Critic’s Corner

By Stephen Davis · Originally published January-February 2026 · pp. 63

The best battle books describe the fighting with enough I call the difference between the practical and the sublime. detail to be definitive without sinking to excessive militrivia. Everyone gets it. This Hennessy does admirably. He has the added advantage So how many criteria are we articulating? By all of mine, of knowing the terrain—he was NPS historian at Manassas I wish to thank John Hennessy for a fine battle book on National Battlefield. Second Manassas. I remember decades ago, in Dr. Bell Wiley’s Civil War Wait—one more. One can see quality in a good book’s course at Emory, hearing him voice suspicion that Bruce final sentences. Hennessy tells how a humiliated Pope, Catton never visited Gettysburg, based on his description of removed from command and sidelined to fight the Sioux the battlefield terrain. in Minnesota, en (Ouch!) route stopped over Military history in Chicago. A crowd demands a writing formed and called for style that is spare and remarks. pithy, but the best “My friends, I am I shall be killed books are written glad to see you togracefully as well. A night,” he began. “I in this . I tell you, I confident author is am glad to be back also unafraid to use to breathe again the am going to be in this colorful language. pure air of the State of Here, in Hennessy’s Illinois. It has been for charge. I knew it last ; words, a Union battery many years my home, galloping hard for and I am glad to return I have known it all ” the rear ran through to it. God almighty a Federal infantry only knows how sorry – Captain David Gibson line and “completely I am I ever left it.” discombobulated” it. Full annotation and explanatory endnotes are the clearest measures of the author’s scholarship. Hennessy once told Stephen Davis has been writing about the Civil War me that when researching this book he was reading so much for a long time—“since Jesus was in third grade,” he microfilm that he bought a microfilm reader for home use. contends. from 1985 to 2005 worked as Book Review That’s research. Editor for Blue & Gray Magazine. He is author of Texas An outstanding battle book does not have to be flawless. Brigadier to the Fall of Atlanta: John Bell Hood (2019) In Hennessy’s, my eyes strain to see a statement of and Into Tennessee & Failure: John Bell Hood (2020). Confederate casualties from the battle. A footnote refers us With Bill Hendrick he wrote The Atlanta Intelligencer to the Official Records (1,090 K, 6,154 W). Covers the Civil War (2022). We insist, of course, on good maps. There have to be His book, The National Tribune Remembers the Atlanta enough of them to complement and clarify the text (fifteen Campaign: Battles, Skirmishes, Marches and Camp Life as here, the work of Richard Darling). To my eye, they Recalled by the Union Veterans Themselves, was published should not be too detailed; brigade-level will do unless the by Savas Beatie in 2025. book portrays itself as a “microhistory” (think George R. Stewart’s Pickett’s Charge [1959]). McCormick Civil War Institute I also believe a good military history will offer stories that 2026 Spring Conference stick with you. I remember reading Hennessy’s history and coming upon the story of Captain David Gibson, Co. H, 3rd West Virginia. Before a Federal assault Gibson walked up “Quenching the… Embers”: Victory, Defeat, and Challenges After Appomattox to another officer and said, “Major, I shall be killed in this to be held on Shenandoah University’s campus in Winchester, VA charge.” Maj. Theodore Lang tried to brush off Gibson’s dark Featuring Presentations by: premonition. “I tell you, I am going to be killed in this Saturday Jeffrey Boutwell charge,” Gibson repeated. “I knew it last night; I have William C. “Jack” Davis April 18, 2026 Caroline Janney known it all morning.” 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Jonathan A. Noyalas Sure enough, the Federals charged; Captain Gibson was shot in the head and killed. Registration fee: $30 includes all sessions & lunch I remember telling this story to my wife-of-the-time. Her Additional Questions: Contact MCWI’s director Jonathan Noyalas, [email protected] or 540-665-4501 practical response: “If he knew he was going to be killed, why did he charge?” I have told this story countless times, illustrating how To register: su.edu/MCWI this one vignette from Hennessy’s history illustrates what

“Major,

charge

killed night morning.