When this Evil War Is Over: The Correspondence of the Francis Family (review)

J U L Y 2 0 0 7 233 Though much of Gettysburg Requiem is devoted to Oates’s wartime life, LaFantasie does provide adequate attention to the colonel’s active postwar life. In addition to writing his memoirs and defending the Lost Cause, Oates served as a member of the U.S. Congress and as Democratic Governor of Alabama from 1894 to 1896. As governor of Alabama, Oates “achieved little of importance” (p. 237) and opposed many reform proposals, including the abolition of the convict lease system , the free coinage of silver, and standardized work hours for women and children. In his final years, Oates served as a brigadier general in the Spanish-American War, but didn’t see combat, and was later appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt to locate and mark Confederate graves throughout the northern states. Gettysburg Requiem is well researched and relies heavily on the Oates family papers. LaFantasie admirably places Oates’s life into the larger context of southern culture, illustrating how the colonel was representative but also distinctive from his contemporaries. At times, LaFantasie presumptuously speculates on what Oates was thinking and feeling, but such criticism should not detract from an otherwise well-written and engaging narrative. Gettysburg Requiem complements LaFantasie’s earlier work on Gettysburg, Twilight at Little Round Top, and brings necessary attention to the life of a mid-level commander who played a decisive role in the Civil War. JENNIFER M. MURRAY Auburn University When this Evil War Is Over: The Correspondence of the Francis Family. Edited by James P. Pate. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006. xii, 321 pp. $42.50. ISBN 0-8173-1517-9. Scholars of Civil War and Alabama history will benefit from the publication of When this Evil War Is Over: The Correspondence of the Francis Family. Edited by James P. Pate, dean of the Advanced Education Center at the University of Mississippi-Tupelo, this book is a compilation of the letters of the six Francis brothers—Miller, Thomas, Hopkins, James (Jim), Joseph (Jo), and John—and various family members written during the Civil War. The letters are part of the Francis-Martin Family Papers at the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery. Dr. James Carrington Francis, a physician, and his family were prominent citizens of Jacksonville in Calhoun County, the only north Alabama T H E A L A B A M A R E V I E W 234 county whose delegates to the secession convention voted to leave the Union. As an ardent supporter of secession, Dr. Francis helped organize a home guard while his sons rushed to join the ranks of the Confederate army. Trained as a physician like his father, Miller received a commission as surgeon and captain in the Sixth Alabama Volunteers and later in the Fifty-first Alabama Mounted Infantry, commanded by Colonel John Tyler Morgan. The youngest Francis brother, Jo, joined him as special detail to the commissary department. Thomas served as commissary for subsistence for the Tenth Alabama and enlisted his brother Hopkins as his clerk. After Thomas resigned to join Maj. Gen. John H. Forney’s staff in Mobile, his brother Jim took over his position. In 1861, John was an eighteen-year-old student at Florence Wesleyan University in Florence, Alabama. He initially joined the Tenth Alabama but, after recovering from a wound received at the Battle of Dranesville in December 1861, he organized his own company which was eventually assigned to the Army of East Tennessee in May 1862. John was the only Francis brother to become a battle-hardened combatant; his young life was cut short in May 1864. The brothers’ high level of literacy and attention to detail enrich their letters. Their observations on the monotonous nature of everyday camp life, punctuated by the occasional battle, gives the reader a glimpse into the life of the Confederate soldier. Yet the letters fall short in representing the experiences of the average southern soldier. The Francis brothers came from a privileged family whose status provided five of the brothers with commissions that kept them out of the thick of battle. Their elite status is reflected in the preoccupation of Miller...