Book Notes

BOOK NOTES The Private Journal of Georgiana Gholson Walker, 1862-1865, with Selections from the Post-War Years, 1865-1876. Edited by Dwight Franklin Henderson. (Tuscaloosa, Ala.: Confederate Publishing Company, 1963. Pp. 148. $4.00.) Georgiana Gholson was bom and raised amid the higher echelons of Petersburg, Virginia, society. In 1852 she married Norman Walker who, after the outbreak of civil war, served a year as an infantry officer and then three years as a member of the Confederacy's foreign service. Throughout most of the conflict, Mr. and Mrs. Walker and their ever-growing family lived successively in Bermuda, England, Nova Scotia, and back to Bermuda . Mrs. Walker began her diary shortly before the family made its first move to Bermuda. The journal is not a day-by-day account, nor does it cast much light on the varied and multitudinous activities of her husband. Rather, it mentions blockade runners' entering and leaving harbors and concentrates on the meager social life in the locales where the Walkers were situated. Its best passages are those relating to two of Georgiana's close friends, Mrs. Jefferson Davis and Mrs. Rose Greenhow. The annotated documentation is detailed and thorough. Mrs. Walker's journal is certainly not in a class with the memoirs of such Confederate women as Mary B. Chesnut and Sarah Dawson, but its uniqueness gives it a special place in the writings of the period. The Gettysburg Addresses: The Story of Two Orations. By Svend Petersen . (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1963. Pp. 172. $4.50.) While this is but another volume in a seemingly endless parade of prose on Lincoln and his immortal Address, it does have one or two attractions that set it apart from its neighbors on the shelf. It contains,, in all of its poetry and length, the full text of Edward Everett's two-hour oration—a speech now receiving more attention and tribute than ever before. The book also contains a collection of some of the parodies on Lincoln's 272 words that have appeared in the last three decades. If nothing else, these spoofs prove that idolatry of Lincoln by Americans is not unanimous. The rest of the slim volume treats of Lincoln's invitation and journey to Gettysburg , and praises of the "few appropriate remarks." Illustrations and index compensate in part for a lack of documentation. Petersen's study throws 332 little or no light on the Gettysburg Address and associated events, but it does group the most popular aspects of that day in a concise package both easy and pleasant to digest. Divided Loyalties: Fort Sanders and the Civil War in East Tennessee. By Digby Gordon Seymour. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1963. Pp. xii, 244. $7.50.) In this volume a lifelong student of local history in East Tennessee traces in a fast-moving and readable style the turmoil of the region in the war years. Mr. Seymour makes no pretense of presenting a thorough and scholarly account; rather, he strives to organize the major facts and to present them in a manner that will appeal to the casual reader. Twenty-seven chapters treat of as many aspects in East Tennessee during the 1860's. The major concentration, as the subtitle implies and as one would surmise, is the November 29, 1863, assault by Longstreet's Confederates on a portion of Ambrose Burnside's defenses at Knoxville. The author goes to some pains to point out how much action and gallantry was packed in the twentyminute battle of Fort Sanders. Illustrations grace every page; maps are many, attractive, and helpful. Although documentation is slipshod and inconsistent , this study is a welcome introduction to one area of the neglected Western theater. Father Wore Gray. By Lela Whitton Hegarty. (San Antonio: Naylor Company, 1963. Pp. xii, 205. $5.95.) This volume will have primary—if not sole—appeal for Southern sentimentalists . In brief, the "Real Daughters of San Antonio" (an organization composed of actual female offspring of Confederate soldiers) pooled their energies and reminiscences in the formulation of this anthology. Twenty-two women devote as many chapters to remembrances of what their fathers recollected verbally about The War. If any reliance...