1 comments about Loss of the Sultana and Reminiscences of Survivors (Voices Of The Civil War).

1. Dr. David Madden founded the Civil War website at LSU and is a real student of the war. This book gives accounts by the survivors of the largest maritime disaster in our nation's history--more lives lost than on the Titanic. The disaster occurred so close to the Lincoln Assassination and Booth Chase and so near the end of the Civil War that it has been largely lost to history.
   
   Many of the soldiers were former prisoners of war at Andersonville (GA) and Cahaba (AL) and were weakened from near starvation. My ancestor was a private in the 3rd Tennessee Cavalry (USA) that had been captured by Gen. N.B. Forrest at Sulphur Springs Trestle, Alabama (near Athens, AL). He survived the disaster, floated to shore at Memphis (the sinking was eight miles north of Memphis on the Mississippi at the Hens and Chickens Islands), walked home to Monroe County (south of Knoxville) and fathered six children, my grandmother included.
   
   Dr. Madden's introduction to the book is worth the entire cost, as he covers the essentials admirably.
   
   Books by Jerry Potter and Gene Salecker give more details on the disaster, the packet boat itself and the trial attempting to assess the responsibility for vast overcrowding, but these first person accounts are priceless.
   
   The annual reunion of the Sultana Descendents will be held in Athens, Alabama on April 13-14, 2007 with Dr. Madden present and speaking.
   
   J.C. Tumblin, Past-President
   Knoxville Civil War Roundtable

5 comments about Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order.

1. Sherman made war on women and children. He had his troops burned houses to the ground, turned a blind eye to the looting his men did, burned crops to the ground, destroyed any livestock he couldn't use and left the civilian population to starve to death everywhere he went in the South.
   Sherman had town halls burned so there were no accruate records as to how large the population of the town he burned was. Sherman also removed large numbers of civilians (women and children)who worked at the New Manchester and Roswell, Georgia Mills, North; where many of them died of exposure or starvation. On the trip North many of these New Manchester, Roswell, Georgia Mill women workers were raped.
   I am not a sympathizer for the Southern Cause during the American Civil War. However, I do believe that Sherman is a war criminal and shouldn't be idolized which this book does.



2. In this book, the author takes us on an in-depth tour of the life and times of William Tecumseh Sherman. In doing so, he lets us see Sherman as a boy living in poverty; as a nine-year-old foster child; and as a student, young soldier, husband, father, failed businessman, Civil War General, and aging military hero. In the end, we find that Sherman was very much like the rest of us: a man with hopes, dreams and fears of his own, and certainly not the crazed and often despised General who, according to legend, burned Atlanta to the ground and wantonly ravaged, pillaged, and plundered the South.
   
   True, Sherman did order that all inhabitants of Atlanta be evacuated [705 adults (few men), 860 children, and 79 slaves], but that was to prevent snipers from killing his soldiers. And he did order that all facilities which could be used to support the war effort be destroyed (e.g., the railroad station; factories producing uniforms, munitions, railroad tracks; etc.). But that only amounted to about one third of the structures in Atlanta. And he did march the bulk of his 60,000 man army to Savannah living off the land. But he did so to help bring the Civil War to a speedy conclusion with minimum loss of life by severing the logistic supply lines across the South. And his orders were not to burn or destroy any private property, no matter what the inhabitants "said", as long as they were not fired upon.
   
   And finally, and most revealing: When Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston was given the authority to surrender all remaining Confederate armies to General Sherman, Sherman met with him and developed what he thought were acceptable surrender terms. He forwarded them to Washington to obtain the necessary authorization only to find that his terms were considered much too soft on the South by then Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Stanton went so far as to send a letter to the New York Times accusing Sherman of TREASON and then attempted to have General Grant relieve him of his command. Grant met with Sherman but avoided doing so.
   
   According to the evidence, then, William Tecumseh Sherman wasn't the crazed villain many in the South consider him to be. And maybe, just maybe, he was the best friend the South ever had, or at least he tried to be. In any event, after reading this biography, one can only wonder how many people now living in the South, who vilify Sherman's memory, owe their very existence to the fact that he decided to make war on property rather than on their forefathers.



3. The difficulty for those of us interested in studying the American Civil War is that the available bibliography is overwhelmingly large. One could begin reading as a child and reach adulthood and continue reading until death or senility interrupted the exercise without completing all of the published titles! Life is too short to read poorly written books!
   
   With that observation in mind, it is a welcome experience to occasionally come across a worthwhile one volume biography of a major historical figure and "Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order" fills the bill perfectly. The author, John F. Marszalek, is a history professor at Mississippi State University.
   
   While it may strike some as odd that a historian employed on a campus located in the Deep South chose to write about General William T. Sherman, it is worth remembering that "Uncle Billy," himself, was a man of contradictions. Sherman tried and failed at many occupations during the antebellum period. One of the few successful and easily the most satisfying positions that he held was as the superintendent of a military academy located in Louisiana. But for the crisis of secession and war, Sherman would have been pleased to remain at the academy as a Southern gentleman and an accepted member of local society. The war came, however, and Sherman resigned his position and donned the blue Federal uniform. As a Union general, Sherman became the scrouge of the same South that he had so admired and enjoyed.
   
   Sherman was adopted into the family of a prominent Ohio politician following the death of his father. This was the first of many disruptions in his life. His adoptive parents compelled him to change his actual first name from "Tecumseh" (after the celebrated Indian leader and warrior) to William. Marszalek sees many of Sherman's subsequent choices and decisions as part of a determined effort to create and maintain continuity, stability and order. As much as he loved the South, Sherman viewed secession and disunity as a form of anarchy that needed to be crushed. Similarly, the Indian tribes threatening the settlement of the frontier needed to be suppressed. Late in his life, Sherman resisted his wife's repeated entreaties to have him convert to Catholicism.
   
   Marszalek also treats Sherman's friendship and eventual estrangement from Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman was devoted to the military and grew disillusioned when Grant chose to pursue a political career during the Reconstruction Era. Although both Grant and Sherman lived long enough to write memoirs, Grant's memoirs are better known on account of his superb ability as a writer. Unlike Grant, Sherman's own book generated more controversy than praise upon its publication (Grant defended Sherman's book, however, as providing accurate accounts and descriptions of events) and is not read as often today.
   
   I have had the good fortune to have visited Grant's residence in Galena, Illinois and the former Galt House (the hotel still exists, but it has relocated to a much larger building several blocks away) in Louisville, Kentucky, where Grant and Sherman studied their maps and plotted the strategy that resulted in the eventual Union victory. Marszalek's book helped bring some of these same details to life for me as a reader. Recommended.



4. 
   "Wars are not all evil; they are part of the grand machinery by which this world is governed; thunderstorms which purify the political atmosphere, test the manhood of a people, and prove whether they are worthy to take rank with others engaged in the same task by different methods." - Gen. William T. Sherman
   
   As a casual student of Civil War history, i.e. returning to it periodically after bouts with trashier fare, I've heretofore lost sight of General Sherman in General Grant's shadow at Shiloh, Vicksburg and Chattanooga. Even the commendable Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861-1865 failed to correct this failing. SHERMAN finally forced the man into my awareness.
   
   This book by John Marszalek is an extensively researched, comprehensive, and solid summary of the General's life from boyhood to death. I would love to have seen what the late, great Shelby Foote could've done with the material, but that's neither here nor there.
   
   SHERMAN includes all of the elements of the man's private and public life that you'd expect in a biography. What stood out for me were the elements that I never suspected: his sojourn in California from 1848 to 1857 both as a military officer and a private banker, his position as the first superintendent of the military academy that would later evolve into Louisiana State University, his eventual post-war falling-out with Grant, and his controversial views on race. Indeed, Sherman's personal view of slavery was akin to that of a Southern slave owner; he thought it consistent with the natural order of things. Furthermore, he opposed the abolitionists of the pre-war period believing their efforts conducive to the growing national disorder that eventually resulted in the Civil War. Sherman once said:
   
   "The negro should be a free man, but not put on any equality with the Whites ... the effect of equality is illustrated in the character of the mixed race in Mexico and South America. Indeed it appears to me that the right of suffrage in our Country should be rather abridged than enlarged."
   
   The chapters on Sherman's Civil War career make clear that he was significantly more successful as a war strategist than as a battlefield tactician as evidenced by his failures as a corps commander at Chickasaw Bayou (1862), as army commander when his Army of the Tennessee was repulsed at the north end of Missionary Ridge at the Battle of Chattanooga (1863), and as an army group commander at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain (1864). His claim to fame is, of course, his brilliant march through Georgia and the Carolinas during which his forces occupied Atlanta and Savannah, GA, and Columbia, SC, unopposed after skillfully maneuvering enemy forces out of all three cities beforehand.
   
   SHERMAN includes three photo sections, but no battlefield maps which otherwise might have been usefully illuminating.
   
   What drove Sherman was his deep antipathy for disorder, whether it be military, social, familial, or political. He would've made the consummate military dictator if given the opportunity. He was a great commander and man for his time and place. In today's politically correct and "enlightened" times, he would be shunned.
   
   "I look upon war with horror, but if it has to come I am here." - Gen. William T. Sherman



5. This is a good book about Sherman and the civil war. If you like Sherman is book is for you. Worth your money.

4 comments about May I Quote You, General Longstreet: Observations and Utterances of the South's Great Generals (May I Quote You--?,).

1. Randall Bedwell's "May I Quote You ..." series is always a pleasure to read. General Longstreet was a plain spoken man, and Mr. Bedwell has captured the essence of him exactly! From General Longstreet, an undeservedly maligned American patriot, I have found words to live by: "Error lives but a day. Truth is eternal." If you enjoyed this book, try my other two favorites in the series, "May I Quote You General Lee?" and "May I quote You General Forrest?"



2. This is one of a series of books with quotes by and about "The South's Great Generals." A slim volume, it takes only a short time to read through.

   I enjoyed this collection of quotes, as much for what his Union enemy's said about Longstreet, as what he said himself. However, reading the quotes regarding the criticisms of Lee's Old Warhorse in the battle of Gettysburg are almost painful. Yet they had to be included to give as full a picture of the man and the soldier as can be done in so short a space.

   Readers and scholars of the War Between the States will enjoy this book, perhaps even keep it at hand to browse through at any time.




3. This is another great book of quotes from Southern Generals.
   ( actually you should by the set, which is four books of these) I really enjoyed the quotes, everyone taken from the history books.

   There is one quote, which states, had Lee listened to Longstreet at Gettysburg, the Southern people would today be Free!

   ( Oh give me a break!)

   Ok, that is a direct quote, but it's one Longstreet wrote, simplying putting words in Lee's mouth.

   Please don't discard the book for this single quote, as it's a great book.

   I'd like to see more of these quote books on all the Civil War Generals.




4. Thin volume of quotes from and about Longstreet, both before and during the war of Northern Agression, or Southern Independence, or the Civil War. The quotes reinforce Longstreet's loyalty to Lee, his fighting spirit, and his advanced tactical skills, while defending him from charges of improper action on that fatal day at Gettysburg.

1 comments about When the World Ended: The Diary of Emma LeConte.

1. Though Emma writes from the perspective of the losing side of the Civil War, and though her beliefs on race clash greatly with our times, her persistence in the face of horrible suffering is a magnificent example to us all. She stands as testimony to the powerful spirit of the South and of Southern women in particular. Were we as committed to the ideals of our day as she was to those of her day, ours would be a powerful society indeed. Her diary is all the more shocking when you realize that she was only seventeen when she began writing

5 comments about Kill-Cavalry: The Life of Union General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick.

1. This author falls into the same trap that's been laid for researchers for the past 135 years. The most glaring example is the standard portrayal of Kilpatrick at Gettysburg, all of which is based on one source who admitted years later he was never a witness to what actually happened or was said on the field that day. Like researchers before him, the author missed this glaring truth.

   Here are two hints of Kilpatrick's character and performance: (1) His men held him in such high esteem that they petitioned Lincoln to have him promoted to general (a rare occurrence in the CW); and (2) after the battle of Gettysburg his men presented their commander with a Damascus sword in appreciation for his leadership on July 3.

   In short, an author who doesn't dig deeper than his predecessors is dancing to the worn-out tune of incredulity.




2. This book smacks of a work done by someone who had a thesis and then did everything he could to prove it, rather than letting the research bring him to a conclusion.

   Fortunately, I did get the feeling that the basic history of Killpatrick was decent and reasonably fair-minded. At the end of each chapter, however, Martin adds his commentaty about how the foregoing information shows that Kilpatrick was a horrible leader, womanizer, thief, etc. At one point, Martin suggests that the attempt on Jefferson Davis' life introduced the idea of assination, even to the point of possibly leading to Lincoln's murder. Right.

   Killpatrick's womanizing, thievery, etc comes out, for sure, but were his casualities really highter than comparable commanders? That's not clear. He won some battles and lost others--like most Civil War leaders.




3. 
   To say Hugh Kilpatrick was a controversial figure would be an understatement. Small in stature, it's my opinion he suffered from the "little man" complex: he attempted to over-compensate for his slight physical size by his recklessness and bravado. This would explain his rashness regarding his plan to attack Richmond and free the prisoners there, which was repulsed decidedly by the Confederates (though Sheridan attempted the same thing 10 weeks later with the same results). Disparaged by many of his fellow officers (Sherman called him a "damned fool"), it's also reported that his men respected him. Martin is highly critical.
   
   Kilpatrick was born in New Jersey in 1836 and graduated from West Point the year the Civil War broke out. He commanded a number of New York Cavalry brigades during the first two years of the war, receiving a serious wound at Big Bethel and then seeing much action in Virginia. After participating in the largest cavalry engagement of the war at Brandy Station in June 1863, he was promoted to brigadier general. He was conspicuous at Gettysburg, where his orders to E.J. Farnsworth to attack Hood, who was well-positioned behind stone walls, on the third day caused much slaughter to Farnsworth's men and Farnsworth's own death from five separate wounds. In the winter of 1864 he made his ill-fated attack on Richmond which resulted in failure. In the spring of that year he served in the Atlanta campaign and was wounded seriously for the second time at Resaca, GA. Recuperating by August, he performed well as commander of cavalry during the Carolina campaign and was a major factor in the capture of Fayetteville, NC, in March 1865. After the war he was appointed U.S. Minister to Chile, where he died in 1881.
   
   Martin's dislike for his subject is quite clear. In this he joins a long list of historians, most of whom regard Kilpatrick as showing poor judgment and costly wantonness. He finds his failure at Richmond to be his worst mistake. Despite this, however, I thought the book was interesting and well written, and made an honest attempt to capture the life of the man for the reader. The book also contained excellent maps and clear elucidation of military affairs. Not the definitive work on Kilpatrick, but not one for the waste heap, either.



4. There are some figures of the Civil War that it is very easy to hate. Even today, very few Civil War buffs have anything good to say about Braxton Bragg or Henry Halleck for example. While not as well known as Bragg or Halleck, there is much to distain in the life of Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, a Union cavalry commander from New Jersey. Samuel J. Martin provides more than enough dirt on Kilpatrick's rather sordid personal life and less than honorable character. Kilpatrick was a selfish and vain man whose ambition for power and glory led him to act rashly and often foolishly while covering his mistakes in the press and reports to his superiors. Furthermore, Kilpatrick was a womanizer who had no qualms about cheating on his wife and discarding mistresses, even those who he impregnated. Martin certainly proves that General Kilpatrick was a scoundrel.
   
   Martin leads the reader through Kilpatrick's rather checkered Civil War career. Graduating from West Point in 1861, Kilpatrick served with the New York volunteers and became known for his rash charges and his willingness to fight. Martin seems to accept this reputation but seems to argue that Kilpatrick was a physical coward, a rather odd statement considering the general's willingness to fight on the battlefield or off (even calling out Southern cadets at West Point to fist fights). Kilpatrick won some fame for driving his men to within 2 miles of Richmond as part of the Stoneman Raid during the Chancelorsville campaign and became a general in the summer of 1863. While part of his division won laurels at Gettysburg (Custer's brigade), the Kilpatrick ordered charge on July 3 proved to be an error, costing the lives of many men of Farnwsorth's brigade including Farnsworth himself. Kilpatrick would lead another raid on Richmond in early 1864, hoping to free a number of Union prisoners, pass out Lincoln's amnesty proclomation and capture and perhaps kill key Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. Martin agrees with the Stephen Sears that Kilpatrick was in charge of the raid though a recent article by David Long (which he is turning into a book) argues that Dahlgren planned to kill Davis and that Kilpatrick, a notorious leaker to the press, was out of the loop. After the failure of the raid, Kilpatrick was sent west and led Union cavalry for Sherman's march to the sea and Carolina campaigns.
   
   After the war, Kilpatrick, who in the war expressed presidential ambitions, made two failed efforts to get the Republican gubenatorial nomination in New Jersey, ran unsuccessfully for the House of Represenatives in 1880 and twice served as ambasador to Chile. He passed way in 1881 in Chile at the age of 45. While a Republican, he was recalled from Chile by Grant which led to his supporting Horace Greely in 1872. Kilpatrick returned to the GOP and supported Hayes in 1876 and Garfield in 1880.
   
   Martin certainly reveals Kilpatrick's dismal character and offers a solid, if often overly critical, account of his military career. In all fairness Martin had little to work with as Kilpatrick's papers were destroyed. Still, Kilpatrick's political career could have been examined in greater detail. For all his faults, Kilpatrick had an energy and ambition to him which made him a fairly represenative figure for his times. One is left wondering, after reading Martin's book, why Kilpatrick simply was not shelved. Kilpatrick, again with all his baggage, was a fighter and those were few and far between in the Union ranks. His ambition forced him to the battlefield and took him into politics. While Martin reveals the dark side to this ambition, Kilpatrick rose out of youthful obscurity to win a solid reputation. He could not have been merely the talentless scoundrel that Martin depicts. While Martin seems to rely a great deal on secondary sources, he really had no other choice. Despite that, one suspects that Martin went into writing the book with his thesis already formulated and that is what proves frustrating about this book. Martin should have given the reader a portrait of Kilpatrick in full as opposed to bashing us over the head with how much of a jerk the man was.



5. The earlier critical comments about "Kill-Cavalry" are generally accurate. Here are some of the main points.
   
   1. Author Samual J. Martin is neither a trained writer nor a trained historian. He is a retired businessman in South Carolina whose post-retirement hobby is doing Civil War research. The lengthy bibliography attests to his detailed research, much of which is semi-original (manuscripts, official documents, correspondence, newspapers, etc.). His writing itself is dreadful, not in the sense of poor grammar or sentence structure but in its straightforward and completely uninvolving style.
   
   2. Although Kilpatrick led an extremely colorful (if brief) life, he is a difficult subject for historical research. His daughter burned his personal papers after his death, his contemporaries are long dead, and his tendency to exaggerate his successes and disguise his mistakes make most surviving accounts suspect. Factor in the difficulty of tracking the activities of any individual cavalry unit during the Civil War and you have a very difficult task making any definitive claims about Kilpatrick.
   
   3. Martin has an obvious ax to grind concerning his subject. While Kilpatrick was a self-promoting scoundrel, an objective examination of most of his contemporaries would reveal that these qualities were almost a prerequisite for ascendancy within either army. Martin's anti-Kilpatrick agenda sidetracks him from the two best biographical styles for a subject such as Kilpatrick. The most entertaining would be a light-hearted examination of his escapades (Kilpatrick was a Civil War version of actor Errol Flynn-both of Irish descent) and a fun look at his exploits would be quite entertaining. Another alternative would have been to draw parallels with contemporaries like Dan Sickles, Phil Sheridan, and George Custer. Unfortunately Martin's pious disapproval does not allow him to explore either avenue.
   
   4. Because of Martin's prejudices about his subject and his lack of good source material he seems compelled to editorialize throughout the book. Bad enough, but his narrative often contradicts his conclusions. For example, Martin is convinced that Kilpatrick was a cowardly soldier and points to many examples of Kilpatrick losing his nerve in combat situations. Yet at the same time he details Kilpatrick's drive for recognition and tendency to recklessly commit his command to action. Like all but the most senior cavalry officers, Kilpatrick was up in a saddle with his troopers on all their raids and maneuvers, and remained this style of cavalryman for almost the entire war. He was not an armchair general but a field officer in a serious pursuit of advancement and fame. There were far easier and safer commands for West Point trained officers. Had he been lazy or cowardly he would have sought a desk job but he believed the cavalry offered him the best prospects for advancement and recognition.
   
   5. Martin is highly critical of both Kilpatrick's command performance and his refusal to expose himself to danger at Brandy Station in 1863. He does not even mention Kilpatrick's saber fight with a hated West Point classmate during that engagement. But Eric Wittenberg goes into detail about this incident in "The Union Cavalry Comes of Age" (2003): Kilpatrick squared off with a Confederate officer he had known and disliked at West Point...the Southerner gave Kilpatrick a slight cut on the arm...receiving a vicious slash the Confederate officer reeled in his saddle. Seeing an opportunity Kilpatrick killed his injured foe with a slashing cut of his saber. The victorious colonel rejoined his brigade, proclaiming, "That rights a wrong. I have wanted to meet him ever since the war commenced".
   
   6. Rather than bring Kilpatrick to life, Martin fills many pages of the book with general Civil War history. For a book of only 268 pages, there is simply too much detail about the battles and movements of the two armies, without regard to whether Kilpatrick himself was involved.
   
   7. Martin sensationalizes the cavalry charge Kilpatrick and Merritt ordered during the 3rd day of Gettysburg. He goes into great detail about a somewhat dubious account of Kilpatrick's interaction with a subordinate commander, yet fails to examine the very real tactical opportunity that he and Merritt had recognized and were trying to exploit. One of Merritt regiments had tied up the two brigades of Confederate cavalry in Fairfield; leaving the right flank of Lee's army open to attack. Had Law's (formerly Hood's) division been positioned to support Longstreet's assault on the Union center, the cavalry charge would most likely have been a significant success.
   
   Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

No comments about The Leverett Letters: Correspondence of a South Carolina Family, 1851-1868.

4 comments about Inside Lincoln's White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay.

1. Hay, the young Assistant Presidential Secretary, was like a son to Lincoln. The President, in the diary often affectionately and irreverently referred to as "The Tycoon", relaxed around Hay as around few others, giving the diarist an insight into the character of Lincoln which is almost unique. This alone would make the book worthwhile, but Hay's views on other personalities and events of those dramatic days are also valuable, and engagingly written.
   Hay's diary has been published before, but incomplete and poorly edited. This is the first complete edition, with all the entries restored and with extensive explanatory notes, which are necesary to follow Hay's refernces to obscure persons and events.
   Essential for the Lincoln scholar and highly recommended for anyone's Civil War shelf.

   (The numerical rating above is an ineradicable default setting within the page. This reviewer does nort employ numerical ratings.)




2. My opinion of Hay's diary is very different then the other reviewer. I found it very hard to read, to understand, and to learn from. For a Lincoln scholar it might be useful, For me, a general history reader, I was very disappointed. The language was often bizzare, superficial, and very small. A great many names but no real people! Just names. Flat,flat,very flat. Hay died in Teddy Roosevelt's administration during the canal project as Sec. of State. He must have had a great deal on the ball to be so useful so long. I see nothing of it is his "Civil War Diary".



3. One reviewer found Hay's diary uninteresting, and that is hardly strange. Most diaries I've read are dull because they are most often jottings of information out of the head of an individual. I, too, would have liked more inside information out of John Hay, but he did not write it, so let's not downgrade the book because we didn't get what we would have liked. Burlingame's editing is top-notch, just what you would expect from a quality historian. My two gripes about the book were undoubtedly caused by the publisher's decision, which I recognize from first-hand experience: 1) Why endnotes instead of footnotes? If all the notes listed were sources, endnotes would be fine, but Burlingame's notes are critical and provide a lot of additional information. Constantly turning back to the endnotes breaks up the reading experience. 2) Burlingame maintained the crossed-out words in Hay's diary by using a strike-through font, which is fine except that the publisher used a strike-through so dark that it is hard to read the words underneath. Nonetheless, this is fine work, and I highly recommend it. If nothing else, you will gain knowledge of the enormous number of people with whom Abraham Lincoln had to deal every day.



4. Nicolay and Hay were basically the White House Chief of Staff and Administrative Aid. Fortunately for those of us who are both history and political junkies it doesn't get any better than this. With Hay we have the nation's most unpopular president pursuing a most unpopular war (one that will claim more American casualties than any other), with a critical press and political opponents galore. There is political intrigue, dirty politics, and presidential personal tragedy. In Lincoln we have a president who imprisoned US citizens without trial and without habeas corpus, we have a president who captured foreign nationals (Confederates) from a British ship and imprisoned them in the US, a president who was soundly and rightfully criticized for suspending personal rights, a president who sent troops to arrest an entire state legislature. In Lincoln we have a president called stupid and a baboon.
   
   Hay's Diary takes us inside the White House in these most troubling of times. One sees close parallels to today. It is hard not to read Hay in the light of the current White House and presidential race. Only the names have changed, the issues are very much the same. I could not recommend a better source to obtain some perspective for the current political season.
   
   John Ellingson

1 comments about Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War.

1. In the early 1800s, slavery's values were as widely promoted as buying American cars are in today's world. "Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War" is a complete and comprehensive examination of America's early years and its politics regarding slavery - and how a few fledgling activists turned America around and against this mindset, beginning a chain of events that freed an entire people. A story of how even the smallest minority can set events in motion, "Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War" is highly recommended for both American history and black studies collections alike.

2 comments about Gunner with Stonewall: Reminiscences of William Thomas Poague (Bison Book).

1. Gunner With Stonewall is a typical and valuable first hand account of life in wartime. Filled with intersting atecdotes and personal details, it is closer in perspective to Henry Kyd Douglas' "I Rode With Stonewall" than Foote's or Catton's histories on the same period. This lends and air of timelessness and similarity with WWII- and Vietnam-era first -hand accounts. Written many years after the fact, the book contains some minor innaccuracies ultimately clarified by the Editor. All in all, considering the dirth of books about Confederate Army Artillery, it is a good read that diserves a place on the historian's bookshelf.



2. Poague reminds me of Porter Alexander in his occasionally acerbic tone and his willingness to tell it like he thinks it is with regards to generals and their foibles. Maybe it's an artillery thing. Also like Alexander, he's refreshingly bloodthirsty -- no Gordon-esque blandishments about chivalry here. His account of the death of Federal Gen. Kearny contrasts interestingly with other accounts I've read, and his description of the surrender at Appomattox is particularly evocative.

5 comments about Andrew Jackson: The Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845 (Andrew Jackson).

1. Excellent finish to an excellent 3-volume biography; the first volume took us from Jackson's birth through his tenure as governor of Florida; the second took us from there through the end of his first term as president and his successful bid for re-election. This volume takes us from the beginning of his second term to his death.

   As with both previous volumes, the marvellous thing about this book is that Remini provides the reader with sufficient information that it is possible, with nothing more than the information he provides, to disagree with his evaluation of his subject. Clearly, on balance he is much more taken with Andrew Jackson than I am, although there are a few instances in which I actually think that he is too harsh in his judgement. But the marvellous thing is, he gives me sufficient information to make that judgement, an invaluable characteristic in a biographer.

   Anyone interested in reading a detailed, in-depth biography of the first truly populist president (whether one considers that a good or a bad thing to say about the man says a lot about one's personality) and the president who appointed Roger Taney, the chief justice responsible for the Dred Scott Decision, to his post as Justice of the Supreme Court, needs to read all three volumes of this set.




2. Robert Remini completes his biography of Andrew Jackson in an excellent third volume. This biography is very well written and a pleasure to read. Remini is so well versed on his subject and really makes Jackson come to life as one of the major figures in U.S. History. This is as honest account of an individual that I have ever read and have come away with a new found respect for Andrew Jackson.
   Remini does not shy away from Jacksons many faults nor does he make excuses for them and he also shows how tender and loyal Jackson can be to those that were family and friends. Remini makes the case that Jackson was the most influential person in shaping the Presidency and government to the modern democracy it is today and I am inclined to agree with him. Jackson had certain convictions on government and policy and would not bow under pressure and reshaped the role of the Presidency despite pressure from Congress. I would definitely recommend this biography to everyone interested in Andrew Jackson as well as those interest in the evolution of our government.



3. If you have read my reviews of the first two volumes in this biography you already know my opinion of Remini and of his subject. Suffice it to say that if you are serious about learning about American history these volumes are for you. Not only are they an excellent introduction to many of the political and social issues of the era but they also allow the reader to wrestle with our national proclivity toward uncritical hero worship. Our past leaders were every bit as complex, as flawed and as human as our current crop .... What follows is a small portion of what I have learned from Remini's hard and honest labors.
   Jackson's accomplishments were extraordinary by any standards and some of them are quite ironic. He very much believed in states rights yet he probably did more to strengthen and expand the executive part of the federal government than any President until Franklin Roosevelt. Consider the following (all discussed in Remini's volume):
   1. He was the first President to use the pocket veto. He was the first to use the veto power for nonconstitutional reasons. We are so used to our Presidents using the veto because of policy disagreements with legislation that we forget how much of a shift this was in the balance of power as envisioned by the original generation.
   2. He reformed every department of the federal government and greatly expanded the bureaucracy as a result. He eliminated much of the graft that was rampant at the time and (at least, gave the impression of) greatly democratizing the civil service by making it more of a meritocracy. All this inevitably led to more people working for the government. A lot more people.
   3. Jackson changed the relationship of the various Cabinet members to the President. He was the first to fire a Cabinet member because of a disagreement over policy. Up until then Cabinet officers and ambassadors, because their appointments had to be approved by the Senate, were regarded as being accountable more to Congress than to the President.
   This is only a partial list of the ways that Jackson's Presidency changed the stature of the Executive branch of the government.
   Jackson's ideology (as I see it) comes from him trying to work out the tensions between his state's rights philosophy with his military experience, which taught him the necessity of a clear uncontested chain of command with his love of and trust in the people. I will comment on only one portion of that dynamic. Like so many of our leaders, the tensions in Jackson's ideology led him into conspiracy theories. He believed in and trusted the American people to always make the right decisions (the ones he would have made) and almost always credited any electoral reverses to cabals acting to befuddle and delude the populace.
   As a result, he became one of ablest early advocates of putting a good spin on the issues. Early on in his first term he helped to establish a newspaper that served as the official organ of the administration. Altogether, Jackson was a fascinating and maddening character.
   I find myself greatly in the debt of Remini. Jackson has always repulsed me by his blatant racism and his paternalism. Remini has humanized Jackson quite a bit for me. I am more appreciative of Jackson's great accomplishments and I have learned quite a bit of the politics of the time. I will be reading Remini's book on Van Buren next along with Seller's biography of Polk. One of the ways that I evaluate the work of a historian is by how much they increase my interest in further reading on their subject and on the period in question. By this standard, Remini belongs to my first rank of American historians.



4. The final volume in Robert Remini's definitive biography of Andrew Jackson follows the life of the seventh president from the beginning of his second term through the end of his life. In it, we see many of the things that made Jackson one of our most important presidents despite his significant flaws.

   Prior to Jackson's presidency, the executive office was much weaker. The designers of the Constitution, with their fears of strong central figures, had intended Congress to be the most powerful of the supposedly co-equal branches. Jackson, however, viewed himself as the sole representative of the people - the only person elected by a nation, not a region - and through various measures such as an expansion of the use of the veto, was able to shift the balance of power. Although the following presidents would be weaker, the presidency as an office had been redefined.

   As the book begins, Jackson's second term was beginning and he needed to deal with South Carolina and the Nullification Crisis. Essentially successful with this problem, he also dealt with other issues, including his war with the Bank of the United States and bad relations with France. By many measures, his presidency was a success, but there were a number of negatives as well, in particular his treatment of Indians and his disregard of slavery issues. His appointment of Taney to Chief Justice would eventually lead to the Dred Scott decision. Remini finds more positives than negatives with Jackson, but he doesn't disregard the black marks.

   Probably only Washington was as universally adored in his time as Jackson was, and unlike Washington, Jackson was a true man of the people, a populist who courteously met with rich and poor alike. Even after his retirement, his popularity guaranteed his continued political clout, and few Democrats defied his wishes while he was alive.

   The three volumes in this biography are around 1300 pages (plus notes and indexes), but Remini is such a good writer that this is far from a burdensome read. There may be shorter biographies of Jackson, but there aren't better. Remini knows this era well (he also has written excellent biographies of Clay and Webster) and he brings it to life.




5. Few Americans have won the mythical status enjoyed by Andrew Jackson. Often portrayed, in his day and since, as the champion of the common man, Jackson came to Washington as an outsider, the first President born outside the thirteen original states, indeed the first president born neither in Virginia nor Massachusetts. Throughout Jackson historiography, Jackson via his policy of `rotation' in office has been accused of instituting the spoils system in American politics. This criticism highlights how Whig myths have come to permeate the historical writing on this subject.
   
   Starting with James Parton in 1860, anti-Jackson historians have followed this criticism, blaming Jackson for replacing a supposed merit system with a partisanship that corrupted the civil service for generations. Despite further research since Jackson's time, many historians have uncritically repeated these accusations without examining the actual record of appointments during the presidency unhappily described by some as "The Reign of Andrew Jackson".
   
   There have been essentially four cycles of studies into the life and Presidency of Andrew Jackson. The first cycle began soon after the death of Jackson with the "liberal patrician" or "Whig" school, who were generally unfavourable towards the policy of rotation. Most familiar is James Parton's classic The "Life of Andrew Jackson". So critical of rotation was Parton that he stated "this single feature of his administration would suffice to render it deplorable rather than admirable." Other members of the "Whig" school include Sumner, Schouler and Von Holst, all very critical of Jackson's policy of rotation. Parton's biography was the standard source on the Jacksonian era, until the second cycle represented by the Progressive Historians, such as John Spencer Bassett's "The Life of Andrew Jackson (1911), which cast Jackson in somewhat of a different light. Bassett reduces the amount of blame put on Jackson for rotation by suggesting that his democratic views made him oblivious to unintentional dangers from partisan appointments. However, the Progressives shared with the Whigs the view that Jackson had brought a spoils system to national politics and that its effects were negative.
   
   Historians in the third cycle of Jacksonian studies, of which Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.'s "The Age of Jackson" (1945) served as a pivotal work, shifted attention away from Jackson himself towards larger forces in his era. Historians of the third cycle, such as Hofstadter and Hammond, debated the effects of class and culture in determining party differences while showing little interest in evaluating Jackson's rotation policy, though tending to criticise it briefly. No biographies of Jackson discussed the policy of rotation in depth during the next thirty years.
   
   The appearance of Robert V. Remini's three-volume biography of Jackson marked the start of the fourth cycle of interpretation. Based on modern scholarship, Remini covers all aspects of Jackson's life and career, demonstrating his contribution to the great developments of nineteenth century America, particularly empire, freedom and democracy. By returning to first hand sources, Remini shows that the policy of rotation in office has been exaggerated and misunderstood. However, having set himself the remarkable task of producing a thorough study of the life and Presidency of Jackson, Remini did not have the scope for a detailed re-interpretation and re-evaluation of rotation. Since Remini's work there have been many scholarly works on Jackson, but none offer an in-depth reassessment of rotation as touched upon by Remini.
   
   Remini states that Jackson has received a disproportionate share of the blame for the spoils system and that there is a need to disprove the Whig myths, which have come to permeate the historical writings of historians over the generations. Remini was not the first to stress the need for such a revision; in fact a similar plea was expressed by J.R. Poinsett in the "Oration on the life and character of Andrew Jackson, delivered July 4, 1845" when he stated about Jackson, "His instinctive love of justice... gave a high tone to his government and exalted the honor of his country. His hatred of corruption rendered his administration pure.... I will content myself with expressing my belief that in future time the impartial historian will justify both his motives and his conduct on this trying occasion.
   
   Remini offers the reader a great insight into the pioneering mind of one of America's greatest Presidents.
   
   
   [The above Review is taken in part from 'Andrew Jackson's policy of 'Rotation in Office' by Alexander Rayden. © Copyright 2005 Alexander Rayden, All Rights Reserved].