No comments about Freedom's Shore: Tunis Campbell and the Georgia Freedmen.

No comments about With a Flash of His Sword: The Writings of Major Holman S. Melcher 20th Maine Infantry.

5 comments about Allan Pinkerton: The First Private Eye.

1. This books encompasses all of Allan's PI's work. I had an enjoyable time reading it. It is a fasination subjet for me. I am considering of changing careers and going into the PI business.



2. Pinkerton Biography

   The story of Allan Pinkerton, a poor Scottish immigrant and former working-class radical who rose through the ranks of society to become the protector and confidant of presidents and tycoons is a quintessential American story that deserves such a thorough telling. This book was a fascinating read, and left me wishing that the author had delved more into the numerous early cases that were only hinted at in the text.

   The only serious criticism of this biography is the author appears to have gotten a little too close to his subject, which in several points has clouded his objectivity. This is apparent in the book's tendency to rush to Pinkerton's defense, particularly regarding the handling of the Molly Maguires and other labor disturbances of the late 19th century. A sweeping condemnation of the labor activists as "terrorists," or stressing the fact that they greatly outnumbered the Pinkerton operatives during violent strikes, are intended to make Pinkerton and his agents "the good guys" in the eyes of readers. This stance is questionable, however, considering the book's general lack of background information on the U.S. labor situation at this time. The author also neglects to explore how Pinkerton, a well-known Glasgow labor radical in his own youth, so readily sided with "other side" -- the titans of American industry -- later on in life.

   But overall this book is a good read and well-researched, especially the chapters concerning Pinkerton's early life in Scotland and his association with President Lincoln during the Civil War.




3. Mackay is as talanted a literary detective as Allan Pinkerton was as a criminal detective, written in a clear style that's a pleasure to read. It's a well balanced account, explaining the character's actions in the context of the times.
   Mackay's first surprise is that Allan Pinkerton wasn't born when most biographers say he was. From there he goes on to uncover the truth about Pinkerton's early career in Scotland, and the truth about a 'supposed' assasination plot against Lincoln before he took office. (The plot was independently confirmed by a political enemy of Pinkerton who had no motive to make Pinkerton look good--which convinced Lincoln the plot was real, and to follow Pinkerton's suggestions to foil it. Political enemies of Lincoln denied the existence of the plot to make Lincoln out to be a coward.) Before he finishes the Civil War period, Mackay has 'rehabilited' the often pilloried Union general McClellan (whom Pinkerton worked for) and divulged startling information uncovered in 1967 about the plot to assasinate Lincoln. This book is outstanding, a definite 'keeper'.



4. This biography of the inventor of the private investigation industry is not only a thrilling look at a fascinating man, it is also a fresh perspective on a slice of American history. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in mystery fiction or detective novels, as well as anyone who is looking for a history book that isn't boring. While it may well be a bit biased, the presentation is thought-provoking and makes me want to research the period of the late Civil War/early Reconstruction more thoroughly.
   Better than most fiction I've encountered lately, and definitely an overlooked gem.



5. As one who is both a American history buff and a lover of mystery, Private
   Eye novels- I was very drawn to this book.
   
   I am not familiar with the author James MacKay- he is very deep in his
   research and writing.
   
   If you can get through the first 2 chapters of the book, You'll find a
   very interesting novel.

5 comments about Joseph E. Johnston: A Civil War Biography (Norton Paperback).

1. Joseph E. Johnston was my great-great grand uncle. This book has become required reading for everyone in my family, and I will have my children read it as well. Craig Symonds recounts Johnston's life accurately, and for this our family is proud. A must read for all people interested in the civil war, or the life of an old world general!



2. I like Joe! I really like Joe. And this is a great biography of the man. Too many folks bring all the world's troubles down on him. His was a rough role to play. I mean, he was head quartermaster in the US Army. That meant that caring for the soldier's welfare was first and foremost in his mind..hence the later Civil War cautiousness. Joe's cool. Don't be too hard on Joe. Read this book.



3. Whatever your opinion of Joseph Johnston, in my humble opinion, Craig Symonds has written a fabulous biography that is easy to read and seems to be fair in its treatment of Johnston.
   
   Symonds comprehensively covers several areas of Johnston's life:
   
   1. Early life in Virginia.
   2. Years at West Point.
   3. Service in Mexican War.
   4. Army service between the Mexican War and the Civil War.
   5. Civil War service - First Bull Run, early part of the Peninsula Campaign, Vicksburg, Atlanta Campaign, Bentonville, and surrender to Sherman.
   6. Relationships with various Civil War generals and politicians.
   7. Family life.
   8. Post-Civil War years and death.
   
   Symonds is fair and objective by pointing out Johnston's weaknesses (temper, sometimes a little touchy, prone to fight a defensive war), and his strengths (cared deeply for his troops, managed to win some battles while not suffering major defeats, ability to get along with Robert E. Lee, etc.). The writing style is fine and flows freely throughout the book.
   
   After reading this title and the biography of Patrick Cleburne, I have concluded that Symonds is one of the best Civil War biographers around.
   
   Read and enjoy the book and form your own opinion of one of the most controversial Civil War generals. Highly recommended!



4. During the Civil War, General Joseph Johnston was viewed as one of the South's three greatest Generals; today, he is essentially forgotten....he has exactly one monument [in Georgia], while Lee and Jackson have an untold number. And yet....he was never defeated on the field of battle...he won the first AND last major battles of the war...Generals Grant and Sherman each said that he was the toughest commander they faced [Lee said the same about McClellan; interesting]...maybe there was more to Joe than we realize....
   
   Like many Civil War officers, Joe Johnston was the child of a Revolutionary War officer, though he was raised with niether the vast wealth of Polk, or the crushing poverty that afflicted Lee. He followed a life pattern typical of the breed....West Point....service as an engineer. Joe resigned from the Army due to low pay and lack of promotion, but didn't stay out long....while a civilian engineer with a group of inexperienced troops in Florida, he saved the day when the unit was attacked by Seminoles. Distinguished service in Mexico....eventually he became Quartermaster General of the US Army; this fact was to cause profound problems later, as Joe was the only General Officer to follow the South. [His portrait hangs in the main auditorium at Ft. Lee, VA, along with all the other Quartermasters General].
   
   Joe Johnston could be a vain, difficult man; touchy about his dignity, he forever resented not being made the senior full General of the CSA [he was fourth]. He hated for his equals to call him "Joe", yet any of his soldiers was free to do so. The profound dislike of Joe Johnston and Jeff Davis for each other was a disaster for the South. Davis resented that Joe wouldn't communicate with him, and Joe knew that communicating a secret to the President's office was equivalent to printing it in a newspaper. After Joe was wounded at Seven Pines [Davis was properly supportive of his injured General], Lee took over the Army of Northern Virginia, and Joe was relegated to a series of assignments that involved cleaning up the messes of others...
   
   Johnston was a General loved by his troops...they knew he wouldn't waste their lives. He had the "common touch"...Symonds relates an incident where Joe jumps down in the mud to help free a stuck cannon...reminds me of the scene in "Patton" where Patton plays traffic cop, getting jeeps out of the mud. He was criticized as being too "defensive", and was replaced in command of the Army of Tennessee by John Bell Hood [whom I consider a great General]...US Grant later said that the South might have won the war by leaving Joe in place, as he would have simply outlasted the North's desire to fight. Sort of like the US in Viet Nam; we could have nuked the North Vietnamese into submission anytime, but.......
   
   After the war, Joe served one term in Congress [he headed the committee that cleared the name of Fitz John Porter], and was a US Railroad Commissioner. He and Davis continued to hate each other, and put their bile into print.
   
   Craig Symonds has written a superb book about a great man and General who still doesn't get the respect he deserves. This is the finest book about Joe, and one of the finest about any General. Yes, Robert E. Lee was a great man, and so was Jeff Davis...a series of tragic circumstances deprived the South of the full service of a great officer. It's time you knew....



5. Joseph Johnston was one of the top ranking generals in the Confederate Army (at the outset, he was one of the five top ranking Generals with others such as Robert E. Lee, Albert S. Johnston, and Samuel Cooper). He is also a controversial figure. His feud with President Jefferson Davis is legendary. He was viewed by many as too timid militarily, willing to give up space rather than fight hard. On the other hand, more friendly analysts have mentioned that, unlike Robert E. Lee, he understood the value of preserving as much of his army as possible, rather than being bled to death by sanguinary battles with the larger Union forces. In that, some see him as the "anti-Lee."
   
   This biography does a good job of describing Johnston's military career, the controversies that he engendered, his accomplishments and his failures.
   
   There were certainly high moments: his role at First Manassas (or Bull Run); his skillful retreat before William T. Sherman's much larger army as he fell back on Atlanta (although critics would argue that he was far too unwilling to engage Sherman); his pulling together shattered Confederate forces for a final confrontation with Sherman at the battle at Bentonville.
   
   There were low moments: his botched generalship at Seven Pines ranks pretty high.
   
   Then, the more ambiguous examples. Was his behavior at Vicksburg visionary (as he sought to save Pemberton's army rather than the redoubt at Vicksburg)? Or disastrous, as he refused to try to fight through the far superior Union forces to relieve Vicksburg during the siege? I think the case can be made that Johnston was far wiser than others in this campaign--but it is also clear that he may not have been vigorous enough in trying to realize his vision. Did he fail in his role as supervising general in the western theater? Or was his role crippled from the outset? Questions without clear answers.
   
   In the end, there is much ambiguity about his role in the Civil War. In retrospect, I think that he was one of the more capable Confederate generals and one of the few who understood that bloody conflicts against overwhelming Union forces was suicidal for the Confederate cause. But his prickliness and inability to work with the political directorate (headed by Davis) certainly undermined his efforts.
   
   At any rate, this is a sensitive and fair biography of one of the major military leaders of the Confederacy.

2 comments about Radical Origins: Early Mormon Converts and Their Colonial Ancestors.

1. Through exhaustive genealogical and historical research, as well as an interesting new hypothesis, Val Rust has endeavored to show that the roots of Mormonism extend well back of the 1830 date of the official organization of the Church. He has identified 583 of the earliest converts and carefully reconstructed genealogies and attendant family histories for each. The result is really quite fascinating. A majority of the earliest converts to Mormonism came from family religious traditions that uniquely prepared them to accept the radical new Church. Ancestors of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt and other lesser known founding fathers, have a religious heritage spread among the Antinomians, Seekers, Anabaptists, Quakers and other radical religions (including the Family of Love). Rust endeavors to show that a proclivity for free-thinking in religious matters as well as a family tradition of "seeking" a restoration of original Christianity was transmitted along family lines. Although treated elsewhere, I particularly enjoyed Rust's presentation of the strong New England influence on Joseph Smith's family, and the indentifying of specific congregations to which they belonged.
   
   To my knowledge, an attempt of this kind has never been made before, at least not on this scale. And it would be safe to say that Rust succeeds quite nicely with his hypothesis. While those unfamiliar to Mormonism may find find some of the references to earliest Mormon history a little arcance, there is no denying that he makes a compelling case for a people prepared to receive a restoration of the gospel. A 40-page appendix gives ther names of all 583 early converts in this study, together with their known ancestors through five generations.
   
   This is the kind of work that reshapes our view of history and encourages us to look in a different direction for an historical understanding of those spiritual forces that drive us all. We need more research of this kind.



2. Val Rust presents his theory that the ancestry of early Mormon converts had a disproportionate number of New England religious radicals. As evidence, he examines the ancestry of pre-1835 Mormon converts. He was able to find at least one fifth-generation ancestor for 583 early Mormons, about a third of the total. An examination the birthplaces of the fifth-generation ancestors reveals them to be overwhelming from New England and specifically from the towns and colonies associated with religious dissent.
   
   After an explanation of the methodology, Dr. Rust gives an informative tour of religious landscape of mid-seventeenth century New England. The first stage of that survey is organized geographically, going colony by colony and sometimes even town by town. A second sweep is organized by denomination. Anabaptists, Separatist, Quakers, and almost everyone in New England to oppose the Puritan mainstream are given brief historical and theological introductions. Whenever a name is mentioned, the author dutifully reports any descendants among the early Mormons.
   
   Technical concerns (why would the recorded ancestors be representative of all ancestors, why assume residents of radical towns are all radicals) are addressed only briefly. A central issue, the extent of third-great grandparents' influence on religious belief, is discussed in only two examples. Nevertheless, Dr. Rust's innovative approach is fun to consider. The real reward for me, though, was the well-written survey of colonial New England religion.

No comments about The Butcher Burbridge.

1 comments about Fear Was Not in Him: The Civil War Letters of General Francis C. Barlow, U.S.A (The North's Civil War).

1. Expertly compiled and edited by Christian G. Samito (editor of Commanding Boston's Irish Ninth), "Fear Was Not In Him": The Civil War Letters Of Major General Francis C. Barlow is an impressively informative anthology of American civil war correspondence from a young intellectual and lawyer, who entered the war as lieutenant and ended it as one of the North's premier combat generals. Revealing the horrors of battle, the terrible responsibility of command, and a reasoned examination of the war itself on both a small and large scale, "Fear Was Not In Him" is a superb primary source and a welcome addition to personal, academic Civil War Studies supplemental reading lists and library reference shelves.

2 comments about American Civil War Commanders (2): Confederate Leaders in the East (Elite).

1. This title was somewhat above my expectations. While many Osprey books run toward the shallow side, Philip Katcher is one of their better writers with a wealth of knowledge about the Army of the Potomac. The biographies of well-known generals like McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, and Meade are competently done but with little that is new. Where this book stands out is its biographies of lesser generals like William French, Darius Couch, and Philip Kearny, about whom serious information is harder to find. I was pleased to learn that Couch was something of an intellectual with an interest in nature, and that William French tried to manipulate a New York Herald reporter to cover his mistakes after Mine Run. Katcher makes fine use of eyewitness personal accounts to depict people by those who knew them. All in all a small but useful work of research by an interesting writer.



2. This is another in the Osprey Publishing series on the Civil War. The focus here is on 30 generals serving with the northern forces in the East. Each general receives brief coverage and either a photo or other rendering of his likeness. So, if you want an in-depth analysis of the likes of Phil Sheridan, George Meade, Winfield Scott Hancock, Joseph Hooker, or George McClellan, forget about it. However, if you want a quick and dirty examination of each--plus an introduction to many lesser known generals--this does a nice job.
   
   The book begins by noting the obvious--the standing military of the United States at the outset of the Civil War was tiny. The largest functional units were regiments--and these were largely broken into companies to serve on the frontier or in other postings. There were relatively few professional officers--and 1/3 of these went south. There were only four generals in the army--Winfield Scott, David Twigg, John Wool, and William Harney, the latter the only general under 70 and who had NOT served in the War of 1812!
   
   What I find especially interesting about this book is learning a bit about some of the lesser known generals, such as Darius Couch (How many know that he was acting commanding general at Chancellorsville of the Army of the Potomac?), William French, Andrew A. Humphreys, Fitz John Porter, James Ricketts, Edwin Sumner, and so on. There is just enough on each to give a sense of the person and broaden the knowledge base of people who have not read deeply on the Civil War.
   
   As with all Osprey volumes (in this and other series), the book is rather short (58 pages of text). However, it does provide a useful service in exposing people to a fair amount of basic information in a short work.

No comments about Douglass and Lincoln: How a Revolutionary Black Leader and a Reluctant Liberator Struggled to End Slavery and Save the Uni.

No comments about Scandals Of The Civil War.