Inside this issue:
- An interview with Antietam National Battlefield Superintendent John Howard, who will be retiring at the end of this year.
- Harold Holzer’s Cease Fire asks When will all of us finally admit what caused the war? This one is sure to raise eyebrows for more than the reason obvious in the title.
- Ron Soodalter on Hampton’s Beefsteak Raid of September, 1864.
- A look at the correspondence between William T. Sherman and John B. Hood at Atlanta in September, 1864.
- Winston Groom examines the causes of the war in Irreconcilable Differences.
- Charlie Knight (look for an interview with him on his new book Valley Thunder here soon) on Franz Sigel’s Shame in the Shenandoah.
- Antietam National Battlefield Chief Historian Ted Alexander’s Witness to Battle discusses soldier/artist James Hope’s paintings of the September 17, 1852 battle.
- Ron Soodalter shows up again with Getting Away with Murder, a study of officers who met their ends during the war in ways less typical.
Book reviews/previews in this issue:
- Christian G. Samito, Becoming Americans Under Fire: Irish Americans, African Americans, and the Politics of Citizenship During the Civil War Era.
- Sam Davis Elliot, Isham G. Harris of Tennessee: Confederate Governor and United States Senator.
- Stephen R. Taffe, Commanding Lincoln’s Navy: Union Naval Leadership During the Civil War.
- Dennis W. Belcher, The 10th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War: A History and Roster.
- Madison Smartt Bell, Devil’s Dream: A Novel About Nathan Bedford Forrest.
- Joseph G. Bilby, New Jersey Goes to War: Biographies of 150 New Jerseyans Caught Up in the Struggle of the Civil War, Including Soldiers, Civilians, Men, Women, Heroes, Scoundrels – and a Heroic Horse.
- Lt. Col. Tom McKenney, Battlefield Sniper: Over 100 Civil War Kills (This is a reprint or update of, Jack Hinson’s One-Man War: A Civil War Sniper)
- I previewed four books: James and Suzanne Gindlesperger & John F. Blair, So You Think You Know Gettysburg: The Stories Behind the Monuments and the Men Who Fought One of America’s Most Epic Battles; Kevin Daugherty, Strangling the Confederacy: Coastal Operations in the American Civil War; Charles A. Misulia, Columbus, Georgia 1865: The Last True Battle of the Civil War; and Mary Bobbitt Townsend, Yankee Warhorse: A Biography of Major General Peter Osterhaus.
Harry Smeltzer
Bull Runnings 
I’m interested in the Daugherty book. As you probably could tell, I’ve always been intrigued with those coastal operations.
LikeLike
Craig,
There’s nothing wrong with it per se, but it’s probably not the book for you. The information in it is novice level stuff.
LikeLike
I picked up the magazine specifically for Harold Holzer’s piece, and found it not very forcefully argued. He quotes Grant’s famous line from his memoirs, which is not likely to cut much ice with the unreconstructed crowd. He would have done better to cite more fully that actual words of the various articles of secession — those old fire-eaters had no hesitation about saying their secession was about preserving and expanding the institution of slavery, first and last. It’s their descendants, literal and figurative, who seem to have the most trouble coming to grips with it.
LikeLike
I choice this magazine for the article Getting Away With Murder. I am doing a summary over it for my History to 1877 class. This is a great article and gives very good detail on the subject. I learned some stuff I did not know about americas civil war and I love history. A great magazine and article.
LikeLike