Civil War Book Reviews

Originally published September-October 2026 · pp. 67–72

Book Reviews Civil War News book reviews provide our readers with analysis of the latest and most significant Civil War research and scholarship. Contact email: [email protected].

Reconstruction in Louisiana Fractured Freedoms: Reconstructing Central Louisiana. By David T. Ballantyne. Maps, footnotes, bibliography, index. 309 pp., 2025. Louisiana State University Press, https://lsupress.org/. $45. Reviewed by Richard H. Holloway This volume joins a growing body of works on the Reconstruction era in the United States following the American Civil War, but this one stands out because of its concentration on a specific area in central Louisiana. The author explains in the introduction that his intent was to focus specifically on Rapides Parish (Louisiana is the only state to use parishes instead of counties). Unfortunately, that effort was hindered by a lack of records due to the devastating courthouse fire of May 1864, a parting gift of Federal troops upon their abandonment of the parish seat of Alexandria. This shortage of documentation was compounded by another smaller blaze in 1880. In the initial chapter, the author cites an August 1865 letter by the former local Confederate postmaster as Union troops occupied Alexandria, but he does not examine it more closely. This is a missed opportunity to address the actual troops stationed there at the time and the criminal acts they were inflicting upon the local citizenry. Alexandria and Pineville, the two largest cities in the parish, were under the direction of Major General George A. Custer and two divisions of Federal cavalry that were wantonly robbing nearby private residences with impunity. These acts persisted until so many residents complained that Custer was forced to address the situation officially. This bad behavior certainly set the tone for the area’s initial exposure to Reconstruction, no doubt creating a negative impression that was difficult to dispel. Also, a study of the reactions to the two regiments of United States Colored Infantry serving as provost guards would have shed brighter light on that atypical interaction. Additionally, in the opening stages of the book, the author misinterprets an increase in “oath taking” by the area’s white population during the Union’s spring 1864 Red River Campaign, which he states “…dramatically highlighted the malleability of white residents’ stated loyalties, regardless of their commitment to the Confederacy and the preservation of a slave society.” He then concludes, “…most oath takers resumed Confederate loyalty (if they ever really left it). Among the mass of oath takers were many wartime Unionists; some became postwar Republicans but most did not.” In actuality, the influx of purportedly loyal Southern citizens consisted largely of local Jayhawkers, whom the Union later rewarded with ‘official’ status by approving their enlistment into the unit designated the 1st Battalion, Louisiana Cavalry Scouts. These men were out for personal profit by any means necessary and would readily go after anyone on either side to accomplish their monetary goals. For example, in early February 1864, they captured Confederate Major David French Boyd, chief engineer on the staff of Major General Richard Taylor. The Jayhawkers ransomed their captive to Yankee forces in Natchez, Miss., for $100.00. Boyd, later the first president of Louisiana State University, would regale friends after the war with the tale of the “long-bearded sinners” who sold him. Yes, there were some Unionists in the area, but not in the numbers purported by the writer. Another notable glitch is the use of the more fashionable term ‘massacre’ instead of the original designation ‘Colfax Riot.’ Several books include the former in the title in an effort to use the more provocative term. It may sell more books, but it departs from the historical designation. To put it in context, try changing the Battle of Chickamauga to the Battle of the River of Death. Such a change would certainly attract attention, but at the cost of altering what the soldiers called it in reports and personal accounts.

Once Ballantyne gets into the main focus of the book, a fair amount of attention during Reconstruction is given to the Colfax Riot, and rightfully so. It was the largest and most contentious event of the period in that part of the state. Unfortunately, he categorically dismisses every white conservative claim concerning the underlying causes of the conflict in favor of the opposing point of view. A revealing look into the author’s mindset comes in the following phrases: “The tendency to misremember (or fabricate) became more pronounced in subsequent decades even among the paramilitaries themselves”; “They wove this dubious rape allegation into their broader critique of Republican governance and soon succeeded in laundering these claims into nonsouthern coverage of apparent Republican misrule”; and finally, “To corral a white population with divergent economic interests, conservatives drew upon fears of Black men’s sexual contact with white women, to incite and subsequently justify white paramilitary violence in 1873 and beyond; and also, more implicitly, upon sexualized notions of white manhood that emphasized men’s duties to protect women and children.” It would be refreshing to see a book that gives equal exposure to all sides concerned. An author doing this can still lean whichever way he believes without seeming openly partisan, because both sides of the issue would be presented to the reader. In one instance, he writes about the implausibility of the black defenders in the courthouse shooting two white men without providing evidence to the contrary. All things considered, this volume gives a thorough look at the Republican side during the process of reconstructing central Louisiana. The sources abound, including both letters and newspaper accounts. He delves into the financial hardships of the area due to a plethora of carpetbaggers moving into the parish, on top of local merchants trying to restart their former businesses after much of their property was burned in the wake of Federal General Banks’s retreat in 1864. There is still a company in the parish that proudly advertises on its fascia sign that it was founded in 1865. This book is worth a read for those wishing to learn about the strife caused by Reconstruction in a singular geographical area of Louisiana, albeit from the side of the Federal government. Richard H. Holloway, a Louisiana native, formerly a Senior Editor for America’s Civil War and Civil War Times magazines. In addition to numerous articles, he wrote biographies of Richard Taylor, Hamilton Bee, and William R. Boggs for Confederate Generals of the Trans-Mississippi (Univ. of Tennessee Press).

For Want of a Good Horse and Rider, the War’s Outcome Remained Undecided for Nearly Four Years. Civil War Cavalry: Waging Mounted Warfare in Nineteenth-Century America. By Earl J. Hess. Photographs, charts, endnotes by chapter, bibliography, and index. 456 pp. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 2025. Hardbound. $50.

Reviewed by Richard J. Blumberg The Civil War was America’s great experiment to assess its ability to wage organized mounted warfare. Dr. Hess’ latest work, Civil War Cavalry: Waging Mounted Warfare in Nineteenth-Century America, provides a fresh look at how cavalry units performed and the contributions they made to the overall war effort for both the Union and the Confederacy. Hess begins our journey by providing an extensive discussion on the heritage of European cavalry operations and how American soldiers might use them as a model. While mounted operations existed in the United States during this time, they were mostly decentralized and somewhat disorganized. Dr. Hess uses the rest of the book to discuss the four primary aspects of cavalry operations, including how units were organized, trained, equipped, and employed in combat situations of the nineteenth century. Through his many previously published works, Dr. Hess mastered the ability to incorporate strategy, tactics, and logistics into his research and analysis. This gives the reader a better understanding of how all types of military operations were conducted and what obstacles were encountered. His analysis of how units were organized provides an indepth study of the size, structure, and mobility of each force and how regular and volunteer soldiers were integrated into the same units. After building the foundation on how units were organized and formed, he discusses how they were trained. This chapter includes charts and illustrations explaining how units conducted movement formations and employed the tactical doctrine. Dr. Hess provides an extensive discussion of the logistical challenges and triumphs in the third aspect of cavalry operations. The Union and Confederate procurement and distribution systems for acquiring horses were covered very well in this book.

In the last portion of the book, he discusses the various methods by which cavalry was employed. Readers gain a great deal of understanding about mounted and dismounted cavalry and how they were used in mounted charges and saber clashes. This book appeals to a wide audience, including history buffs, researchers, strategists, tacticians, and logisticians. Dr. Hess uses charts and photographs effectively to provide readers with additional information. This work is extremely well-researched and priced very competitively. It definitely has a place in this reviewer’s library. Richard J. Blumberg has three articles published in various issues of Civil War News. He is currently working on a book focused on Animal Service and Veterinary Medicine during the Civil War.

A Family’s Remarkable Letters Reveal the Human Cost of the War The Consequences of Confederate Citizenship: The Civil War Correspondence of Alabama’s Pickens Family. Edited by Henry M. McKiven Jr. Bibliography, photographs, index, 309 pp., 2025, Louisiana State, https:// lsupress.org/, $50. Reviewed by Jonathan W. White

The Consequences of Confederate Citizenship reproduces the letters of a slaveholding family in Alabama who reluctantly sent their two sons off to fight in the Army of Northern Virginia. Included in the book are the sons’ letters from the front as well as their mother’s and siblings’ letters to them. It is rare to find such a complete collection of correspondence from the Civil War era. This book should be on the shelves of anyone interested in nineteenth-century southern history, social history, or military history. From 1859 to 1861, Sam and James Pickens attended a prep school in Charlottesville, Va. During the secession crisis, they rejoiced at “the glorious news of Virginia’s secession,” reporting to their mother that the “teachers are as much excited as the students.” Upon returning to Alabama in the summer of 1861, however, Sam and James did not enlist in the Confederate army. Instead, they supervised more than two hundred slaves on their family’s three plantations, serving their new nation by growing food for the army rather than fighting for it. However, the centralizing war policies of the Confederate government soon brought the war home for the Pickens family. Following passage of the Confederate Conscription Act in 1862, Sam joined the 5 th Alabama Infantry. He would serve in the Army of Northern Virginia for the duration of the war. James, who had “a delicate constitution,” managed to avoid army service until passage of new conscription legislation in 1864. He, too, headed north to join his brother with the 5th Alabama—although he would be discharged from the service for disability in the summer of 1864. The Pickens family suffered great emotional turmoil during the war. Readers encounter in painful yet elegant prose how civilians struggled with the deaths of loved ones. When Sam and James’s sister lost her fiancé at the Battle of Spotsylvania in May 1864, she poured out her grief in her letters. “Oh! my God, my future looks dark & dreary. My Darling has gone,” she wrote. “I would, at times, have almost prayed for death to come & release me from any troubles here below & unite me with my darling Tom.” In another letter, she added, “My loss has caused a void in my heart which can never be filled.” In response, Sam offered his sister the best encouragement he could muster. “Almighty God in the all wise but mysterious dispensation of his providence has seen fit to visit you with the heaviest affliction,” he wrote, “but I earnestly pray that the same all-merciful Father will pour into your dear, lacerated and bleeding heart the soothing oil of consolation and enable you to bear it with Christian fortitude and resignation.” But for as much as they suffered during the war, the Pickens family never lost their hope in God or their faith in the cause. As Henry M. McKiven Jr. writes in the Introduction, “support for the Confederacy was support for Sam and, later, James.” The Pickens letters will also be of use to historians of slavery. At least three dozen slaves are mentioned by name in the correspondence, including one favored servant, Simon, who died suddenly in 1863 (the family suspected he was poisoned by other slaves since he was close to the Pickens family). The letters also discuss enslaved body servants who accompanied Confederate soldiers to the front—one of whom, a man named John, had his photograph taken in May 1863 (a later photograph of John is reproduced in the book). Much of the family’s view of the conflict was shaped by what Sam wrote in his letters. But as editor McKiven points out, Sam’s correspondence was sanitized, and his letters to different family members “differed in content and tone.” In May 1863, Sam was captured during the Battle of Chancellorsville. As McKiven explains in the headnote to Chapter 5, Sam “constructed a narrative” of the battle “in which events unfolded in a relatively organized way.” But in his diary, which is not included in the book, Sam “described scenes of random shooting and killing and characterized the battle of chaotic. The diary description suggests a test of his faith in God’s control of events that was missing in his letter. He appeared troubled by a randomness to all the killing that seemed to contradict his confidence that God had a plan.” In Chapter 9, McKiven adds that Sam’s 1865 letters “mostly concealed from the family the misery of life under siege and the disintegration of the army he described in his diary.” These insights from McKiven lead one to wonder why he did not include excerpts from the diaries of Sam and James Pickens along with their correspondence. It appears that their private diaries offer the sorts of unvarnished, raw reflections that readers typically are eager to see—and they undoubtedly would have supplemented and enriched the wonderful correspondence in The Consequences of Confederate Citizenship. This reviewer hopes that McKiven will prepare a companion volume that consists of the diaries. Jonathan W. White is professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University and the author or editor of 21 books, including Measuring the Man: The Writings of Frederick Douglass on Abraham Lincoln (2025).

One of the Confederacy’s Last Hopes Ends up in Japan Five Flags: The Warship that Reshaped the World. By Stuart Buxton. Photographs, footnotes, endnotes, bibliography, websites, 348 pp, Stackpole Books, hardbound, $34.95. Reviewed by William Dyer This is the first-ever account of the life of the CSS Stonewall, a seagoing iron gunboat that was too late to fight for her country. Under the Confederate flag, she never entered a Confederate port; the only shots she ever fired in anger were against the Federal ship Niagara when leaving the port of Ferrol, Spain, after repairs (this version of the story only appears once, several references elsewhere in the text state that no shots were fired while under the Confederate flag). Before you get to the laying of her keel, July of 1863, you will read several chapters that put her in context. You will end reading about her decommissioning from the Imperial Japanese Navy in January of 1888 and her subsequent breaking up later that year. In addition, you will read about where the scrap metal went and what it was used for!

The preface will let you know that the author has a noticeable northern bias and that distances have been converted to the metric system; no rationale is given. As far as I could make out, the five flags in order were Danish, Confederate, Spanish, Federal, and Japanese. The author frequently goes off on tangents, some of them quite lengthily. They are all thoroughly researched and very informative about European and American history. The intent, presumably, is to give the reader background and context. I found some of them to get in the way of the story. The depth of research done by this author is very impressive. Readers, no matter how much they know about this subject, will learn something new, e.g., the Asians had ironclads in the 16th century. Almost half of the text in this book is about the history of the Japanese empire, the Tokogawa shogunate, and the part the Stonewall, as the Kotetsu, played in the shogunate’s demise in 1868. As the reader gets into the chapters on this civil war, he is introduced to a staggering number of characters, clans, factions, cartels, and cabals that can be difficult to follow. A great deal of diligence is required of the reader to follow the story and keep it all straight. The political situation in Japan was much more convoluted than realized by this reviewer before reading this book. By comparison, understanding the reasons for the American Civil War is simplicity itself. The Japanese Civil War, also known as the Meiji Restoration, was the background for the 2003 movie The Last Samurai. The two civil wars, American and Japanese, resulted in dramatic changes in the way these two countries were governed. Lincoln managed to turn the republic, where the states held the ultimate power and the Federal Government was their agent, into a democracy where the central government held the ultimate power, and the states were subordinate. Meiji managed to eliminate the shogunate and its samurai supporters to restore ultimate power to the emperor. The Stonewall had no effect on the former and was critical to the latter. William Dyer is a retired architect living in Atlanta, GA.