Last Chance For Victory

I’m giving this an unqualified recommendation for any detail oriented civil war buff. Not because it is perfect but because like a lot of David Irving’s stuff it examines historical events from a unique perspective and a slightly different point of view; offering a necessary balance to anyone who wants to objectively understand the events that took place.

Bowden and Ward's study, "Last Chance for Victory," focuses almost exclusively on events and actions on the Confederate side of the Gettysburg campaign. The time saved by this limited focus allows them room to include a host of analysis, speculation, and critical commentary. For the most part this is quite effective.

It is quickly clear to readers that Bowden and Ward have an agenda, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. And they are often irreverent, brutally frank, and even sarcastic. For example, here is their description of Joe Johnston’s mindset in Mississippi: “Despite his call to Pemberton for action, Johnston arrived in Jackson, Mississippi, just in time to do what came natural for him in the face of an aggressive enemy – retreat”. At times, particularly when dismissing the opinions of other historians, this stuff gets a little whiny but it is nonetheless entertaining reading.

The central thesis of the book is summarized by Lee’s description of his intentions at the start of the campaign: “I shall throw an overwhelming force on their advance, crush it, follow up the success, drive one corps back on another, and by successive repulses and surprises before they can concentrate create a panic and virtually destroy the army”. The authors amplify this throughout the book with what they refer to as “Napolean’s Maxims” such as: “The greatest disaster that can happen is when different corps of an army are attacked in detail, and before their junction”. The reader is regularly reminded of Scott Bowden is a Napoleonic expertise.

My biggest criticism is a failure to apply the above thesis consistently. Bowden and Ward pontificate endlessly about the nature of Lee’s contradictory orders to Ewell^{; i.e.} not bring on a general engagement vs attack Cemetery Hill (including detailed semantic analysis of things like: if practicable…if possible…with discretion…discretionary). Which is generally irrelevant because had Ewell taken the hill about all he would have gained were a few hundred prisoners from Orland Smith’s Brigade. The rest of the broken First and Eleventh Corps would have been streaming south to the Pipe Creek Line in Maryland, where Meade planned to concentrate and fight Lee - note his July 1^st order known as the Pipe Creek Circular (also called the Pipe Creek Order). The purpose of the Circular was to inform his corps commanders that the Pipe Creek Line would be the Union Army's line of defense and operations for the impending engagement, and that the Army of the Potomac was to concentrate there.

So for Lee to “drive one corps back on another” he would first need to lure additional Union troops to the Gettysburg area. Driving the Federals from Cemetery Hill on July 1^st would have ended any chance of doing this. Ewell might have gotten away with unobtrusively occuping portions of Culps Hill, but anything more tactically aggressive would have doomed Lee’s overall strategic plan. Bowden and Ward completely ignore this consideration, which may or may not have occurred to Lee at the time but seems quite obvious now.

And although the real strengths of the book are its chapters about the plans and the attacks of July 2^nd, the authors again fail to address the three items as important to the events of that day as anything else; all of which are examples of Lee’s good and bad luck. 1. The gift from Dan Sickles when he placed his troops in a position they could not hope to defend. 2. New commander George Meade’s impulsive mistake to support Sickles by the piecemeal feeding of Second and Fifth Corps units into a buzzsaw. 3. Meade’s unexpected decision to strip his right of most of its strength.

Meade should have positioned the Fifth Corps where Sickles was supposed to be, pulled Humphreys’ Division back to the Cemetery Ridge line and had the rest of Sickles Corps fight a delaying action before pulling back to Houck’s Ridge. He compounded Sickles imbecility and sacrificed two Corps instead of one. On the other hand, his panicked pulling of units from the Cemetery Ridge positions to reinforce his left crossed up Lee; who “correctly” viewed the union right as the most critical sector and believed demonstrations by Ewell against that portion of the line would insure that the Federal units there were unavailable for action elsewhere on the field. The fortunes of war.

Otherwise the authors seem right on in their examination of the second days fighting, crediting Lee’s planning and Longstreet’s execution for getting the army to a point where a decisive victory was a real possibility. And hanging most of the blame for coming up short on Anderson, Hill, Ewell, and the bad luck of losing Hood and Pender.

Most important is they put to rest the myth that Longstreet’s desire to fight defensively impaired the execution of Lee’s attack on the second day. Pointing out not just the legitimate nature of the delays but also how the delay provided time for Sickles to commit his huge blunder which the First Corps was able to fully exploit.

The treatment of the third day of the battle is the weakest portion of this book; and the only area where I disagree with the author’s defense of Lee. Fortunately it is the portion of the battle most understood by both casual and serious students of the engagement.

Then again, what do I know? I’m only a child.

Just wanted to elaborate a bit on the limitations of the author’s analysis of the battle’s third day. They repeatedly refer to the attack’s objective (the Copse of Trees area on Cemetery Ridge) as the “hinge” of the Union line connecting one wing to another. And Bowden continues to pontificate about Napoleonic tactics and relate these to Lee’s choice of this area as his objective. I am unfamiliar with the term “hinge” (probably because it is an invention of Bowden’s). As everyone knows the Union line was in the shape of a fishhook or more simplistically it was “L” shaped with northwestern Cemetery Hill the spot where the two sides meet. That spot was the so-called “hinge”, not someplace midway down the longer leg of the “L”, which was the location of the Copse of Trees. It should be intuitively obvious (all other things being equal & 1863 weapons/movement limitations) that the worst spot to concentrate an attack on an enemy who enjoys the advantage of interior lines is the center of their position-“Duh”. And that a line (military or otherwise) is not two end points connected by a “hinge”.

The authors also expend a great deal of energy criticizing Longstreet for not being ready to attack the morning of July 3^rd. Which was of little significance because Meade attacked Ewell’s forces several hours before Ewell was slated to move against the right of the Union lines (Culps Hill), as part of Lee’s plan to insure that Meade could not shift forces from the right of his line. They also fail to mention that Stuart’s exhausted cavalry benefited from the additional hours Longstreet’s delay afforded them; had the attack begun any earlier Stuart’s forces would have been even less effective.

And while Longstreet failed to energetically commit additional units in support of the first wave of his assault, this was due to his assessment that the first wave had not created an opportunity worth exploiting. Of course this is exactly the result Longstreet expected; someone more enthusiastic about the original plan would probably have interpreted the results more positively.

General A.P. Hill: The Story of a Confederate Warrior

a book by James I. Robertson Jr.

There are 382 numbered pages, but only 326 pages are readable content-there are 56 pages of notes and index material. This 8" x 5" paperback has average size type and a few pages of maps. The point being that this is not a long read; certainly not long enough to excuse the many extremely important omissions about this Confederate Officer.

If you know something about the Army of Northern Virginia you soon begin to notice these gaps and eventually you discern a pattern of glossing over the subject's military limitations and concentrating on personal details; as if the book target's audience was romantic southerners with no interest in military tactics or in reading an unbiased account of Hill's actual Civil War contributions.

So take it as a fair warning, this is another case of a biographer with a man crush on his subject. Those with a low level of tolerance for that sort of thing may want to avoid the book or at least steel themselves for yet another silly biographical whitewashing.

There certainly are some good details to be found in the book's 326 pages of content and the inaccuracies are more errors of omission than actual distortions. But if you rely on Robertson for an evaluation of Hill's military contributions you do your inquiring mind a disservice.

Hill was a good division commander who rose to his level of incompetence when Lee gave him a corps command shortly before the Battle of Gettysburg. Those playing the blame game for the tactical portion of the South's eventual defeat generally place him just below Leonidas Polk (the clear leader) and Braxton Bragg on the list of southern officers who did the most to shorten the war. And the selection of this Virginian (over Harvey Hill) to corps command (Lee had just added a 3rd corps to his army) was probably Lee's single greatest misstep in the personnel area. Of course you won't reach that sort of conclusion from the selective information provided by Robertson.

There is no point in detailing all the omissions but it is worth examining the chapter on July 2 and July 3 at Gettysburg. Robertson only gives the reader 10 pages on Hill's activities during those two days. To be fair even he could not find much good to say about Hill's performance and must content himself with listing excuses. Unfortunately his biased and abbreviated account pretty much glosses over July 2nd, when Hill turned in what was arguably the single worst day of battlefield performance by a Confederate officer during the war. And doing so at an especially critical (insert "deciding" here) stage of the battle.

July 2nd was the day Hill lost the battle and drastically shortened the war. He had a lot of company, from his subordinates Richard Anderson and William Mahone to Robert E. Lee himself, but Hill deserves the lion's share of the credit. His subordinate's mistakes were on a smaller scale, Lee had other areas of the battlefield on which to focus, and after all Hill is the subject of this book.

Bottom line Hill was responsible for the breakdown of Lee's echelon attack and for the wounding of Dorsey Pender; at the moment when everything was set up for the breakthrough that would have provided Lee with a huge victory. Robertson is a bit vague on the whole echelon attack thing, sticking with Lee's original attack plan and ignoring the modified plan Lee put into action when he discovered Sickles' exposed position on the union left flank. Robertson's only mention of the echelon attack is criticism, treating it as if it was not Lee's intention but rather a breakdown in the plan of attack; maintaining that attacking "en echelon" was itself one of the reasons the attack was unsuccessful (when in fact almost all military historians cite these on-the-fly attack modifications as the best example during the entire war of Lee's tactical brilliance).

To deflect criticism after the battle and excuse his sulk-fest, Hill claimed that Longstreet had been given temporary one-day command of his corps. Which defied logic for a lot of reasons including the fact that Lee, Longstreet, and Hill were observed together planning the attack; and that Longstreet stayed close to the fighting and with his own corps from start to finish of the day's fighting. This question of command was the single most interesting incident in Hill's entire military career and deserves its own chapter. Instead Robertson addresses the issue with two sentences: "Anderson's division sprang into action and everything quickly became a mess. It was Hill's understanding that Anderson would be under Longstreet's control during the action, while Longstreet assumed that Hill would direct his own support". Hill's claim received no confirmation or support from his contemporaries.

When Mahone (of Anderson's Division) failed to advance his brigade in support of Wright's breakthrough (the pivotal moment of the entire battle), Pender (commanding Hill's next division in the echelon attack) rode over to find Hill for an explanation and instructions. He was wounded during his search for Hill and with that and with Mahone's refusal the wheels fell off Lee's entire attack plan. Characteristically Robertson does not discuss any of this and incorrectly reports that Pender was wounded riding among the brigades in his division preparing them for the attack. Which might lead the cynical among us to conclude that Robertson did not want to introduce facts that would disclose the full extent of Hill's staggering incompetence that day.

DutyDriven

Reviewed December 2012 by Kent Wright

“Duty Driven; The Plight of Alabama’s African Americans in the Civil War” by Peggy Allen Towns of Decatur Alabama is a very well-documented history of the North Alabama slaves who became soldiers and laborers for the Union and Confederate armies. This ground-breaking work attacks the myths enshrouding the roles of black soldiers in the American Civil War. “Could they, or even would they, really fight?” That was a big question on the minds of many 19th Century citizens when the Emancipation Proclamation opened the door to their enlistment in the Union Army. But what about service in the Confederate Army? Just like countless other Americans, Alabamians in bondage were asked to lay down their lives for the ideals of American freedom, for which, of course they would fight. Ironically, for some, it meant fighting for the side that took up arms against the government of Abraham Lincoln and just as ironically for the same purpose — their promised freedom. In this ground-breaking work, Towns eschews idealized roles and sticks with verifiable histories whether or not flattering or widely believed. She draws from a rich variety of factual sources: archived government documents, army official records, military pension records, court documents, newspaper archives, respected authors, interviews with a host of experts and even family headstones, to vividly bring back to life some of the real people whose personal triumphs and tragedies helped to shape the nation. She carefully weaves the names of soldiers and their testimonies into a fascinating story about otherwise forgotten men who fought and died for their country and left little behind except brief records of honorable duty. This book by Towns with her impressive source notes and bibliography is a valuable resource for historians and genealogists alike. For readers seeking a full analysis of the face of war in North Alabama I further recommend “War’s Desolating Scourge; The Union’s Occupation of North Alabama” by Joseph W. Danielson.

From Huntsville to Appomattox

From Huntsville to Appomattox: R. T. Cole's History of 4th Regiment, Alabama Volunteer Infantry, C.S.A., Army of Northern Virginia. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1996. xvi + 318 pp. $32.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-87049-924-1.

From Huntsville to Appomattox is taken, as indicated in the full title, from a manuscript by Robert T. Coles. The 4th Alabama Infantry Regiment was without question one of the conflict's most outstanding fighting units. Coles was only nineteen when he joined Captain Egbert J. Jones's Huntsville Guards in April 1861, but he was appointed sergeant major of the regiment when it was organized at Dalton, Georgia, the following month. In less than a year, Coles received appointment as adjutant of the 4th Alabama. He missed only two of the regiment's engagments during the entire war. Obviously proud of the record of his unit, Coles attempted after the war to persuade one of his comrades to write its history but failed to do so. He penned his own memoir in 1909-1910. At that time, Coles had access to and used a number of Confederate and Union sources to amplify his recollections of events.

Coles's memoir begins with short historical sketches of the companies that made up the regiment and jumps quickly to the unit's movement from Harper's Ferry toward Manassas Junction in mid-July 1861. Coles provides no information on how the Alabamians left the Deep South for northern Virginia. The 4th Alabama served in the Battle of First Manassas as part of the brigade commanded by Brigadier General Bernard E. Bee, who gave Thomas Jonathan Jackson the nickname "Stonewall." During the fighting, the men of the 4th Alabama repulsed attacks by four Union regiments before being flanked on both sides and forced to retreat. Coles states that this battle unified the men of the regiment and molded them into the fine fighting force that they were from then onward.

The 4th Alabama then served in a brigade, commanded first by William H. C. Whiting and later by Evander M. Law, in Major General John Bell Hood's famous division. At the battle of Gaines Mill on June 27, 1862, the Alabamians helped overrun the Union position and turn the tide of the engagement. They later fought at Second Manassas, South Mountain, and Sharpsburg. During the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Alabamians were not engaged with the enemy and did not fire a shot. Stationed at the army's center, they nevertheless suffered several dozen casualties from Union fire. The men missed the battle of Chancellorsville because they had been sent with other units of Lieutenant General James Longstreet's corps on an abortive campaign against Federal forces at Suffolk, Virginia.

Coles writes proudly of the fighting done by his regiment on July 2, 1863, at Gettysburg. "No regiment in either army made a more determined effort nor exhibited a bolder front, unsupported and exposed on both flanks, than the 4th Alabama in its three different efforts to dislodge the enemy" (p. 108). He attributes the failure to overrun the Round Tops to the exhausted condition of the troops. While he speaks well of the men involved in the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble charge, he laments the fact that Hood's division did receive more praise for its role.

Sent to the Western Theater with four other brigades, Law's men fought in the bloody battle at Chickamauga, Georgia, in September 1863. From there the Alabamians moved to Lookout Mountain and participated in the siege of the Union army in Chattanooga. Critics of James Longstreet's actions in the West will find in this book plenty of support for their arguments. Coles says that the general conducted himself in a "half-hearted manner." Longstreet's interest in things "began to wane" after Chickamauga "as it did before the Battle of Gettysburg" (p. 141), a phrase that indicates Coles found suspect the general's conduct in that battle. He speaks of "the errors committed and indifference displayed" (p. 147) by Longstreet in ordering the unsuccessful attack at Wauhatchie. Coles also accuses Longstreet of not acting aggressively enough in the early stages of the Knoxville campaign when a Confederate victory might have been achieved.

Returning to the Army of Northern Virginia in the spring of 1864, the 4th Alabama played an important role in the battles fought at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg, as well as in operations north of the James River. In describing the trench warfare that dominated these campaigns, Cole writes, "The Northern soldier was more inclined to construct artificial cover than his Southern brother. It was a variety of labor we disliked to perform, however urgent it was" (p. 172). The great disparity in numbers, however, forced the Alabamians and other Confederates to erect strong earthworks. The regiment served in the trenches around Richmond during the winter of 1863-1864 and marched with the army toward Appomattox Court House after the Confederate capital was evacuated on April 2, 1865.

Coles does not gloss over unpleasant or controversial aspects of the war. He admits that some men of his regiment became "laggards and cowards who used every subterfuge to avoid the hardships of camp life and its attendent dangers" (p. 37). In another place, Coles tells of a private who was the only man of the 4th Alabama "regarded as a downright coward." This soldier had plenty of personal courage on the march and in camp "but became perfectly demoralized at the first sound of a bullet or shell" (p. 67). In his description of the surrender at Appomattox Court House, Coles allows his strong Southern patriotism to show through: "The mortification of having to march up and stack arms in front of a host of men, whom we had every right to consider, man for man, that we were their superiors, from past experience on many battlefields, was most galling to our proud spirits" (p. 193).

The book has a number of fine illustrations of members of the 4th Alabama, but it would have benefited from the inclusion of more maps. Stocker does a highly commendable job in providing notes for Coles's narrative. He used a number of primary sources, some of them fairly obscure. In a few places, however, this reviewer would have liked to see more complete notes. For example, Coles claims that his regiment had the highest casualties of any regiment on either side at First Manassas. The editor does not address the claim but simply refers readers to the Official Records for Confederate casualties.

This minor criticism aside, Civil War enthusiasts of every kind will enjoy reading From Huntsville to Appomattox. All serious students of the conflict will want to add a copy to their bookshelves. Reviewed by Arthur W. Bergeron (Pamplin Civil War Site) Published on H-CivWar (June, 1996)

One of the great fighting brigades of the Army of Northern Virginia was Law's Alabama Brigade, consisting of the 4th, 15th, 44th, 47th and 48th Alabama Infantry Regiments. The 4th Alabama of the brigade saw its initial combat at First Manassas. Regiments of the brigade fought throughout 1862, and the brigade attained its final organization in January 1863. At Gettysburg Law's Brigade had the distinction of marching 25 miles on the morning and afternoon of July 2 1863, and nearly wrested Little Round Top from its Union defenders. When the brigade surrendered at Appomattox, it numbered less than 1,000 men. Regiments from the brigade fought beneath their banners at battles from First Manassas to Appomattox, including Gettysburg and Chickamauga.

Histories of Confederate brigades are relatively rare. This book joins the ranks of these rare histories as a well written, exhaustively researched, and meticulously detailed study of one of the Confederacy's steadiest, most reliable bri-gades. The book is unbiased and offers frank and honest appraisals of the brigade's enlisted men, leadership and accomplishments. Although both Lane and Penny are native Southerners, Law's Brigade is free of the hyperbole that characterizes many histories written by southern partisans. Clearly drawn maps accompany the narrative for both battles and campaigns. Only when the orientation of the maps for the Wilderness changed were the maps confusing. In all other cases, the maps compliment the discussions of the brigade's movements. When describing the brigade's roles in engagements, the maneuvers of each regiment and contribution of each leader are highlighted, and the actions of their opponents are concisely and accurately detailed. The effects of terrain and weather are made obvious. When discussing the roles of these five regiments in the campaigns of the Army of Northern Virginia and Tennessee, they are clearly placed within the context of the armies' strategy and movements. The leadership of the brigade at company and field officer level is particularly well developed. The confusing controversy between Law, Longstreet and Jenkins is unraveled, and the impact of this dissension upon the brigade is analyzed.

The authors' verbiage is appropriately chosen, and it was a pleasure to read the approximately 350 pages of text. Only one paragraph (at the top of page 167) was poorly prepared. Comprehensive notes are provided as documentation for the authors' statements, and they verify the amount of archival research that went into the preparation of this book. One minor complaint is that the publisher chose to utilize endnotes rather than footnotes, ensuring that the reader will be constantly flipping through the pages. Inclusion of a complete set of appendices, a full bibliography, and an accurate index serve to enhance the contributions of this valuable history to our understanding of the Southern fighting man and his regimental and brigade organizations.

Members of Law's Alabama Brigade became prominent political, business, and educational leaders of Alabama in the post-bellum years. After perusing this fine account of their wartime experiences, the reader will well understand how the mettle of these great men was formulated through four years of danger, controversy, toil and fire.

Douglas R. Cubbison

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

A. E. Elmore. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: Echoes of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2009. xi + 265 pp. $32.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8093-2951-9.

Reviewed by Ferenc Szasz (University of New Mexico)

Published on H-CivWar (February, 2010)

Commissioned by Martin Johnson

New Light on the Gettysburg Address

"Forescore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom; and that Governments of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth" (The text as written down by Joseph Ignatius Gilbert of the Associate Press just after the speech).

On Thursday November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln strode across a makeshift wooden platform in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to deliver the 272 words that have since become immortal. Countless school children have memorized them, and in Lincoln at Gettysburg (1992), Garry Wills argued that with this speech Lincoln essentially reconfigured the ultimate purpose of the ongoing American experiment. The first full-length book on the address appeared in 1930--Bruce Barton's Lincoln at Gettysburg--and recently some of the foremost Lincoln scholars of our day have taken up the mantle: Gabor Borrit, The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows (2006); Douglas L. Wilson, Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words (2006); and Ronald C. White, The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln through His Words (2005). In the book under review, however, A. E. Elmore provides the most thorough discussion of the Gettysburg Address ever attempted as he (literally) examines every phrase and virtually every word. It is an impressive undertaking.

Elmore's goal is to present the Gettysburg Address as Lincoln intended it to be heard and as his immediate hearers/readers would (probably) have understood it. The current interpretation of the address suggests that Lincoln modeled his speech along classical lines, such as Pericles's famed oath to the dead at Athens. Elmore disagrees. He argues that the president shaped his address by borrowing heavily from two sources that lay much closer to his hearers: The King James Version of scripture (KJV) and the Protestant Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer. Except for the large Roman Catholic minority, the KJV was the most common version of the Bible then in circulation. (Indeed, the Latter-day Saints still consider it the only acceptable translation.) Although less well known, the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer is a 364-page volume that restates many scriptural passages and also contains liturgical readings for such milestones as baptism, marriage, burial, and the dedication of a church. During his youth, Lincoln memorized numerous passages from the KJV, and Elmore believes that he could have also done so from the Book of Common Prayer--copies of which lay in every pew--when he occasionally attended Episcopal services in Springfield with Mary Todd from c. 1841 to 1850.

During the Civil War era, politics, religion, and sacred language overlapped on a variety of fronts. The Confederacy called for several days of fasting and prayer, and the Union did the same. Such common phrases as "the apple of his eye," "the salt of the earth," and "a land flowing with milk and honey" were all biblically based. Many people felt as close to the figures in the Old and New Testaments as they did to their distant neighbors. Allusions to the Bible were omnipresent.

The twenty-first century has difficulty comprehending this sensibility. Social critics have noted a rapid rise in "biblical illiteracy" as popular culture has largely replaced scripture as the major source of shared metaphors. The predominance in the universities of deconstructionism (which Elmore terms "worthless flotsam" [p. 6]) has not helped; nor has the omnipresence of cinema/video with its simplistic portrayals of both character and language. As a result, many contemporaries find themselves baffled by a speech that reverberates on both political and sacred levels. But, Elmore argues, by echoing both the KJV and the Book of Common Prayer, this was precisely what Lincoln did with his famed address.

Lincoln's controlling metaphor revolved around the theme of the birth, death, and rebirth of the nation, and this resonated with his audience as parallel with the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Similarly, Lincoln's reference to "our fathers" recalled not just George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams but also Jesus's heavenly and earthly fathers, Jehovah and Joseph. Likewise the key phrases "brought forth," "conceived," and "dedicated" can be found, in that precise order, in the Book of Common Prayer's litany for the Public Baptism of Infants. As Jesus was conceived, brought forth, and dedicated to serve humankind, so too, Lincoln implied, was the United States conceived, brought forth, and dedicated to the Jeffersonian ideal that "all men are created equal." And, of course, the famed "Forescore" comes directly from Psalm 90.

The parallels continue. The phrase "we are met" echoes the Book of Common Prayer marriage ceremony, "we are gathered"; so too does Lincoln's tendency to couple words--"so conceived and so dedicated," "fitting and proper"--reflect the language of the book. "His echoes of the Prayer Book are every bit as clear and insistent as his echoes of the King James Bible," Elmore notes, "just not quite as frequent" (p. 24). The author has discovered that only 3 of the 272 words--"proposition," "civil" as in "civil war," and "detract" are not present in either the KJV or the Book of Common Prayer. This is an absolutely stunning interpretation.

Elmore is a professor of Law and English at Athens State University in Alabama, and both of these disciplines are reflected in his analysis. For example, he devotes entire chapters to semi-legalistic discussions of the phrases "consecrate-dedicate-hallowed," "fitting and proper," "dedicated to the proposition," and "under God." He similarly draws on logic and reason as much as empirical historical evidence to argue that Lincoln's restatement of Jefferson's "all men are created equal" emerged as a deliberate reply to recent Southern Presbyterian/Northern Episcopal pamphlet restatements of John C. Calhoun's attack on the idea as a glittering generality. Elmore also emphasizes the fact that the phrase "new birth"--as in "new birth of freedom"--does not appear at all in the KJV but is found twice in the Book of Common Prayer. But to seek out a literary source for every one of Lincoln's sentences is to overlook a considerable amount of oral history. Lincoln's Ohio River Valley world still had one foot in the Anglo-American oral culture of the eighteenth century, and surely Lincoln heard the phrase "new birth" a number of times before he read it in the Book of Common Prayer, if, indeed, he ever did. The author also suggests that contemporary Episcopalians would likely have recognized Lincoln's borrowing from the book. ( In fact, he, himself, did so as a young man.)

Unlike the Baptists, the Methodists, and the Presbyterians, the Episcopal Church (about 160,000 members, sixth largest in the nation) did not officially divide over the issue of slavery. Still, relations between northern and southern churches essentially ceased for the duration. Numerous Confederate officers, and several members of Jefferson Davis's cabinet, including Davis himself, were church adherents; but so too were William Henry Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Gideon Welles of Lincoln's cabinet. Ohio Bishop Charles P. McIlvaine visited England several times to strengthen the Union cause among Church of England officials. Although these churchmen might well have heard echoes of the Book of Common Prayer in the Gettysburg Address, it is doubtful that words would have resonated in the same way.

Elmore's suggestion that Lincoln deliberately drew from these two majestic literary sources to reach out to a Catholic-Baptist-Methodist-Episcopal-Presbyterian-Quaker-Jewish-etc. audience is both thoughtful and exceptionally well argued. Whether one agrees with his interpretation or not, this is a genuinely provocative book. Indeed, after one puts this volume down, it will be impossible to read the Gettysburg Address in the same light again. Elmore's Lincoln's Gettysburg Address belongs on the shelf of everyone interested in the powerful role that "mere words" played during the American Civil War.

Railroads Of The Confederacy

The Railroads of the Confederacy, Robert C. Black III (Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1952), 360 pages.

I became interested in this book on the recommendation of Greg Biggs during our field October 2011 field trip to trace General Sherman’s Atlanta campaign (Part 1, up to Kennesaw Mountain). Greg was talking about Southern railroads and their different gauges, and pointed out that Robert Black’s book has a nifty fold-out map in the back that depicts these. And indeed, it does.

The War of Southern Secession was considered the first modern war, one indicator being the widespread use of railroads for strategic and operational maneuver as well as logistical support, so I was fascinated at the idea of the differing gauges and the problems that would cause. Napoleon said an army marches on its stomach. More contemporarily, it is said, “Amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics.” Be that as it may, the importance of railroads and their contribution to the Southern war effort was a topic ripe for deeper inquiry.

For depth on the subject, this book fits the bill. It opens with a tour of Southern railroads – where they were, how they operated, and who operated them. Aspect by aspect, state by state, it is a comparison of rail lines and companies, personalities civilian and military, as well as successes and failures. It describes in great detail how keeping Confederate railroads operational was a struggle within a struggle – growing scarcity of parts due to blockade, limited sources internally and overseas – all had telling effect, which Robert Black captures in abundant detail. He covers technical details of tracks, locomotives, and rolling stock; ownership and corporate structures; personalities; conflicts and cooperation between the various railroad companies, the Confederate government, and the Confederate military; way bills and passenger fares; capacities and capabilities; corporate economies and struggles; and the list goes on.

The large fold-out map in the back of the book is outstanding, but it isn’t alone. Robert Black filled the books with outstanding rail line maps to cover every sector of the South as he worked his way through them geographically and chronologically. He also has period photos, drawings and facsimiles of various locomotives, personalities, documents, and other aspects of the history.

It is interesting to see how the Confederacy, with no experience with railroads in time of war, grappled with and learned to use them – never fully efficiently, I might add. The Confederate war effort needed the railroads, but as commercial business enterprises, the war crushed the railroads. He details the deterioration of capabilities, railroad by railroad, due to steady depletion of engines and rolling stock, rails, repair facilities, wood (for fuel) and other commodities needed for operation of the trains, and, most especially as the war wore on, trained personnel to run and service the locomotives, rolling stock, rail lines, and rail yards.

Moreover, there was continuing and escalating friction within and between the Confederate military and the railroad companies as the war progressed. The friction extended to the various states and the central government in Richmond. Ironically, the philosophical core of the Confederacy – independence of the states – got in the way of the efficient operation of the railroads and their collective contribution to the Southern war effort. Surprisingly (to me, at least), the Confederacy not only never nationalized the railroads, it never developed and implemented an efficient nationwide rail management system in cooperation with the States. The Confederate Army stepped up and struggled with the problem, but its efforts were just as disjointed between the various military departments and major commands.

Nonetheless, the railroads of the Confederacy played a critical role in the conduct of the war. Mr. Black describes the central importance of Corinth, Mississippi in the Western Theater, and how it led to Shiloh and subsequent movements in northern Mississippi and Alabama as operations shifted towards Chattanooga. While he doesn’t go into great detail, leaving that to other, more specific histories, he does provide overviews of the various strategic movements such as the movement of Johnston’s army to join Beauregard’s at First Manassas, connecting Jackson’s Valley Campaign to the Peninsula operations, the movement of Bragg’s army from Mississippi to Chattanooga, and Longstreet’s corps from Richmond to Chickamauga, among others. And, of course, he touches on the Great Locomotive Chase. Again, these are at summary level, but nonetheless effectively demonstrate the importance of rail movements.

As I worked my way through the book, I was struck once again by the enormity of the economic and social dislocation and harm wrought on the South by the war, and the numbing magnitude of rebuilding and renovation that lay before them once the war ended. Surprisingly, the railroads rebounded rather quickly. Their importance for rebuilding the South was recognized and leveraged.

Robert Black was a Trinity College history professor (1950-1967), author, and longtime railroad buff. He died February 5, 2011. According to his obituary in the Hartford Courant (Connecticut), he became fascinated by railroads when he received a set of toy trains from his grandmother when he was 3. After graduating from the Taft School in Watertown and Williams College in Massachusetts, Black pursued his passion by landing a job as a freight clerk for the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad. That passion led to Railroads of the Confederacy.

In sum, this is an outstanding book. It provides an in-depth look at a strategic Confederate resource and, in the process, gives insight to the strengths and weaknesses of the Confederacy itself. Despite the detail, it is an easy and fun read. At 360 pages, including Index, it overflows with information critical to understanding how the Confederacy prosecuted the war.

The book fails. It sounds like a good premise if a bit of a tall order, examine Disney's animated features for the role that their themes have played in the moral and spiritual development of generations of children. The idea being that these themes originated in the minds of Walt Disney and his successors, who were not entirely motivated by a bottom line, but had certain political and social agendas to advance.

Unfortunately, Mark I. Pinsky, the religion reporter for The Orlando Sentinel, conducts his analysis of the Disney animation world like a reporter running late for a press run deadline. Mostly this consists of a cursory viewing of 31 Disney films, plucking out a few nuggets of content that support his theme, and creating short chapters speculating on the symbolism within each film.

At the end is a non-philosophical analysis of the 1990's boycott by the Southern Baptist Contention.

Shortly into the book it becomes obvious that Pinsky has made little if any attempt to examine the source material for each film, attributing each relevant element to Disney rather than to the source material from which each screenplay was adapted.

This becomes especially glaring when a reader is familiar with the source material. A more useful approach would have been to compare and contrast the original material with its adaptation; identifying which elements Disney elected to keep, to cut, and to alter. It is likely that what was excluded is just as important as what was included in understanding the motivational forces at work within the Disney empire.

For example, the animated film "Alice in Wonderland" (1951) was more inspired by than adapted from the original Lewis Carroll story. Little more than title, some character names, and the basic premise (little heroine dreaming about going down a rabbit hole into a strange wonderland) was utilized by the Disney movie. That most viewer's believe it was a closer adaptation stems from the use of John Tenniel's original prints as inspiration for the character sketches.

Pinsky details several scenes in the film that were not even part of Carroll's story, then states: "For all the complaints about Disney's tinkering with and sanding down the edges of fairy tales, "Alice in Wonderland" demonstrates the pitfalls of fidelity to the original, of illustrating a classic story rather than transforming it and making it your own". As anyone even vaguely familiar with the book and the film know, on this point Pinsky is totally incorrect. Only someone unfamiliar with Carroll's original could have reached such a faulty conclusion. The failure (be it error or laziness) to do basic research in this case should set off reader alarm bells regarding most of the other assertions Pinsky makes in this book. No doubt some are valid but readers would do well to not accept any of Pinsky's points at face value.

Which doesn't mean that Pinsky's ideas are totally useless. They introduce fresh ways to examine many elements within Disney's features and might actually provide some useful insights to anyone motivated to aggressively explore his cursory assertions. JCE

The Parting

The Parting: A Story of West Point on the Eve of the Civil War. Richard Barlow Adams. New York: Iuniverse, Inc., 2010, 385 pages.

Review submitted by John Scales, President of the TVCWRT

The Parting is a historical novel, a fictional account of life at the United States Military Academy at West Point during the pivotal academic year of 1860-1861. The protagonist is John Pelham of Alabama, soon to become “The Gallant Pelham,” the commander of Major General Stuart’s Horse Artillery. The novel explores the adventures of Pelham and his fellow cadets such as George Custer, Emory Upton, and Thomas Rosser, all of whom became prominent during the Civil War. Steeped in the lore of West Point traditions such as Benny Havens, Flirtation Walk, and the summer encampment, the novel uses these traditions as a vehicle to explore the friendships that held these classmates together, and develops the tensions that would soon drive them into verbal and then mortal conflict. As the nation debated the presidential race and then secession, the cadets do the same against the background of their classes, their military training, and, of course, their courtships. The issues that divided the nation are illuminated as they are presented and argued about by the cadets, causing each cadet to wrestle with his feelings as the nation slides into war.

The novel is well-written and very enjoyable, written by a graduate of the Military Academy. The characters are represented realistically, giving insight into the thoughts and the milieu of the period. Some will object to the novel’s rather sentimental depiction of slavery, although that depiction is consistent with how it was viewed in the South at the time and even by many today. There are a few inaccuracies that only the specialist will note, such as the mention of Birmingham (which did not yet exist) or the use of brass Rodman guns (they were steel) when almost certainly three-inch ordnance rifles or Napoleon guns would have been actually used, but the feel of the book is authentic. It is an excellent choice for those who wish to steep themselves in the era and its arguments in the pleasurable setting of a novel.