2 comments about Following in Lincoln's Footsteps: A Complete Annotated Reference to Hundreds of Historical Sites Visited by Abraham Lincoln (Illinois).

1. You know, as I travel around I am always wondering about the history of an area and, "could this be more than just a field?"
   
   That crumbling old house along a major route, "did something important to history occur inside?"
   
   Ralph Gary must have spent thousands of hours researching and traveling around areas to discover all of the "who, what, when, where and whys" of Abraham Lincoln and his environment.
   
   This book has just the information the traveler needs to understand and "see" history unfold before his eyes.
   
   That old field suddenly comes to life as a thunderous battlefield with rain pouring down and famous phrases echoing loudly in the viewer's ears.
   
   We see the fury of the instant as a theatre turns into a haunted moment in time; and everyone who visits Ford's Theatre feels the morbid moment of Booth's derringer into the President's unassuming head as he gently cups his wife's hand in his - and, in that moment, history changed.
   
   Thank you so much Mr. Gary. Please, please, research other historical figures and bring us that "sight" that can only be had from reading about the moments in time that have become our
   history!



2. Here's an interesting and hefty travel book that lists and annotates sites from all over the country associated with Abraham Lincoln and/or his family in some way. Arranged by city or town within each state, Gary describes places where Lincoln made speeches, stayed over night or for extended periods, went shopping, attended concerts and theatre events, resided, went to school, and a myriad of other events too numerous to list. Gary also lists Civil War sites that played important roles during his presidency. The number of sites detailed is impressive (many hundreds easily), and fortunately there's an excellent index listing them all. With all that, I noticed one site here in NJ that he overlooked: the burial spot near Allentown of Lincoln's great-great grandparents' three-year-old child, Deborah Lincoln. Granted, it's not a major site by any means, but neither are a lot of the other places in Gary's book, and there's a roadside monument marking it to boot. Lincoln aficionados should find this book fascinating, especially as they plot out all the excursions they'd like to take from Vermont to Louisiana checking out the sites. But even if you don't leave the house the book is loaded with interesting tidbits regarding Lincoln, his life and legacy. Recommended.

1 comments about Civil War Stories of Northwest Ohio Heroes (Great Lakes Connections: The Civil War).

1. I am a native of Northwest Ohio and I am ashamed to say that I do not know much about the history of my region. I also have never read much on the history of Civil War except on the big battles that have been written about ~~ Gettysburg and Fredericksburg and so on. I never really paid attention in school (if the teachers did even mention it) regarding the Civil War soldiers from our area.
   
   Just by chance the other day at a festival that a little town in Ohio, Grand Rapids, hold every October, my family and I walked by this author's booth. My father bought this book. (I bought the other three books by this author because my interest in the Great Black Swamp area has been ignited by a series of newspaper articles a few years' back.)
   
   My dad read this book in three hours. I wasn't so lucky ~~ I do have two preschoolers ~~ but I managed to read it in two days. This is a very slim volume but it is full of historical tidbits about Civil War fighters from the Northwestern Ohio. It is full of emotion as the author compiled stories from old letters and poems written during this time. It is full of pictures. Every story in this book is a complete story. It is written very concisely and beautifully ~~ each character's voice was portrayed in a vivid way. In short, this book is a testament to heroes who just happened to live in a turblent time and did the best they could in their circumstances. It is a testament to those who have marched off to war and never returned home. This book has ignited a spark of interest on my behalf on the Civil War in the Cumberland Gap and other places in Tennessee and Kentucky as Sherman marched his way to Atlanta.
   
   If you are from Ohio ~~ even if you aren't! ~~ I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a Civil War or History buff. This book is a delightful addition to any American history student's library ~~ it is not boring (like too many history books are) and it is interesting. It is also a proud testament to the heroes from my part of the country ~~ these men are just ordinary men in extraordinary times ~~ and this book is exactly that!
   
   10-11-05

2 comments about Meteor of War: The John Brown Story.

1. This book reads very well and covers all of John Brown's life and death, then also the huge range of responses to him and his career. The connections that Zoe Trodd and John Stauffer make between John Brown and Timothy Mcveigh is provocative. No one who buys this book will be disappointed.



2. I agree with the reviewer above - John Brown is one of those figures that noone really understands so a full length work with sources and analysis of Brown's writings like this has been a long time coming. I teach a class on the coming of the Civil War and my students have already been taught, like most Americans, that John Brown was at best a well-meaning madman. But this book shows the various John Browns of history and myth, so that, whether you agree with the actions of Brown, you will at least understand them better and see him as a complex and human individual. The Harvard authors have a sense for biography and history, and do convincing close readings of John Brown's own writings. Fascinating sources and great prose by the authors, good analysis of art a bonus. It's a good story and told well. I have some criticisms of the politics behind the book but this doesn't detract too much from the overall quality.

2 comments about Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868.

1. As a person with some knowledge of the Civil War and Reconstruction, I found LET US HAVE PEACE extremely well written, very readable and highly informative. However, I do not believe that it is for the casual reader. The book deals with a very specific time and a very specific subject: Grant's transition from general to president. The author shows Grant's involvement in Recontruction and the peace process before the end of the war and during the Johnson administration. For example, I was unaware that Grant was secretary of war after the removal of Stanton and his role in the controvery over the Tenure in Office Act. The book gives an interesting view of Grant's role in the impeachment of President Johnson and shows the interworking of the relationship between Grant and other generals, espcially William T. Sherman. I found the chapter on the rise of Grant as a presidential candidate extremely interesting contradicitng the general consensu that he was an shoe in for the nomination.

   The epilogue which is historiographic in nature was very helpful in terms of putting Simpson's thesis in context.

   Once again, for the student who already has knowledge of the cast of characters and the interworkings of the politics of Reconstruction, this is a must read. It was also refreshing to read a book on Grant that avoids references to his drinking. As I recall there are three references in the entire book and they are well placed and put in proper context.




2. Most high school history classes skip over Reconstruction completely, leaving a gap normally filled by myth perpetuated by charlatans with a political agenda. Bruce Catton's completion of the Grant biography Lloyd Lewis began ended at the close of the Civil War. Most people who read about Grant never read about Grant between the Civil War and his presidency, and they assume Grant knew nothing about politics when he entered the White House in 1869. This book counters that misinterpretation. Simpson shows us clearly that Grant understood politics. He kept himself informed on political issues for most of his life, and as a general officer deftly treaded through several political minefields throughout the war. After the war he became even more involved in politics with his resistance of Andrew Johnson's attempts to make him a political pawn and his growing dismay over Johnson's mishandling of Reconstruction policy. Simpson shows an understanding of Grant's attitudes toward African-Americans that Grant's previous biographer, William S. McFeely sorely lacked. He brings to light Grant's attempts to protect the freedmen from violence and the efforts to resubjugate them by white Southerners and how Johnson moved to thwart Grant's efforts. This is an important contribution that fills a gap in understanding that many have.

1 comments about His Soul Goes Marching On.

1. the essays contained within Finkelman's books are well written and well argued, just watch out because they contain an anti-Brown slant. These works are far from impartial and for a history text, some of them don't follow the traditional road to research of primary source, secondary, and so and so forth. The text is excellent if are looking to read good essays, but they are not impartial.

2 comments about Atlanta (Voices of the Civil War).

1. These books are some of the best that I've ever read! the books are full of eyewitness accounts of battle, camp life, campaigning, and camraderie with some humor thrown in. Each book gives accounts by the soldiers themselves, and that's what makes these books so great! The books also have battle maps are divided into sections. Each section tells about a part in the campaign. At the begining of each section there is an introduction to the campaign. Again, htese books are great and i highly recommend them!



2. These books are some of the best that I've ever read! the books are full of eyewitness accounts of battle, camp life, campaigning, and camraderie with some humor thrown in. Each book gives accounts by the soldiers themselves, and that's what makes these books so great! The books also have battle maps are divided into sections. Each section tells about a part in the campaign. At the begining of each section there is an introduction to the campaign. Again, htese books are great and i highly recommend them!

5 comments about Lincoln's Unknown Private Life: An Oral History by His Housekeeper Mariah Vance 1850-1860.

1. I found this a very colorful and informative work and I agree that this is probably the most improtant work published on Lincoln in the last twenty years. You can see what Lincoln delt with in his relationship with his wife; her habits and emotional problems and what working for the Lincoln's was really like. You also get a rare picture of young Robert Lincoln who has been very misunderstood and maligned by history. I've read this book twice so far and picked up something new each time. It's well worth the price and is a valuable addition to any Lincoln collection.



2. When I came across this book I thought: surely its a hoax! But no, the recollections of Mariah Vance are well attested. I suppose one should have to urge caution because: (1)The memories are filtered through the person to whom Mariah gave her recollections. (2) They are reminiscences from many years after Lincoln had been well and truly canonised not only as the saviour of the Union, but among blacks he was doubly revered as the Liberator of the slaves. Hence most of the marriage troubles are blamed on Mrs Lincoln who comes across as somewhat of a termagant, saved only by occasional tendernesses to husband and to Mariah herself. To me the reproduction of Mariah's speech as 1900-style black idiom grated a little - when will authors realise that this type of writing can pall quickly, when grammatical english almost always sounds fresh and immediate? Despite all those slight negatives, this book was immensely refreshing - it clears up a lot of mysteries about the Lincoln's relationship, about Lincoln's love for Ann Ruttledge who died tragically, and about Lincoln's life-long search for religious truth. It re-habilitates Robert Lincoln as a worthy son of a great father, and answers some of the criticism he took from historians about the later treatment of his mother. Lincoln has often been accused of 'racism', and was once forced into an election statement against racial equality, which may have been sincere, but he had no qualms about his eldest son being best friend of the son of his black housekeeper, and having regular visits between the two households. Even with the warnings given at the start of this review, its a 'must read' for Lincoln scholars and collectors, and an interesting further study for those who have read the Sandburg and David H. Donald biographies.



3. When I came across this book I thought: surely its a hoax! But no, the recollections of Mariah Vance are well attested. I suppose one should have to urge caution because: (1)The memories are filtered through the person to whom Mariah gave her recollections. (2) They are reminiscences from many years after Lincoln had been well and truly canonised not only as the saviour of the Union, but among blacks he was doubly revered as the Liberator of the slaves. Hence most of the marriage troubles are blamed on Mrs Lincoln who comes across as somewhat of a termagant, saved only by occasional tendernesses to husband and to Mariah herself. To me the reproduction of Mariah's speech as 1900-style black idiom grated a little - when will authors realise that this type of writing can pall quickly, when grammatical english almost always sounds fresh and immediate? Despite all those slight negatives, this book was immensely refreshing - it clears up a lot of mysteries about the Lincoln's relationship, about Lincoln's love for Ann Ruttledge who died tragically, and about Lincoln's life-long search for religious truth. It re-habilitates Robert Lincoln as a worthy son of a great father, and answers some of the criticism he took from historians about the later treatment of his mother. Lincoln has often been accused of 'racism', and was once forced into an election statement against racial equality, which may have been sincere, but he had no qualms about his eldest son being best friend of the son of his black housekeeper, and having regular visits between the two households. Even with the warnings given at the start of this review, its a 'must read' for Lincoln scholars and collectors, and an interesting further study for those who have read the Sandburg and David H. Donald biographies.



4. I could hardly credit that there existed a detailed portrait of the Lincoln family by an African-American domestic during the family's Springfield years. Yet here it is and, as Lloyd Ostendorf's prefatory material demonstrates, it is undeniably authentic, though unendorsed by much of the academic community.
   This is a fascinating book.Its vivid portrayal of the daily life of the Lincoln household is by turns perplexing, funny, moving, and sad. Mariah Vance was first employed by the Lincolns as a laundress in 1850 after Mary Todd had run off every other working woman in Springfield. Henry Vance actually extracted extra wages--the equivalent of combat pay--from Abraham Lincoln for his wife�s work. Over the next decade, Mrs. Vance became increasingly involved in the household and enjoyed a substantial measure of intimacy with the Lincolns.
   The Lincoln who emerges from these pages is startlingly vivid. He is by turns deep, playful, philosophical, earthy, boyish, magisterial, romantic, distant, intimate--and always present. He partakes in absolutely no measure of the modern trait of numbness or non-feeling. His sadness, laughter, thoughtfulness are all immediate and resilient.
   He is different in important ways from the man portrayed by much academic scholarship. He is not only more religious, he is much more Biblically grounded than has been supposed. In fact, Mrs. Vance insists that Lincoln was baptised by full immersion into the Church of the Brethren in 1860, just after his election to the Presidency. Conventional academics are skeptical of the story, but it makes sense, when juxtaposed against the language of the Second Inaugural.
   Lincoln was also clearly not a racist. The book describes incidents in his early life when he came into close contact with African Americans, worked with them, socialized with them and in one case vigorously defended them to his own detriment.
   He is punctilious about calling Mariah "Mrs. Vance" and her husband, Henry, "Mr. Vance," until he knows them well enough to call them by their first names without compromising respect. He has no compunction about socializing with them visibly and unselfconsciously. And he is vocal and definitive about providing cash remuneration for labor at a time when the bestowing of hand-me-downs on domestics was considered an act generosity. He is, in short, entirely unpatronizing. On the other hand, as a husband, Abraham Lincoln had what we now call "problems with intimacy." Whether justifiably or not, he was constantly away from home, riding the circuit or politicking. Thus, he laid the burden of coping with his wife�s problems on the shoulders of his young son Robert. That the latter grew up to become a distinguished citizen in his own right is a tribute to his character.
   For Mary Todd Lincoln was much more than any husband and child could handle. Some have called Mariah's portrait of her sympathetic. Good God! What would be unsympathetic? In these pages, Mrs. Lincoln is portrayed as a grandiose, manic-depressive, narcissistic, drug-addict. It's true that Mariah Vance felt tremendous compassion for Mary Todd Lincoln--in fact for all the Lincolns--but it's hard for the reader to sympathize with Mrs. Lincoln, particularly when it's revealed that she administered paregoric, the mixture of alcohol and opium to which she was addicted, to her babies.
   The spirit of Ann Rutledge hovers over the domestic life of the Lincolns like a cloud. A quarter century after the young woman's death, Lincoln was still preoccupied with her. At one point, he finds in a shop and purchases a tintype portrait of a girl who he says is Ann's twin. In a colossal error in judgment, he shows this portrait to his wife and begins talking about his feelings for Ann, eliciting from his wife an entirely predictable, and not unjustified, eruption of violence, invective, and self-pity.
   And yet the book is often very funny. Mariah Vance was an acute observer, who loved the Lincoln family deeply but without illusions. Her quick wit and refusal to be intimidated by her "betters" clearly delighted Lincoln himself, who described himself with neither self-pity nor resentment as "white trash." Her love and support for Robert Lincoln were clearly essential to the boy's psychological survival.
   This is in every sense a domestic drama. The imminent earthquake of civil war is evident just offstage, but never dominates the action. The story also has something of the arc of a novel, as Abraham and Mary Lincoln learn to resolve the wounds of the past and reforge their marriage.
   My only objection has to do with the Lincolns' language. This book was transcribed in short hand by a young woman named Ada Sutton in the first decade of the twentieth century. Decades later, the mature Ms. Sutton wrote out the memoirs, retaining Mariah Vance's Black English, which she had taken down phonetically.
   The conversation of the Lincolns, however, she translated into a formal English of her own devising that completely lacks the vigor and suppleness of colloquial speech. This rings false because the Lincolns did not speak in such a stilted manner. At one point, Mrs. Vance notes that the Harvard-educated Robert Lincoln spoke correct English and tried to get his parents to emulate him, but to no avail. "They talked like old Kaintuck folks, what they was," Mariah observes.
   This is an absolutely irreplaceable book, so full of pleasures and riches that when I finished it I turned around and started reading it all over again.



5. Terrific book. Even though these are the recorded remembrances of a servant which are being recalled from many years in the past, this is the best book I have found to get an all-around look inside the Lincoln family. OK, so maybe all of the particulars are slightly colored by time passing, the impressions which they left still count. While everyone knows that Mary Lincoln had emotional problems, it says something that most biographies leave out--that is, emotional and medical problems which, since medicine is not very advanced, caused Mary to self-medicate.
   
   While I knew women took laudenum, I forgot about paregoric which was only removed from pharmacies about 20 years ago. Both are derived from opiates and she may well have taken them together. Add to these two drugs the wine from the wine cabinet (the Lincolns liked to entertain and Mary knew all about sherry and good wines) and you have a recipe for disaster. Certainly something people in the 20th and 21st centuries know all about. The book states that the servant once told Mrs. Lincoln that she had collected all the empty wine bottles and that Mary drank her paregoric straight from a rather large bottle. In an attempt to gain self-control, Mary falls apart and so does the household. Also, a good picture of Robert who has fallen into disgrace in history but who is seen as a victim of the situation. His brother dies, his father is gone a good deal and his mother has panic attacks, over medicates and collapses.
   
   The servant portrays Mary in an honest manner--as a lady who has little self-confidence, falls back on her aristocratic upbringing when she is in trouble, self-medicates and then cries afterward because she knows she has caused everyone pain. She is also portrayed as generous, kind and pretty when she is feeling well.
   
   Overall, a good portrait of the three Lincolns. For what it is worth, another book helps this book along when it states that the autopsy on Mrs. Lincoln showed a large brain tumor. What this family needed was modern medicine and a good doctor.

No comments about The Tarnished Cavalier: Major General Earl Van Dorn, C.S.A..

3 comments about Civil War in the Southwest: Recollections of the Sibley Brigade (Canesco-Keck History Series, 4).

1. Civil War In The Southwest: Recollections Of The Sibley Brigade by Civil War scholar and historian Jerry Thompson presents eighteen distinctive episodes written by members of General Henry Hopkins Sibley's command who fought and traveled more than eight thousand miles through snake-infested bayous to snow-capped mountains to fight and die in more than sixteen major battles of the American Civil War. The brigade consisted of young, zealous Texans who sought to invade New Mexico Territory as a step toward the Confederate conquest of Colorado and California in order to seize their resources (including the gold fields) in support of the South. This compendium of eye witness accounts is positively riveting and is enthusiastically recommended as a unique, invaluable contribution to Civil War Studies supplemental reading lists and reference collections.



2. In Civil War in the Southwest, Thompson has edited the accounts of several members of Sibley's Brigade in its New Mexico campaign, the accounts having been printed in the Overton Sharp Shooter in East Texas in the late 19th Century.

   The accounts are quite readable, some even humorous. The accounts of major battles are accompanied by battle maps provided by Frazier. While the accounts focus on the major occurances within the campaign, they are filled with minutia as well, allowing the brigade to live and ride on again, as vividly as they did 140 years before.

   While the names of many soldiers appear in the accounts, Thompson made no effort to provide complete troop muster rolls, focusing instead only on editing the newspaper accounts. Where names do appear, Thompson has end notes with more information on the soldier, gleaned from a variety of sources.




3. Martin H. Hall was the first historian to write about the campaign of the Sibley Brigade in Arizona and New Mexico, but Jerry D. Thompson's books increase our knowledge about the subject by using an impressive array of newly discovered sources. In "Civil War in the Southwest: Recollections of the Sibley Brigade", Thompson provide a new and deeper account of the thoughts and fights of the young Texans in butternut who attempted to conquer the Southwest for the Confederacy. Now, among the outstanding books concerning the Civil War in the Southwest, Thompson's book is one of the best ones, it is a "must" for all the Civil War buffs.
   Serge P. Noirsain, Belgian Historian. Author of "La flotte européenne de la Confédération sudiste" and "La Confédération sudiste, Mythes et Réalités".

No comments about Van Dorn: The Life and Times of a Confederate General.