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Book Reviews95 lures the reader of Storming of the Gateway to an old tale retold. The study adds nothing new to the Chickamauga-Chattanooga campaigns; it even does an inadequate job of exploring the abundance of material readily available to everyone. The book is marred by repeated tangents in which the author goes so far afield that time and again the reader is reminded of the man "who got on his horse and rode off in all directions." Occasionally the narrative soars like those previous and outstanding efforts of the author. Yet no sooner does it get aloft than it begins to sputter, or is interrupted by the development of side issues. Readers may thus wonder if the book is not actually a showcase for the author's vast knowledge of the Civil War rather than a study of the Chickamauga-Chattanooga campaigns. This book appears to be more a collection of non-related articles and irrelevant material that has been pieced together to "make a book" rather than a well-planned study of the campaigns it proposed to examine. It is another incident in the deplorable trend of established authors who compromise the quality of their work in the hustle and bustle of producing Civil War literature in quantity. Robert Womack Middle Tennessee State College Well, Mary: Civil War Letters of a Wisconsin Soldier. Edited by Margaret Brobst Roth. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1960. Pp. ix, 165. $4.00.) Some of the Boys: The Civil War Letters of Isaac Jackson, 1862-1865. Edited by Joseph O. Jackson. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960. Pp. xx, 264. $6.50.) Confederate Chaplain: A War Journal. By Rev. James B. Sheeran. Edited by Rev. Joseph T. Durkin. (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1960. Pp. xi, 168. $3.50.) The average Johnny Reb and Billy Yank never grasped the full scope of the war of which they were a part, but their individual roles could hardly be termed insignificant. After all, they were the ones who did the marching , fighting, and dying; their letters and diaries consequently give to the struggle a human touch that both heightens and lessens its horror. And as these three narratives illustrate, soldiers of Blue and Gray—both basically American—were nevertheless a heterogeneous lot. Perhaps the most typical of these three men was Private John F. Brobst of the 25th Wisconsin Infantry. Part of the letters written to his future wife have been preserved and are now available under the tide, WeU, Mary. Brobst enlisted in mid-1862, spent his first months of service patrolling western Wisconsin in expectation of a Sioux attack that never came, and then headed south with his regiment to take part in the Vicksburg cam- 96 CIVIL WAR HISTORY paign. Following the fall of the river city, the 25th chased guerrillas in Arkansas until it joined Sherman's command for the Meridian and Atlanta campaigns. A serious bout with malaria prevented Brobst from accompanying his regiment on the March to the Sea. He served on garrison duty in Tennessee until early 1865, when he and fragments of other commands in the area were transported by ship to North Carolina and a rendezvous with Sherman's army. Brobst took part in the final actions against the Army of Tennessee and then participated in the grand review held in Washington. This stocky man, in his early twenties, had an above-average degree of literacy and, unlike so many soldiers of that era, did not rely on phonetics for spelling. He had definite opinions on the war and its leaders. Grant and Lincoln became his heroes, but of Jefferson Davis he wrote: "He is not fit to live, and he is certainly not fit to die, but he must go up some ten feet above the face of the earth and perform on the tight rope for the benefit of a society called the Loyal People of America." Like most Western bluecoats, Brobst looked on the Army of the Potomac with contempt and felt that before the war ended, he and his comrades would "have to go down there and take Richmond for them, poor fellows." His hatred of Southern soldiers was deep...

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