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352CIVIL WAR HISTORY battlefield. Most recruits, however, were alert enough to realize that musket fire was more deadly than artillery explosions. Indeed, the authors conclude that a large majority of the recruits gained control of their fears, fired their weapons, and fought. Most did not desert, and later, many of them publicly exposed the few who did. Frank and Reaves attribute this eventual courage to the nearness of comrades in dense formations, and the recruits' "patriotic loyalty" (140) and strong moral commitment. Men on both sides ultimately felt surges of anger and superhuman power, and, Wiley's conclusions notwithstanding , killed without remorse. The authors provide an analysis of the soldiers' postbattle evaluations. They found that nearly 70 percent of them experienced a loss of morale because they felt that their generals had wasted an opportunity to win a great victory. The depression grew among the Union troops as they buried the decaying bodies and assessed the dreadful medical treatment of the wounded. However, this despondency, which also affected the Confederates, eventually dissipated, and the survivors boasted about their units' bravery and about the casualties they had inflicted on their respective enemy. The Union soldiers wrongly surmised that their foe was demoralized, and the Confederates rationalized their failure to destroy the Northern army as being due to its superior logistical support. Unlike the conclusions of Wiley, et al., and Stouffer, et al., about Civil War and World War II soldiers respectively, the authors find a fierce postbattle animosity among the former recruits towards those whom they had fought. As a result, the soldiers were more committed to decisive victory which most still believed was not far off. The minor irritants of footnote citations in the narrative does not seriously detract from this outstanding work. Some stimulating new thoughts, challenges to other interpretations and the authors' skill make it a significant study to those who believe that there is still much to be learned about wars and about the men who fight in them. Marvin R. Cain University of Missouri-Rolla Spy of the Rebellion. By Allan Pinkerton. Edited by Patrick Bass. (Chicago: A. G. Nettleton & Co., 1883. Reprint: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. Pp. 666. $40.00 cloth; $15.95 paper.) In the introduction to this reprint of Allan Pinkerton's Civil War memoirs, we are warned that in these pages there is some stretching of the facts. "Pinkerton took great liberties with the truth," we are told. It cannot be determined whether he "even records the truth as he knew it." Then comes an about-face: "Spy of the Rebellion is nonetheless invaluable as a first-class source in Civil War history." It is "as vital to any serious BOOK REVIEWS353 student of the early Virginia campaigns as it is to any examination of Civil War intelligence operations," and "well worth the most careful attention of both scholars and general readers." If the book has such great value despite its doubtful factuality, what, then, are its positive qualities? The introduction makes much of the political insights and the pen portraits of Union leaders that Pinkerton drew from having been a Washington insider. But his position as an insider is just as doubtful as the other "facts" in the book, and his insights and portraits are trivial and unconvincing. As for the history one looks for in a Pinkerton book—for example, accounts of intelligence operations—it is even more unconvincing. While assuring the reader that every word in his book is true, Pinkerton claimed absolution from the requirements of documentation on the ground that nearly all of his Civil War records were destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1871. However, enough of his stories can be checked in other records to indicate the extent of his "great liberties." And we find that great liberties are what the book is made of. They are of two kinds. One is the heavy embellishment of stories of actual events. A good example is Pinkerton's story of his arrest of Rose Greenhow. It contains eight discrepancies with his account of the same incident in the Official Records. As the official version is only fifteen lines long, the invention of so many as eight conflicting...

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