last reads

New Arrival: • Maine Roads to Gettysburg: How Joshua Chamberlain, Oliver Howard, and 4,000 Men from the Pine Tree State Helped Win the Civil War's Bloodiest Battle by Tom Huntington (Stackpole, 2018). Most Civil War readers probably know Tom Huntington as the man behind Historical Traveler magazine and the author of Searching for George Gordon Meade: The Forgotten Victor of Gettysburg (2013).

New Arrival: • Where Valor Proudly Sleeps: A History of Fredericksburg National Cemetery, 1866–1933by Donald C. Pfanz (SIU Press, 2018). Where Valor Proudly Sleeps is the second volume in SIU Press's public history focused Engaging the Civil War series. I liked the first one, Turning Points of the American Civil War, well enough and look forward to seeing what they come up with next. According

[The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865 edited by Janet Elizabeth Croon (Savas Beatie, 2018). Hardcover, 4 maps, photos, illustrations, footnotes, index. 480 pp. ISBN:978-1-61121-388-1. $34.95] Born in 1847, LeRoy Wiley Gresham was just transitioning into his teenage years on the eve of the Civil War. His father was a wealthy Georgia slaveholder with two

New Arrival: • Our Country: Northern Evangelicals and the Union during the Civil War Era by Grant R. Brodrecht (Fordham UP, 2018). With its origins in the previous century, the Protestant multi-denominational movement known as evangelicalism was a strong force in 1800s American culture. As the introduction to Grant Brodrecht's Our Country: Northern Evangelicals and the Union during the Civil

New Arrival: • Sixteenth President-in-Waiting: Abraham Lincoln and the Springfield Dispatches of Henry Villard, 1860–1861 edited by Michael Burlingame (SIU Press, 2018). From the description: "Between Abraham Lincoln’s election in November 1860 and his departure for Washington three months later, journalist Henry Villard sent scores of dispatches from Springfield, Illinois, to various

1. Sterling Price's Lieutenants: A Guide to the Officers and Organization of the Missouri State Guard, 1861-1865 by Richard C. Peterson, James E. McGhee, Kip A. Lindberg & Keith I. Daleen (2nd edition, 2007). No comprehensive history of the Missouri State Guard has ever been undertaken, but the MSG's wartime operations have been discussed extensively in a number of readily available military

New Arrival: • Californios, Anglos, and the Performance of Oligarchy in the U.S. West   by Andrew Gibb (SIU Press, 2018). Yes, this isn't Civil War related, but it does address Mexican War era topics (which do comprise part of the site's range of interests) and I'm not averse to throwing in some Western Americana every once in a while. Part of Southern Illinois's Theater in the Americas series,

Ugh. I was wondering why I haven't been getting any comments on the site lately, and lo and behold I discover a month's backlog of comments for which I never received any notification! Tonight, I happened to check the moderation page and saw a large number of comments dating back to late May. I sincerely apologize for not getting to this sooner. I went on vacation at the end of last month and on

New Arrival: • Practical Liberators: Union Officers in the Western Theater during the Civil War   by Kristopher A. Teters (UNC Press, 2018). From the description: "During the first fifteen months of the Civil War, the policies and attitudes of Union officers toward emancipation in the western theater were, at best, inconsistent and fraught with internal strains. But after Congress passed the

[A Forgotten Front: Florida during the Civil War Era edited by Seth A. Weitz and Jonathan C. Sheppard (University of Alabama Press, 2018). Hardcover, map, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. 268 pp. ISBN:978-0-8173-1982-3. $39.95] Civil War Florida has been long dismissed as an isolated and thinly-populated front of little significance, but historical coverage has vastly improved in

New Arrival: • Lincoln and the Abolitionists by Stanley Harrold (SIU Press, 2018). As its title suggests, the Concise Lincoln Library series offers "short, fresh, accessible books on the life, times, and legacy of Abraham Lincoln." At over two dozen titles, the series is one of the more prolific ones out there and shows no signs of slowing down. The latest release is Stanley Harrold's Lincoln

University of Tennessee Press has three Trans-Mississippi titles currently under development. The third Confederate generals essay anthology and 1st Oregon Cavalry memoirs and correspondence have already been mentioned here before, but the new Fall/Winter catalog also contains an announcement for High Private: The Trans-Mississippi Correspondence of Humorist R. R. Gilbert, 1862-1865 (October 2018

University of Tennessee Press's Confederate Generals in the Western Theater series concluded this year with the release of Volume 4, but the publisher's Fall/Winter '18 catalog has confirmed that there will indeed be a third and final installment of the companion series highlighting the lives and careers of Civil War generals that served on the other side of the river. Confederate Generals in the

New Arrival: • Fighting Means Killing: Civil War Soldiers and the Nature of Combat by Jonathan M. Steplyk (Univ Pr of Kansas, 2018). The experience of Civil War combat has been explored in various works but until now no book has been solely devoted to contextualizing the act of killing itself. Jonathan Steplyk's Fighting Means Killing: Civil War Soldiers and the Nature of Combat is "the first

New Arrival: • Challenges of Command in the Civil War: Generalship, Leadership, and Strategy at Gettysburg, Petersburg, and Beyond - Volume I: Generals and Generalship by Richard J. Sommers (Savas Beatie, 2018). As many of you already know, Richard Sommers is one of the foremost authorities on the 1864-65 Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, particularly Grant's Fifth Offensive. His study Richmond

[Decisions at Second Manassas: The Fourteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle by Matt Spruill III & Matt Spruill IV (University of Tennessee Press, 2018). Softcover, 41 maps, photos, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. 277 Pages. ISBN:978-1-62190-380-2. $29.95] Matt Spruill III and Matt Spruill IV's Decisions at Second Manassas: The Fourteen Critical Decisions That Defined the

New Arrival: • Ambivalent Nation: How Britain Imagined the American Civil War by Hugh Dubrulle   (LSU Press, 2018). Expanding regional investigation to countries outside western Europe and applying more cultural approaches, current studies exploring the international dimensions of the Civil War period are moving beyond diplomacy and high-level politics (primarily as these applied to Britain and

New Arrivals: • Valley Thunder: The Battle of New Market and the Opening of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, May 1864 by Charles R. Knight (2018). It seems to be more and more the case now that Savas Beatie titles are being reissued in paperback, sometimes only a short time (1-2 years) after hardcover circulation. Valley Thunder is a bit older but is richly deserving of being brought back into

Flight to the Top of the World: the Adventures of Walter Wellman By David L. Bristow University of Nebraska Press, $29.95 (hc); $28.45 (kindle) Reviewed by P.J. Capelotti Walter Wellman is a unique figure in American journalism and exploration, comparable in some respects with Henry Morton Stanley.  However, since Wellman straddled many different fields: journalism, politics, exploration, aviation, technology, and the Polar Regions, he has been a particularly difficult individual to pin down in any one account of his life of writing and adventure.  His five expeditions in search of the North Pole from 1894-1909, along with an attempted stunt flight across the Atlantic in 1910, have long defined his life.  The present volume moves a bit closer to the goal of a full accounting but, in the end, as did Wellman himself so many times, it comes up short by failing to reach its stated goal. The strengths of this biography are also its weaknesses.  First, the revelation of ne...

New Arrival: • The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865 edited by Janet Elizabeth Croon (Savas Beatie, 2018). A big pile of Savas Beatie titles arrived on my doorstep the day before I left on a trip so I haven't had a chance to look at any of them before now. The publisher has been heavily promoting this one in particular, so we'll start there and get to

[Iowa and the Civil War, Volume 1: Free Child of the Missouri Compromise 1850-1862 by Kenneth L. Lyftogt (Camp Pope Publishing, 2018). Hardcover, 12 maps, photos, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:408/432. ISBN:978-1-929919-79-6. $40] A planned trilogy, Kenneth Lyftogt's Iowa and the Civil War will trace the history of the state's participation in the conflict*. The initial volume,

New Arrival: • The 96th Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Civil War by David A. Ward (McFarland, 2018). Though it doesn't include a roster, David Ward's The 96th Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Civil War is a full-length regimental study. Composed of "nearly 1,200 Irish and German immigrants from Schuylkill County," the unit saw action in many of the great eastern theater campaigns and battles with

New Arrival: • Vicksburg: The Bloody Siege that Turned the Tide of the Civil War by Samuel J. Mitcham (Regnery History, 2018). Mitcham is a prolific WW2 historian who has recently moved to the Civil War sphere. I haven't seen his more recent Forrest book, but did review his 2012 Red River Campaign study, a treatment that I found problematic. His new book Vicksburg: The Bloody Siege that Turned