Banners to the Breeze: The Kentucky Campaign, Corinth, and Stones River (review)

BOOK REVIEWS267 work ofMary Gillette, who might have provided her with more accurate information regarding medical practices. The bibliography and notes are replete with errors ofform. Of the sixty-eight bibliographic entries (two works cited in footnotes do not appear at all), fully thirty-eight are incorrect. Footnote forms suffer the same fate. Pity the poor nineteenth-century women of the elite class in America. Garrison 's work does not advance a new argument regarding the meaning of these women's lives or their work and, in fact, is most unsettling, with her frequent complaints that these women did not do as they "should" and use their activities as a springboard from which to push for suffrage or other reforms. It is not only ahistorical, but also inappropriate to assume that values prized by feminists in the late twentieth century were prized by women in the mid-nineteenth century. These women did not see their actions as part of a reform impulse, true. But they served their country, nearly lost their health and their Uves, and retreated to the safety and support of gender conventions when the war ended for them. They also saved the Uves ofcountless soldiers and that really ought to be enough. Janet L. Coryell Western Michigan University Banners to the Breeze: The Kentucky Campaign, Corinth, and Stones River. By Earl J. Hess. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. Pp. 263. $32.00.) This work is part of the University ofNebraska Press's Great Campaigns of the Civil War Series. The scope of the work is rather interesting. Hess picks up the story in the aftermath of Ulysses Grant's victory at Shiloh and the ensuing occupation of the key Confederate rail junction of Corinth, Mississippi. He then details the aggressive Confederate response, namely the abortive offensive into Kentucky, the botched attempt to retake Corinth, and finally Braxton Bragg's failed attempt to destroy William S. Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland at Stones River (or Murfreesboro, depending upon what side of the Mason-Dixon line you live on). Hess takes a very conventional approach, attributing the failure of the Confederate response to the fractured Confederate command system. The move into Kentucky was hamstrung by the different agendas pursued by the "cooperating " Confederate commanders, Braxton Bragg and E. Kirby Smith. Likewise, Confederate attempts to wrest control ofnorthern Mississippi fromUnion forces foundered on the differences between the two principal Confederate commanders , Earl van Dorn and Sterling Price. Again, taking a conventional approach, Hess also outlines how, although high hopes were held for bringing Kentucky into the Confederacy, the response of the population was, as in Maryland, less than overwhelming. In this way Bragg's campaign in Kentucky, Uke that of Robert E. Lee in Maryland, helped ultimately define the Confederacy, which by 1863 included neither Maryland nor Kentucky. 268CIVIL WAR HISTORY Much less conventional is Hess's take on the principal commanders in these campaigns. Hess paints a very understanding portrait of much maligned commanders such as Don Carlos BueU. He argues that BueU's conduct ofthe campaign in Kentucky was reasonable, given the difficulties he was operating under. In this regard, Hess is following die line on Buell recently taken by Stephen D. Engle. Likewise, Hess is also very understanding of the problems faced by Braxton Bragginboth Kentucky andTennessee. Somewhatless convincing is Hess's contention that the experience of Stones River had a traumatic effect on Rosecrans, making him a much more cautious and less optimistic commander than he had been at Corinth. It is certainly not supported by subsequent events, especially by Rosecrans's brilliant planning and conduct of the TuUahoma campaign. Given the broad scope of the book and its relatively small size, it should come as no surprise that Hess relies largely on secondary sources, including some works that are marred with haphazard research and implausible interpretations . Hess, however, has an excellent grasp of the issues that confronted both sides at this juncture of the war. Consistent with Hess's other work, the book is a quick and a pleasant read. It also has a number of fine photographs, several of which have not been previously pubUshed. In conclusion, someone whois famiUar with the...