These Men She Gave: The Civil War Diary of Athens, Georgia (review)

330CIVIL WAR HISTORY farther west. Inedible rations and deep snows tiiat prevented supply trains from getting dirough to die posts brought a crisis by die middle of January, and die Pond's Creek post was abandoned. But when die soldiers got to Monument Station diey found it near the end of its supplies, and both groups were forced to march through a howling blizzard to Fort Fletcher, a hundred miles away, only to find die garrison diere existing on parched corn. Salina, die nearest post, was eighty miles away, and die situation was grim. Fortunately , at diis critical juncture supply wagons arrived. The autíior found little in published accounts about the exploits of the Galvanized Yankees, but when he dug into the official records of the regiments and of the campaigns, into personal letters and into soldiers' newspapers , he discovered die tale of these expendables who endured blizzards and frigid weadier, heat and drought, grueling marches and scanty rations, encounters with pitiless enemies, die monotony of lonely, bleak army posts and even starvation, who guarded die nation's frontiers with heroism and devotion, and who dien disappeared unhonored into die dustbin of history. Professor Brown has fashioned a well-told story about a peripheral activity diat has been overshadowed by the mighty events unfolding elsewhere at the same time._ _, _ Rodney C. Loehr University of Minnesota These Men She Gave: The Civil War Diary of Athens, Georgia. By John F. Stegeman. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1964. Pp. viii, 179. $4.75.) John F. Stegeman, an Athens, Georgia, physician, has written with love and pride of his home town and county's contributions to die cause of Southern independence. For the first half of this little book, die author's heroes are die Brothers Cobb: Howell, president of die Provisional Congress of die Confederacy, and Thomas R. R., one of the authors of the Confederate Constitution, both later general officers in the Confederate States Army. This is not solely the story of the Cobb family, however, but of die Troup Artillery, die Adiens Guards, die Georgia Troopers, die Meli Rifles, die Highland Guards, die Clarke County Rifles, die Johnson's Guards, and dieir officers and their men, of die Army of Northern Virginia. The Troup Artillery, first to leave Adiens, received its baptism of fire in West Virginia during die late summer and fall of 1861. By December of diat year, this battery had joined the Meli Rifles and Georgia Troopers to become part of Thomas Cobb's Legion of Howell Cobb's Brigade. During George B. McClellan's Peninsular campaign of 1862, all seven of the Clarke County companies participated in die defense of Richmond. At Antietam and at Fredericksburg die Georgia companies were among those present in preliminary or final engagements. Fredericksburg was a sad occasion for Adiens, since Thomas Cobb was among die battle's victims. Already Howell BOOK REVIEWS331 had moved to the periphery of die story widi a new assignment in Florida. From Fredericksburg through Appomattox, Clarke County companies continued to be conspicuously present. At Chancellorsville, the Johnson Guards marched around die Union army. At Gettysburg, the Meli Rifles charged into die Peach Orchard; and die Adiens Guards and Clarke Rifles widi tiieir brigade futilely attacked die Federal position on Cemetery Ridge in a preview of die action to follow. The Johnson Guards were near die "Bloody Angle" at Spotsylvania and marched into Maryland widi General Jubal Early in the summer of 1864. At Petersburg, the Adiens Guards, Clarke Rifles, and Highland Guards rushed forward to aid in closing die breach at the batde of die Crater. One of die most interesting chapters describes Adiens during a threat from Federal raiders in 1864. Here die autiior recounts die ludicrous confusion stemming from divided autiiority and indifference to discipline among die local or "minute-man" companies, which confusion renders Adiens' escape from destruction a minor miracle of die war. Dr. Stegeman has pieced togetiier his account of die Adiens and Clarke County companies almost entirely from Civil War letters and newspapers. Of die approximately three hundred footnotes, about one-half refer to letters, most of diem written between husband and wife or otiier...