William Tecumseh Sherman and the Settlement of the West (review)

120CIVIL WAR HISTORY cataloguers as "Baxter and Dearborn"). In addition to tiie holdings of tiie Athenaeum, however, the present work also includes those Confederate imprints Usted in the Union Catalogue of the Library of Congress, those reported to the Athenaeum by their owners, and those listed in selected modern bibhographies . An idea of its thoroughness may be gathered from the fact that it records 5,121 items, exclusive of newspapers and periodicals. It is the closest thing to a complete catalogue of Confederate imprints that is available to the student or collector today. The first volume of this work is devoted to the official publications of the Confederate States of America and of the various individual Confederate states. The second volume covers the non-official pubUcations produced in the Confederacy, including miUtary manuals, fiction, music, biography, history, Bibles, and many others. It is illustrated with a number of photographic reproductions of Usted items. Comment on this publication would be incomplete without paying tribute to the alert foresight of the Library Committee of the Boston Athenaeum which immediately after the close of the Civil War, recognizing the historical and cultural importance of the printed matter produced in the Confederate States, set about the seU-imposed task of collecting such material while it was more readily available. Under the leadership of Francis Parkman, a vigorous effort was made to acquire examples of "everything printed at the South during the war that goes to illustrate the state and action of the Southern mind," and the campaign of acquisition then launched has continued throughout the ensuing years. The result is that the Boston institution today has the greatest single collection of Confederate imprints, and it is fitting that it should compile and publish this scholarly catalogue of its own holdings and those of the leading libraries of the country. The able editor of this monumental work is Marjorie LyIe CrandaU, assistant hbrarian of the Athenaeum, and in future catalogues and bibhographies the parenthetical "CrandaU" should become as famiUar and as authoritative as the traditional "Baxter and Dearborn" has been in the past. STANLEY F. HORN Nashville, Tennessee. William Tecumseh Sherman and the Settlement of the West. By Robert G. Athearn. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 1956. Pp.xix, 371. $5.00.) the first paragraph of jacket-flap copy with this book states that after Sherman won fame in the Civü War "he moved to an eighteen-year phase of his career in which the peace of half a continent — the American West — was finally won." The second paragraph states that during this time, 18651883 , Sherman was successively "in command of the Military Division of the Missouri . . . and General of the Army of the United States .... These were the years of savage raiding by Indians . . . and of settlement and the violence Book Reviews121 of settlement in the whole of the Trans-Mississippi West. With a handful of troops, Sherman was expected to 'insure the tranquiUity' of the vast region under his command." The third paragraph concludes by observing that "Sherman's own pride in his assignment and the courage with which he met repeated crises suggest the interest and the importance of this much neglected aspect of his career and its relation to Western history." These extensive quotations from the jacket-flap copy give a fair indication of what might have been found within the book — an entertaining, informative, perhaps exciting account of an important phase of American history and of the role a famous, often colorful American miUtary figure played in shaping this history. Unfortunately, the book is a far remove from such expectations. This volume is deadly duU. Not once does Sherman come ahve in its pages, not once does the West of this period seem really to have existed. The impression was left with this reader that the author deUberately avoided describing any event which might have lent itseU, even sUghtly, to the dramatic; that he deliberately chose to make his story as mundane, prosaic, and tedious as possible. Of course these cannot have been the author's intentions; however , they are the chief faults of his book. Although it seems unlikely, perhaps dullness is inherent in the material. Yet, granting this...