Booknotes - The Atlanta Campaign, 1864: Sherman's Campaign to the Outskirts of Atlanta

New Arrival:

• The Atlanta Campaign, 1864: Sherman's Campaign to the Outskirts of Atlanta by David A. Powell (Casemate, 2024).

Dave Powell's The Atlanta Campaign, 1864: Sherman's Campaign to the Outskirts of Atlanta is part of the Casemate Illustrated series. As it now stands, the series is heavily focused on WW2 topics but an 1862 Maryland Campaign installment was recently published, and Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Overland Campaign volumes are scheduled for this coming summer. As will be the case with Vicksburg, Powell's Atlanta coverage comes in two parts.

The course of the 1864 Atlanta Campaign is commonly divided into two major phases, the natural transition point being the arrival of both armies at the Chattahoochie River and the replacement of Confederate Army of Tennessee commander Joseph E. Johnston with John Bell Hood. Powell's pairing adopts that same concept.

From the description: "The first half of the campaign, from May to mid-July, can be defined as a war of maneuver, called by one historian the “Red Clay Minuet.” Under Joseph E. Johnston the Confederate Army of Tennessee repeatedly invited battle from strong defensive positions. Under William T. Sherman, the combined Federal armies of the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the Ohio repeatedly avoided attacking those positions; Sherman preferring to outflank them instead. Though there were a number of sharp, bloody engagements during this phase of the campaign, the combats were limited. Only the battles of Resaca and Kennesaw Mountain could be considered general engagements."

Covered in this part one are Dalton, Resaca, Cassville, New Hope Church, Pickett's Mill, Dallas, Kolb's Farm, Kennesaw Mountain, and the Chattahoochee River Line. Visually oriented, the general format hearkens back to the classic Osprey style of overview presentation. So in addition to the tight narrative text there is a campaign timeline, orders of battle, color maps, photographs (both period and modern), classic artwork and illustrations, and army/leader profiles and sidebars.

Knowing that Powell is in the middle of writing a grand series of tomes that will do for the 1864 Atlanta Campaign what was done in three hefty volumes for the Chickamauga Campaign, the text here should provide some hints at lines of thinking that will be more fully developed in the future.

Booknotes: The Limits of the Lost Cause

New Arrival:

• The Limits of the Lost Cause: Essays on Civil War Memory by Gaines M. Foster (LSU Press, 2024).

From the description: Gaines Foster's The Limits of the Lost Cause: Essays on Civil War Memory is "a collection of essays that challenge the prevailing ways of thinking about the impact of the Civil War on the American South." In Foster's introduction he discusses what he sees as the two main patterns that emerged in the interpretation of Civil War remembrance in the South. His "introduction provides a comprehensive overview of scholarship on the Lost Cause and Civil War memory that highlights the emergence of two ways of thinking about these topics: an older one, pioneered by C. Vann Woodward, that made a case for a southern identity shaped by defeat and guilt; and a more recent one, prevalent not only in current scholarship but in the press and public discussion, that suggests the South is still fighting the Civil War."

Eight essays covering a range of topics follow the introduction. More from the description: "Foster challenges Woodward's definition of southern identity in his first three essays, one of which also compares the South's response to defeat to America's response after the Vietnam War. His next four essays address diverse topics: how Civil War became the war's name and what that reveals; the promotion of racist symbolism and also a renewed nationalism in Thomas Dixon's The Clansman and D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation; an exploration of the memory of Robert E. Lee that evaluates his suitability to be a hero for today; and the white South's role in the expansion of federal power in the first half of the twentieth century."

Foster's essays challenge the interpretation, popular among many today, of the unending Civil War. Collectively, his essays "make a case for reunion and sectional reconciliation by the early twentieth century, which undermines the idea that the South was still fighting the Civil War. They also point to other lines of division within the United States, particularly between the nation's core and its periphery, in addition to the one between the North and South."

Of course, no book of this type would be complete without a discussion of the Confederate Battle Flag's place in recent public debates over historical memory and the unending Civil War. Saving that examination for the end, Foster's final essay "explores the complex divisions that have marked the fight over the public use of the Confederate battle flag over the last thirty years, making the case that the Lost Cause has had limited impact on support for the flag. Instead, Foster suggests, debates over the Confederate flag are rooted in differences in wealth and education, as well as urban-rural and deep partisan divides."

In sum: "Throughout these essays, and more explicitly in his conclusion, Foster argues that whenever one sees a Confederate flag or listens to an argument about Confederate symbolism, the temptation to talk about a continuing Civil War obscures more than it illuminates. Far more important, he suggests, is the extent of reunion and reconciliation between North and South, as well as the limits of the Lost Cause."

Booknotes: War in the Western Theater

New Arrival:

• War in the Western Theater: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War edited by Chris Mackowski & Sarah Kay Bierle (Savas Beatie, 2024).

With something posted on the Emerging Civil War blog seemingly every day (and often multiple times per day), regular crew and guest writers there are a busy bunch. Every so often, founder Chris Mackowski and another editor compile theme-based articles for print publication as part of the Civil War history collective's 10th Anniversary Series. The latest, and eighth in the series, is War in the Western Theater: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War.

According to ECW's series description, the anniversary titles "not only collect some of our best blog posts, but they also include selected transcripts from Symposium talks and podcasts. Plus, each include original scholarship, as well, plus new maps and lots of photos. They’re not intended as complete narrative histories but are rather meant to reflect the eclectic conversation of topics and voices readers find on the blog itself." The goal is not just to provide a physical copy of previously published, and readily accessible, digital material but to truly embark on a "value-added" exercise. So the original blog pieces are "updated, and, in most cases, expanded and footnoted" (pg. xiv).

Around four dozen articles are compiled in this western-themed volume. In addition to discussing campaigns and battles (along with frequently featuring the involvement of individuals and units during particular episodes), chapters explore a variety of city, state, and family connections to the war in the western theater. Remembrance, what-if ponderings, debate, and analysis articles are also sprinkled about. Supplementing the text are eight maps and numerous other photographs and illustrations.

As summed up in the description, the articles collected in War in the Western Theater "bring together the best scholarship from Emerging Civil War’s blog, symposia, and podcast, revised and updated, together with original pieces designed to shed new light and insight on some of the most important and fascinating events that have for too long flown under the radar of history’s pens."

Review - "The Cassville Affairs: Johnston, Hood, and the Failed Confederate Strategy in the Atlanta Campaign, 19 May 1864" by Robert Jenkins

[The Cassville Affairs: Johnston, Hood, and the Failed Confederate Strategy in the Atlanta Campaign, 19 May 1864 by Robert D. Jenkins, Sr. (Mercer University Press, 2024). Hardcover, 21 maps, 32 exhibits, photos, appendix section, footnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xvi,247/402. ISBN:978-0-88146-931-8. $39]

Both Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston remained very much in character as their 1864 campaigns unfolded. On the Virginia front, despite the near-catastrophic leadership and manpower losses suffered by his army the previous year, Lee still maintained his customarily aggressive mindset against advancing Union forces. In stark contrast to Lee, Johnston ceded the initiative in North Georgia from the outset, adopting a far more passive approach to his wilderness clash with William T. Sherman's mighty western army group. Believing the odds stacked against his Army of Tennessee much too great to risk attacking moves and pitched battles, Johnston elected to trade space for time and hope that his wily opponent gifted him a favorable opening for an offensive counterstroke. It has often been proposed that the events of May 17-19, 1864 provided Johnston with just such an opportunity to turn the tables on his foe. Contrary to Confederate hopes and expectations, however, no such potentially campaign-altering battle materialized. Instead, the failure and disappointment stemming from the infamous "Cassville Affair" became a topic of enduring misunderstanding and controversy.

As the story goes, a plan involving a sharp backhand blow germinated in Johnston's mind on May 17 at Adairsville and matured by May 19 into an offensive operation. With the Army of Tennessee concentrated at Cassville after falling back from Adairsville upon multiple routes, John Bell Hood's corps would spring back and launch a surprise attack against an isolated and presumably strung-out portion of Sherman's pursuing host. That never came about. Rather than initiating a grand battle, Hood, who encountered the unexpected presence of a Union force of unknown size opposite his own flank, called off the May 19 morning attack and returned to a defensive posture. A disappointed Johnston, who doubted the veracity of Hood's claim, accepted that his plan miscarried and ordered his army to fall back again and entrench atop a new patch of high ground southeast of Cassville. There, the Army of Tennessee would await an expected Union attack on the morrow. Once again, things did not go as planned. Two of the army's senior officers (Hood and Leonidas Polk) pointed out that the high ground abandoned earlier in the day provided Sherman's gunners with prime rifled artillery platforms from which to enfilade Confederate lines. According to those two trusted corps commanders, such fire would render their fronts indefensible within hours. Startled by Hood and Polk's misgivings, though disagreeing with their stance, Johnston immediately ordered a general retreat across the Etowah River. The morning and afternoon/evening events comprising what came to be known as the Cassville Affair distressed the civilian leadership in Richmond, prompted the campaign's first major schism within the Army of Tennessee's high command structure, and demoralized an army rank and file promised both an end to retreats and an opportunity to inflict a telling blow on the enemy.

The problem with the traditional line of interpretation outlined above is that it was largely formed and perpetuated by Johnston in defense of himself and his actions. There have always been doubters of Johnston's version of events as handed down to posterity (Richard McMurry being one of the most prominent among them), but the substance of the entire affair has received remarkably little in the way of detailed reexamination over the years. That has changed in a major way with the publication of Robert Jenkins's The Cassville Affairs: Johnston, Hood, and the Failed Confederate Strategy in the Atlanta Campaign, 19 May 1864.

Examining each key component of the Cassville Affair in turn, Jenkins divides his analysis into two distinctive yet obviously connected sequences. These major event groupings are the Cassville Affairs of the book's title, the first being the aborted offensive that was the morning Cassville Affair and the second the abruptly abandoned defensive action that was the evening Cassville Affair. In each part, Jenkins, an attorney by profession, effectively combines blow-by-blow narrative accounts of the military movements and key decisions of both sides with the kinds of meticulously argumentative evidence breakdowns that one might assume lawyer-historians would revel in presenting to their captive reader-jurors. In addition to demonstrating a clear mastery of the confusing cartographic history of the series of events and misunderstandings that unfolded between Adairsville and Cassville, Jenkins skillfully enhances his own prodigious primary source research with a 'back to basics' critical analysis of original sources and influential secondary works. An item of particular interest is the author's reintroduction of McMurry's decades-old research findings in regard to a notable staff officer journal, samples of which underwent revision and one version of which (termed the "O" Sample of the T.B. Mackall journal) was submitted in altered form by Johnston himself for publication in the Official Records.

All key events that led into and comprised the May 19 Cassville Affair—including the Confederate retreat from Adairsville to Cassville, the Union pursuit and the fighting for Rome, Hood's movements north of Cassville and the Union cavalry operations that undid his plans, the May 19 afternoon redeployment of both armies southeast of Cassville, and what went into Johnston's ultimate decision to retreat across the Etowah without a battle—are described at consistently satisfying levels of clarity and detail. As Jenkins convincingly demonstrates, the high command's flawed knowledge of the road network around Cassville, in particular along the path of Hood's flanking march, directly led to a major thoroughfare (the Spring Place Road) being left completely unguarded by the Confederate cavalry screen. Union cavalry exploited that critical gap, and their startlingly aggressive plunge into Hood's flank and rear disrupted and ultimately halted the ambush offensive planned for the day. Of course, when military plans badly miscarry it is very often the case that the enemy also had something to do with it, and the book makes the case that Sherman's posture and decision-making profoundly influenced what happened and what didn't happen at Cassville. Disappointed in his mounted arm up to that point, Sherman lit a fire under his cavalry subordinates, and the book argues persuasively that that had a demonstrable impact on the cavalry's newfound aggressiveness. Significantly, is also pointed out by Jenkins that even if Union cavalry hadn't discovered and exploited the gap in Wheeler's screen northeast of Cassville the road principally targeted by Hood's ambush would have been empty that day solely due to Sherman's direct intervention.

Several noteworthy conclusions emerge from Jenkins's study. The author could find no evidence that Johnston, as he later claimed, developed a full-fledged offensive plan beginning on the 17th at Adairsville. Even the offensive action outlined for the 19th was Hood's plan, to which Johnston acquiesced. Additionally, instead of demonstrating a commanding general's mastery of the situation at Cassville on the morning of the 19th, Johnston's subsequent writings (as critiqued at length by Jenkins) instead revealed that the general possessed remarkably ill-informed conceptions of Hood's flank movement, the enemy threat to it, and the road network over which the day's events unfolded. Dismissing Hood's and Polk's claims that the army's afternoon orientation was indefensible in the face of concentrated enfilade fire, Johnston still ordered another retreat, citing the dangers inherent in attempting to hold defensive positions that two of his corps commanders had no confidence in maintaining. Citing evidence that points in a different direction, Jenkins alternatively concludes that this was essentially a latter-day excuse and Johnston most likely retreated upon receiving false reports that Sherman's men had already crossed the Etowah in force and were threatening Confederate lines of communication. In presenting that justification for his actions, Johnston failed to cite Hood and Polk on record in regard to their dual support for launching a major attack from those same positions both generals felt could not be defended. One might be tempted to believe that Johnston's story, in which he professed a determination to hold his ground and only retreated after two of his principal subordinates lost their nerve, was chiefly formulated to make the Fabian general, who was justifiably skeptical of the advisability of attacking Sherman's concentrated forces over the ground favored by Hood and Polk, look more like a fighting general to his critics. In sum, the book presents a strong case that the available evidence does not support Johnston's popular version of the Cassville Affair and his role in it.

Critical to understanding both the military movements meticulously traced in the narrative and the historiographical arguments and debates that emerged later, the volume's prodigious map set does not disappoint. Ranging from contemporary rough sketches and detailed military engineer drawings to well-executed modern cartography, the book's 21 numbered maps (and around a dozen more 1-2 page maps presented under the "exhibit" label) provide all the military detail readers might wish to have at their fingertips when evaluating the text. The maps are critical pieces in explaining all the period and modern understandings (and misunderstandings) associated with the historical road network spanning the large area of operations south of Adairsville, north of the Etowah River, and well east and west of the Western & Atlantic Railroad corridor. Rather than being interspersed throughout, the exhibits and maps are collected together near the front of the book. It is perhaps worthy of recommendation that knowledgeable and novice readers alike familiarize themselves with both before grappling with the volume's complicated discussions of the relevant geography. The maps, in conjunction with their detailed captions, bountifully arm the reader with the situational awareness necessary to more fully and more readily grasp the essential nuances found in the book's historiographical arguments and source debates, many of which tend to plunge deeply into the weeds.

This volume weighs the evidence and persuasively reasons toward a fresh understanding of a key series of disputed events from the early stages of the 1864 Atlanta Campaign. As is always the case with historical discourse, questions and points of disagreement surely remain, but all future studies will have to contend with Jenkins's powerful arguments. Indeed, one looks forward to reading how David Powell, with whom Jenkins frequently discussed matters pertaining to Cassville, addresses this period in the first installment of his upcoming multi-volume history of the campaign. The Cassville Affairs is highly recommended.

Booknotes: Chorus of the Union

New Arrival:

• Chorus of the Union: How Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Set Aside Their Rivalry to Save the Nation by Edward Robert McClelland (Pegasus Bks, 2024).

Over a number of consecutive weeks straddling March and April it started to look like old times again with new releases pouring in, then the spigot turned off again. This book is actually a June 4 title. I don't know if you'll have to wait until then for its general release.

Numerous biographies and political histories examine at length the long record of political differences between Whig (then upstart Republican) Abraham Lincoln and the Democracy's "Little Giant" Stephen Douglas. Over time, their relationship evolved into one of the great rivalries of eighteenth-century American political discourse. From the description: "Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas are a misunderstood duo. History remembers them as antagonists, and for most of the years the two men knew each other, they were. In the 1830s, they debated politics around the stove in the back of Joshua Speed’s store in Springfield, Illinois. In the 1850s, they disagreed over the Kansas-Nebraska Act and debated slavery as opponents for a Senate seat. In 1860, they both ran for president."

Rather than return to the pair's classic antebellum political clashes, Edward Robert McClelland's new book Chorus of the Union instead stresses the key period when the two men came together to serve a single cause. More from the description: "When Douglas realized he was going to lose the 1860 election, he stopped campaigning for himself and went South to persuade the slave states to accept Lincoln as president. After that effort failed, and the newly formed Confederate States of America bombed Fort Sumter, Douglas met with Lincoln to discuss raising an army." With Douglas dying soon after on June 3, 1861, less than three weeks before First Bull Run, we'll never know how their relationship might have developed as the war progressed.

McClelland also discusses the role of environment and timing in Lincoln's rise. "(B)y focusing on the importance of Illinois to Lincoln’s political development, Chorus of the Union will challenge the notion that he was an indispensable “great man.” Lincoln was the right person to lead the country through the Civil War, but he became president because he was from the right place. Living in Illinois provided Lincoln the opportunity to confront Douglas over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The debates with Douglas during the 1858 Senate campaign brought him the fame and prestige to contend for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860. Lincoln's moderate views on slavery, which he developed in the swing region of a swing state, made him the ideal candidate for an election that had sweeping historical consequences."

Booknotes: Wide Awake

New Arrival:

• Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force that Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War by Jon Grinspan (Bloomsbury, 2024).

Every student of the 1860 election period recognizes that the Republican Wide Awakes played a significant role in mobilizing support for their party's candidate, but Jon Grinspan's Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force that Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War makes some especially strong claims about the youth movement's place on American history's political stage.

From the description: "At the start of the 1860 presidential campaign, a handful of fired-up young Northerners appeared as bodyguards to defend anti-slavery stump speakers from frequent attacks. The group called themselves the Wide Awakes. Soon, hundreds of thousands of young White and Black men, and a number of women, were organizing boisterous, uniformed, torch-bearing brigades of their own. These Wide Awakes--mostly working-class Americans in their twenties--became one of the largest, most spectacular, and most influential political movements in our history."

Wide Awake chapters quickly spread across the North during Lincoln's campaign and some membership estimates were as high as half a million. A group of that size, especially one with paramilitary pretensions, was bound to draw a range of reactions among the nation's heatedly divided populace. More from the description: "To some," the movement "demonstrated the power of a rising majority to push back against slavery. To others, it looked like a paramilitary force training to invade the South. Within a year, the nation would be at war with itself, and many on both sides would point to the Wide Awakes as the mechanism that got them there."

My initial impression of the stylistic approach is that of an immersive popular-style narrative that attempts to place the reader on the ground and in the middle of the action. From that perspective, the book "examines how exactly our nation crossed the threshold from a political campaign into a war."

Booknotes: Dranesville

New Arrival:

• Dranesville: A Northern Virginia Town in the Crossfire of a Forgotten Battle, December 20, 1861 by Ryan T. Quint (Savas Beatie, 2024).

When it comes to 1861 battles fought on Virginia soil, the July 21 Battle of Bull Run understandably absorbs the lion's share of attention, but a number of smaller affairs have also received one or more standalone studies. Among the best are James Morgan's A Little Short of Boats: The Civil War Battles of Ball's Bluff and Edwards Ferry, October 21 - 22, 1861 (2004, 2011-rev) and Cobb, Hicks, and Holt's The Battle of Big Bethel: Crucial Clash in Early Civil War Virginia (2013). This month publisher Savas Beatie adds to that lineup with their release of Ryan Quint's Dranesville: A Northern Virginia Town in the Crossfire of a Forgotten Battle, December 20, 1861. A topic usually dispensed with quickly in books devoted to larger subjects, Dranesville is an engagement that I am looking forward to learning much more about through this first full-length treatment.

From the description: "The fall and early winter of 1861 was a hotbed of activity that culminated in the December combat at Dranesville. The Union victory, although small when measured against what was to come, was sorely needed after the string of defeats at Bull Run, Wilson’s Creek, and Ball’s Bluff; it also helped shape many of the players in the bloody years to come." I encountered Dranesville most recently in Longacre's Stuart biography, and the author describes the battle as being the cavalier's first bloody nose.

Tucked into the northwest corner of Fairfax County (not too far from the Potomac), Dranesville experienced war on its doorstep early and often. More from the description: "No one knew what was coming, but soon civilians (sympathetic to both sides) were thrown into a spreading civil war of their own as neighbor turned on neighbor. In time, this style of warfare, on the home front and on the battlefield, reached the town of Dranesville in Fairfax County."

As expected, the conventional war and titular battle get the most thorough attention in the book. More: "A host of characters and commanders that would become household names cut their teeth during these months, including Generals J. E. B. Stuart and Edward Ord. The men of the Pennsylvania Reserves saw their baptism of fire at Dranesville, setting the Keystone State soldiers on a path to becoming one of the best combat units of the entire war. Though eclipsed by larger and bloodier battles, Dranesville remained a defining moment for many of its participants—soldiers and civilians alike—for the rest of their lives."

Coming Soon (May '24 Edition)

Scheduled for MAY 2024¹:
• Dranesville: A Northern Virginia Town in the Crossfire of a Forgotten Battle, December 20, 1861 by Ryan Quint.
• Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force that Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War by Jon Grinspan.
• The Inland Campaign for Vicksburg: Five Battles in Seventeen Days, May 1-17, 1863 by Timothy Smith.
• Voices from Gettysburg: Letters, Papers, and Memoirs from the Greatest Battle of the Civil War by Allen Guelzo.
• The Union Army 1861–65 (2): Eastern and New England States by Ron Field.
• American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873 by Alan Taylor.
• Garden of Ruins: Occupied Louisiana in the Civil War by J. Matthew Ward.
• War in the Western Theater: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War edited by Bierle & Mackowski.
• Union General Daniel Butterfield: A Civil War Biography by James Pula.
 

¹ - These monthly release lists are not meant to be exhaustive compilations of non-fiction releases. They do not include reprints that are not significantly revised/expanded, special editions not distributed to reviewers, children's books, and digital-only titles. Works that only tangentially address the war years are also generally excluded. Inevitably, one or more titles on this list will get a rescheduled release (and they do not get repeated later), so revisiting the past few "Coming Soon" posts is the best way to pick up stragglers.

Booknotes: Ink, Dirt and Powder Smoke

New Arrival:

• Ink, Dirt and Powder Smoke: The Civil War Letters of William F. Keeler, Paymaster on the USS Monitor edited by Charles W. McLandress (Author-Seal River Pub, 2023).

From the description: "William F. Keeler’s superbly vivid letters from the USS Monitor and USS Florida are essential classics for Civil War scholars and amateurs alike. His letters from the Monitor provide the most complete picture of life on board a Civil War ironclad. His riveting accounts of the battle with the CSS Virginia, naval expeditions up the James River, the Peninsula Campaign, and the sinking of the Monitor off Cape Hatteras on December 31, 1862 bring an immediacy to (those) events..." In addition, "(h)is equally colorful letters from the Florida provide one of the most compelling pictures of life on board a vessel on the Union blockade, a hugely important, but largely overlooked, chapter of the war." Those blockade enforcement duties with the Florida were performed up and the down the Atlantic seaboard as well as in the Gulf of Mexico during the final stages of the war.

The Keeler letters were first published by the U.S. Naval Institute in two volumes that were edited by Robert W. Daly. Aboard the USS Monitor: 1862 - The Letters of Acting Paymaster William Frederick Keeler, U.S. Navy, to His Wife, Anna was released in 1962. That was followed in 1968 by Aboard the USS Florida: 1863-65 - The Letters of Paymaster William Frederick Keeler, U.S. Navy, to His Wife, Anna. I don't know about the Monitor volume getting another release between then and now, but according to Google Books the Florida volume was reissued in 1980 by Arno Press, a now defunct outfit that specialized in reprinting rare and out-of-print classics.

Charles McLandress, editor of Ink, Dirt and Powder Smoke: The Civil War Letters of William F. Keeler, Paymaster on the USS Monitor, notes that the Keeler material contained in the Daly volumes was highly selective in nature. More from the description: "(D)ue to space constraints substantial portions of Keeler's letters were edited out. Not only does this render the letters disjointed and difficult to read, it also leaves the reader with an incomplete picture of William Keeler – husband, father and friend. With his focus on naval aspects, Daly also paid scant attention to many of the people mentioned in the letters. These include not only Keeler’s family and friends, but also navy and army officers he encountered along the way, many of whom were unsung heroes of Civil War."

McLandress's book is a handsome, professional-looking self-published paperback. Most notably, it is the first publication to reproduce the voluminous Keller correspondence in full. Additionally, with Daly's volumes providing "little contextual information about the military situation, making it difficult for all but the expert reader to easily follow the letters," the new edition exhibits plentiful editorial enhancements."With more attention paid to the people mentioned in the letters and a more in-depth account of Keeler's fascinating and eclectic life (dry goods merchant, iron founder, Forty-Niner, orange grower, newspaper correspondent and more) this new edition makes his letters accessible to a new generation of readers."

Ink, Dirt and Powder Smoke augments its text with a number of photographs as well as copies of the hand-drawn Keeler maps first published in the Daly volumes. Approaching 700 pages in total, it's a fairly massive volume. The editor surveys Keeler's early life in a brief opening chapter, and he also inserts very extensive bridging narrative throughout the parts covering the Civil War years aboard the Monitor and Florida. That prodigious supplemental background history and editorial text broadly contextualizes the letters from multiple angles. Both letter and editorial materials are footnoted. Postwar Keeler letters extend into the 1880s, and the biographical notes feature in the appendix section will undoubtedly interest many readers.

McLandress has created a nice website for this book and his other publishing interests. In addition to promotion there is extra information provided there. Per an email from the author: the website also "ties Paymaster William Keeler to the other members of his family, in particular his son James Edward, the astronomer, his brother-in-law Melzar Dutton who was killed in the Civil War, and his grandson Henry Keeler who went to China in 1915 and died there at age 25."

Review - "Miserable Little Conglomeration: A Social History of the Port Hudson Campaign" by Christopher Thrasher

[Miserable Little Conglomeration: A Social History of the Port Hudson Campaign by Christopher Thrasher (University of Tennessee Press, 2023). Hardcover, maps, photos, illustrations, orders of battle appendix, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xxxi,319/434. ISBN:978-1-62190-791-6. $45]

The fortified citadel of Port Hudson, Louisiana was arguably just as important as Vicksburg, Mississippi in its ability to impede Union control of the Mississippi and, in tandem, both places protected one of the great river's vital stretches (including the mouth of the Red River), yet the historiography of the combined 1862-63 efforts by Union forces to permanently open the Lower Mississippi Valley nevertheless is still strongly dominated by U.S. Grant's Vicksburg campaign. That's not to suggest that Port Hudson has been entirely neglected in the popular and scholarly literature, however, as a small handful of published studies do exist. The campaign's seminal modern work, Edward Cunningham's The Port Hudson Campaign, 1862–1863, was first published way back in 1963 during the Centennial. That was followed nearly two and half decades later by Lawrence Lee Hewitt's Port Hudson, Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi (1987), a study of the siege phase of the 1863 campaign. The only work that addresses in great detail the entire military operation from start to finish is David C. Edmonds's two-volume set The Guns of Port Hudson (1983-1984), now long out of print. Most recently, Hewitt, the first manager of the Port Hudson State Historic Site, returned to the subject with 2021's Port Hudson: The Most Significant Battlefield Photographs of the Civil War, a fascinating visual feast also filled with expert analysis. Contributing mightily to this mini-resurgence in Port Hudson interest is Christopher Thrasher's new ground-level examination of the campaign and siege titled Miserable Little Conglomeration: A Social History of the Port Hudson Campaign.

In terms of scale, Thrasher's project addresses the entire breadth of the contest for control of Port Hudson, from initial Confederate defensive preparations prompted by the fall of New Orleans to the fortified post's July 9, 1863 surrender to Union general Nathaniel Banks's Army of the Gulf. In between are vivid descriptions of a great number of episodes both great and small. The dramatic attempt by Rear Admiral David Farragut to pass the Port Hudson batteries with his deepwater squadron, the initial probing attacks against the Confederate earthworks, the failed grand assaults of May 27 and June 14, and, finally, the 48-day siege are all covered. In order to recreate for his readers what it was like to experience the campaign up close, Thrasher consulted a wide variety of primary source materials. The result is an expansive collection of stories and perspectives, including those of the common soldiers and lower-ranking officers of both sides, the many civilians caught up in the fighting, and the impressed slave labor that helped dig Port Hudson's extensive network of earthwork fortifications. The author presents those findings through a narrative construct similar to that found in his previous book Suffering in the Army of Tennessee: A Social History of the Confederate Army of the Heartland from the Battles for Atlanta to the Retreat from Nashville, though without another singular overarching theme. Obviously, misery was a shared experience among all involved with the Port Hudson Campaign, but it is not a theme that is directly explored in the explicit manner that "suffering" was in the 1864 Tennessee Campaign book.

Thrasher skillfully incorporates into his narrative letter/diary/journal excerpts adeptly chosen for the interest level and value of their insights. Together, they convey to the reader what it was like to serve on a ship during the campaign, come under heavy bombardment, live in the trenches, be thrown into hopeless front assaults, roast under the hot southern sun, and suffer from disease and hunger. But it isn't all horror and mayhem as the book also frequent cites instances of those taking advantage of small pleasures and moments of comradery with friend and foe alike. These personal thoughts and perspectives often appear in the text as standalone episodes, but the author also follows through much of the book a select number of individuals who recorded their observations over the entire length of the campaign. Thus, one gets both longitudinal and snapshot-in-time viewpoints of the sequence of events comprising the Port Hudson Campaign. In a much more consistent and skillful manner than what is often found in other social history-focused works of this type, Thrasher never allows his large collection of narrow individual perspectives to accumulate in ways that leave the reader without the benefit of understanding the larger tactical, operational, and strategic contexts involved (for an example of a recent work on the other end of the spectrum, see British oral historian Peter Hart's The Somme). Thrasher modestly asserts that his book is not, and is not meant to be, another traditional-style military history of the campaign, but his narrative does possess a great many of those elements and characteristics.

Clearly, in addition to being fought concurrently, there were a number of parallels between the Port Hudson and Vicksburg campaigns and sieges, but some noteworthy differences do emerge from Thrasher's study. Scholars of both campaigns have pointed out that those in charge of each post did a poor job of warehousing accumulated supplies, disastrous oversights that led to vast quantities of wastage and rot. Nevertheless, in citing reports on remaining food stocks, recent scholarship has questioned the role actual starvation played in forcing the surrender of the Vicksburg garrison. By comparison, Port Hudson's defenders seem to have been truly on their last legs when it came to food reserves and medicine. Thrasher's study also seems to suggest that rates of debilitating disease affecting both sides were higher at Port Hudson than at Vicksburg (which was bad enough). According to Thrasher's research into rank and file opinion, Banks's army, distinct from Grant's command, became more and more disenchanted with its previously popular commander over the course of the campaign and by siege's end was approaching critical deficits in both general health and morale. Another clearly notable difference between the two campaigns was that Confederate cavalry operated outside Port Hudson's siege lines in enough strength to occasionally disrupt Union resupply and lines of communication. Though the damage they were able to do was substantial in places, it was never significant enough to actually endanger the siege.

With the small Confederate garrison at Port Hudson inflicting on Banks's army deaths at a rate the author estimates at ten to one and at the same time enduring the war's longest true siege, Thrasher ponders how much more difficult things might have been for Union forces had every Confederate garrison and fighting force been so steadfast. On the other hand, in maintaining that "Port Hudson demonstrated the insignificance of Confederate resistance" (pg. 317), Thrasher closely approaches the inevitability camp in arguing that Port Hudson, and the war itself on a collective basis, proved that Union fighting forces and home front supporters alike possessed bottomless wells of willing sacrifice in pursuit of victory. That minimization of the role of contingency in the war's progress and outcome certainly goes against the grain of recent scholarship. Aside from that, Thrasher strongly and persuasively argues that the stupendous determination and human sacrifice displayed by both sides during the fighting at Port Hudson and the strategic implications of the Union capture of Port Hudson itself are factors that render the military operation more than deserving of its own consideration as one of the war's momentous campaigns, decoupled from Vicksburg. That's a conclusion that will likely draw scant disagreement from readers of Miserable Little Conglomeration.

Booknotes: Union "Tales of the War" in the Trans-Mississippi - Part 1

New Arrival:

• Union "Tales of the War" in the Trans-Mississippi - Part 1: 1861 edited by Michael E. Banasik (Camp Pope Pub, 2024).

With all five Confederate titles of Volume VII finished and well out the door, Camp Pope Publishing has now officially launched the first installment of Volume VIII, the Union compilation of newspaper reminiscences published by The Missouri Republican in its Saturday editions from 1885-87.

Union "Tales of the War" in the Trans-Mississippi - Part 1: 1861 is organized into three chapters. In Chapter 1, Michael Banasik (the editor of every title in the Unwritten Chapters of the Civil War West of the River series) collects and annotates articles covering the January-July 1861 period encompassing the securing of the U.S. arsenal at St. Louis, the emergence of Nathaniel Lyon, Camp Jackson, and the raising of Missouri troops by state and federal authorities. The second chapter addresses various aspects of the military contests at Carthage (July 5) and Wilson's Creek (August 10) from the Union perspective. Chapter 3 looks at the fall campaigns conducted on opposite sides of the state, focusing on the Lexington siege and the Battle of Belmont.

As was the case with the Confederates volumes, the appendix section contains a large body of useful supplemental material. In addition to a selection of official documents, letters and correspondence that provide more context to the newspaper articles, readers will find a number of capsule biographies, a series of editor-authored addendums (of varying nature) to the Missouri Republican articles, and annotated orders of battle for Carthage, Wilson's Creek, and Belmont.

Booknotes: An Ornament to His Country

New Arrival:

• An Ornament to His Country: The Life and Military Career of Benjamin Franklin Davis by Sharon A. Murray (Author, 2023).

After a long period of undue neglect, an impressive amount of detailed coverage of eastern theater Union cavalry leaders and operations has been published over the past two decades. This recent body of literature has exposed readers to a number of brigade and division commanders whose abilities and contributions are deserving of wider recognition. One of the those individuals is Benjamin Franklin "Grimes" Davis, his life and military career the focus of Antietam battlefield guide Sharon Murray's self-published biography An Ornament to His Country.

Born and raised in the Deep South (in Alabama and Mississippi), Davis was a West Point grad who elected to remain loyal to the United States during the Civil War. Comprising roughly a third of the book, there is substantial coverage of Davis's early life, his service as an underage teen soldier doing mostly guard duty during the War with Mexico, his West Point education, and his antebellum Regular Army service in Texas, California, and New Mexico Territory. Those sections are followed by accounts of his early Civil War period service in the First California Volunteer Cavalry, First US Cavalry, and as the colonel of the 8th New York cavalry regiment.

From the description: "A brave, daring and resourceful officer," Davis "was commended for his action at the May 4, 1862 Battle of Williamsburg and was instrumental in facilitating the exodus of the U.S. Cavalry from Harpers Ferry on September 14, 1862 during the Maryland Campaign. Davis was recognized for his stellar leadership during the fall 1862 campaign in Virginia including the November 5 Battle of Barbee's Crossroads. He was leading a brigade in Buford's Division during the opening salvos of the Battle of Brandy Station when he was mortally wounded." The 31-year-old Davis died on June 9, 1863, and it was John Buford that eulogized him with the phrase that became the title of this biography.

Numerous illustrations and ten maps are sprinkled about. I've often wondered where the "Grimes" nickname came from. According to Murray, the nickname emerged during his West Point days (by whom and why it was conferred being both unknowns) and was one "affectionately" used by his friends from then onward.

Of course, we can never know for certain how high Davis might have risen among the Union Army's cavalry leadership, but one can imagine a possible divisional command in his future had he lived to see the campaigns of 1864-65. Little remembered today outside of eastern theater cavalry scholars and enthusiasts, Davis remains a mostly obscure Civil War figure. Murray's biography represents an "attempt to correct that oversight and give Davis his just due."

Booknotes: North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865 Vol. XXII

New Arrival:

• North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, Volume XXII - Confederate States Navy, Confederate States Marine Corps, and Charlotte Naval Yard edited by Katelynn A. Hatton & Alex Christopher Meekins (NC Office of Archives and History, 2024).

I've long been curious about the North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster series. Having started its journey way back in 1961 during the Centennial, it is still ongoing under the auspices of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History. Previous attempts at getting a review copy to sample were always unsuccessful, but last month current co-editor Christopher Meekins contacted me out of the blue and offered to send me a copy of the latest installment. North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, Volume XXII - Confederate States Navy, Confederate States Marine Corps, and Charlotte Naval Yard is a milestone in that it is the final Confederate volume in the series.

According to the jacket flap text, the mission of the series is "to publish a service record for every man who served in a unit raised in North Carolina during the Civil War, and to publish a history of each of these units." I was not previously aware of the extent of the latter part. In this volume, the "North Carolina and the Confederate Navy" narrative history text runs nearly 250 pages, and that makes me even more curious about how deeply the unit history aspect is handled in the others. I'd always just assumed from the title, wrongly it appears, that the rosters were the predominant feature and anything else included was just supplementary in nature. I've always been interested in the naval and combined operations conducted along NC's bays and rivers, so I am looking forward to reading this.

The roster comprises the second half of the book. As is the case with all of these types of projects, the amount of information available for each individual varies widely. Full name; rank/position; date and place of birth; prewar residence; enlistment/commission, promotion, transfer, capture, and discharge dates; wounds/health remarks; and brief assignment and service commentary are all examples of the types of information that can be found in roster entries.

In fulfillment of the ongoing mission, the editors are now working on the Union series, which will "include service records of North Carolinians who served in the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps." That doesn't necessarily mean the Confederate series is entirely wrapped up, however, as new information is always being solicited from the public and an addendum is cited as a distinct possibility. Follow the series link in the first paragraph and you'll find submission requirements and suggestions.

Do any of you out there own all the volumes? Feel free to add your impressions in the comments.

Booknotes: Storming the Heights, Revised Second Edition

New Arrival:

• Storming the Heights: A Guide to the Battle of Chattanooga, Revised Second Edition by Matt Spruill (U Tenn Press, 2024).

Jay Luvaas and Harold Nelson's The U.S. Army War College Guide series pioneered a Civil War battlefield touring and staff ride format that has stood the test of time. I believe that the most recent volume published under the War College imprimatur was Bowery and Rafuse's Guide to the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign (Kansas, 2014); however, the format itself has also flourished elsewhere with University of Tennessee Press and Matt Spruill. Originally published in 2003, Spruill's Storming the Heights: A Guide to the Battle of Chattanooga has now been reissued in a newly revised edition that takes into account the substantial changes to the physical landscape that have occurred over the past two decades. I love that cover art selection, too.

From the description: "In this newly revised second edition of his classic guidebook, Matt Spruill revisits his standard-setting tours of the Chattanooga National Military Park, providing updates and new directions after twenty years of park improvements. He recounts the story of the November 1863 battle of Chattanooga using official reports and observations by commanding officers in their own words. The book is organized in a format still used by the military on staff rides, allowing the reader to understand how the battle was fought and why leaders made the decisions they did." Readers of the publisher's Command Decisions in America's Civil War series will recognize the shared elements between these guides and the newer series' own extensive touring feature.

The original War College series and its iterations have never been compact in nature (indeed, this particular volume is well over 450 pages in length!), so it's always been recognized that they are for serious tramping (with prep reading involved) and not exactly conducive to rush tours. Not having access to the first edition, I unfortunately can't make any direct comparisons between the two Chattanooga versions that can be summarized here.

More from the description: "Unlike other books on the battle of Chattanooga, this work guides the reader through the battlefield, allowing both visitor and armchair traveler alike to see the battle through the eyes of its participants. Numerous tour “stops” take the reader through the battles for Chattanooga, Wauhatchie, Lookout Mountain, Orchard Knob, Missionary Ridge, and Ringgold Gap. With easy-to-follow instructions, extensive and updated tactical maps, eyewitness accounts, and editorial analyses, the reader is transported to the center of the action."

The book is stocked with a great number of period and modern photographs, and it provides dozens of tactical and operational-scale maps for readers to follow. In addition to orders of battle and brief information about Chattanooga's national cemetery, the appendix section houses extensive side tours of Lookout Valley and of the entire route of the Union supply line from Bridgeport.

"With this second edition, Storming the Heights will continue to be the go-to guide for Civil War enthusiasts interested in touring this sacred ground."