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BOOK REVIEWS77 helped to crystallize the opinion in the South that the Union must be dissolved." In the final essay, "The Southern Unionists," James L. Golden concentrates on six selected speakers whose oratory "played no small part in delaying secession." He concludes: "If their rhetorical commitment to stereotyped appeals to the Constitution marred their long-range historical influence, it did not prevent the Unionists from contributing significantly to the delay in starting the Civil War." The book includes an excellent eleven-page annotated bibliography of listings that "throw light on the concept (image or myth) of southern oratory." It succeeds in attempting to show how the nature and the substance of public address reveal the social and political mind of a people in this case, a nation within a nation. While varying in their approach and quality, the essays make a substantial contribution to our understanding of southern oratory between 1828 and 1860 and its inadequate role in resolving the growing national conflict. These rhetorical critics add a needed historical dimension as they "reveal the flesh-and-blood speakers of the Old South." The editor claims that the essays "help to destroy the myth of a southern orator" being flamboyant, ornate and passionate. He probably would agree, however, with Rollin Osterweis, in Romanticism and Nationalism in the Old South, that the "Old South was filled with ambitious men fervent in their belief that oratory was the key to power." In this sense, the essays would support the existence of a typical southern orator . Braden further claims for the southern orator that "the elements of commonality actually developed from generally held tenets which served as the bases for many speeches—a desire to preserve state rights, slavery, and an agrarian aristocracy." There are admittedly some gaps in the overall picture of southern oratory (a more accurate title would be "Political Oratory in the Old South") but the authors have given us a lively and well-documented treatment of the influence of southern oratory on political issues. The book is an excellent contribution to the intellectual and rhetorical history of the Old South. D. Ray Heisey Kent State University Battle Fkgs South: The Story of the Civil War Navies on Western Waters. By James M. Merrill. (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970. Pp. 334. $10.00.) In recent years historians have devoted increasing attention to the Civil War in the West and Battle Fkgs South is a creditable addition to the growing list. Generally, northern military leaders recognized the importance of gaining control of the Mississippi and its tributaries. Sherman considered the opening of the river and the dividing of the Con- 78CIVIL WAR HISTORY federacy "far more important [to ultimate victory] than the conquest of Virginia." Henry W. Halleck expressed the opinion that the Mississippi River campaign was "the most important operation of the war." Confederate leaders eventually recognized this but not until it was too late. The Mississippi was lost by the summer of 1863, and as Merrill demonstrates , the Union navy played an important if not decisive role in that loss. Amphibious operations are emphasized in what is in many ways a companion volume to the author's earlier work, The Rebel Shore. From Forts Henry and Donelson through the Vicksburg campaign, Merrill narrates the engagements that determined control of the western rivers. The account of Union shipbuilding is particularly interesting. Confederate naval activities are included, but efforts to challenge Union superiority on the western rivers were feeble, and other than the exploits of the Arkansas, little or no success was achieved. My two major criticisms are: first, the absence of maps; and second, concluding the study with the Vicksburg campaign. Although there were no important naval engagements on the western rivers after the summer of 1863, the struggle for control of the rivers continued to the end. In addition, the Red River campaign was a major amphibious operation . Dr. Merrill's style is lively, his research impressive. All in all, a readable and interesting book. William N. Still, Jr. East Carolina University Diary of Howard Stillwell Stanfield, 1864-65. Edited by Jack J. Detzler. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969. Pp. 232. $6.75.) Letters From Alabama, 1817-1822...

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