, as the author writes, that at the start of the war neither side had spent much time or money in planning what to do with prisoners. Like most Americans, military and civilian leaders—North and South—assumed their side would win in a matter of a few weeks— or a few months at most, so why worry about prisoners? However, as thousands of captured Yankees were first sent to Richmond and just as many Rebels were being moved in boxcars to remote facilities in the North, the civilian and military hierarchies were making promises to improve living conditions for their wards. Those promises were seldom honored as the war dragged on. This book begins with a look back at how the Americans and British in the Revolutionary War of 1775–1783 and the war of 1812–1815 faced many challenges in caring for prisoners, as did Americans during the Mexican War of 1846–48. The handling of prisoners had been difficult in each of those wars, and those Americans in charge had written detailed reports on how they coped. But during the Civil War those reports were gathering dust on library shelves, rather than giving information to those in charge on either side during 1861–1865. It was what 21st-century observers might call OJT—“On the Job Training.” Civil War civilian and senior military officers on both sides were derelict; they should have had enough foresight to have prepared at least some preliminary plans about what to do if they became overseers of thousands of enemy soldiers and sailors. They failed to do so and many who were in charge, especially in the South, were still looking for places to house prisoners in the spring of 1865, just as the war was ending. As stories about the terrible conditions in the camps reached the North and South home fronts, civilians, politicians and the newspapers began to clamor for an exchange of prisoners, under a “cartel.” Today that term often describes questionable agreements among specific organizations or even countries in the same business—such as the Mexican drug cartel which sets the price of illegal drugs. But “cartel” has a second meaning—an agreement between two or more warring countries. President Lincoln did not want to strike such a specific agreement with the Confederacy because that would mean he recognized the seceded states as, indeed, a separate country, not just “rebels.” But the pressure throughout the North from families, newspapers and elected officials to save their fathers, sons and brothers from their hell-holes forced him to reluctantly agree to the prisoner-exchange cartel. Discussions between the North and South eventually did lead to exchanges of troops in two ways: a one-for-one exchange, with one soldier or sailor on each side being exchanged for another of the same rank, or, an exchange of one senior officer for a specific number of enlisted men, such as one general for 40 privates. But there were a number of obstacles to overcome regarding the exchanges. A major stumbling block involved one specific group of U.S. soldiers: Negroes. The South refused to treat those troops as legitimate fighters and, when captured, wanted to return them to their owners or sell them at auction. As the war dragged on, Robert Ould, the designated Confederate in charge of Union prisoners, claimed to be eager to resume exchanges which had ended in an earlier controversy. But in one of this book’s few direct quotations, the author wrote, “…He (Ould) insisted on exceptions, adamantly asserting that Southerners would ‘die in the last ditch’ before giving up the right to send captured slaves back into slavery.” It is details such as that quote which make this worthwhile for those who have a keen interest in Civil War prisons. A plus would have been a map showing the locations of all the prisons, their names and the years they were used. Finally, readers might enjoy the book even more if they could find the 2005 hard cover version, which ought to be easier to handle and read. J. Lee Bailey of Gahanna, Ohio, is a journalist who earned a TV EMMY for an investigation of security problems at a major U.S. airport. He is a member of the Civil War Trust, the Central Ohio Civil War Roundtable and Ohio History Connection. He is now trying his hand at fiction by writing Thunderbolt Raiders—50 years after the Civil War, a Southern general shares his memories and his heart with a young female reporter from the North, about Confederate cavalry Gen. John Hunt Morgan.

Gaining Glory, Overcoming Prejudice Shades of Green: Irish Regiments, American Soldiers, and Local Communities in the Civil War Era. By Ryan W. Keating. Maps, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index, 316 pp., 2017. Fordham University Press, www.fordhampress.com. $40 softcover. Reviewed by Wayne L. Wolf Ryan Keating examines three Northern regiments, the 9th Connecticut, 23rd Illinois, and 17th Wisconsin, which were comprised predominantly of soldiers of Irish heritage. His analysis delves into how the Civil War affected these men, their families, and the communities that sent them to war. The Civil War was their attempt to prove Irish loyalty to their adopted country while simultaneously protecting the republicanism that they hoped would spread back to their native Ireland. While 150,000 Irish joined the Union army, the 5,029 men that comprised these three regiments provide the lens through which the motivations, occupations, sufferings, tenacity, courage and fighting pluck of Irish volunteers shone forth. Full participation in the war effort meant they would earn for all Irish immigrants full citizenship rights and privileges. The author expands on the work of previous historians such as Susannah Ural’s Ye Sons of Green Erin Assemble and Christian Samito’s Becoming American Under Fire to use extensive demographic data showing that each Irish regiment was unique in composition, exposure to battle, and postwar adjustment. Yet all three regiments used the impact of war with an aim to join America’s melting pot as full participants. Military service would debunk xenophobic attitudes in the North and fears of a lack of effectiveness as a fighting force. The casualty rates and loss of men from disease clearly showed their commitment to defending the Constitution of their adopted country. For Civil War historians, this book provides more than a plethora of data on ethnicity, occupations, court martials and disabilities. It personalizes the war on the home front as well. How important were bounties and military pay to the survival of families left behind? What mental problems manifested themselves after the war? What marital strains from years of separation did military service cause? How did returning troops live up to the glorified and romantic news stories of their service? This commingling of demographic data and individual stories creates a unique picture for readers that Irish regiments were not monolithic but local in their orientations. Thus previous studies, using ethnic data alone, could not paint a true picture of the diversity and sacrifices of all Irish regiments and their families. Without including the home front, half of the story of Irish service and struggle is missing. This book is highly recommended for its treatment of Northern Irish regiments as diverse and dedicated defenders of the Union. Perhaps a future study would benefit greatly by including Irish soldiers fighting for the Confederacy. The parallels would provide a more complete understanding of the Irish contribution to the respective war efforts. The book reads as a novel, in which every chapter adds statistical data around personal stories that make the reader eager to read the next chapter. The softcover price of $40.00 is worthy of the research. The $140.00 cloth price is unjustified. Wayne L. Wolf is Professor Emeritus at South Suburban College in Illinois and Past President of the Lincoln-Davis Civil War Roundtable. His current research is directed at discovering, transcribing, and publishing previously unknown Union and Confederate letters to provide researchers with new primary source material.