last reads

[Attacked On All Sides: The Civil War Battle of Decatur, Georgia, the Untold Story of the Battle of Atlanta by David Allison (CreateSpace-Author, 2018). Softcover, 2 maps, photos, illustrations, notes, index. 372 pp. ISBN:9781977761903. $26] Of the series of battles fought in North Georgia during the critical summer of 1864, the July 22 fighting was the bloodiest and arguably the most dramatic

New Arrival: • The Civil War and the Transformation of American Citizenship edited by Paul Quigley   (LSU Press, 2018). Before, during, and after the Civil War "the boundaries and consequences of what it meant to be a citizen remained in flux," and The Civil War and the Transformation of American Citizenship "offers a wide-ranging exploration of citizenship’s metamorphoses amid the extended

I recently received LSU's Fall-Winter catalog and reviewer checklist. I wish every publisher could do this online. It just makes things so much simpler for all involved. Anyway, one of the most intriguing titles that I put on my list is Upon the Fields of Battle: Essays on the Military History of America's Civil War from contributing editors Andrew S. Bledsoe and Andrew F. Lang (November 2018).

Major Civil War Book Awards (2017) • Tom Watson Brown Award: Christopher Phillips, The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border • A.M. Pate Award: Andrew Masich, Civil War in the Southwest Borderlands 1861-1867 • Dan and Marilyn Laney Prize: David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign―Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit,

New Arrival: • That Field of Blood: The Battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862 by Daniel J. Vermilya (Savas Beatie, 2018). It seems like the Emerging Civil War series has been catching its breath for a while after a near constant stream of output (perhaps due to getting the crew's new Revolutionary War series up and running). But they are back now. GNMP ranger Dan Vermilya's That Field of Blood:

[A Campaign of Giants - The Battle for Petersburg, Volume 1: From the Crossing of the James to the Crater by A. Wilson Greene (University of North Carolina Press, 2018). Hardcover, 34 maps, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:530/726. ISBN:978-1-4696-3857-7. $45] By an odd twist of fate, some of the Civil War's most momentous and iconic campaigns have for a long time been among the most

New Arrival: • A Forgotten Front: Florida during the Civil War Era edited by Seth A. Weitz and Jonathan C. Sheppard (Univ of Ala Press, 2018). This essay anthology had a place on my internal list of most anticipated titles of 2018. Civil War Florida is a far less neglected topic today than ever before, but it certainly remains a bit of a scholarly backwater so those responsible for this title

I wish there were more new releases to talk about but May has been a complete bust so far, though I did get a couple of June titles early. So we'll get to some more book news instead. About a year ago I mentioned the U.S. Army's Combat Studies Institute's print publication of Charles Collins's promising-looking atlas of the 1864 Confederate expedition into Missouri, which was previously only

New Arrival: • Uncivil Warriors: The Lawyers' Civil War by Peter Hoffer (Oxford UP, 2018). I've often wondered if anyone was working on a Civil War book about lawyers in uniform, though I'm not sure what tack an author might take to might it most interesting. For the Civil War generation the law had always been viewed as the best profession for ambitious men wishing to both rise in society and

[The Diaries of Reuben Smith, Kansas Settler and Civil War Soldier edited by Lana Wirt Myers (University Press of Kansas, 2018). Softcover, maps, photos, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:239/260. ISBN:978-0-7006-2623-6. $24.95] Housed at the Kansas Historical Society archive, the diaries and other writings of Englishman and naturalized U.S. citizen Reuben Smith are remarkable

Timothy Mason Roberts is a history professor at Western Illinois University and the author or editor of two studies focused on American exceptionalism. The recently published "This Infernal War": The Civil War Letters of William and Jane Standard (Kent State UP, 2018) is his first Civil War book project and is the subject of this interview. DW: Interpreting the nature of the "Copperhead"

This is another interesting (to me anyway) title from the Fall-Winter catalogs that are just coming out. Civil War archaeology book releases have never been a yearly thing, but we're due for another one. Borderland studies is a popular field at the moment and Civil War era events and personalities from both sides of the Rio Grande have also received renewed attention. Stepping into these

[Decisions at Stones River: The Sixteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle by Matt Spruill & Lee Spruill (University of Tennessee Press, 2018). Softcover, 26 maps, photos, diagrams, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:214/270. ISBN:978-1-62190-378-9. $29.95] New approaches to framing the study of Civil War campaigns and battles are always welcome. In this vein,

The cavalry raids that played no small role in derailing Grant's first Vicksburg campaign in late 1862 continue to get coverage here and there, but decades on from Ed Bearss's classic trilogy there's really been no significant standalone work published on either Grant's overland march down the railroad line into northern Mississippi (which never resulted in any big battles) or Sherman's failed

At the Edge: A life in search of challenge By Stephen J. Trafton Amazon Digital Services LLC, $37.50 paperback, $7.49 eBook Reviewed by Regina Koellner To say Stephen Trafton led an interesting life would be an understatement. His achievements are many and versatile. Climbing Boulder Peak in Washington State, at the age of twelve led to an impressive career in mountain climbing, with numerous first ascents and subsequent leadership in mountain rescue.  A college job in a bank became a professional career which peaked in taking the US government to court and so saving what became Citibank. Later in life, he discovered a passion for car racing, and there he also excelled. He set the Ferrari land speed record in a car that he restored himself, and had an impressive racing career including an unsuccessful attempt to complete the Peking to Paris Rally. His passion for exploring led him across the USA on solo hikes and by kayak and on eleven expeditions to the High Arctic. His interest i...

The accepted name of this battle seems to be on a continuous loop, from Palmito Ranch to Palmetto Ranch and back again. In the current literature, the two standard works on the subject are Phillip Thomas Tucker's The Final Fury: Palmito Ranch - The Last Battle of the Civil War (2001) and The Last Battle of the Civil War: Palmetto Ranch (2002) by Jeffrey Hunt, with most preferring the latter study

[Reconstruction: A Concise History by Allen C. Guelzo (Oxford University Press, 2018). Hardcover, 11 illustrations, event timeline, notes, bibliography, index. 192 pp. ISBN:978-0-19-086569-6. $18.95] An octavo-sized volume containing roughly 130 pages of narrative, Allen Guelzo's Reconstruction: A Concise History is concise indeed. It's a chronologically arranged scholarly synthesis of the era

That's the way it works. No survey history of the war west of the Mississippi is penned since the end of the conflict itself and then suddenly we get two published within eighteen months of each other. My thoughts on Theater of a Separate War are unchanged (and it looks like Amazon is practically giving away copies at the moment for some reason), but others continue to see it in a much more

New Arrival: • I Held Lincoln: A Union Sailor's Journey Home by Richard E. Quest   (Potomac Books, 2018). Richard Quest's I Held Lincoln: A Union Sailor's Journey Home builds a Civil War naval service, prison, and prison escape narrative around the personal log of Lt. Benjamin Loring. Though the book utilizes this and other historical sources to tell the story, it quickly becomes apparent when