A Civil War Book Collection for 2002

LR ^ | 02 September 2002 | Donald Miller

[stainlessbanner]

Ok FReepers, any books you would add to the list?

[stainlessbanner]

Add your favorites to the list.

If you want on/off this bump list, FReepmail me

[kimosabe31]

bump

[exit82]

I would like to add two:

1. The Annals of the Civil War--Written by Leading Participants North and South--Da Capo Press 1994

This is a reprint of the series " The Annals of the War" published in 1878 as a series by the Philadelphia Weekly Times, edited then by Alexander McClure. McClure paired North and South soldiers and commanders on the same topic, and their first hand accounts, even 125 years after they were written, are fascinating. They often show that there is more than one side to a story, and that history is always written from a perspective.

2. My Story of the War, by Mary Livermore,1889. Mary Livermore was one of the leaders of the US Sanitary Commission, which sought to improve soldier medical care and hospital coditions. Her first person accounts of her four years on the Commission,including two personal visits with Abraham Lincoln, are a valuable memoir of that time period, and show the enormity of the suffering of the wounded and dying soldiers, and the state of medical care, during the Civil War. Especially poignant are the stories she tells of soldiers' last words and requests--heartbreaking at times. I have an original 1889 version, autographed by her.

[Pelham]

Destruction and Reconstruction, by Richard Taylor.

Richard Taylor, the son of President Zachary Taylor, was a Confederate general in the western theater. This is perhaps the best and most literate memoir written by a principal from the war. Very illuminating of some of the battles in the neglected western theater. Taylor at one point lured a fleet of Union gunboats up... the Red River, I believe it was, trapping them as the water fell. Kirby-Smith's failure to understand what Taylor was doing squandered the opportunity to capture them. A Confederate flotilla on the Mississippi would have added great complications to Grant and Foote in the west, where the War ultimately was decided.

The Black Flower, Howard Bahr

The experience of a rifleman during two days of the Battle of Franklin. A vivid rendering, a truly excellent book. I'd rate it equal, and maybe better than, the Shaara books.

[wardaddy]

My favorite as a boy was a novel by James Street called Captain Little Axe. It is now a collector's piece.

[Al B.]

"Lee's Lieutenants," by Douglas Southall Freeman....the 3-volume history of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Freeman was a 2-time Pulitzer Prize winner for his biographies of Lee and George Washington.

[FireTrack]

"Destruction and Reconstruction, by Richard Taylor"

Wow! I thought I was the only person on here who knew about Dick Taylor. I have to second that nomination. I would love to see a movie based his experiences!!!

Not exactly a Civil War Book, but close. Check out "Twelve Years a Slave"

[SteveH]

The first thing one learns from reading the books listed above is that America did not need a war to end slavery. Every other Western country that held slaves in the nineteeth century – which included Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Jamaica – freed them peacefully. The South would have done the same before the century was over. If anything, the fact that seven slaveholding states seceded from the Union when Lincoln was elected president would have sped up the process. As several of the historians above point out, many people in the North considered the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law to be an abomination, and the law would have been repealed if Lincoln had allowed the Southern states to go their own way. The Constitution of the Confederate States of American prohibited the importation of slaves (Article I, Section 9); with their supply thus restricted, and slaves now having a place to escape to, slavery in the Confederacy would have ended as it did elsewhere, without war.

This seems logically weak (especially if one puts oneself in the shoes of a slave in the 1850's South) and seems to be contradicted by the following:

With no corporate, property, or income taxes then in force, the government’s principal source of revenue was import tariffs; and the South, with the greater number of ports, paid 87 percent of the taxes that the federal government collected to fund its operations and pay government salaries. Lincoln was willing to let the South keep its slaves and enforce the Fugitive Slave Law so long as the Southern states remained in the Union and continued to pay its disproportionate percentage of taxes.

So (perhaps someone with more historical sense can help me here) on one side many countries were abolishing slavery, but on the other side were consuming goods made from raw materials which were produced by slavery condoning countries. As the latter became fewer and fewer, it seems to me that the economics in favor of their remaining slavery condoning states became stronger, not weaker, with the passing of time and the overall decrease in the number of slavery condoning countries. (I also suspect that other countries not listed, such as Haiti, had to undergo a revolution at some point to evolve politically, though of course Haiti continues to have massive problems with poverty, etc. today.)

I have relatives who fought on the side of the Confederacy so I would like nothing more than to believe the romantic notion that the South fought entirely for noble ideals. I also note that Lincoln was no political innocent, following in the footsteps of Hamilton and blazing a path for the cause of federal supremacy over more local rule. I believe that many Southerners, such as Lee, had noble ideals, but that there were many others who were crowded by economics, greed, or a combination, to benefit unfairly from the forced labors of others, and could have continued to do so indefinitely were it not for war. Therefore it seems to me a hard sell to convince anyone that the South could have freed its slaves of its own volition without Lincoln's war and power grabbing politics. In fact, it seems one could make the argument that if the South had modernized its politics and culture and freed the slaves of its own volition, Lincoln as a political force would not have been able to muster enough support to put himself in the presidency in the first place, and the federalist movement in the USA would have been at least delayed.

(An interesting question is would it have happened at all? -- I believe probably so, though to a lesser degree, brought about by other incidents such as WWI and WWII; although the US entry into both wars was somewhat predicated by artificial means, the general fact seems to be that there needs to be some mechanism to permit the US to defend itself effectively and quickly from sneak attacks, nuclear attacks, terrorist attacks, etc., and the old method of having Congress debate and resolve to declare war, then muster an army, etc.-- the 18th century model -- would have left the US defensively weak and open to attack by the early 20th century if not the late 19th century.)

[Pelham]

there were many others who were crowded by economics, greed, or a combination,

An apt description of the Gilded Age, the corrupt years following the Civil War during which an unholy combination of politicians and businessmen enriched themselves at the expense of others. They were the victorious Yankees, including the Grant Administration, but what would you expect? The type can be identified by the pointing finger of accusation, usually pointed south. Very sharp eyed at spotting the faults of others. Its modern descendant is leftism, which like the abolition movement of old, finds its spiritual home in Massachussetts.

[FireTrack]

A few passages from Richard Taylor's "Destruction and Reconstruction";

Chapter I. Secession

The history of the United States, as yet unwritten, will show the causes of the "Civil War' to have been in existence during the Colonial era, and to have cropped out into full view in the debates of the several Sate Assemblies on the adoption of the Federal Constitution, in which instrument Luther Martin, Patrick Henry, and others insisted that they were implanted, African slavery at the time was universal, and its extinction in the North, as well as its extension in the South, was due to economic reasons alone.

The first serious difficulty of the Federal Government arose from the attempt to lay an excise on distilled spirits. The second arose from the hostility of New England traders to the policy of the Government in the war of 1812, by which their special interests were menaced; and there is now evidence to prove that, but for the unexpected peace, an attempt to disrupt the Union would then have been made.

The "Missouri Compromise" of 1820 was in reality a truce between antagonistic revenue systems, each seeking to gain the balance of power. For many years subsequently, slaves--as domestic servants--were taken to the Territories without exciting remark, and the "Nullification" movement in South Carolina was entirely directed against the tariff.

Anti-slavery was agitated from an early period, but failed to attract public attention for many years. At length, by unwearied industry, by ingeniously attaching itself to exciting questions of the day, with which it had no natural connection, it succeeded in making a lodgment in public mind, which, like a subject exhausted by long effort, is exposed to the attack of some malignant fever, that in a normal condition of vigor would have been resisted. The common belief that slavery was the cause of civil war is incorrect, and Abolitionists are not justified in claiming the glory and spoils of the conflict and in pluming themselves as "choosers of the slain."

The vast immigration that poured into the country between the years 1840 and 1860 had a very important influence in directing the events of the latter year. The numbers were too great to be absorbed and assimilated by the native population. States in the West were controlled by German and Scandinavian voters, while the Irish took possession of the seaboard towns. Although the balance of party strength was not much affected by these naturalized voters, the modes of political thought were seriously disturbed, and a tendency was manifested to transfer exciting topics from the domain of argument to that of violence.

Chapter XIV. Criticisms and Reflections

Aggrieved by the action and tendencies of the Federal Government, and apprehending worse in the future, a majority of the people of the South approved secession as the only remedy suggested by their leaders. So travelers enter railway carriages, and are dragged up grades and through tunnels with utter loss of volition, the motive power, generated by fierce heat, being far in advance and beyond their control.

We set up a monarch, too, King Cotton, and hedged him with divinity surpassing that of earthly potentates. To doubt his royalty and power was confession of ignorance or cowardice. This potent spirit, at the nod of our Prosperos, the cotton-planters, would arrest every loom and spindle in New England, destroy her wealth, and reduce her population to beggary.

Extinction of slavery was expected by all and regretted by none, although loss of slaves destroyed the value of land. Existing since the earliest colonization of the Southern States, the institution was interwoven with the thoughts, habits, and daily lives of both races and both suffered by the sudden disruption of the accustomed tie. Blockaded during the war, an without journals to guide opinion and correct error, we were unceasingly slandered by our enemies, who held possession of every avenue to the world's ear.

During all these years the conduct of the Southern people has been admirable. Submitting to the inevitable, they have shown fortitude and dignity, and rarely has one been found base enough to take wages of shame from the oppressor and malinger of his brethren. Accepting the harshest conditions and faithfully observing them, they have struggled in all honorable ways, and for what? For their slaves? Regret for their loss has neither been felt nor expressed. But they have striven for that which brought our forefathers to Runnymede, the privilege of exercising some influence in their own government. Yet we fought for nothing but slavery, says the world, and the late Vice-President of the Confederacy, M. Alexander Stephens, reechoes the cry, declaring that it was the corner-stone of his Government.

[Physicist]

The Story of the 48th by Joseph Gould. It's a regimental history of the 48th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, with which four members of my family served, including my father's paternal grandfather.

[aomagrat]

"Company Aitch" by Sam Watkins.

[Constitution Day]

A Civil War Book Collection for 2002

Harrumph. There was nothing "Civil" about it!
8^)

(Bump for later reading, thanks for the ping!)

[Non-Sequitur]

I believe the seven books listed above belong in every serious American Civil War book collectors’ library. Read them, particularly Charles Adams’ When in the Course of Human Events and Thomas DiLorenzo’s The Real Lincoln, and you will begin to view America’s Civil War in a new, more penetrating, and truer light.

Barf alert.

[Ditto]

The Constitution of the Confederate States of American prohibited the importation of slaves (Article I, Section 9); with their supply thus restricted, and slaves now having a place to escape to, slavery in the Confederacy would have ended as it did elsewhere, without war.

What a bunch of crap! The importation of slaves was ended in 1808 and the slave population of the US grew by nearly 4 times from slightly over 1 million in 1810 to nearly 4 million in 1860. At the heighth of the Underground Railroad, only a few thousand slaves escaped each year. And with the slave population increasingly concentrated in the deep south cotton belt, the chances of any slave making it hundreds of miles to freedom in the north were slim to none.

The slaveocrats banned importation of slaves in the Confederate constitution for one reason --- it was in their economic interest to do so. If more slaves were imported it would decrease the value of their existing slaves. That is not even to mention that the Atlantic slave trade was all but dead by 1860 thanks to the efforts of the British Navy. That clause was like giving up Brussels sprouts for Lent!

[Non-Sequitur]

But in the interest of scholarship I'll add a few suggestions to the list. If one is interested in the details of major battles then I suggest two authors: Stephen Sears and Peter Cozzens. Stephen Sears has written excellent single volume books on Chancellorsville, Antietam, and the Seven Days battles in 1862. He has also edited the papers of several Union generals and wrote an excellent biography of George McClellan. Cozzens has specialized on the west and his books on Chattanooga, Chickamauga, and Stones River form an excellent trilogy on that theater. Byron Farwell has written probably the best biography of Thomas Jackson there is. The number of really excellent books on the Civil War are too numerous to mention, really. It all depends on what part you're interested in.

[Non-Sequitur]

The slaveocrats banned importation of slaves in the Confederate constitution for one reason.

This southron canard gets repeated over and over and over until it is accepted as gospel, just like the ridiculous claim that the south paid 85% of the total tariffs. The actual fact is that, far from banning imports, the confederate constitution actually protected imports. Article I, section 9:

The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

[fagin62]

I prefer first-hand accounts, free of any "revisionist history". A few of my favorites...
Co.Aytch by Sam Watkins
Battlefield And Prison Pen by John W. Urban (1882)
Andersonville Diary by John Ransom
I Rode With Stonewall by Henry Kyd Douglas
Recollections And Letters Of General Robert E. Lee by his son Captain Robert E. Lee (1904)

[billbears]

the confederate constitution actually protected imports.

Yep, and Chase's actions 8 years earlier did nothing to influence his self serving decision in '69. < /sarcasm> The fact is that the statement in the Confederate Constitution went further towards ending slavery altogether than anything in the US Constitution. It further appeased the small, minute, non existant Abolitionist Party in the union by stating that no slaves would be accepted from union states. The border states knew that slavery was dying out over simple cost. Within 20-30 years it would have died off altogether. Stephens as much said this in his discussion with lincoln (root,pig, or perish conversation. Surely you remember that Non). Instead ol' abe decided that 600,000 men had to die, the nation go into debt 100 times what it was in '61, and his all glorious Hamiltonian Empire just HAD to be built