Gunboats Down the Mississippi (review)

278CIVIL WAR HISTORY anecdotes, as well as colorful writing, lend interest to the work and should make it popular with the general reading public. Again, however, brevity at times detracts from interest qualities, as in the chapter on politics of the 1850's which has more the appearance of a political genealogy than an historical resumé of the period. In short, Professor Wallace's objectives and stated purposes are laudatory, but scholars and laymen alike must still await a study in depth of these years of turmoil in the Lone Star state. Texas in the War, 1861-1865 will serve as a valuable reference work for future researchers in Texas military history. The nucleus of the volume is an extensive compilation of statistical data on Texas units and commanders in the Confederate armed forces by General Marcus J. Wright. Since Wright assisted in the compiling of the Official Records, he was in an unusually advantageous position to collect state materials, a task he undertook for Texas, Tennessee, and Arkansas. His manuscripts on the latter two states have previously been published, and in this work Colonel Simpson rescues the manuscript on Texas from archival obscurity. To the original manuscript Simpson has added voluminous notes of biographical and historical nature, portraits of military leaders, and appendices of further elaboration. The title is somewhat misleading, but it follows the precedent set by the publications on Arkansas and Tennessee at earlier dates. This is not a history of Texas' role in the Civil War, and it will be of little interest to the general reader other than descendants of the military leaders intent upon embellishing the family tree. It will, however, serve as an important reference work for those delving into Civil War Texas history. Jack B. Scroggs North Texas State University Gunboats Down the Mississippi. By John D. Milligan. (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, 1965. Pp. xxvii, 217. $7.50. ) Here we have the story of the Union rams, ironclads, woodclads, tinclads, mortar boats, and other assorted craft which played such a vital role in opening the Mississippi during the first two years of the war. The Confederates at times underestimated this flotilla, and as Professor Milligan points out, historians have not given the fresh-water navy its just due either. Milligan's case for the strategic importance of the Mississippi River system to both North and South wül hardly be controverted. More questionable, even though supported by such military historians as J. F. C. Fuller and B. H. Liddell-Hart, is the assertion that the final Union success at Vicksburg was more important than the simultaneous victory at Gettysburg. The disastrous consequences of a Confederate victory in Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863 could easily have negated the Union success at Vicksburg. As it was, the South held out for twenty-one months after Vicksburg had isolated the trans-Mississippi states. In structure this volume is basically a chronological narrative, with de- BOOK REVIEWS279 tailed attention judiciously apportioned among significant topics: construction and technical features of the craft; tactical conduct and strategic results of battles; the sharing of control by the War and Navy Departments; and the capabilities of naval commanders and their land colleagues. While the author's technical descriptions of naval architecture will be clear enough for experts, the inclusion of a few simple line drawings would have benefited the average reader. Explanation of the relative firepower of guns classified by weight of the projectile and those classified by the diameter of the bore would have been useful, too. MiUigan's battle narratives are much better than his structural descriptions; the five sketch maps are good, but such a book needs more than five. Troublesome situations created by the attempt to give the War and Navy Departments joint jurisdiction over river operations are clearly illustrated, and Milligan correctly feels that it should have been strictly the navy's show. In his estimations of leading personalities Milligan is ordinarily moderate and fair. The characteristic restraint fades when he refers to the Eilet family, whose specialty was building and commanding rams, as "rash, ambitious, even insubordinate," but ample illustrations of those traits are at hand. David Dixon Porter emerges accurately portrayed...