Correspondence of James K. Polk (review)

174CIVIL WAR HISTORY tinued and Du Pont was pleased that Foote was the officer selected to take his place and was distressed at his death. Du Pont made no effort to conceal from his wife the contempt he felt for part-time sailors like Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, who relieved him off Charleston in August, 1863. When Dahlgren had no better success than he had himself, Du Pont got as much satisfaction as a patriot could allow himself. Other matters Du Pont's published letters shed light upon are General David Hunter's premature emancipation of slaves on the sea islands in 1862. The admiral was not consulted and foresaw trouble for Hunter, who soon was reprimanded by Lincoln. Du Pont lost his sympathy for slave holders when he saw that they had failed to live up to their obligations by abandoning their helpless slaves upon the approach of Union gunboats. The attitude of regular officers toward "outside" (reserve) officers and army-navy cooperation both touch familiar notes to twentieth century naval and military veterans. Du Pont thought the latter one-way, with the army generally an amateurish outfit which was always needing the navy to get it out of trouble. Yet he was cooperative in his interservice dealing. His comment following General George McClellan's poor showing after Antietam was that an eagle whose wings have been clipped never soars so high again; that is, once McClellan had been removed from high command, he could not be expected to be very effective if he was restored to command with less authority than he formerly had. Du Pont never had another opportunity to try out his own wings after Welles clipped them in the summer of 1863. Nevertheless he was an eagle for a time and upon Du Pont's wings the navy soared with grace and dignity. Tom Henderson Wells Northwestern State College (Louisiana) Correspondence of James K. Polk. Volume I, 1817-1832. Edited by Herbert Weaver and Paul H. Bergeron. (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1969. Pp. xxxviii, 619. $15.00.) To spend a winter's evening with a volume of a nineteenth-century statesman 's papers is to wonder if future historians will blame aircraft and telephones for a decline in literacy. To peruse this particular volume, the first of six devoted exclusively to correspondence, is also to wish that carbon paper had been invented before the twentieth century. In Polk's day the country's business was far more dependent on the mail exchange of the written word than it is in today's world of instant communication. Yet this volume illustrates how fragmentary the remaining evidence can often be: 664 letters in fifteen years, and only 96 of them by Polk. Although he had been in the House for eight years, he had apparently not yet begun to keep letterbooks, and most of the outgoing letters are origi- book reviews175 nais gathered from repositories hither and yon. The editors have included all correspondence found. Some 138 very routine pieces have been summarized rather than printed in full, a practice which will no doubt be increasingly necessary as the presidential years approach. The editors have been meticulous and thorough in tracking down elusive citizens, identifying unclear references, crossreferencing letters, and providing the various other trappings a volume like this needs. They have been careful to note defective manuscripts, and they have left erratic spelling and punctuation alone. Because of the many geographical references, a better map of Polk's congressional district, perhaps as a large foldout attached to the back end-paper, would have been most welcome. Polk was deeply immersed in routine business for his constituents. His most frequent correspondent was the Third Auditor of the Treasury (56 letters), followed by the chief of the War Department Pension Office (27). Land claims, back pay for veterans, jobs, and postal routes were his main concerns. His constituents solicited basic legal advice and expected him to appear in court for them during summer recess. Often they asked him to subscribe in their names to Washington papers. One "unlearned farmer" even sent him an essay on earthquakes and comets, asked him to ghostwrite it, and give it to...