Some of My Most Favorite Books Read in 2021

By Joan Wenner, J.D. · Originally published November 2021 · p. 20

Women Making War: Female Confederate Prisoners and Union Military Justice by Thomas F. Curran. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 258 pages (2020). Readers can find in this book many interesting facts on a topic not typically addressed. Curran, a history journal editor and author of another Civil Warrelated book, provides detailed documentation he relied on for his comprehensive study of numerous Confederate women who came in contact with military commands and were tried for their support of the Southern cause by Federal military commissions in accordance with general orders issued during the war. One particularly noxious commander was Major General John Fremont who declared Martial Law in St. Louis on August 14, 1861. We’re cautioned that an 1880 publication by the Department of War concerning opinions of the judge advocate general that not all cases of accused civilians, male and female, had been adjudicated by formal military commissions. That statement tells only part of the story. Curran notes, for example, that he studied two collections of documents from Record Group 109 of the National Archives; 300 microfilm rolls of the Union Provost Marshals’ File of Papers Relating to Individual Civilians [M345]; and the 94 rolls of the Union Provost Marshals’ File of Papers Relating to Two or More Civilians [M416]. While conceding these also may not tell the whole story, they did provide a wealth of data that made much of his research possible in conjunction with the War Department record on Confederate Prisoners of War, 1861–1865, contemporary newspapers, and the Official Records. One female prisoner roughly summed up the thoughts of many saying that most were unjustly imprisoned in the St. Louis area and while some of questionable character were included with those of impeccable upbringing, all were loyal to the South. Germans in the Civil War: The Letters They Wrote Home edited by Walter D. Kamphoefner and Wolfgang Helbich; translated by Susan Carter Vogel. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (2017, 2006), originally published in 2002 in Germany. This 560 page book with over 40 illustrations contains hundreds of letters including more than 30 written by soldiers in uniform from the North and South telling “of battles and boredom, privation and profiteering, motives for enlistment and desertion and for avoiding involvement altogether.” People from a variety of backgrounds, including some women and male civilians, make reading especially interesting as the text describes the war from a German view. The soldiers’ letters, mostly from privates, corporals, lieutenants, sergeants to a captain are from the Eastern and Western Theaters. For overall context the editors have included an introductory section on the Civil War era and the role German immigrants played in it drawn from these letters and the editors’ own research. One editor, Walter D. Kamphoefner, is a professor of history, Texas A&M University; the other is Wolfgang Helbich, a history professor emeritus, Ruhr Universitat Bochum. Reports From America: William Howard Russell and the Civil War. By history professor and editor, llana .D. Miller, 2001. Originally published by Sutton Publishing Ltd., 1838, with reports of this Irish The Times of London journalist who covered four wars including the American Civil War reporting on soldiers and battles. While despising the term ‘war’ which would bring Russell international renown, (1820– 1907), was said to be one of the first ‘war correspondents.’ And according to en.wikipedia. org, later Florence Nightingale credited her entry into wartime nursing to his reports. The public could now read about the reality of warfare, and from frontline soldiers noting Russell “a vulgar low Irishman, drinks anyone’s brandy, smokes cigars—and just the sort of chap to get information out of youngsters.” He would spend 22 months in America. As an interesting aside, Sherman for example was no friend of particularly Southern newspapers, and particularly hated war correspondents. He reportedly once said, “Reporters print their limited and tainted observations as their history of events they neither see nor comprehend.” Correspondents should swing from the nearest tree and said he would have been delighted to perform the task himself. Joan Wenner, J.D. has contributed for many years to the Civil War News and The Artilleryman among other history publications and has a law degree. Comments are welcomed at joan_writer@ yahoo.com.