Book Reviews
Book Reviews — March 2019
Originally published March 2019 · pp. 36–42
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].
Richard Sommers Speaks Challenges of Command in the Civil War: Generalship, Leadership, and Strategy at Gettysburg, Petersburg and Beyond – Volume I: Generals and Generalship. By Richard J. Sommers. Photographs, maps, notes, bibliography, index, 268pp., 2018. Savas Beatie, www.savasbeatie.com. $29.95 hardcover. Reviewed by Christopher L. Kolakowski
As long as military history has been written, there has been a focus on leadership and generalship. The personalities and interplay of various leaders and their subordinates, so critical often to the success or failure of campaigns, is a fruitful topic of study— no matter the era. The Civil War offers no shortage of leadership and generalship case studies in both theaters. Major characters like Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas J. Jackson, William T. Sherman, and many others continue to fascinate, educate, and inspire today. Much ground remains to be plowed in considering Civil War generals and generalship. Richard Sommers is wellknown for his extensive work on U.S. military history, both professionally at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and his published work on the Richmond-Petersburg campaigns of 1864-65. An in-demand speaker, Sommers has spoken many places and offered thoughts on Civil War leadership and combat. He has compiled several recent presentations into the current volume of essays. Topics include the generalship of U.S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in 1864 and 1865; Union civilian corps commanders; Union corps commanders at Antietam, Gettysburg and the Overland Campaign; and a final chapter on descendants of famous Revolutionary War figures in the Civil War. (A second volume will discuss tactics, logistics and other matters.) The reviewer has heard one or two of the above presentations, and enjoyed reliving them in the text. The other presentations/essays were read with considerable interest, and did not disappoint. Sommers’ deep grasp of the subjects shows through in every section. His perspectives are worth consideration by any student of the war, especially of the Eastern Theater. That said, the book does have some limitations. Several essays, especially those on the corps commanders, are repetitive as the same characters are mentioned. Long and detailed footnotes, while informative, can be distracting. Sommers also gets into technical details that may lose less well-informed readers. All things considered, Richard Sommers has made an important contribution to understanding the Civil War and leadership. This book is recommended as a reference for any student of Union leadership or the war’s Eastern Theater. Christopher L. Kolakowski works as a historian in Norfolk, Virginia. He is the author of four books on the American Civil War and World War II, and is a contributor to the Emerging Civil War blog.
When a Prison was a Warehouse
Penitentiaries, Punishment, and Military Prisons: Familiar Responses to an Extraordinary Crisis during the American Civil War By Angela M. Zombek. Notes, bibliography, index, 287 pp., 2018. Kent State University Press, www. KentStateUniversityPress.com. $45 cloth. Reviewed by Meg Groeling
Penitentiaries, Punishment, and Military Prisons places the years 1861–1865 into the broader context of prison in the mid-nineteenth century. I knew little about such things, so this book was very enlightening for me, and author Zombek provides more than enough details to set a reader up for an informed reading experience. In short, prisons in America were places where people convicted of committing a crime were sent to serve their sentences. They were warehouses—certainly not the sort of penitentiaries we know today. Punishment was the purpose, hand-in-hand with rehabilitation. Prisons differed from jails, which were temporary holding areas for the recently arrested or those who had not yet gone to trial. Prisons housed the poor, illiterate, “rough customer” who got caught breaking the law. Gentlemen were not imprisoned, as a general rule—nor were average citizens who might occasionally drink too much, take something not theirs, or be a bit too aggressive in disciplinary measures used at home. Women were sent to prison as well, usually for theft or prostitution. “Nasty, bad criminals go there, not good folks.” It was into this mindset that the war imposed military prisons, and few knew just what to think about it all. Before the war there were no facilities designated as military prisons—both Washington and Richmond had to utilize other facilities such as warehouses and abandoned building complexes. Places in areas such as Chicago, Salisbury, and Andersonville needed to either refurbish old buildings or build new ones, some based on such spurious designs as a large enclosure which fenced in prisoners and provided makeshift shelter. There were arguments concerning just who had to pay for military prisons: states did not care to bear the burden of incarcerating and caring for men not their own, and before the war the military had not even considered hospitals, much less prisons. Lastly, there was the ongoing issue of a professional army versus a volunteer army. Federals rounded up after First Bull Run, for example, were sent to prison in Richmond. They were appalled that they were now considered convicts, a role they had not enlisted to play. Suddenly, Union soldiers went from proud volunteers to criminals in prison. Confederate prisoners fared even worse, as many captives from the South at the beginning of the war were often from well-to-do families. They had no idea how to care for themselves in prison, and quickly spoiled their rations and their environment due to ignorance of simple skills like cooking and cleaning. It did not get better as the war ground on. When prisoner exchanges were cancelled, more and more men were confined, with little planning made for their care. When this information is put into context, as it is in Zombek’s book, the results may be viewed in a new light. The antebellum expectations of prisons-such as not imposing a financial burden on the citizenry by being self-supporting via workshops and contract labor—suddenly became untenable. Confederate prisoners were certainly not going to help the Union war effort by sewing uniforms or wrapping cartridges. Nor were Union prisoners going to receive the care in a Confederate prison that a
Southern man might receive. Guarding prisoners became an onerous and unpopular job when transferred from the realm of public employment to a military duty. Author Zombeck details many of these issues, which occurred on both sides. Penitentiaries, Punishment, and Military Prisons is a fascinating comparison of institutions, and one that has not been given much attention. The book is heartbreaking in many ways, but the way that it affected me most was the psychological one, in which a soldier was placed in the same position as a criminal. Even a jailbreak could be looked at from many points of view. If it is the duty of a captured soldier to attempt escape, which it was on both sides, then imagine the conflict of a man in prison. He knows he should try to get out, but he also knows that he is putting his life in his hands in the attempt. If he is recaptured, punishment is great as well. Imagine being a young man who was law-abiding until the war, signed up to fight for morally feasible reasons, and for some cause—illness, wound, staying with a fallen friend—suddenly he is a prisoner and is being treated as if he was a criminal. Angela M. Zombek, an assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina, has done extensive research on her topic and has written articles and book chapters about Civil War prisons. With this work she gives readers a serious, empathetic and nuanced look at a topic that affected hundreds of thousands of men. Reverberations of these events continue today in the modern struggle for humane treatment of prisoners. Meg Groeling of Hollister, Cal., received her Master’s degree in military history, with a Civil War emphasis, in 2016 from American Public University. Her next book, First Fallen: The Life of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, will be published by Southern Illinois University Press.
A View from Across the Pond USS Monitor “brought to life once more” Ambivalent Nation: How Britain Imagined the American Civil War. By Hugh Dubrulle. Notes, index, bibliography, 337pp., 2018. Louisiana State University Press, www.lsupress. org. $49.95 cloth. Reviewed by Katelyn Brown
When most Americans imagine the Civil War, they picture a strictly American conflict that was fought and thought about only by Americans; however, no historical event happens in a bubble, and the Civil War was no exception. A number of scholars have argued the importance of the Civil War to Britain, a discussion which Hugh Dubrulle joins with this book. Dubrulle, a history professor at Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, begins with a description of the state of the field, laying out the various scholarly views of Britain’s perspectives on the Civil War. As Dubrulle argues, scholars’ analysis of British opinion has focused on “who believed what,” whereas the field also requires a discussion of “how Britons believed.” With the purpose of the book clearly stated, Dubrulle then moves into a thorough analysis of how the people of Britain thought about Americans before and during the war. Throughout, the author argues that the British viewpoint of Americans was shaped by postcolonial arrogance and the stereotypes that antebellum travel literature had instilled in the British public. Americans were somehow both a familiar extension of the British world while also being an unknown Other. After beginning with an examination of British perceptions of antebellum Americans, Dubrulle spends most of the book in the analysis of four particular subjects: British perspectives on American racial relations, politics, military, and nationalism. Interestingly, Dubrulle challenges the popular narrative that British attitudes towards the war were shaped by slavery or commerce; instead, he argues that “British opinion was not pro-northern or pro-southern as much as it was pro-British.” As the title suggests, the British public was more ambivalent than anything else. Dubrulle’s assertion of British ambivalence is a relatively new idea, with most scholars arguing for strong British opinion one way or the other. As the author writes, only a handful of scholars have previously framed British opinion in a nuanced way, including R.J.M. Blackett in Divided Hearts (2001) and D.P. Crook, The North, the South, and the Powers (1974). Dubrulle adds a new dimension to this argument, however, by arguing that Reconstruction changed British minds regarding the feasibility of its popular government. Surprised by the Federal military victory and the resilience of American nationalism, Britain was forced to reevaluate its ambivalence and therefore to open up a new chapter in Anglo-American relations. This argument is strengthened by Dubrulle’s opening chapters, in which he describes the perspectives that Britons brought into the start of the Civil War. By opening with such analysis of antebellum perceptions, he provides a crucial foundation from which to convincingly prove the shift in British views of Americans as a result of the war. Another strength comes from the author’s thorough research and use of a wide variety of primary sources, including newspapers, official correspondence and government archives. By adopting an entirely new lens of analysis on this source base, Dubrulle is able to successfully meet his own challenge of showing how the British perceived Civil Warera Americans, demonstrating that British attitudes towards the war were shaped by an ambivalence formed even before the war began. While the breadth of his sources is impressive, this thoroughness results in a highly academic work that is quite dense. As a result, it is not a book for the casual reader; however, it does provide a valuable perspective on the international dimensions of the Civil War and the relationship between Britain and the United States. Katelyn Brown is the Program Coordinator for the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies and Education Assistant for the American Battlefield Trust. She has published articles in Military Images and Ohio Valley History.
“Our Little Monitor”: The Greatest Invention of the Civil War. By Anna Gibson Holloway and Jonathan W. White. Maps, tables, illustrations, photos, notes, appendix, index, 283 pp., 2018. Kent State University Press, www.KentStateUniversityPress. com. $34.95. Hardcover. Reviewed by Joan Wenner
What a pleasure to review this comprehensive and fact-filled book. It is co-penned by Jonathan W. White, the former curator of the USS Monitor Center at the Mariners’ Museum & Park, a respected professor and author at Christopher Newport University. This is partly due to my witnessing the retrieved turret’s arrival in 2002 at Newport News and updating developments at the Museum numerous times since then for CWN. And how amazing that this “greatest invention” shares center stage with another innovative and technologically advanced craft—the winning 2013 Team Oracle America’s Cup foiling catamaran in a newly launched exhibition. This is a book of heft that includes many interesting images and illustrations with technical and engineering information. For example, did you know there was a Monitor float in a Grand Army of the Republic parade and later commemorations, and sheet music composed for marches, common for notables at the time? Other photographic images from the period have been often reprinted, while recovered artifacts and discoveries from the modern day would likely be of special interest to Civil War naval buffs, and especially perhaps the undersea images by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary (currently in hopes of its boundaries being expanded.) The work is divided into two distinct parts. Part 1, containing 177 richly illustrated pages, presents a narrative history of the ironclad Monitor from its beginning designs through construction and her battle at Hampton Roads with the CSS Virginia in March of 1862, the sunken ship’s discovery, to the conservation of those parts and artifacts retrieved
(including remains of crew members, their identification and burial). Part 2, 68 pages, in documentary fashion serves up intriguing and often fascinating first-hand accounts and communications— the real words and unique perspectives of those who experienced the Monitor. They are gleaned from many “untapped materials” and divided into individual chapters. The battle of Hampton Roads in Chapter 10 is particularly interesting, as are Chapter 11 on President Lincoln’s Mailbag March 10-17, 1862, the Engineer’s View in Chapter 12, and the chapters that follow concerning the ship’s repair and personal observations of two surgeons of her final moments. A terrific book that does in fact pull it all together, as the authors claim, “Our Little Monitor” is for whatever level the reader desires to know about the ship and those connected with her. It is indeed a very definitive account of virtually every aspect of the USS Monitor. Joan Wenner, J.D. is a longtime contributor to the Civil War News and numerous history publications. Presently residing in eastern North Carolina (and the Graveyard of the Atlantic), she has a special interest in Civil War naval operations and military courts of inquiry. Contact at joan_writer@ yahoo.com
Custer Loves War and the Ladies! Custer: The Making of a Young General. By Edward G. Longacre. Maps, bibliography, notes, index, 276 pp., 2018. Skyhorse Publishing, www.skyhorsepublishing.com. $24.99 hardcover.
Reviewed by Thomas J. Ryan
Unfortunately for his legacy, George Armstrong Custer is best known for his death in 1876 at the battle of Little Bighorn against the Lakota and Arapaho Tribes in Montana Territory. The general public knows much less about Custer’s exploits and accomplishments during the Civil War of 1861–1865. Edward G. Longacre, who has focused much of his research and writing career on Civil War cavalry commanders and operations, undertook to clarify and expand upon the historical record of George Custer’s service in the Union army—primarily as a cavalry officer. This is the first of a planned two-part series. Longacre laid the groundwork for his current study with prior publications, including The Cavalry at Gettysburg (1986), General John Buford: A Military Biography (1995), Lincoln’s Cavalrymen (2000) and Lee’s Cavalrymen (2002). In this current work, Longacre proposes “to identify and correct the myths, misconceptions, and misinterpretations about Custer the man.” He also intends to “add depth to the Custer narrative” by including substantial detail about his life and career. The author introduces the Ohio native George Armstrong Custer as an impulsive youth, born in 1839, whose hero was General Winfield Scott of Mexican War fame. Custer’s penchant for engaging in pranks and telling jokes was in evidence during his years as a cadet at West Point. His behavior and lack of dedication to the curriculum came within a whisker of ending his status as a cadet, and he graduated last in his class in 1861. Longacre points out that, depending on their geographic origin, hostility developed between West Point students prior to the Civil War. Yet Custer managed to maintain friendships with cadets from both the North and South. Once he donned the uniform as a Union officer, he retained amenity toward Southern friends and acquaintances—some of whom he met on the battlefield. Politically, he was more in tune with the South regarding lifestyle issues, including slavery, yet maintained an allegiance to the Union of states. The narrative describes battles in which Custer played a role either in a staff or line function. A paradox is evident concerning the mutual admiration between Custer, a daring young officer, and Maj. Gen. George McClellan, a slow-to-act army commander. Custer failed to find fault with McClellan even in light of the latter’s reluctance to act aggressively during the battle of Antietam and its aftermath. The author pays considerable attention to Custer’s relationship with young women, and his tenacious, and, at times, overbearing, pursuit of the hand of Libby Bacon—his future wife. While Custer’s social escapades are indicative of his personality, Longacre also details Custer’s facility for maneuvering through the political morass to achieve promotion, as well as important assignments with the assistance of high-ranking military officers. Indicative of his success in overcoming typical bureaucratic constraints, Custer received promotion from captain to brigadier general in the volunteer service just two years after graduating from West Point. His patron was Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, Army of the Potomac cavalry corps commander, who saw in this young officer, as well as the fiery and reckless Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, the caliber of leader he wanted commanding his cavalry divisions and brigades. Longacre focuses in detail on Custer’s courageous performance against Stuart’s more numerous cavalry east of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. Although not as famous as the charge named for Maj. Gen. George Pickett on that same date, Custer’s charge-while shouting to his Michigan horse soldiers, “Come on, you Wolverines!”—stymied Stuart’s attempt to break through Union defenses behind the main lines. It was an important contribution to the Union victory at Gettysburg. To insure that Custer’s character and motivation in life are understood, Longacre quotes readily from Custer’s wartime letters. Prior to the retreat of Lee’s army from Gettysburg, the author speculates whether Custer “must have wondered if the general commanding [Maj. Gen. George G. Meade] would be just as happy to see his antagonist escape.” Custer’s loss of patience with Meade’s cautious tendencies is seen in a letter he wrote not long after the Gettysburg campaign, when both armies were back in the same location as when it began. In a compact, easy-to-read, well-documented narrative, Longacre fills in some blanks in George Custer’s story, and corrects a number of misconceptions. Maps and other illustrations help to keep track of events. The author evaluates Custer’s performance as a West Point cadet, and as an officer in the Union army during the first two years of the war. His projected second volume “will cover the remainder of Custer’s Civil War service and his controversial stint in Texas during the early months of Reconstruction.” Given the sparsity of historical writings devoted to George Armstrong Custer’s service during the Civil War, Custer devotees as well as a more general audience will no doubt want to add Custer: The Making of a Young General to their collection. Thomas J. Ryan is the author of the award-winning Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign: How the Critical Role of Intelligence Impacted the Outcome of Lee’s Invasion of the North, June-July 1863. His latest book, written with Richard R. Schaus, is titled Lee is Trapped, and Must be Taken: Eleven Fateful Days after Gettysburg, July 4-14, 1863 and is scheduled for publication by Savas Beatie later this Spring.
A Method Not For Everyone The “What Ifs” of the Decisions at Second Manassas: The Fourteen Critical Decisions that Defined the Battle. By Matt Spruill III and Matt Spruill IV. Maps, photos, notes, index, 260 pp., 2018. University of Tennessee Press, www.utpress.org. $29.95 paper. Reviewed by John Hennessy
Battle of Chattanooga Decisions at Chattanooga: The Nineteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle. By Larry Peterson. Maps, appendices, notes, photos, index, 176pp., 2018. University of Tennessee Press, www.utpress.org. $29.95 paperback. Reviewed by Wayne L. Wolf
In a lifetime, we have seen the historiography of the Civil War morph continually as publishers try new ways to engage a readership flooded to their waists with words. Analytical works by academic scholars have always been the foundation of the history business, but they often have little appeal to the masses. With Freeman, Catton and Foote, narrative histories emerged as the dominant way the public engaged in its past. Then, in the 1980s and beyond, a firehose of letters, diaries and memoirs gave consumers new ways to engage the story of war. More recently, anthologies have become the thing, though the public seems little enthused about them. The University of Tennessee Press has devised a new way for readers to engage the story of key battles and events: a new series, “Command Decisions of the Civil War.” Matt Spruill III and Matt Spruill IV—both retired military officers—have combined to produce the second volume of the series, Decisions at Second Manassas: The Fourteen Critical Decisions that Defined the Battle. The Spruills offer readers an adaptation of a military staff ride, focused entirely on the decisions that they see as critical to the flow and outcome of the Second Manassas Campaign. The book makes no pretense to narrative. Instead, the authors parse fourteen moments, leading readers through what they perceive to have been the options available, the decision made, and the implication of that decision. The focus, as the authors say, is less on what happened than why it happened and why it mattered. We can surely argue number and nature of the critical decisions that shaped the campaign (and if we had more wordage available to us at the moment, we would). But most of the critical decisions the authors identify are obvious and their analysis is useful and interesting: Halleck’s decision to have McClellan evacuate the Peninsula; Lee’s decision to send Jackson on his flank march and Jackson’s subsequent decision to initiate the battle with Pope on August 28; Pope’s decision to attack on August 30…and many more. The various options the authors present generally seem to be those most likely considered by the players on the ground at the time. Like a list of the 10 greatest lefties of all time, this book is intended to provoke, and that’s precisely what many readers will like best about it. There is enough to argue about. The authors explore the decision to create the Union’s
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Army of Virginia but spend little ink on Lincoln’s critical decision to place John Pope in command of that army. (Indeed, the book little addresses the political context of the campaign—this is military history in pure form.) They barely reference perhaps the most important decision of the campaign: Pope’s choice to engage Lee at all, instead of falling back behind Bull Run to merge his own army with McClellan’s Army of the Potomac without a climactic battle. In a few instances, the discussion of the “critical” decisions presented seems to rely on presumptions that may seem reasonable, but are not necessarily supported by what’s known. The authors present the dilemma of Fitz John Porter on the morning of August 29 as if he had affirmative, or at least knowable, orders to attack Jackson, when in fact he did not. The authors’ analysis of the decision of Col. Nathan McLean to keep his brigade on Chinn Ridge and fight on the afternoon of August 30 rides on a thin foundation of source material indeed. We know almost nothing about McLean’s orders or thinking, or the limits placed upon him by superiors. Of course, these are precisely the sorts of arguments a book like this is intended to provoke. The Spruills’ writing is straightforward and clear. The maps are good and numerous (31 in all). In fact, in some cases, these are the best published maps available on certain phases of the battle The authors’ method won’t appeal to everyone, but for those are who looking for an examination of a military campaign through the lens of decision-making, as if on a military staff ride, this book will intrigue and satisfy. John Hennessy is the author of Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas (1993), and The First Battle of Manassas: An End To Innocence July 18-21, 1861 (1989). Formerly historian at Manassas National Battlefield, he is presently the Chief Historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.
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Larry Peterson defines a critical decision as one of such magnitude that it shapes the success or failure of a battle or campaign. He succinctly presents three pre-battle decisions, nine decisions during the battle, and seven decisions post-battle that might have altered the outcome of the Chattanooga campaign. From the Union perspective, Abraham Lincoln’s reinforcement of the Army of the Cumberland, Grant’s restructuring of the Union’s three western departments, the opening of the “Cracker Line,” and General George Thomas’ troops taking Missionary Ridge were the crucial decisions that ultimately led to Northern victory. For the South, Braxton Bragg’s dispersal of troops after Chickamauga to rid his army of malcontents, his poorly designed defensive lines, including the use of a topographical crest line of defense, and Patrick Cleburne’s protection of the Confederate retreat stand out as the turning points for the South. While the first two Southern decisions led to the fall of Chattanooga, the third saved Bragg’s army from annihilation. The result was the South’s loss of Chattanooga, a critical rail and supply depot and opening point on the road to Atlanta for William
T. Sherman. The author argues that these personnel, tactical and organizational decisions defined the result and perhaps sealed the Confederacy’s fate. The author includes an extensive driving tour to the locations of all nineteen critical decisions. This is perhaps the most valuable inclusion in the book. To enhance this section, he includes narratives from battle participants to add an historical “I was there” perspective which creates the imagery for the tourist. An appendix also details both the Union and Confederate order of battle to clarify division and brigade placement and participation. While the nineteen critical decisions are clearly defined with options offered for each, any such analysis will be open to other possibilities that are equally valid. Likewise, there are a number of whys not examined. For example, why did Grant continue to promote Sherman, when his performance at Chattanooga was abysmal? How did James Longstreet’s personal ambitions overshadow his effective cooperation with Bragg? What led Grant to assign George Thomas a supporting role at Chattanooga? And finally, when options were chosen, how did they affect future decisions? The nineteen selected options did not exist in a vacuum but ultimately interacted in a web of actions that changed as the battle progressed. This cause-andeffect is inadequately addressed. This book certainly contains a number of interesting options that helped to shape the battle. Yet more comprehensive battle analyses by Wiley Sword, Peter Cozzens, Matt Spruill and David Powell, among others, address all of these issues in greater depth and comprehensiveness. Perhaps this book’s greatest benefit is the travel guide for the visiting historian. But at $29.95, it is a bit pricey for that benefit alone. Wayne L. Wolf is Professor Emeritus at South Suburban College, Illinois, and the author of numerous Civil War books and articles, including Two Years Before the Paddlewheel: Charles F. Gunther, Mississippi River Confederate (2012), co-edited with Bruce S. Allardice. He is currently researching soldiers’ letters that add a personal touch to the war.
Letters from a Family of Journalists A Union POW Camp A Family and a Nation Under Fire: The Civil War Letters and Journals of William and Joseph Medill. Edited by Georgiann Baldino. Photos, notes, bibliography, index, 232 pp., 2018. Kent State University Press, kentstateuniversitypress.com. $34.95 hardcover. Reviewed by Jonathan W. White
Joseph Medill is well known in Lincoln circles. This book will bring him and his family to the attention of Civil War enthusiasts as well. In the mid-nineteenth century Medill was the editor of the Chicago Tribune, an important Republican newspaper. In 1861 his brother William enlisted in a 3-month cavalry unit from Chicago; later that year he became an officer in the 8th Illinois Cavalry. This book reproduces a series of wartime letters to/from various members of the Medill family, although most of the letters are from William to Joseph. As a newspaperman himself, William was an astute observer of his surroundings, and his letters offer readers a spectacular glimpse into the experiences of Union soldiers. William and Joseph Medill were both strong Republicans who advocated for the destruction of slavery. Ironically, William also defended Union general George B. McClellan in the early months of 1862, although he would come to loathe “Little Mac” by the end of the year. His letters detail interactions with slaves and white southerners and offer pointed commentary on the landscapes of Virginia. When he visited the site where George Washington had courted Martha Custis, he wrote, “Romance is written everywhere, and I wonder not that Washington’s heart was filled with love while stopped at the [plantation]. Even I would be tempted to make love to a handsome widow if I found one in such a delightful spot.” By the summer of 1862 William started to think about resigning his commission. He was “disgusted and disheartened” with the lack of progress by the army as well as the way that Union soldiers were required to protect Confederate property. “Our generals will never put down this slaveholders’ rebellion by pursuing a proslavery policy,” he wrote in June 1862. “We must knock away this great pillar of their edifice, else we shall never succeed in putting down the revolt.” William finally tendered his resignation in August but his superiors refused to accept it. He found renewed joy in the army, though, when his younger brother Samuel joined his regiment in September. “His initiation into the regiment was on the morning of the great battle of Antietam Creek,” wrote William. “The regiment was moving forward at the time he arrived and in twenty minutes after I shook hands with him, we were in advance of all the lines and under the most terrific storm of shell and shot I have ever experienced.” William watched his little brother withstand “the fire first-rate,” remarking, “I don’t think he was frightened much.”
Unfortunately, other health issues caused Samuel to leave the army within a few weeks. William’s correspondence includes personal reflections, accounts of military operations, and astute political observations. Some of the most telling passages offer details about how his regiment worked to free as many slaves as they could, and how William cared for a fourteen-year-old Virginia slave who had lost his family through slave sales. But the most touching part of the book comes at the end. William was mortally wounded on July 6, 1863, a few days after the battle of Gettysburg. Joseph rushed to the hospital to care for his brother and kept a detailed diary over the ensuing ten days, until William finally died on July 16. Joseph’s diary brings readers right to William’s deathbed in a way that few period sources do so vividly. A Family and a Nation Under Fire is an excellent volume that will appeal to readers interested in the military and political history of the Civil War. The book is ably edited and annotated, and the personal correspondence from this family of journalists makes for fascinating reading. Jonathan W. White is the author or editor of 8 books about the Civil War, including Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams during the Civil War (2017) and “Our Little Monitor”: The Greatest Invention of the Civil War (2018) with Anna Gibson Holloway.
Confederate Prisoners at Fort Delaware: The Legend of Mistreatment Reexamined. By Joel D. Citron. Photos, endnotes, index, illustrations, tables, graphs, bibliography, 238 pp., 2018. McFarland, www.mcfarlandbooks.com. $39.95 softcover. Reviewed by Gould Hagler
No prisoner-of-war camp is a pleasant place to be. No one would dispute that. However, for many decades—since 1861 probably—Americans have argued about the relative conditions of Northern and Southern prisons. As important as the conditions themselves is the question of the cause. What led to the inhumane circumstances which created so much suffering? One commonly-held view is that the squalid conditions in Confederate prisons were due to a lack of resources, while Confederate prisoners in the North suffered because of retaliatory measures adopted by the United States government. The late Joel Citron, a chemist by profession, was a long-time volunteer at Fort Delaware State Park. In Confederate Prisoners at Fort Delaware Citron argues against this commonly-held view. “The goal of this study,” he writes in the preface, “was to find as many contemporaneous primary sources of information about what happened…and to analyze what these primary sources reveal.” The author pored through over 20 diaries and the relevant documents in the Official Records. In addition, Citron found many unpublished and previously unused documents in the National Archives that relate to the prison. The research led him to the conclusion that conditions at Fort Delaware were not nearly so harsh as previous writers have maintained and that retaliatory measures ordered by the Commissary General of Prisoners and the Secretary of War did not lead to significant worsening of the prisoners’ plight.
The work includes a great deal of quantitative analysis related to rations, death rates and medical care. It also includes descriptions of the prison’s physical plant and Pea Patch Island on which the prison was located; the prison’s administration and the military bureaucracy which oversaw operations; and the daily life of the prisoners and their guards. Citron concludes that the prisoners fared reasonably well at Fort Delaware; that the food, shelter and medical care were generally adequate; that camp discipline was not unduly harsh; that the death rates (the proof of the pudding, if you will) were lower than at other Northern and Southern prisons. (The adjectives and adverbs in the foregoing sentence, and especially in the last clause, are employed with the understanding that we are talking about a facility in wartime—and about events that occurred in the mid-19th century, when medical science and understanding of the causes of disease were primitive compared to the present. We must keep in mind that soldiers died of disease every day of the war, whether they were in prison or not.) Citron makes a strong case. However, in one way his methodology—his exclusive reliance on contemporaneous sources—is questionable. There is no doubt that contemporaneous sources are preferable in most circumstances, but should all others be dismissed wholesale? Shouldn’t they be consulted, compared to other sources, assessed and used with care to complete the picture? One example is a 1905 Confederate Veteran article, written by Col. George Moffett, a prisoner at both Camp Chase and Fort Delaware, which does not appear in Citron’s work. Moffett claimed that hanging prisoners by their thumbs was “a daily occurrence,” while Citron gives just a few examples of this torture and then changes the subject. Should this allegation of daily torture be ignored? Moffett said that Fort Delaware was “infinitely worse” than Camp Chase. While Delaware’s commandant was a “Hessian brute,” the officer in charge of Chase was “a soldier with gentlemanly instincts.” Discipline at Chase was “strict and strictly enforced,” but at Delaware was “brutal and brutally enforced.” If Moffett was exaggerating or lying, why would he give a favorable comparison to Camp Chase? Perhaps the judicious use of sources like this could add to our knowledge. The book is not an easy read. There are some stylistic issues that are distracting and in places the writing could be more spirited. These are minor matters, however. The main reason Confederate Prisoners at Fort Delaware is not a page turner is because it is not meant to be. It is a detailed analysis and requires work on the reader’s part. Citron explicitly limits his conclusions to Fort Delaware and suggests that studies similar to his be undertaken for other Northern prisons. He has already uncovered long-ignored boxes of records. Perhaps another researcher could dig through them and see if there is something to learn about Elmira, Camp Douglas and Point Lookout.
Gould Hagler is a retired lobbyist living in Dunwoody, Ga. He is a past president of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table and the author 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].
Fresh Look at the Confederate March to Gettysburg
At the Forefront of Lee’s Invasion: Retribution, Plunder, and Clashing Cultures on Richard S. Ewell’s Road to Gettysburg. By Robert J. Wynstra. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index, 352 pp. Kent State University Press, www.KentStateUniversityPress. com $49.95 cloth.
On June 4, 1863, the three corps of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia began marching northward from their Virginia camps to begin what would become the second invasion of northern soil. This new work by Robert Wynstra focuses on the march of General Richard Ewell’s Second Corps, which led the advance.
Within ten days and with Brig. Gen. Robert Rodes’ brigade in the lead, Confederate forces had swept all Union forces from western Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, which included victories at Berryville and Martinsburg. By June 15, Ewell’s lead columns stood on the south bank of the Potomac River, ready for a return visit to northern territory. The Confederacy needed supplies for its depleted ranks. As with the Antietam campaign nine months earlier, one of Lee’s paramount concerns was feeding his always hungry army and perhaps more importantly, gaining diplomatic recognition from England and France. They were confident that one more victory, especially on northern soil, might bring that recognition. Wynstra amply depicts the tactical maneuvering and the resultant skirmishing with northern militia. Five maps are included illustrating corps and division routes of march through Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. However, it is the Confederate supply demands and requisition tactics throughout Maryland and Pennsylvania—and the civilians’ response to those ultimatums— that form this book’s essence. The author describes how the Confederates’ reception by Maryland residents was generally more welcoming than in the prior campaign; nevertheless, the soldiers’ desire for revenge ran deep. Consequently Lee issued explicit orders forbidding his men to plunder or take private property of no military value, except by officers so designated to requisition necessary supplies. How Lee’s senior officers strove to enforce the general’s edict against the army’s legitimate supply needs and some men’s longing for retribution is a core focus in this book. Those officers in charge of gathering supplies confiscated whatever they needed, “paying” businesses and individuals for their booty in worthless Confederate scrip or receipts. They quickly realized they would be able to comfortably live off the land and off these confiscations while realizing that any local militia resistance could be easily swatted away. As one Confederate soldier famously asked of the terrified northern civilians, “How do you like this way of our coming back into the Union?” Confederate officers reassured shopkeepers that if the South won the war, the Confederacy would reimburse their losses in gold. If the South lost, however, it would be up to the U.S. Government. In any event, few civilians or business owners ever saw the first nickel in compensation. Wynstra illustrates how the Confederates were well aware of the financial distress their confiscations placed on the northern population and were quite pleased by it. Confederate soldiers did not limit their spoils to foodstuffs, medicines, clothing, livestock, or other supplies of military value, either. Any blacks they came across—allegedly slave or free—were rounded up to be sent back south into bondage. Such seizures were considered by the Confederates to be no different than confiscating horses or cattle and were carried out with the sanction and knowledge of their commanding officers. Meanwhile, southern slave catchers and owners followed closely behind the army in order to claim their “property.” The author utilized period newspapers as well as dozens upon dozens of manuscript sources from both northern civilians and Confederate soldiers to describe how and to what degree the southern soldiers confiscated what they needed. Many of these men were in awe at the rich bounty of food and supply all around them. Despite that material abundance, however, those same men often had little good to say within their diaries and letters about the local people who produced such wealth. This was especially prevalent within the German immigrant communities in south Pennsylvania. Instead, they derisively claimed the hated “Dutch” were merely part of a corrupted culture that placed monetary wealth above social refinement. Wynstra’s excellent book is not the first to cover the Confederate advance into Maryland and Pennsylvania. Jacob Hoke, a Chambersburg eyewitness, first penned The Great Invasion of 1863 in 1887. That was followed by Wilbur Nye’s Here Come the Rebels! over 75 years later in 1965. Both works are considered essential components of a Gettysburg bookshelf. John W. Schildt’s Roads to Gettysburg (1978) and Bradley M. Gottfried’s Roads to Gettysburg: Lee’s Invasion of the North, 1863 (2001) are more recent additions to this small canon. Even so, with its rich use of uncommon primary sources and insightful analysis, At the Forefront is a worthy successor to these previous volumes that covered the Confederate march to destiny: a four-week campaign that succeeded admirably at refitting and feeding Lee’s legions, but hardly compensated for the forthcoming devastation at Gettysburg. Paul Taylor is an award-winning author of seven books pertaining to the Civil War era. His newest book is titled “The Most Complete Political Machine Ever Known”: The North’s Union Leagues in the American Civil War, published by Kent State University Press.