Book Reviews — April 2023
Originally published April 2023 · pp. 34–37
The Interracial Fight for Emancipation The Color of Abolition: How a Printer, A Prophet and a Contessa Moved a Nation. By Linda Hirshman. Notes, illustrated, Mariner Books, https://www.harpercollins.com/ pages/marinerbooks, 2022, 314 pp., softcover, $28.00.
Civil War News book reviews provide our readers with timely analysis of the latest and most significant Civil War research and scholarship. Contact email: BookReviews@CivilWarNews.com.
Reviewed by Wayne L. Wolf
Detailed Work on Cedar Mountain The Carnage Was Fearful: The Battle of Cedar Mountain. August 9, 1862. By Michael E. Block. Maps, photos, illustrations, appendices, order of battle,168 pp., 2022. Savas Beatie, www.savasbeatie.com. $14.95. Reviewed by Mike Priest
As a boy, my grandmother often told me, “Good things come in small packages.” This most aptly describes this thoroughly researched book about, until recently, a long-forgotten battle. The Battle of Cedar Mountain, being overshadowed by Second Manassas and the Maryland Campaign, has remained a footnote in the pages of Civil War history. For the veterans who fought and left friends and family dead upon the field, it lingered in their memories. All wars involve seemingly insignificant actions like Ball’s Bluff, Chantilly, and Cedar Mountain, that have not received the attention they deserved. The men who fought them did not consider them insignificant. Neither should we. Michael Block has spent some two decades studying the rich history of Culpeper County, Va. As the vice president of the Friends of the Cedar Mountain Battlefield, he has actively worked to preserve this ground
for future generations. Michael has thrown his heart into this worthy endeavor, and it shows. His thorough knowledge of the battle and the intricate maneuvering which preceded it shine through in this book. He devotes the first four chapters describing the social, political, and military situation in Northern Virginia that contributed to the three-hour conflict on August 9, 1862. Hal Jasperson’s excellent maps succinctly illustrate the movements of Maj. Gen. John Pope’s Federal Army of Virginia through Culpeper to ferret out and engage Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson’s Army of the Valley. Two Federal cavalry brigades under Brig. Gens. John Buford and George D. Bayard intercepted Jackson’s slow-moving column and initiated several skirmishes. On August 9, the Federals advanced southwest on both sides of the Culpeper Road. They engaged Confederate infantry and artillery head on and initially achieved some success, including attacking a battery from behind. Then Confederate reinforcements arrived, broke the Union center, and “crossed the T” on the far right of the Federal line. As darkness overtook the field, the Confederates chased the Federals toward Culpeper. The nasty fight cost the Union 2,382 casualties and the Confederates 1,276. As part of Emerging Civil War Series, this book also includes a self-guided tour of the battlefield and surrounding areas and pays meticulous attention to sites on private property. This small but extremely detailed work should be read slowly and repeatedly with pen in hand to note the fine details the reader will glean with each sitting. I keep finding new details every time I go through it. It is a gift that keeps on giving.
Mike Priest is author of Antietam: The Soldiers’ Battle (1989) and Before Antietam: The Battle of South Mountain (1992).
Linda Hirshman focuses her treatise on the history of the abolition movement around three of its most prominent exponents: the printer (William Lloyd Garrison), the prophet (Frederick Douglass, originally Frederick Bailey) and the Contessa (Maria Weston Chapman). From the 1830s, William Garrison, the quarrelsome, moralistic, selfrighteous, vivid, and imaginative newspaper editor of The Liberator pursued his vision for total abolition. Garrison was undeterred by financial pressures, a short jail sentence and fine, a divided anti-slavery movement, and his own weak constitution. Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave from a Maryland plantation, eloquent, focused, and uncompromising, toured the country and Europe spreading his messages on the evils of slavery, the brutal repression of the Negro as property, and the humanity of every man. To promote their quest for abolition Maria Weston Chapman, married to an ardent abolitionist, was behind the scenes organizing their travel itineraries, raising funds through fairs, and promoting the Boston Anti-slavery philosophy. These three stalwarts formed an alliance that lasted a decade before it dissolved in doctrinal disagreements and procedural avenues of achieving freedom and equality for all. From the first issue of the Liberator on January 1, 1831, to its last on December 29, 1865,
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William Lloyd Garrison strove to end slavery using nonresistance and moral suasion. It was not until the 1850s that he recognized political activism as a tool used by the newly founded Liberty Party, the Liberty League, the FreeSoil Party, and the Republican Party. By this time, it became evident that changing people’s minds about slavery needed to be translated into electoral success to accomplish full equality of men. Frederick Douglas, after initially aligning himself with Garrison, eventually rebelled against Garrison’s vision and methodology. He also broke with the Boston Anti-slavery cabal, published his own newspaper, The North Star, and with the help of Maria Weston Chapman, and later Julia Griffiths, set his own agenda, freeing himself by being managed by white supporters. He gained such a national prominence that he was invited to the White House by President Lincoln, related his demands for full equality to the Chief Executive, and instilled in Lincoln his vision for true humanity for the Negro and all men and women. Hirshman does a commendable job of weaving the personal attributes and ambitions of all three prominent abolitionists
into an explanation of how the abolitionist movement evolved in the three decades before the Thirteenth Amendment. Likewise, she sheds new light on the role Maria Chapman played in controlling both William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, and how their split had its seeds in her correspondence and vision for the movement. At times the author’s judgmental analysis appears excessive, e.g., calling Gen. McClellan “cowardly,” and throwing around the label racist to characterize organizations and people. Yet, for an historical review of the different ideologies and rivalries inherent in the abolition movement, this book could be a valuable resource. The primary source material, voluminous as it is, is welcome to any historian. The illustrations are of inferior quality and, while relevant are hard to see, read, and analyze. This book would be a valuable asset for any student of the abolition movement. Dr. Wayne L. Wolf is Professor Emeritus at South Suburban College and Past President of the Lincoln-Davis Civil War Roundtable. He is the author or editor of numerous Civil War books and articles and a frequent contributor to Civil War News.
The Extraordinary Escapades of a Union Pow in Texas
William Francis Oscar Federhen. Thirteen Months in Dixie, or, the Adventures of a Federal Prisoner in Texas. Edited by Jeaninne Surette Honstein and Steven A. Knowlton. Bibliography, index, maps, photographs, 170 pp., 2022, Savas Beatie, https://www. savasbeatie.com, hardcover, $29.95. Reviewed by Jonathan W. White
W. F. Oscar Federhen enlisted in the 13th Independent Battery, Massachusetts Light Artillery, on March 25, 1864; he never saw combat. Soon after arriving in Louisiana, on May 3, Federhen was captured. The Confederates stripped him of his money, possessions, gun, and most of his clothes. With little left to his name, he was sent to Camp Ford, a stockade prison in Tyler, Texas. There, he suffered indignities, starvation, and disease, including a fiery sunburn he called Satan’s itch. Federhen’s descriptions of prison life are detailed and compelling. Prisoners punished thieves among them by burying the culprits in mud up to their necks. To pass the time, inmates made playing cards from tree bark, and skinned cats to make banjos by using the skin for the banjo’s head and “some part of the cat’s innards” for strings. Federhen suffered permanent physical damage in prison as burns and scurvy left scars on his feet. After several unsuccessful attempts, Federhen escaped. He walked through Texas for many, miles, hiding in woods, thickets, and swamps, and seeking help from local civilians. These chapters offer readers an intimate
picture of life in Confederate Texas, the squalor, poverty, and fear that Confederate civilians lived in, their decrepit cabins, beds of straw, shrinking quantities of food, and fear of Home Guards who might execute them for harboring a Yankee or for expressing Union sympathies. Throughout the course of his narrative, Federhen was recaptured and escaped several times. In one instance he escaped from captivity with one of William Clarke Quantrill’s men. Federhen and the Confederate guerrilla broke free by walloping their guard over the head with a piece of wood. They then made their way to Quantrill’s camp, where Federhen had a long conversation with “Bloody Bill” Anderson. This detailed account which has not been utilized by Anderson biographers, conflicts with some known facts about Anderson. The next few chapters describe guerrilla raids in brutal, graphic detail. Federhen saw and participated in robbery, murder, fistfights, and plunder. In one particularly horrifying scene, he witnessed the literal butchering of a black man. In another, he witnessed guerrillas ripping out an elderly man’s fingernails when the old man would not reveal the hiding place of his gold and silver. Federhen wrote, “I stood over the bed looking at this barbarous action but could say nothing to prevent it lest they should turn on me.” After more captures and escapes, Federhen finally made it home to Boston in July 1865. His mother was elated to see him, for
she had thought him long dead. Federhen’s memoirs will be of great interest to scholars of the Texas home front, guerrilla warfare in Arkansas, and prison life in the Confederacy. He was a talented writer, much more so than many of his postwar contemporaries. As with all memoirs written long after the war, Federhen’s recollections are not entirely reliable even though he claimed to be writing “undisputable facts.” Nevertheless, this is an extraordinary primary source that offers valuable insights into some of darker aspects of the Civil War. The editors of this volume conclude, “Readers will have to judge for themselves the reliability of Federhen’s account; we have faith few will deny that it is a gripping tale and one you won’t soon forget.” They are correct in this assessment; Federhen offers an unforgettable Civil War narrative.
Jonathan W. White is professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University and the author or editor of 13 books, including A House Built By Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House (2022). In 2023 he will publish Final Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves with Brian Matthew Jordan, as well as a biography of convicted slave trader Appleton Oaksmith. Check out his website at www. jonathanwhite.org.
Freedom’s Trailblazers When Emancipation Came: The End of Enslavement on a Southern Plantation and a Russian Estate. By Sally Stocksdale. Illustrated, Notes, Index, Bibliography, McFarland and Company, https:// mcfarlandbooks.com, 2022, 244 pp., softcover. $55.00. Reviewed by Wayne L. Wolf
Sally Stocksdale crafts a unique picture of two plantations (demesnes) Palmyra Plantation in Mississippi and Yazykovo Selo in Russia to compare the meaning and effects of freedom on slaves and serfs. She explores the origins, structure, requirements, and reception on those who endured the lengthy process towards true freedom endured. For Russian serfs “freedom” came in February 1861 with the stroke of a pen by Tsar Alexander II. For slaves held on Palmyra Plantation their freedom came on January 1, 1863 when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. From this point on freedmen in both locales played a role in determining and defining themselves and their new roles. Authorities in both countries prioritized their chief aim as social control while maintaining the economic integrity of the land and its productivity. The main difference between the two settings was evidenced in how Russian serfs would gain total freedom in stages after buying land from the nobility and agreeing to contract terms of service to their former masters. In Mississippi, no provisions were made for gradual freedom. It was immediate and unstructured, yet formalized by Union officials and the Freedman’s Bureau so labor was assured and land productivity encouraged. Emancipation in both locales did not solve problems of the demand for cheap labor nor did it modify
the attitude of the elite towards the previously enslaved. Both groups struggled for land of their own, autonomy for their choices, and self-determination. During this struggle, what predominated was confusion by competing narratives of what freedom meant, rumors as to what newly freed people were entitled to, and the elites trying to instill the notion the labor was the heart of and key to freedom. Free people were being told that they should grow into their freedom and their labor was the vehicle for that transition. Yet, free people in both Russia and Mississippi ultimately desired to act in their own self-interest while moving to work within the constraints imposed by the institutional and traditional constraints they found themselves in. This book paints a fascinating picture of two groups of formerly enslaved people fighting for true total freedom where they could own land, travel, decide where they would labor and under what conditions, and elect those who would govern them. Both landowners, Gen. John Quitman and Vasili Yazynov, represent the archetypical owner of slaves; both are faced with the dilemma of accepting freedom, yet maintaining their economic status in society. It is a wellresearched, historically accurate, interdisciplinary study which addresses the social, cultural, economic, geographic, and political aspects that impacted the newly acquired freedom in two societies not as different as previously supposed. This book is recommended as a new conceptualization of what happens throughout the emancipation process, a process that does not happen with the stroke of a pen but may take decades to be fully realized. Dr. Wayne L. Wolf is Professor Emeritus at South Suburban College, past president of the Lincoln-Davis Civil War Roundtable, and the author of numerous books and articles on the Civil War including Heroes and Rogues of the Civil War (4 Volumes) and The Last Confederate Scout. He is a frequent Roundtable speaker, book reviewer, and manuscript editor.
An Exhaustive History, An Instant Classic What if ’s and what Civil War Field Artillery: Promise and Performance on the Battlefield. By Earl J. Hess. Photos, notes, index, 440 pp., 2022. Louisiana State University Press, www.lsupress. org. Hardbound. $50. Reviewed by Jonathan A. Noyalas
Arguably no Civil War historian has been more prolific during the past few decades than Earl J. Hess. Known for the depth of his research, detailed analytical skills, and impeccable writing, Hess has produced some of the most important scholarship in the field and transformed the way historians think about personalities, campaigns, and technology. Hess’s latest volume, the first in-depth and scholarly examination of field artillery during the conflict, is no exception. The objectives of Hess’s volume are, as the author freely admits in the introduction, “to fill in much of the historiographical omission” about field artillery and to analyze “its effectiveness in the field.” To meet the study’s goals, Hess mined an exhaustive number of unit histories, battle reports, memoirs, reminiscences, and archival collections. After providing a concise overview of the history and evolution of field artillery in the four centuries prior to the Civil War’s outbreak in the book’s first two chapters, Hess spends a considerable portion of this handsomely crafted history addressing various technical aspects of field artillery. Hess covers every conceivable topic including examinations of every type of cannon, the array of
shells fired, types of fuzes, and discusses every piece of hardware employed in an artillery battery. The author includes seventeen tables with information vital for any historian who writes about battles, leads battlefield tours, or has the awesome responsibility of developing interpretation at battlefields. Tables include such useful information about each type of cannon, ranges, specifications of artillery shells, and statistics about field artillery in combat. Additionally, Hess offers a thorough exploration of how field artillery units were structured, organized, managed, and trained. Hess masterfully explores all the skills artillerists had to proficiently learn, including cross training on every role, and procedures batteries employed to be prepared for battle and maintain combat readiness. Hess’s analysis of the various techniques units employed is fascinating. While target practice with live rounds proved one of the most valuable means of training, as it was the best way artillerists could improve their adeptness in estimating distance to target, the author illustrates that the desire for a battery to be prepared for battle was always weighed against the cost of an artillery round and ammunition supply. Hess also explores the use of sham battles as a beneficial training tool. Although “comparatively rare,” Hess demonstrates how artillerists believed them beneficial and “stimulating.” The author’s exploration of training also includes the 261,672 horses who proved critical to any field artillery unit’s success. While Hess recounts the various qualities batteries sought in horses (including being between five to seven years old and weighing between 1,100 and 1,200 pounds), drilling methods, and diet, the author explores the bonds that artillerists formed with their horses. Drawing on the perspectives of artillerists such as Lewis Sykes and Frederick Wild, Hess demonstrates how in “the process of training and serving together, man and beast often developed bonds of affection.” While the depth of Hess’s exploration into the myriad technical aspects of field artillery makes this volume indispensable, the author’s deep analysis of the
effectiveness of types of artillery magnifies this book’s worth. In an effort to challenge a long-standing convention that rifled cannon outperformed smoothbore guns, Hess analyzed hundreds of reports which revealed that the average maximum distance cannon fired in battle was 1,122 yards, well within the range of both types of guns. While technically accurate at a greater distance, the fact that batteries which employed rifled cannon in battle customarily did not fire at targets greater than 1,122 yards “fails to support,” in Hess’s estimation, previous assumptions “that rifles were hugely successful or were used in dramatically different fashion than smoothbores under battlefield conditions.” Another convention Hess convincingly challenges is that artillery dominated the battlefield during the conflict. Critical analysis of primary materials reveals that while the “long arm was important as support for infantry and cavalry,” artillery “did not dominate the battlefield consistently or clearly.” While there are certainly exceptions to this and Hess is careful to point out that the psychological impact the presence and sound of artillery had on troops, the author argues compellingly that various factors including ability of gun crews, quality of ammunition, and the natural environment oftentimes limited field artillery’s overall usefulness in battle. Accounts from figures such as Confederate generals Daniel Harvey Hill and William Hardee bolster Hess’s assertion. Once again Earl Hess has produced a masterpiece of scholarship that is engagingly written, exhaustively researched, and accessible. Hess’s study immediately becomes the single most important volume for anyone to consult when desiring an understanding of any conceivable facet of Civil War field artillery. Jonathan A. Noyalas is director of Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute in Winchester, Virginia, a professor in Civil War Era Studies at Shenandoah University, and founding editor of Journal of the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era. He is the author or editor of fifteen books including most recently Slavery and Freedom in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War Era, published by the University Press of Florida.
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could have been?
Decisions of the Maryland Campaign: The Fourteen Critical Decisions That Define the Operation. By Michael S. Lang. Appendices, Photos, Illustrations, Maps, Notes, Bibliography, Index. University of Tennessee Press, www.utpress. org, 2022, 322 pp., softcover. $29.95 Reviewed by Joseph Truglio
As with many books of this type, the scenario deals with the premise of “what if.” However, this volume seems to present the scenario of ‘what was’ and, perhaps, ‘what could have been.’ The author indicates, early on, that this presentation is for students who are familiar with the events and not the novice. The text on the campaign is relatively short. It consists of three chapters and a conclusion, comprising 140 pages of the book’s 322 pages. Little time is
spent on actual battle information, but rather on its reasoning and results. If the reader is interested in combat results I suggest you peruse the authors companion volume in this series, The Battle of Antietam. Mr. Lang does a very creditable job in presenting the mindset of the principals as to why they made decisions. He even includes an alternative scenario/decision following the results of the actual decision. This is done with a minimum amount of speculation. I found this to be a fair and balanced presentation. Although I am not an admirer of McClellan’s ability as a field commander, I think the author does justice to his decisions during the campaign. Perhaps the best and most valuable section of the book is the driving tour of the decisions. This gives the reader the ability to follow in the footsteps of the participants and gain a clearer understanding of the decisions made. I plan to do this on my next visit. Overall, I recommend this book to all students of the Maryland Campaign. I also suggest you read his companion volume on the Battle of Antietam in order to obtain a fuller perspective of events. I plan on doing just that!
Joseph Truglio, of Manchester, N.J., is a retired Motion Picture Technician who has a lifelong interest in the Civil War. He is past President of the Phil Kearny CWRT in N.J.
Engineering in the Confederate Heartland. Larry J. Daniel. Photos, illustrations, index, bibliography, appendices, 204 pp., 2022. Louisiana State University Press. https://lsupress. org, ISBN 978-0-8071-7785-3. Hardbound. $45.00. Reviewed by John D. Fowler
Military history has always been an all-inclusive subject covering far more than just the bugles and bullets of a military engagement. Leadership, morale, medicine, logistics, and a host of other aspects of war are equally important in determining the outcome of battles, campaigns, and wars.
Rebel Engineering
One of the most important aspects often overlooked is engineering, the subject of Larry J. Daniel’s Engineering in the Confederate Heartland. Daniel, a noted and prolific Civil War historian, is well known for his studies Western Theater studies. This volume seeks to place the experiences and contributions of Confederate engineers into proper perspective. Daniel places his examination primarily within what historian Thomas L. Connelly called the Confederate Heartland, which included Tennessee, north-central Alabama, north-central Georgia, and northeast Mississippi. Daniel expands this area a bit to include parts of Louisiana and Vicksburg where engineering proved critical to the republic’s war effort. He argues rightly that engineers played a key role in the campaigns stretching across this vast expanse and details their exploits in both chronological and thematic chapters. For example, he points out the important contribution of Confederate engineers to defending the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers early in the war. He goes on to discuss the critical efforts of engineers out in the field on campaign, especially in relation to building bridges and pontoons. Daniel’s work will offer students of the war a chance to learn about
key figures in engineering who are often overlooked. Names such as Andrew “Asa” Gray, Minor Meriwether, Bushrod Johnson, Jeremy Gilmer, David B. Harris, Lemuel P. Grant, Martin L. Smith, and Samuel L. Lockett are primarily known only to those who read widely in the history of the period. The author delves deeper to examine the reorganization of the Confederate engineering corps in 1863 and offers readers an interesting analysis of Southern efforts to produce accurate maps. Indeed, Andrew Jackson Riddle’s photographic reproduction of maps is a captivating story of ingenuity and necessity. Daniel also includes a glossary of engineering terms, extensive notes, and a bibliography, as well as two appendices listing all the Rebel engineers he could locate and the civilian occupations of some of those who served in the Confederate engineering regiment assigned to the Western Theater. Scholars who wish to continue exploring the subject will find Daniel’s work here valuable in their endeavors. Considering the herculean efforts of Southern engineers to devise the near impregnable defenses of Vicksburg and Atlanta, the skill of the pontoniers that allowed Hood’s misguided campaign even to function, and the countless unassailable field
works constructed throughout the struggle for the Heartland, one can’t help but be awed by their accomplishments. Daniel goes beyond demonstrating their achievements, however, to challenge the notion that these engineers were not skilled professionals and were often incompetent. Contrary to these claims, he finds them to be critical to the Confederate war effort. Engineering in the Confederate Heartland is not a dynamic page turner the casual Civil War afficionado will want to read. There are no dramatic charges or gut-wrenching tales of sacrifice and valor. Instead, the volume offers students of the war a deeper understanding of a small but important group of engineers and sappers who played a vital role in allowing the Confederate army to wage a war against a numerically and logistically superior foe. More information is available on Union engineering efforts. For example, see Thomas F. Army, Engineering
Victory: How Technology Won the Civil War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). Daniel’s work joins James L. Nichols’s Confederate Engineers (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Confederate Publishing Company, 1957) as the major studies of the Rebel side. Nichols’s work is small at 122 pages, but when studied in conjunction with Daniel’s monograph, one would come away with a solid grasp of the subject. Daniel has written an important work for those interested in a deeper understanding of Southern efforts to defend the Heartland, and it adds to his reputation as one of the foremost scholars of the field. John D. Fowler, Ph.D., is the author of several books and articles on the Civil War Era. He is the author of Breaking the Heartland: The Civil War in Georgia. He is currently a Professor of History at Dalton State College.