Preview: New from Savas Beatie with Bull Run Links

Two new releases from Savas Beatie have Bull Run ties.

The Civil Wars of General Joseph E. Johnston, Confederate States Army, Vol. I: Virginia and Mississippi, 1861-1863 by Richard R. McMurry looks at various aspects of the career of the commander of the Army of the Shenandoah at First Bull Run. From the dust jacket:

In The Civil Wars of General Joseph E. Johnston, Richard M. McMurry argues persuasively that the Confederacy’s most lethal enemy was the toxic dissension within the top echelons of its high command. The discord between General Johnston and President Jefferson Davis (and others), which began early in the conflict and only worsened as the months passed, routinely prevented the cooperation and coordination the South needed on the battlefield if it was going to achieve its independence. The result was one failed campaign after another, all of which cumulatively doomed the Southern Confederacy.

McMurry’s study is not a traditional military biography but a lively and opinionated conversation about major campaigns and battles, strategic goals and accomplishments, and how these men and their decision-making and leadership abilities directly impacted the war effort. Personalities, argues McMurry, win and lose wars, and the military and political leaders who form the focal point of this study could not have been more different (and in the case of Davis and Johnston, more at odds) when it came to making the important and timely decisions necessary to wage the war effectively.

You get:

• 326 pages of narrative in 12 chapters
• Foreword by Stephen Davis (who concludes McMurry’s assessment of Johnston in this work “is one of the most scathing that exists in the voluminous Civil War literature”)
• Four Edward Alexander maps
• (Bibliography will follow in Vol. II)
• Bottom of page footnotes
• Index

The Military Memoirs of a Confederate Line Officer, edited by William R. Cobb, are the recollections of John C. Reed, who was a lieutenant in Co. I, 8th Georgia Infantry, at First Bull Run (read his account of the battle, which is included in this volume, here). From the website:

John C. Reed fought through the entire war as an officer in the 8th Georgia Infantry, most of it with General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. The Princeton graduate was wounded at least twice (Second Manassas and Gettysburg), promoted to captain during the Wilderness fighting on May 6, 1864, and led his company through the balance of the Overland Campaign, throughout the horrific siege of Petersburg, and all the way to the Appomattox surrender on April 9, 1865.

The Military Memoirs of a Confederate Line Officer is a perceptive and articulate account filled with riveting recollections of some of the war’s most intense fighting. Reed offers strong opinions on a wide variety of officers and topics. This outstanding memoir, judiciously edited and annotated by William R. Cobb, is published here in full for the first time. The Military Memoirs of a Confederate Line Officer is a valuable resource certain to become a classic in the genre.

You get:

• 176 pages of memoir, in 28 chapters.
• Foreword by Lt. Col. (Ret) Henry Persons
• Bottom of page footnotes
• Nine maps (Hampton Newsome and Hal Jesperson) – including an interpretation of Reed’s map found here
• Bibliography listing five sources used, including numerous CSRs from Fold3
• Index