Reviews Follow Lee’s Men to Sharpsburg

OF LEE AND MARYLAND

REVIEWED BY GORDON BERG

Interpretations of historical events “ evolve over time, driven by the discovery of new evidence and the introduction of fresh ideas,” Alexander Rossino opines in the introduction to his deep dive into the Antietam Campaign from the viewpoint of the Army of Northern Virginia and its commanding general, Robert E. Lee.

“Thus, it benefits us every so often to reexamine subjects that may be considered settled in the historical literature.”

How much benefit the reader may derive from Rossino’s meticulously researched analysis will depend on his ability to follow the author’s minutely detailed investigations.

For the novice reader, it poses a challenge that is well worth accepting. Relying on a rich repository of primary source material,

Rossino hopes “my interpretations of these

Their Maryland: The Army of Northern Virginia From the Potomac Crossing to Sharpsburg in September 1862 By Alexander B. Rossino Savas Beatie, 2021, $32.95 sources enhances our knowledge on some subjects, and corrects the record on others.”

Rossino begins by asking what Lee hoped to accomplish from the Confederacy’s first foray into Maryland, a slave state that did not secede. Was it a massive food raid to feed his hungry army? Did Lee believe he could challenge the security of Washington, D.C., or Baltimore? Did he expect that a second dramatic victory over a much larger Federal force, hard on the heels of his overwhelming success at Second Manassas, would impress foreign governments enough to recognize and aid the Confederacy? Rossino argues, convincingly, that September 6 was a pivotal date in the evolution of Lee’s thinking. While initially believing that the mere presence of his army would foment an uprising from thousands of sympathetic Marylanders,

TROIANI, DON (B.1949)/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

THE CONFEDERATE CENTER

General Robert E. Lee, banged up from a fall from his horse after Second Manassas, passes by Colonel John B. Gordon’s 6th Alabama line in Antietam’s Sunken Road. Ensuing battle would rechristen it Bloody Lane.

on that date Lee became convinced that only a battlefield victory on Northern soil could arouse the overwhelmingly apathetic citizenry his army encountered.

Rossino goes on to discuss various expectations voiced by soldiers in the ranks as they arrived in Maryland and their subsequent interactions with the locals. He then proceeds to locate the encampments of the Rebel army, noting that they were more widely situated than concentrated around the Best Farm south of Frederick, as most historians document. Identifying specific units and where they camped is critical when seeking to answer the many questions surrounding Special Orders No. 191—one of the most tantalizing mysteries of the entire war. Another chapter is devoted to identifying the timing of a rare photograph showing Rebel soldiers in the streets of Frederick. The final two chapters assess Lee’s strategy during the Battle of Antietam and his personal conduct during the fighting.

Rossino’s appendices are an integral part of the narrative. One of them discusses the author’s investigation into who probably lost Special Orders No. 191, Lee’s battle plans that found their way into the hands of Union commander Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan. Rossino also provides an extensive bibliography, and Savas Beatie does scholars a distinct service by putting footnotes at the bottom of the page rather than at the end of chapters or, worse yet, at the end of the narrative.

The different takes offered in Their Maryland challenge many long-accepted paradigms. Readers may not agree with all of Rossino’s conclusions, but inviting new debates into old topics may be the most important aspect of this intriguing collection of essays.

STOPPING TIME

REVIEWED BY RICHARD H. HOLLOWAY

Author Lawrence Lee Hewitt has assembled a massive collection of images by myriad cameramen in Port Hudson: The Most Significant Battlefield Photographs of the Civil War. The lion’s share of work was done by photographic partners, William D. McPherson and A.J. Oliver. McPherson achieved some acclaim as an officer in the 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters, but later turned to the lucrative vocation of photography. The clarity of the pictures is astounding in some cases, with the viewer able to see the lettering on ammunition boxes in one. Even when objects are blurred, it is still amazing to make out a cat deftly navigating a rail fence at Captain George B. Halsted’s quarters.

An anomaly among the subjects photographed at Port Hudson were several images made during the winter of 1864 that showed soldiers and their families atop horse-drawn sleds in the snow. Having the white powder that far south in Louisiana was a rare occasion, but it doubtless allowed Northerners far from home to feel more at ease and enjoy the frigid temperatures. These are bolstered by multiple fascinating photographs taken of U.S. Navy batteries and USCT troops. Of course, the most rare and spectacular image is that of the surrender of Confederate Maj. Gen. Franklin Gardner’s garrison to Union Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks’ forces taken on July 9, 1863. No other wartime photographer captured such an important occasion.

Hewitt’s detailed and informative prose is very complementary to these delightful images. Not only does the reader have access to a lengthy collection of rare photographs, but it also works in perfect conjunction with Hewitt’s earlier work, Port Hudson: Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi. This volume is certainly worthy of a spot in a historian’s Civil War library as well as that of the average enthusiast.

Port Hudson: The Most Significant Battlefield Photographs of the Civil War By Lawrence Lee Hewitt University of Tennessee Press, 2021, $49.95

Though often overshadowed by the events to the north at Vicksburg, Miss., the Union siege of Port Hudson, La., was a grueling affair that lasted 48 days, from May 22-July 9, 1863. The Federals needed to capture the town to have unfettered access to the Mississippi River, but the Confederate defenders tenaciously hung on until the surrender of Vicksburg made their situation untenable.

NATIVE ENSLAVERS

REVIEWED BY GORDON BERG

Several American Indian nations officially sided with the Confederate States of America. Fay Yarbrough’s deeply researched and cogently written history of one of the “Five Civilized Tribes” investigates the reasons behind the Choctaw decision to ally with the South, the fighting in Indian Territory done by Choctaw soldiers, and the reintegration of the Choctaws during Reconstruction.

Yarbrough explores “the ways Choctaw Indians saw the Civil War as connected to their own survival as a separate, sovereign nation.” Fortunately, she has a treasure trove of primary source documents to work with, including legislative and legal records, journals, correspondence, and slave narratives collected by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. Yarbrough’s empathetic use of anecdotal material from the Indian Pioneer History Collection allows readers to experience events of the period through Indian eyes.

The Choctaws were fully removed from their homes east of the Mississippi River by 1837 and had been enslaving people of African descent for more than a century. The 1860 Census showed slaves made up 14 percent of the Choctaw Nation. Choctaws had a reputation of being kinder enslavers, often using their bound people as interpreters. Yarbrough describes in detail the legislative framework that the Choctaws developed to maintain and retain their human property.

When it became clear that neutrality during the war was impossible, Yarbrough concludes that more than the preservation of slavery influenced the Choctaws to side with the Confederacy. Their leaders “imagined that southern states that proclaimed the sovereignty of states’ rights over federal authority would respect the sovereign rights of Indian nations.” Confederate emissaries actively sought alliances with the tribes, several entering into a treaty with the Confederacy in July 1861. Yarbrough amply describes Indian Territory fighting and how the war enhanced Choctaw Confederates: the Choctaw image of masculinity by The American Civil War in Indian Country allowing the tribe’s young men to reclaim a warrior identity. How many Choctaws

By Fay A. Yarbrough fought for the Confederacy is difficult to UNC Press, 2021, $32.95 ascertain. Yarbrough estimates about 3,100 troops can be identified in the records, an astounding 20 percent of the Choctaw population, not including their enslaved.

Reconstruction brought changes unique to the Indian Nations. “Lost Cause” mythology never took root among the Choctaws. “Most Choctaws seem to have wanted freed people removed from the nation,” Yarbrough informs, “at precisely the moment when white southerners were going to great lengths to keep their former bondpeople tied to the land.” Not until 1883, however, did the Choctaws’ 3,500 freed people gain their rights within the Choctaw Nation.

CLARK “BUD” HALL VIETNAM VETERAN, FBI AGENT, PRESERVATIONIST, AND SAVIOR OF BRANDY STATION BATTLEFIELD

What Are You Reading?

“The best way to get a clear concept of a military engagement is to study it on the ground.” Professor Wilbur S. Nye so described his basic research process while writing this threshold book that details the movement of Lee’s army to Adams County during the Gettysburg Campaign. The professor’s methodology is highlighted as it has been my experience as a Culpeper County, Va., historian that few authors show up here to conduct field research. And in doing so, they neglect performing fundamental “ground-truthing” in a battle venue more heavily fought over, marched, and camped upon than any county in Virginia. So, I am again reading Wilbur Nye’s superb book to remind myself (and others) how it should be done.

Here Come the Rebels! By Wilbur Sturtevant Nye Louisiana State University Press, 1965

EDUCATION IS POWER

An 1866 engraving of a Freedman’s Bureau school in Richmond, Va. Harriet Buss taught in similar schools.

SHE WENT ALL OUT

REVIEWED BY GORDON BERG

Iwish you could just look into my school-room some day…”; “You should look in and see me manage, you might learn something…”; “I wish you could come in and see how I live….” Enthusiastic sentiments like these appear throughout the many letters Harriet Buss sent home to her parents in Sterling, Mass., while she lived and worked among the newly freed people in South Carolina, Virginia, and North Carolina during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

After uneventful years teaching in several schools in Massachusetts, Buss headed south to Beaufort, S.C., in March 1863 to participate in the Port Royal Experiment. In Beaufort and later on Hilton Head Island, she taught classes of Black children and adults, including Robert Smalls and his daughter. “I have become much interested in my scholars,” she boasted, “and I intend they shall yet show to the world that colored children can learn something.”

Buss’ letters are packed with descriptions of her life, events around her, and the people she met. Buss comments on the bombardments of Charleston, the arrival of the 54th Massachusetts and its raids with Harriet Tubman under the command of Colonel James Montgomery, whom she admired. She mentions her acquaintance with Generals David Hunter (whom she disliked) and Rufus Saxton (of whom she approved).

Buss was sent to Hilton Head in November 1863 and opened a school of her own on an abandoned plantation, where “nearly forty children” and “seven young men from the lighthouse” came in the evenings to learn to read. “Of course, I shall teach them,” she writes.

By August 1864, Buss began to experience significant health issues and returned to Massa-

My Work Among the Freedmen: The Civil War and Reconstruction Letters of Harriet Buss Edited by Jonathan W. White and Lydia J. Davis University of Virginia Press, 2021, $39.50 chusetts to recuperate. Unlike many White women who volunteered only briefly, Buss was determined to return to the South, which she did in January 1868. Her new destination was Norfolk, Va., where she taught at the Coan School, a model institution for African Americans founded in 1863 by William I. Coan, a missionary with the American Missionary Association. Her letters from Norfolk and later from Raleigh, N.C., are filled with details about local events and her enthusiasm for organizing and teaching her students. While teaching at the Raleigh Baptist Institute, a school that eventually became Shaw University, a letter home in November 1869 admits, “I did not want to come to Raleigh…but since my arrival here, I am more and more convinced that this is just the place; there is a field here for an immense amount of good to be done.”

The good Harriet Buss accomplished permeates her amazing letters. She returned to Massachusetts in June 1871 to care for her ailing father. After her mother died in 1887, Buss returned to Shaw University and worked tirelessly teaching and fundraising for her scholars. She died in October 1895.

The editors of her letters conclude, “Harriet M. Buss’s long career as a teacher in the South sets her apart among the vast majority of white teachers of African Americans during the Civil War era and the Gilded Age.” Her letters bring to life her motto: “I will have no halfway ground.”

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Hold At All Hazards: Bigelow’s Battery at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863 By David H. Jones Casemate, 2021, $22.95

FOR BEACH AND BOOKSHELF

REVIEWED BY STEVE DAVIS

Civil War Times doesn’t usually review historical novels, but this one is a bit different. First, it’s fixed on a particular event, and on a single day: Gettysburg, July 2. It’s also set within an individual unit, Captain John Bigelow’s 9th Battery, Massachusetts Light Artillery (six 12-pounder Napoleons), fighting with Dan Sickles’ 3rd Corps near the Trostle Farm.

The author has found and included a dozenand-a-half illustrations from the Library of Congress representing Bigelow’s battery officers, as well as the guns in action, and also commissioned a cartographer to make four maps showing the battery’s positions on the battlefield. Appendices include the 9th’s casualties at Gettysburg, after-battle photographs of the Trostle Farm, and the recollections of Confederate Brig. Gen. Benjamin Humphreys, who succeeded to brigade command after Brig. Gen. William Barksdale was mortally wounded. The 21st Mississippi took four of Bigelow’s guns and fought in Humphrey’s Brigade. There’s even a bibliography.

Most important is Jones’ narrative, which reads as much a battery history as a tale of characters such as Bugler Charlie Reed, farmer Abraham Trostle’s family, and Captain Bigelow.

My one quibble is that Jones dances around the capture of Bigelow’s guns. I had to turn to Noah Trudeau’s Gettysburg to learn their fate.

As always, the immediacy of events is conveyed in characters’ conversation. “Sam,” Longstreet declares, “you will move your division…until you are on the left flank of the Federal line. Then, face left and drive them toward Gettysburg.” I felt like I was re-reading Shaara’s The Killer Angels.

You get the point. Historical novels can be more than beachside diversions. This one’s place is on your Gettysburg bookshelf.

ALSO ON THE SHELF

In the Center of the Storm: the 139th Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Civil War, by Arthur B. Fox, John Haltigan, Jeane H. Stetson, and Diane J. Rosell; 2021, Mechling Bookbindery. To order, send $40.00 (includes tax and postage) by check, money order, or cash to Arthur B. Fox, 2627 Broadway Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15216 Regimental histories, when done well, provide a ground-level view of the war. This locally published, well researched, and informative book on the history of the Pittsburgh-area 139th Pennsylvania, a 6th Corps regiment that saw heavy fighting, fits the bill. Readers will appreciate how the authors followed the regiment’s veterans into the postwar years. Numerous images, informative maps, and concise rosters, including burial locations, add value to the volume.

Grant’s Left Hook: The Bermuda Hundred Campaign, May 5-June 7, 1864, Emerging Civil War Series, by Sean Michael Chick, 2021, Savas Beatie, $39.95 How much do you know about this Virginia campaign along the James River? Probably not much. The Bermuda Hundred fighting is some of the most overlooked of the Eastern Theater, but General Ben Butler’s efforts to have his Army of the James advance on Richmond had a direct bearing on the war’s outcome. This well-illustrated book provides a succinct look at the fighting, personalities, and after-effects of the Bermuda Hundred campaign. There is no large preserved battlefield regarding Bermuda Hundred, thus an included driving tour weaves together interesting and obscure campaign sites that lets those interested trace the maneuvering.

An Illustrated History of the Civil War: The Conflict that Defined the United States, by Brooks D. Simpson, 2021, $19.99 Simpson gives the reader a concise overview of the politics and social disruption that initiated and underscored the Civil War and includes a broad look at some of the major battles. A worthy synopsis of the larger themes and actions of the war. The book’s highlight, however, is its compendium of illustrations, photographs, maps, and artifacts that offer the reader a rewarding sample of the many visual ways to experience the context of the conflict.

Historic Washington, D.C.: A Tour of the District’s Top 50 National Landmarks, by Lori Wysong, Globe Pequot, 2021, $19.95 Any list of top sites to see in Washington, D.C., should include the capital city’s icons—the White House, the Capitol Building, the Supreme Court, etc. Wysong’s guide also puts you on the path to some of the city’s more uncommon historic sites. Civil War enthusiasts will enjoy discovering some of them anew, including the General Oliver Otis Howard House, Historic Congressional Cemetery, and the U.S. Soldiers’ Home and Lincoln Cottage site, where Lincoln penned a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.

FIRST MONDAYS

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