Small Talk-Trivia

Bookish

By Stephen Davis · Originally published November 2018 · pp. 38–46

Two decades ago, I wrote an essay for a book edited by Steven E. Woodworth, The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research (Greenwood Press, 1996). Included in a section entitled, “Strategy and Tactics: Operations, Campaigns, and Battles,” I addressed books and articles concerning the Eastern Theater. From that article, we draw our bibliographic trivia questions this month. 1. Battle at Bull Run: A History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War was written in 1977 by an author popularly known today as “Jack.” Which Davis? 2. In 1976, Atlanta attorney Robert G. Tanner published the first modern book-length study of Stonewall Jackson’s campaign that made him virtually a household name in the Confederate South. What’s the name of the campaign? 3. Noted historian Stephen Sears has written several excellent studies of eastern campaigns and battles. To the Gates of Richmond (1992) describes which one? 4. John J. Hennessy’s definitive work, Return to Bull Run (1993) explains what pivotal battle of August 1862? 5. One of the distinguished histories of this battle, fought in 1862, was written by James V. Murfin (published in 1965). Which engagement? 6. In my essay of 1996, I wrote that Edwin B. Coddington’s opus, published in 1968, “continues to rank as the best single volume coverage of…” which campaign and battle? 7. William D. Matter’s If It Takes All Summer (1988) deals with the titanic battle fought between Lee’s and Grant’s armies, May 6-21, 1864. Which one? 8. “As Grant and Meade hammered Lee north of Richmond,” I wrote in my essay for Dr. Woodworth’s book, “part of the Union strategy for the spring of 1864 called for a smaller Federal army under Benjamin

F. Butler to advance toward Richmond from south of the James River.” Butler’s failed operation has been described in William Glenn Robertson’s Back Door to Richmond (1987). Which campaign are we talking about? 9. In 1989 Benjamin Franklin Cooling saw published his book on a Confederate infantry raid that in the summer of 1864 actually threatened the forts defending Washington. Who was the Confederate commander of this memorable event? 10. This prodigious researcher, chief historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Battlefield Park, wrote an exhaustive (472 pages!) book on the battle between Stonewall Jackson and John Pope’s forces at Cedar Mountain, Aug. 9, 1862. Which historian? Answers found on page 46. Steve Davis is the Civil War News Book Review Editor. He can be contacted by email at: [email protected].

Small Talk Trivia Answers

William C. Davis, whose works include Duel Between the First Ironclads (1975), Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour (1991) and Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America (2002), my copy of the latter which Jack once inscribed, “For my chum & fellow laborer in the vineyard.” Jackson’s Valley Campaign. Stonewall in the Valley: Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s Shenandoah Valley Campaign, Spring 1862 was published by Doubleday in 1976. Twenty years later, Bob revised and expanded his work, published in 1996 by Stackpole Books. William C. Davis called it “a major revision, expanded and updated. Virtually a new book.” McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign, narrating the events from Yorktown to Richmond, May-July 1862. Sears is author also of George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon (1988), which I reviewed for the Atlanta Journal & Constitution. When Sears’ biography was released as a paperback, the publisher used one of my sentences as a back cover blurb (“We’ll be referring to this rich, defining portrait of a complex personality for years to come.”). Second Manassas, August 29-30, 1862. Hennessy is also author of The First Battle of Manassas: An End to Innocence July 18–21, 1861 (Lynchburg VA: H.E. Howard, 1989). It is lesser known but still a gem (My copy, number 572 of a printing of 1,000, is signed by the author!). James V. Murfin, The Gleam of Bayonets: the Battle of Antietam and the Maryland Campaign of 1862 (1965). Edwin B. Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968). Bob Younger’s Press of Morningside Bookshop reprinted the book in 1979, which is the edition I have. Spotsylvania, Virginia. Matter’s book was the very first recipient of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table’s Richard Barksdale Harwell Book Award. (See Gould Hagler’s column on the award elsewhere in this issue). The Bermuda Hundred Campaign of May–June 1864. At its conclusion, Beauregard’s smaller Confederate force manned a fortified line across the peninsula that led General Grant to comment that Butler’s army “was as completely shut off from further operations directly against Richmond as if it had been in a bottle, strongly corked.” “As long as he lived, Benjamin Butler would be called ‘Bottled-up Butler’” (Robertson, Back Door to Richmond, p. 246). Jubal Early’s Raid on Washington 1864 (1989). Robert K. Krick. Bob’s son, Robert E.L. Krick, is an historian at Richmond National Battlefield Park.