4th Michigan Infantry

The 4th Michigan Infantry in the Civil War. By Martin N. Bertera and Kim Crawford. Photographs, index, 560 pp., 2010, Michigan State University Press, www.msupress.msu.edu, 517-355-9543, $44.95, cloth.

Sometimes our Civil War reading is so focused on battles and commanders that we forget to think about the inner workings of the regiment, which is what nearly every soldier dealt with. The 4th Michigan Infantry in the Civil War puts the focus back on the regiment. The 4th Michigan did not leave a record of bloody battle after bloody battle. Instead it managed through good luck to miss most of the horrible engagements that reduced regiments into company sized skeletons of their former selves.

The 4th Michigan served in the Army of the Potomac from the beginning at First Manassas up until the beginning of the siege of Petersburg. Not enough men had reenlisted for the unit to continue so the veterans were transferred to the 1st Michigan to complete there service at Appomattox. During that time the regiment was engaged in four battles, Gaines Mill, Malvern Hill, Gettysburg and the Wilderness. Remarkably they lost their commanding officer killed or mortally wounded in three of those fights. At the other battles of the Army of the Potomac though they missed major combat, sometimes acting as a rear guard, being posted to a quiet portion of the line or being part of an uncommitted reserve.

One area the book excels at is discussing the politics of command. While not all officers were politicians they were generally politically connected. At times members of the officer corps did not get along and tried to get others removed from the regiment. This is a somewhat little looked at aspect of volunteer regiments that this book covers quite well.

One failing of the book though is a lack of maps. Often the regiment’s location would be described in great detail but without a map those details do not mean as much. For some battlefields I know well enough or have books of maps so that I could match the text to the map but I much rather prefer books that include their own maps.

All in all this is a very good book. The authors provide a great amount of detail on all aspects of the regiment, from their time in battle, to the relationships between officers and the governor, and on the common soldiers as well. Normally it seems that the best regimental histories focus on regiments that saw a ton of combat or whose service was unique in other respects like geography. This regiment does not meet either attribute but the quality of the writing made this an enjoyable read nonetheless.

Reviewed for Civil War News

A Rebel’s Recollections

A Rebel’s Recollections. By George Cary Eggleston with a new forward by Randy Bishop. 360 pp., 2010, Pelican Publishing, www.pelicanpub.com, 504-368-1175, $14.95, paper.

A Rebel’s Recollections was originally published in 1875 when George Cary Eggleston compiled a series of essays he had written about his service. Eggleston was a native of Indiana but inherited a plantation in Virginia prior to the war. His service in Virginia allowed him to observe Stonewall Jackson, Robert R. Lee, JEB Stuart among others, and Eggleston provides some insightful commentary of prominent Confederate leaders. The sections that cover the Confederacy’s financial woes and the supply situation are at times humorous but also melancholy.

There is no discussion of battles, nor of marches. Eggleston focused more on what a soldier thought and how he coped with the declining fortunes of the Confederacy than with bullets and gunpowder.

This new reprint is well done, utilizing high quality, clean scans of the original book. The new forward sets the stage for the topics Eggleston will cover, and teases at interesting tidbits that are to come.

Reviewed for Civil War News

Alfred Mathews and my new cousins

The other day I made an interesting connection through the blog. A fellow researcher had found the grave site of Alfred Edward Mathews, a Civil War artist I've blogged about previously (here, here and here). To refresh your memory I first came across Mathews when studying the 14th Wisconsin at Shiloh. Mathews made a sketch of them capturing a battery and I used him as a source for the event and location (though location was hard to pinpoint). But there were always mysteries with his story, for one thing he shouldn't have been at Shiloh but over the course of years researching this I've come to the conclusion that Mathews was never with his regiment and believe he really was at Shiloh, getting there a few days ahead of his regiment.

Mathews continued in the Western Theater as an artist and his drawings were considered highly accurate by the people who had been there. General Ulysses S. Grant personally commended him for his battle sketches, illustrations, panoramic depictions of the War in the deep South, and topographical work. On August 9th, 1863 Grant wrote Mathews, “I have examined the lithographs of views taken by you of the ‘Siege of Vicksburg,’ and do not hesitate to pronounce them among the most accurate and true to life I have ever seen. They reflect great credit upon you as a delineator of landscape views.” When Mathews later toured the country with his lithographs he carried endorsements from Generals Thomas, Sherman, Logan, Rosecrans, Pope and McPherson, as well as Grant.

The park service has one of his drawings as a plaque in the Stones River national cemetery as he depicted the action of the battle that occurred on that ground. They also sell two of his lithographs in the park store (or at least they did when I last toured Stones River, they may sell more or none now).

I also found it interesting that after the war he toured the West (what the Civil War crowd might call the Far West, Colorado, Wyoming, etc) and did many more sketches. He lived in Colorado for most of the rest of his life until his death in 1874. What I didn't include in my other posts because it wasn't necessary for the story is that his final resting place is a bit uncertain. He was initially buried near where he had been working on a fish hatchery along the Big Thompson River. One story then had the Loveland GAR post moving his remains to a cemetery in that city around 1882, and for some reason his grave is not marked there.

Another story had his remains remaining in the Big Thompson Canyon until 1939 when a highway work crew unearthed his body. For some reason one of the workers took the skull home and returned it later but he could not find the casket so he buried it in the vicinity. One aspect of this story is the claim that his head is one one side of the highway and his body on the other side, though I would imagine the worker would have remembered what side of the highway the body was buried at and would have at least gotten the head on that side of the road.

The 1961 biography I read suggested that the Loveland GAR story was correct as the sources there were from credible men (state politicians and high ranking GAR officers). The author, Nolie Mumey, did not explain why the highway story did not make as much sense instead saying that it was a mystery and either story could be correct. And that's what I believed, that Mathews could be in either place. If thinking critically I guess I'd have to say that the highway story seems more correct to me as why wouldn't the Loveland GAR mark the grave? They were prompted to rebury him because of a story about the sad shape of his original resting place so since they knew who they were going after it would have been easy enough to mark his grave. Its not like they suddenly came upon an unidentified soldier. But I pretty much left the mystery alone.

And then the other day I got an email through the blog (you'll see it in the comments section on one of the posts) from a Susan Kniebes saying that she had found the grave. Over the next few days she sent me more info about the grave, including a picture and GPS coordinates. Susan and her husband Duane are working on with the Colorado Council of Genealogical Societies and the U.S. Geologic Survey to find, GPS pinpoint, and document all of the graves in Colorado. They are covering Larimer County burials. They have also turned this into a book project where they give more background of the individuals and other items of interest in the area. For example Mathews was buried near the old Mont Rose Inn's orchard so they included info about the Mont Rose Inn in their chapter.

After a few days of corresponding with them I asked if they might know more about the Kniebes family. My great great great grandmother was Elizabeth Kniebes. I only have info about her parents and a brother. Duane responded that two Kniebes families came from Zusch, Germany in 1840. One settled in southwest Michigan (his family) and the other went to Wisconsin (which could be mine as the time and location is right). So in a weird twist of fate two cousins separated by several generations ended up in Colorado and both connected with a Civil War soldier and artist that neither has any other connection to.

Duane also informed me that the grave was located in such a spot, and unmarked, that if the land owner decided to build there the grave would be easily destroyed through no fault of the landowner. He would think he was building his garage in a nice spot and never know he had built it over a grave. Which got us started on trying to properly mark Mathews grave.

Of course this raises the issue of where is he really buried. My new cousins are already running with the ball and have contacted the Loveland cemeteries to see if they have records from 1882 indicating Mathews reburial there and have also contacted a historical society that has the GAR posts' records in hopes that maybe something there reveals the truth. Also I'm sure there will be a search of Loveland newspapers from 1882 as it seems like something they would have reported on. If he's already in Loveland then its as simple as getting a headstone from the VA.

If it appears that Mathews is still in Big Thompson Canyon then we can get a headstone for the spot he is now. The landowner has been contacted and apparently is fine with having a Civil War grave on their property. So as long as we can determine Mathews is still there then we can get the VA to provide a headstone.

As far as I know there is little at the canyon site to confirm its Mathews. We know the casket found in 1939 was oak and should be missing a head. But I do not recall reading if Mathews was buried in an oak casket. The 1939 story didn't mention any clothing and we do know generally what Mathews was buried in so that might solve it. But all that involves a lot of digging which might not actually have anything in the hole. And if we find the casket we might only be able to confirm that the head is missing.

One potential source for solving the mystery is that in 1884 the Loveland GAR post ordered one of its members to correspond with Charles Mathews, Alfred's brother in Ohio who was editor of the Ohio Democrat. Perhaps the correspondence is in the GAR post's file or maybe its in a collection in Ohio (private or public). I'm hoping that the GAR files have the info we need. Even if they admit that they could not find him in 1882 it would point to the canyon site as the right spot. Of course if they say they found him but were short of funds for a proper headstone then they probably would indicate where they had buried him.

I imagine this is going to be a lengthy process, chiefly because we first need to confirm where he is really buried but I'll update the progress here from time to time.

A Glorious Army

A Glorious Army: Robert E. Lee's Triumph 1862-1863
by Jeffry D. Wert

In A Glorious Army Wert traces Lee's command of the Army of Northern Virginia from the Seven Days through Gettysburg. The time when nearly everything went right (until it came crashing down at Gettysburg) for Lee. This is a good recap of the campaigns the army undertook with Lee during that time frame. Wert does a good job of providing details of battles (even down to the regimental level) without getting bogged down in them, and does it all in just under 300 pages of text.

What I especially liked is how Wert brought other historians in the mix. Of course any writer would use them in a book like this but Wert would offer their interpretations right in the text and not just through a footnote. For example he would say "Gary Gallagher said that ....." Sometimes Wert would then disagree or agree and sometimes he would just leave it out there as an example of an interpretation. Having read most of those books at one time or another it was very helpful to get this little reminder of what that author had said about something.

When I read Eastern Theater stuff I sometimes think in the back of my head, "well that's all very nice but the war was won in the West, so while Lee was having great success it doesn't really matter in the end." And while I do still feel that way Wert gave a very convincing argument that Lee's audacity and aggressiveness was the only way the Confederates could hope to win. And he did win a lot and suffered tremendous losses at the same time, but it was his only hope. One thing I am forced to agree with him on, and it happens to be the last line of the book, is "No American army, against such odds and in less than a year, compiled such a record as that of the Army of Northern Virginia, and none altered the direction of a conflict more." Wert is right on that, so maybe I should give the Eastern Theater a little more respect.

Wert makes a good point in the final summary chapter of reminding us that when Lee took over the army the total war effort for the Confederates looked very bleak. To that point the Confederacy had mostly been on the strategic defensive and was losing the war. Lee's aggressiveness changed the course of the war in the Eastern Theater, which prolonged the contest as a whole because of the political aspect of the war. Later many people, participants and historians alike, would say that Lee should have operated on the strategic defensive but there is reason to believe that his offensives is the reason the Confederacy was able to stay in the war that long.

I really enjoyed this book and it slightly changed my opinion of the value of the Eastern Theater. If you wanted a highly detailed account of regimental actions covering those 12 months this is not the book for you. Truthfully I'm not sure anyone has covered all of that in one volume, so the book you want has not yet been written. But Wert's book gives a good overview of that year and also gives enough tactical information for you to get a good grasp of how Lee's army fought. A fine addition to any Civil War library and especially for Eastern Theater students.

Civil War Day by Day

Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac by EB Long and Barbara Long

I have been reading this classic with my oldest son lately. Every night we settle down and read what happened 150 years ago. By the time we finish my younger son will be joining us for the readings. I got the idea when on the way home from a cub scout meeting on April 5th I decided to tell my son about the battle of Shiloh. But not the detailed minutia of the battle, just a story of farm boys far from home. I told him the story of the night of April 5th, how the Union boys were settled down to sleep, thinking of home, of writing and reading letters, that the next day was Sunday and they'd get a rest from their army "chores." And of the Confederate boys sleeping down the road knowing that their world would change the next day. And both sides wondering if they would be cowards or brave, and that bravery does not mean being scared but sometimes means pushing past what you are afraid of. He really enjoyed the story and when I was done he asked if I had any others. Sure I've got tons. And I also knew there was a book that would keep us informed about every day.

If you don't have this book you have to go get a copy. It is a true classic and you won't be disappointed.

Civil War in the Southwest

Civil War in the Southwest: Recollections of the Sibley Brigade. Edited by Jerry Thompson

This is an interesting collection of remembrances from seven members of the Sibley Brigade. They were originally published in a small East Texas newspaper, the Overton Sharp Shooter. It is also useful in that for some actions, like the battle of Valverde, there will be a few different viewpoints presented. For Valverde there are five different perspectives given.

It is an interesting read but I would not use it to pinpoint locations or time of day on a battlefield. It seems in every battle the Sibley Brigade thought they were heavily outnumbered but in reality they usually fought at pretty similar strengths.

I wish the editor had made the notations footnotes instead of end notes because his notes were more about background info than being bibliographic in nature. For instance for Valverde the common theme is that the Confederates faced roughly 4 to 1 odds, with Union numbers from 7000 to 8000, actually was 3800 and Confederates from 1400 to 2100, with 1800 being about right. One author claims Union losses of nearly 6000, while it really was about 250. Another says the Union recovered 1000 dead and had 1500 missing (which were lost in the river) while the Confederates captured 700 wounded, with more wounded on the other side of the river. That would put the loss around 3200 that this author was sure of plus the ones on the other side of the river he could only see but not count. By the way Confederate losses were around 180. The author who said the Union lost about 3200 said they buried 185 Confederates there, so he wasn't too far off. Other authors put it at 300 and 235, those two authors also claimed the Union loss at around 500-600. But finding out the rest of the story by flipping to the end notes was a little annoying when footnotes would have been much easier for the reader.

I prefer footnotes for annotating recollections because there is so much to clarify or correct in a 125-150 year old source. End notes are fine for scholarly books as they often are just citations. I do always check them just in case an author has left some interesting nuggets of information there. Some authors use their notes to supplement the story and some stick to just straight citations.

I would definitely recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn more about the 1862 New Mexico Campaign. It will be a great supplement to one of the other scholarly campaign histories.

Decisions at Gettysburg

Decisions at Gettysburg: The Nineteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Campaign by Matt Spruill

Last Thursday at the Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable meeting Matt Spruill talked about his newest book, Decisions at Gettysburg. It was a great talk and having read the book since then it is also a great book. To be fair as a friend of Matt's I have read portions of the manuscript as he's worked on it. So I knew from the moment I got the book it was going to be a great book, but this was the first time I had seen it all put together, especially with the illustrations.

The idea for the book is that its one thing to know what happened at Gettysburg, that is what we all learn first. But it is more important to learn why the events happened as they did. There were many decisions made during the campaign and battle that left us with the Gettysburg we know today. Some of those decisions were more important than others, some had more influence on the direction the battle took than others. One thing Spruill stresses early is that changing the decision does not mean Lee could have won, just that the battle and campaign would have unfolded differently. Some of them might have lead Lee to victory but others might have made Meade's victory even more complete.

For example the first decision of the book is that Lee basically has four options in the summer of 1863. He can simply wait for the Union to regroup and attack him, he can maneuver in Virginia to bring on a battle, he can send send men West which would force him to be on the defensive, or he can launch an invasion of the North. Knowing Lee's character the obvious choice is that he will invade the North but it was a critical decision in that the other ones will not lead to a battle in rural Pennsylvania. The summer battle might then be Third Manassas or Second Chancellorsville, etc.

Another example is Sickles moving forward on the second day. His other option is to stay in position along Cemetery Ridge and Little Round Top. In his mind Sickles has valid reasons for moving forward, (the high ground of Hazel Grove at Chancellorsville that he held, was ordered off of and then was hammered by Confederate artillery probably came to mind as he saw the high ground of the Peach Orchard) but he still made the decision. The difference in flow of battle is that combat would have occurred closer to his other position. Also how would the Confederates have attacked this position? Would they have tried to flank it, or come straight at Sickles, or drive up the Emmittsburg Road like originally planned and hope Sickles doesn't come off the ridge to strike the flank. There likely would be zero mention of The Wheatfield or Peach Orchard, they would just be a wheatfield troops marched through or a peach orchard the Confederate artillery fired from.

An example of a decision that was not critical to the course of the battle is Howard leaving troops in reserve on Cemetery Hill when he first enters the fight on July 1. It was a good decision in that it gave the Union a reserve to fall back on. In an odd way its a good decision because it means less troops later trying to force their way through the congested streets on town when the Union had to retreat from its advanced positions. This is all just a commander doing a good job.

The critical decisions can also be strategic, operational, tactical and organizational. Two of the pre-campaign decisions Spruill discusses are Lee's reorganization of his army (going from two corps to three) and how the Army of the Potomac's artillery was reorganized after Chancellorsville. Both will have an impact on how the battle is fought and if the command structures had been left alone the battle probably would have unfolded differently.

I highly recommend the book to anyone who wants to better understand why things happened at Gettysburg like they did.

Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography

Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography by Jack Hurst

The whole reason I read this one is because I so enjoyed Hurst's book on the Donelson campaign. Yes I admire Forrest's battlefield skills. I definitely would not have wanted to get on his bad side and seeing how often his fellow officers and soldiers got there I think I would have never wanted to be around him. There is at least anecdotal evidence of him beating soldiers of his command and there is concrete evidence of him killing one of his lieutenants. Definitely not someone you'd pick to be friends with, but if you remained loyal to each other you'd have a solid supporter forever backing you. But woe if you ever crossed him.

Hurst's biography is a good one. I was somewhat amazed in how pro-Forrest he was. The Fort Pillow massacre is not just dismissed out of hand, Hurst spends time with it, puts it in historical perspective but at the end of all of it pretty much lets Forrest off the hook. There is a somewhat similar approach to Forrest's klan activities. He's acknowledged to be a leader and using it to get ex-Confederates the vote in Tennessee, but then dissolving it afterwards. Hurst says that Forrest was too hands off in the invisible society and too busy with railroad projects to know that his dissolution orders were never followed.

I thought Hurst did a good job of offering a balanced picture. Forrest bios tend to either praise his every move or denigrate everything he did. This one picks a middle ground that edges on the praise side. The book was published in 1994 so I wonder if some of the recent books on Fort Pillow might now sway Hurst to be harsher on that chapter of Forrest's career. [As a side note it seems odd to refer to 1994 as a bit dated in historiography.]

Forrest is a fascinating character who achieved much as a general and whose personal life before and after the war was also interesting. Some of our interesting generals seemingly sprang from nowhere and/or faded into oblivion when the guns went silent. Forrest was active and interesting from the get go.

Men of Fire

Men of Fire: Grant, Forrest, and the Campaign that Decided the Civil War by Jack Hurst

Not all that new, came out in 2007, but I got a copy for Christmas. I was excited to read this as there is not much out on Fort Donelson (that is the campaign Hurst believes decided the war). I think Hurst brings some new interpretations that I'll need to examine in the future.

The biggest is that Halleck was pretty actively trying to replace Grant. And he wasn't being very covert as McClelland discusses one potential replacement with him. Hurst says that Halleck would use his later position as general-in-chief to destroy/hide some of the other evidence. I didn't notice anything new in the tactical aspects but it has been close to a decade since I read Cooling's wonderful book on Fort Donelson. Just a reminder again of how badly the Confederates bungled the breakout attempt and should have been able to escape, but when Floyd and Pillow are your ranking generals its easy to see how things went awry. I'm not sure I'd agree that this campaign was the one that decided the war.

On one hand how does the first major Union effort to invade the heartland become the tipping point for the war? But when the Union is basically able to win battle after battle in the west and hardly ever have a major setback there is no turning point. A turning point is when the war seems to be going one way and then the course changes. That's why Gettysburg is often described as the turning point, which I do not agree with, because Confederate fortunes in the East seem to always be bright and then after Gettysburg they never regain that momentum. They tend to suffer defeat after defeat and lose ground until they are forced to surrender at Appomattox.

But in the West there are only a few times the Confederates gain something positive and its usually followed in quick secession by defeat. They get away from Corinth, slip east to Knoxville and steal a march into Kentucky only to come to grief at Perryville. The campaign as a whole does regain some of Tennessee as the lines eventually end near Murfreesboro but I don't think its a turning point because Union fortunes are about the same post-Perryville. Later Grant is forced to abandon his overland Mississippi campaign but they are soon closer to Vicksburg, just using a different route. Bragg wins at Chickamauga but within a few months his army has been forced farther south again and he has resigned. In that light maybe there is no turning point in the West. The story of the West is pretty much success after success so maybe the opening victory on that path can be called the decisive campaign.

All in all it was a good book, glad I finally was able to add it to my library. If you needed a book on the details of the Donelson campaign I'd probably go with Cooling's but Hurst's book is also a good one to have.

Tennessee and the Civil War Sesquicentennial Series

The other day I got a letter from the Tennessee Historical Quarterly that during the sesquicentennial they will be republishing some of their Civil War articles as a series of twelve volumes. The first volume is Tennessee in the Civil War and will appear this August. Members of the Tennessee Historical Society get a 33% discount on the volume as long as they preorder by June 30, so of course I've already sent my check in.

Future topics will cover nearly every aspect of the war in Tennessee. Battles of course will make up the bulk of the offerings and I'm especially anxious to see the volumes on Shiloh, Fort Pillow, and Stones River. Since its inception in 1942 the Tennessee Historical Quarterly has published almost 400 articles about the Civil War so there is plenty of prime material to pick from.

Each volume will be $25. The way the letter was worded members might get the 33% discount on each offering, with shipping it will come to $21.50. Or maybe that's just the discount for the first volume, to get you hooked on the series. To quote the email I also received, "THS members get a 33% discount on the $25 retail price -- that's $16.50 a book, a savings of $8.50 – plus $5 shipping & handling for each book, for a total of $21.50 each." Each book could refer to each copy of volume one or each book/volume of the series. In any respect I'm sure I'll end up getting most if not all of the volumes.

To reserve your copy of the first book, Tennessee in the Civil War, send payment before June 30, 2011, to Civil War Series, Tennessee Historical Society, 305 Sixth Ave. North, War Memorial Building, Nashville TN 37243. You can become a member, and get the discount on at least one volume, by going to the THS website

Rise of the Centennial State

The Rise of the Centennial State: Colorado Territory, 1861-76 by Eugene H. Berwanger
232 pages, 2007, University of Illinois Press, $40

Colorado became a territory under Lincoln achieved statehood at the end of Reconstruction. It fits the Civil War era time frame perfectly although its actual involvement was much less. Colorado's involvement in the war does not get as full a treatment here as I would like, the focus is more on the Indian conflict that raged during this time and continued after the war. I thought the author did a good job of putting the entire Indian conflict in perspective, including the Sand Creek fight. He rates it as a massacre but also explains that the residents even a year later were calling for Indian extermination. While Easterners might have thought the Colorado troops went overboard the locals thought they had done right, even with plenty of hindsight to think otherwise.

One story I always hear in connection with Sand Creek is that it cost Colorado the opportunity to be a state in 1864/1865. That the Eastern press and Federal politicians were so horrified that they shot down attempts in 1864-65 to become a state. The territory was being punished. But Berwanger explains that what killed that attempt to be a state was that Colorado citizens would not grant the vote to blacks. They voted down black suffrage in 1864 and continued to oppose it until 1867 when Congress made black suffrage a fact. There were also factions in the territory that did not want to become a state so it was not until 1876 that everything aligned for it to achieve statehood.

Interestingly, and a story I don't remember ever hearing, is that statehood was pushed through hastily in 1876 to the point that there was not a popular vote for presidential electors and instead Colorado's 3 Electoral College voters were determined by the state legislature. While this was common practice previously most states had changed to popular vote nearly 40 years earlier. Colorado went Republican and the disputed election of 1876 eventually went to Hayes 185-184. But if Colorado had not been a state then 184 votes would have been enough to win the Electoral College and Tilden had those 184. We normally think of the disputed votes in Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana being the reason Hayes was allowed to win but its also interesting to think about what if Colorado's entrance had been delayed just a little longer and those three votes had not been cast. Then Hayes would likely not have been awarded the 20 disputed votes and Tilden would have won 204-165. Or maybe there would have been another batch of disputed votes, maybe the fix was always in.

The rest of the book concerns activities of Colorado that would not interest a Civil War audience, such as political power struggles and railroad building. Overall the book was good. I picked my copy up from the library and I don't think I'd pay $40 for it but cheaper ones can be found online.

Turner Ashby

The Memoirs Of General Turner Ashby And His Compeers by James Battle Avirett

Originally published in 1867 this book was interesting for more than just the story of Ashby. It was enjoyable to read a book from an unreconstructed rebel so soon after the war. He still had a lot of anger at how things turned out. One of the funny parts was when he complained about how West Virginia had been taken away from Virginia and he hoped that the wrong would soon be corrected.

Ashby was one of the early heroes of the war. Of course the author, Ashby's chaplain during the war, is going to gloss over the imperfections in his subject. At the end you're left wondering how far Ashby would have risen, and maybe he would have gone far. On the other hand though I know from other books that Ashby was not as great as he sounds here. He spent much of his time doing scouting activities that would have been better left to a man of lesser rank. A colonel should not be leading small squad scouts, that is a job for a sergeant or lieutenant, maybe even a captain. A colonel, and for a short time a brigadier general, should concern himself with the unit as a whole; perfect its training and organization.

And there were stories that Ashby's unit was not very disciplined, even the author addresses that to a small degree. But in 1867 that sort of commentary was not very likely, especially for a deceased hero. And especially by a member of his command. If you accept the fact that were will not be much criticism of the title subject than this biography is interesting.

The author goes into much detail about Ashby's personal life and how he lived a chivalric life. One thing I thought odd is there was no mention of a wife. Ashby was 33 when he died so its not like he was so young as to not have married. Its odd just because we normally don't see too many bachelors among Civil War generals.

If you want a biography of Ashby that will point out his strengths and weaknesses this is not it. That is due to the time frame when written which provides its own interesting aspects. Otherwise this is a good book, not a great one, but interesting enough to warrant reading.

Shadow of Shiloh

Shadow of Shiloh: Major General Lew Wallace in the Civil War by Gail Stephens

This is a great book covering perhaps the most controversial general at Shiloh. I've always felt Wallace got a bad rap for Shiloh, that his march was not the mistake we've mostly always been lead to believe. It seems that the scholarship of the last decade or so has also lifted much of the blame from him and has given him a much fairer verdict. This book continues rehabbing his Shiloh reputation and offers a pretty fair assessment of his entire service.

My favorite aspect of the Shiloh section is when the author recounts an excursion when a group of Shiloh scholars actually hiked Wallace's route. They had the benefit of maps and hard roads (made their hike in the fall rather than in a very wet spring) and they ended up being 15 minutes slower than Wallace. The verdict now has to be that Wallace was not lost, he was just not where Grant thought he might be. Or rather where Grant later said he thought Wallace would be as the author has enough evidence that Grant expected Wallace to show up on Sherman's right that there has to be some reasonable doubt as to what road Grant thought Wallace would take that day. Afterwards Grant and his staff do a good job of making it seem like the River Road was always the only option but Grant might have other motives for making this come out as the historical record.

I have one complaint of the book though, the pages are oversize. So much so that there are two columns of text per page. [At my local library it is actually filed with the oversize books that I normally associate with picture books.] I found that a bit difficult to read and wish the size was a tad smaller. One benefit of the larger size though was that the full page maps were wonderful. I liked the large maps so much that the double columns almost were not too terrible to deal with. But after thinking about it I'd rather have slightly smaller pages that had just one column of text.

The copy I read was from the local library but I will certainly add this book to my personal collection as soon as I can. A must read for any Shiloh scholar.

Lincoln on the Civil War: Selected Speeches

Lincoln on the Civil War: Selected Speeches

This is a small (127 pages) volume that brings together 9 of Lincoln's speeches. These are generally considered to be his most important speeches (one is more a writing than a speech but you get the idea). The speeches are:

Address to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838

"House Divided" speech at Springfield, June 16, 1858

Address at Cooper Institute, February 27, 1860

Speech at Independence Hall, February 22, 1861

First Inaugural Address

Emancipation Proclamation

Gettysburg Address

Second Inaugural Address

Speech on Reconstruction, April 11, 1865

There are a ton of collections of Lincoln's speeches and writings. I personally have one of the larger (though not nearly complete) two volume works. I think every Civil War library needs some sort of "Lincoln's Greatest Hits" volume. If you only want a few top hits, then this volume might be enough for you. If you want to have a wider range of speeches and writings than this one is much too skimpy.

Stephen A. Hurlbut

A Politician Turned General: The Civil War Career of Stephen Augustus Hurlbut by Jeffrey N. Lash

In my continuing quest to learn as much as I can about Shiloh I sought out this book on Hurlbut. I knew that Hurlbut had turned in a pretty good performance at Shiloh, not well enough that people talked of it in awe and thought of giving him better field commands but a pretty solid performance, in fact it seems all the Union division commanders fought well during the battle. He also became the post commander at Memphis and left there due to questionable financial dealings.

I was a little shocked to learn that this was Hurlbut's only real battle experience. His experience prior to Shiloh was in a rear area of Missouri where he saw no combat, just chased the Confederates. I was even more shocked to read how corrupt his administration of Memphis was, and that after basically being chased out of there by rumors he was able to get another post in New Orleans where he did it all again and ended up getting caught and punished.

He was somewhat politically connected in Illinois. I saw somewhat because it seems he lost more elections than he won and angered some Illinois politicians who actually did have some influence during the Civil War era, like Elihu Washburne (Grant's benefactor). His connection to Lincoln was rather flimsy but apparently he had not done anything to anger Lincoln like he had Washburne. Hurlbut constantly ran against Washburne for his US Senate seat even after Washburne was fairly well entrenched in that post, and also was rather negative in his attacks.

He also seems to have been a bit crazy, which might have come from his drinking. One anecdote in the book is of a time Hurlbut showed up at a cavalry camp, challenged one of the best riders to a race and lost his horse in the race. While this might in someway endear a general to his soldiers it is also not normal behavior for a general.

Hurlbut was a native of South Carolina and had just prior to the firing on Fort Sumter had done a diplomatic mission there for Lincoln. It achieved little but realistically at that point nothing would have likely kept South Carolina in check except for surrendering the fort, which was not going to happen. There is some thought that his diplomatic mission failed too because he had allegedly left town with funds for a charitable organization he worked for when he had lived in Charleston 16 years before. After the war he served mostly in foreign diplomatic posts and was one of the founders of the Grand Army of the Republic.

I enjoyed the book. Not every general could be on the battlefield, some needed to govern the territory gained. Hurlbut spent most of his war doing just that, and along the way he may have made a tremendous amount of money for himself through embezzlement. Would I have picked this up without the Shiloh connection? Probably not but I'm glad I did as I read about an aspect of the war I am not very familiar with.

Book reviews

I've been reading a bunch again lately and will have some book reviews showing up here again starting next week.

Symposium 2011

I regret to inform you all that there will be no symposium in 2011. Due to a variety of reasons, but primarily financial, the roundtable leadership has decided to cancel the event. It might resume some other year, or maybe it never will, I just don't know.

I do know that I had a great time helping to put on the events. Some years I was more involved than others but despite the hard work it was a great time. I got to meet and talk with many amazing people including some historians whose work I really admire. Made some friendships along the way and generally learned a lot.

In the meantime the roundtable plans to bring in one speaker a year. We went this route in the years before the symposium and that success is what prompted us to dream a little bigger. Maybe the one speaker a year format will expand into two, or maybe it will expand back into the symposium again.

And 2011 was going to be a good year, no need to go into details on who was going to come but I was really excited about the panel. We were going to follow the 150th as best we could and 2011 was going to be an early Eastern Theater focus. Oh well

Yankee Warhorse: A Biography of Major General Peter Osterhaus

Yankee Warhorse: A Biography of Major General Peter Osterhaus. By Mary Bobbitt Townsend. Illustrated, photographs, maps, bibliography, index, 288 pp., 2010, Missouri, press.umsystem.edu, 888-888-8900, $39.95, cloth.


Peter Osterhaus truly served the Union cause from the beginning to the end. He lead a battalion in the Camp Jackson Affair in St. Louis that started armed conflict in Missouri. He was also present when Edmund Kirby Smith surrendered the Confederate forces of the trans-Mississippi theater to Edward Canby, signing the surrender document. In between he became one of only three German major generals, and the only one given the rank more for battlefield achievements than political considerations. Remarkably though his historical record has been largely ignored. In Yankee Warhorse the general’s great great granddaughter Mary Bobbitt Townsend finally tells the story of this accomplished general.

Osterhaus came to America to escape charges of treason after leading troops in the failed German revolution of 1848. He settled in Illinois and by the start of the Civil War was living in St. Louis. Following the Camp Jackson Affair his battalion fought at Boonville and Wilson’s Creek. At Pea Ridge he admirably commanded a division and helped secure the Union victory. He was then transferred to Grant’s army for the Vicksburg campaign and commanded a division in the battles of Arkansas Post, Port Gibson, Champion Hill and the assaults on Vicksburg on May 19th and 22nd. He was then given the task of defending the Union rear along the Big Black River during the siege.

One of the bright moments of his career happened after one of his lowest personal times. Prior to the Chattanooga campaign he went home to be with his dying wife but arrived too late. After making arrangements for his children he returned to the army in time to take part in the battles of Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge and Ringgold Gap, where he was severely handled by Patrick Cleburne’s division. He continued in divisional command during the campaign for Atlanta and was given command of the Fifteenth Corps in the March to the Sea. He did not march through the Carolinas but was instead sent to Mobile Bay to assist General Canby with that campaign, serving as his chief of staff.

After the war he served as military governor of Mississippi during the early days of Reconstruction. In 1866 he began a diplomatic career for his new country with an appointment to the US Consul at Lyons, France. He had a few more diplomatic posts and eventually moved back to his old hometown of Koblenz, Germany. He died there in 1917 just before his adopted country entered World War I against his home country.

The book is pretty even handed, pointing out Osterhaus’ errors when needed and highlighting his successes too. It does not follow the typical pattern of descendent driven biographies that heap too much praise on success and ignore mistakes. The author is not as critical as some are of Osterhaus’ performance at Port Gibson but handles his mistakes at Ringgold Gap quite well. The maps lack a scale and do not use anything to denote elevation which is quite distracting considering that the terrain was a key aspect of most of Osterhaus’ battles.

Chatfield Story

The Chatfield Story: Civil War Letters and Diaries of Private Edward L. Chatfield of the 113th Illinois Volunteers. Edited by Terry M. McCarty with Margaret Ann Chatfield McCarty. Illustrated, photographs, maps, bibliography, appendices, index, 564 pp., 2009, Georgetown, Texas, http://www.chatfieldstory.com/, $32.99, softcover.

Chatfield Story covers the history of the 113th Illinois from its formation through the battle of Brice’s Crossroads told through the writings of private Edward Chatfield. Chatfield left behind a wealth of material in letters and diaries and it has been combined here very well. Interspersed between diary entries and letters is plenty of background text by the editors that fills in the gaps and ties all the material together.

Chatfield and the 113th Illinois served along the Mississippi River, first as part of the Union efforts to capture Vicksburg and then later as part of the force garrisoning Memphis. It was while doing this duty that it saw its most combat at the battle of Brice’s Crossroads. At this battle Chatfield was captured and the prodigious writings ceased. Chatfield survived the war and eventually settled out west in Littleton, Colorado. While his wartime service was nothing too beyond the normal Edward Chatfield became a prominent man in Littleton and eventually many different places were named after him.

One of the strengths of the book is that whenever Chatfield mentioned a comrade in his writings the editors listed all they could about that person. While Chatfield is the center of the story the editors did a good job of filling in the story of the regiment.

An interesting benefit of having diaries and letters is comparing Chatfield’s thoughts between the two. There was one time in particular that he complained to his diary about being sick but in his letter home he said he was in perfect health. This self censorship was easily revealed when read with the diary, a fact the editors pointed out as well.

Much of Chatfield’s service was somewhat dreary, including work on Grant’s failed canal during the Vicksburg campaign, but this book is an excellent source on that sort of service as Chatfield wrote often. This book is also a self published work through booksurge but the quality of the work does not make that readily obvious. This is one of the better self published books I’ve ever run across.

Napoleonic War vs Civil War

Lately I’ve been reading a bunch of Napoleonic War-era stuff. Mostly Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series but also adding in non-fiction books to flesh out campaigns and personalities that interest me.

We often hear of the Civil War being fought with Napoleonic influences and in some cases I do agree, mostly I don’t. In reading though lately there are some things from that era that seem to have disappeared in the roughly 50 years between the wars. Not sure if this is an American versus European thing or if its just a change in warfare over time.

For example I have read accounts of the dead being burned after a battle. Apparently the ground would be too hard for burial trenches and so the dead would be stripped of belongings, including most of their clothes when wanted/needed, piled together and burned. And this was done for both sides, not something that you just did to your enemies but also to your own side. This seems truly strange to me and it might be a cultural difference but I feel pretty confident that this was not done in the Civil War, at least not intentionally.

The extent of looting also seems out of place in the Civil War. I realize that soldiers always have looted the dead, and probably always will. But in the Napoleonic era it there seems to be quasi-sanctioned looting against civilians, and we’re not talking about stealing the chickens from a farmer. If there was a siege, especially if the attackers suffered much, the town was going to be sacked. At Badajoz it took 72 hours to get the army back under control. Cornwell has a line in one novel about how the army stole what could be carried and raped what couldn’t be stolen. Obviously not 100% true but gives a flavor of what the fighting was like. At Vitoria the loot was immense, in modern terms it could have been about £100 million. And this loot did not go straight into the British coffers, although technically forbidden the common soldiers kept some of the loot themselves.

Also it seems that post-war everyone studied the campaigns of Napoleon but it appears to me that Civil War officers would have been better served by studying Wellington. Strategically they both seem to be very good at their craft but tactically I think Wellington was his superior, something that was proven on the only battlefield they faced each other directly, Waterloo. Napoleon used a column formation to attack instead of lines as we are familiar with from the Civil War. Wellington used lines. The key to breaking the column is as simple as pouring as much firepower into the column as possible. The column formation means that only a small percentage of it can fire at the defenders, the front rank and the men along the sides. But if you can put a ton of firepower into that column and make it halt then you’ll win. The British army was apparently one of the better trained armies in how fast they could fire their muskets. The other European nations were not as fast and the column attacks defeated them time after time. But eventually the British got a toehold in Spain-Portugal and proved their might against the columns.

Reading about the Peninsular War has made me want to visit Portugal and Spain, and perhaps some day I will. I’d also love to see Waterloo but am disappointed that the terrain has been much changed, mostly to build a monument. I did have the good fortune to visit London many years ago and went through Wellington’s house. I would definitely do so again now that I know more about the man.