Florida During the Civil War, and: The Civil War in Louisiana, and: The Civil War in North Carolina (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Florida During the Civil War. By John E. Johns. (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1963. Pp. ix, 265. $6.00.) The Civil War in Louisiana. By John D. Winters. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1963. Pp. xiv, 534. $10.00. ) The Civil War in North Carolina. By John G. Barrett. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963. Pp. viii, 484. $10.00. ) It has become a truism in our time that THE WAR has captured the fancy of the American reading public in a way that no other event in our history ever has. Almost every literate adult entertains what can only be described as positive views on the causes, conduct, and consequences of the conflict and is perfectly willing to express them with feeling if not always with clarity. This widespread interest has been reflected in a number of ways. Sorry novels, grade B movies, and insipid TV programs about the war enjoy an almost incredible popularity. The Centennial celebration has attracted genuine public interest, despite the antics of grown men who dress up in refurbished uniforms and travel hundreds of miles to "play soldier" on battlefields deserving of more serious commemoration and in spite of the unseemly verbal guerrilla warfare among members of the U.S. Centennial Commission that almost led to a resumption of hostilities in Charleston. But by all odds the most consistent and reliable index of public interest has been the veritable avalanche of published works. There have been general histories, pictorial histories, regional histories, campaign and battle histories, army and unit histories, and even a few naval histories thrown in for good measure. Biographies of almost all major military and civilian leaders and an unsettling number of lesser luminaries have been written or rewritten , and the stream of memoirs, autobiographies, and contemporary accounts has reached flood tide. We have had volumes written about railroads , newspapermen, cloak-and-dagger types, prisoners, and minority groups. There have been studies of Confederate finance, Confederate engineers , Confederate doctors, Confederate music, and the Confederate command system. Lincoln's law partner, his wife, and his sons have been immortalized , as has been Mrs. Jefferson Davis. One publisher has even received a manuscript that purports to be the "definitive" study of Lee's horse, Traveller! Understandably, the quality of these works has been uneven. Some have been merely adequate, some have hardly been worth the paper they were written on, and some have been very good. I am pleased to say that the three Confederate state studies reviewed here belong to the last category. 437 438civil war history From a strictly military viewpoint, Florida was the least important of the three states as an active theater of operations. Floridians, following secession, immediately faced the problem of seizing Federal posts within their borders. Although installations at Chattahoochee and St. Augustine were successfully taken, the two most formidable strongholds, Fort Pickens and Key West, remained in Union hands throughout the war. Beginning in early 1862, Federal raids against selected posts in Florida were begun. While these raids did not materially affect Florida's contribution to the Confederate war effort or cause serious loss of life or property, they did cause a considerable amount of uneasiness and insecurity. There is here a detailed account of the battle of Olustee, the major Civil War battle fought on Florida soil. Among the more interesting observations made by Professor Johns are that very little manufacturing was done in Florida during the war; that comparatively little was accomplished in the area of railroad development, probably because Florida was not a major theater of combat; that no slave revolts occurred there; and that with the possible exception of Texas, Florida furnished fewer Negroes to the Union army than any other Confederate state. The author concludes that Florida was defeated not only by superior numbers and materiel but also because she had lost her will to fight. John Winters' study of Louisiana is essentially a "martial" book, one that underscores the sometimes neglected fact that events in the Western theater were very important in deciding the eventual outcome of the conflict. Louisiana , in particular, was the scene of many significant operations. The loss of New Orleans...