Toward Gettysburg: A Biography of General John F. Reynolds (review)

118civil war history Toward Gettysburg: A Biography of General John F. Reynolds. By Edward J. Nichols. (State College: The Pennsylvania State College Press. 1958. Pp. viii, 276. $6.00.) the title has been well chosen. Gettysburg is a magic word—and it belongs to any biography of Reynolds. It may help attract attention that the name of the General alone never could have. He has been one of the forgotten leaders ofthe Civü War for manyyears. If quiz programs had not pretty weU disappeared from the air waves, it would be interesting to pose a three-point question something like this: Name a Union general, commanding more than a corps, who was küled in action, succeeded on the field by Major General O. O. Howard, and whose death terminated not only a brilliant career but a blossoming romance. Most contestants would probably answer James B. McPherson—and win. Would the judges also have accepted John F. Reynolds as a correct answer? They should have. And it is interesting to note that General Sherman linked them together—as if singling them out as the most distinguished of a long list of Union commanders lost in battle. Near the end of the war, in a message to a former friend and Union sympadiizer in North Carolina, he wrote—"in consequence we mourn the loss of such men as John F. Reynolds, McPherson and thousands of noble gentlemen, any one of whom was worth all the slaves in the south and half of the white population thrown in." Dr. Nichols is the first student of the Civü War period to attempt a biography of General Reynolds, and he has written an interesting, scholarly, and needed book. If anyone were to survey the field and attempt to select some individual, engagement, or chapter that had been neglected, he would have been compeUed to place Reynolds' name near the top of the list. Despite the flood of biographical and other writing on the period that is corning from the presses today, this material has been almost untouched. The Pennsylvanian has been a sort of shadowy figure. A statue at Gettysburg —yes, which is noted by thousands each year but soon recedes as just another monument among a welter of monuments. His name appears repeatedly in any account of the Seven Days, Fredericksburg, ChanceUorsviUe, or Gettysburg, but he was not in command, there were other capable commanders , and he was not the center of any controversy. No one can read General Meade's letters or his biography without some appreciation of Reynolds ' role in the Army of the Potomac, but few browse through the Meade material in this day and age. In his foreword the author acknowledges the important assist he received from the Reynolds family in making avaüable to him—and for a period of time only to him—a cherished coUection of Reynolds papers including many intimate letters from the General to his sisters. Here we get some glimpse of what was going on inside tiiis handsome, correct, somewhat aloof West Point product. At the outset of the war there were few regular army men with less confidence in the volunteer. Reynolds thought seriously of surrendering his briga- Book Reviews119 dier's star to return to a regular regiment as lieutenant colonel. His brief service with the Pennsylvania militia during the Antietam campaign was an unhappy experience. Yet no general officer was more respected, if not beloved , by the men who served with him—witness the "presentation" sword bought with enlisted men's dollars that he was not to hve to receive. Soon after Gettysburg, Frank HaskeU spoke of him as one of the soldier generals of the army. This is a book that is easy to read, with its climax the crucial battle of the war. It is tobe hoped that Towards Gettysburg wiU whet the curiosity of many readers—and thereby help do justice to the memory of a gaUant gentleman. It wiU delight the student with its first-rate reference summary and index. O. J. Keller Springfield, Illinois. The Battle of Gettysburg. By Frank Aretas Haskell. Edited by Bruce Catton. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1958. Pp. xviii, 169, $3...