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book reviews319 order? He does, in fact at times, when he allows his deep-seated suspicion of the expert in warfare and his extravagant admiration of the professional politician to run amok. Williams seems to think West Point was a cloistered nunnery, as when he declares that citizen soldiers "could behave in ways undreamed of at West Point." "Many West Pointers," Williams complains, "wanted things military and they acted military, and these men simply could not command volunteers. . . . The intelligent civilian leader was better fitted in almost every way to arouse the devotion of his men than the average West Pointer." This simply is not so. The most successful regimental commanders in the war were young West Pointers, men like Emory Upton, James H. Wilson, and George Custer. Because they were so good, they rose to high command , and are remembered for other deeds. But in their early years they were "The Good Colonels," and no amateur could touch them. The point is that the poor West Pointers were as bad as the poor civilian officer, but the best of the Academy graduates were far superior to the best amateurs. Throughout the war, regiments that had had professionals for early commanders did better than those which had served only under amateurs. Williams himself, when he gets away from generalizations and down to details, admits that the 23rd Ohio was well prepared for war by its first two colonels, both West Pointers. But aside from these objections this is a magnificent work, worthy of its distinguished author and the distinguished press that published it. Through the years Alfred A. Knopf has produced history books that are in every way superior, and this is no exception. One wishes that others could do a better job of imitating him. Stephen E. Ambrose Johns Hopkins University The Confederate Quartermaster in the Trans-Mississippi. By James L. Nichols. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964. Pp. vii, 126. $4.50.) In a booklet of scarcely more than one hundred pages of text the author of The Confederate Quartermaster in the Trans-Mississippi describes the problems of the supply services of the Confederate armies in the states of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. The sources that were utilized, the location of significant bases of operations, the relative sizes of the states, and the inclinations of the author combined to produce particular emphasis upon quartermaster services and activities in Texas. Quite naturally the names of places and persons will seem more familiar to readers in that state than to those in other parts of the union. Justifiably, the author in his preface calls attention to the dearth of studies on this important aspect of military operations. By contrast with the thunder of cannons, the roll of drums, and the staccato chant of musket fire, the acquisition of shoes and socks, of medicines and commissary stores, and of blankets and mess kettles seems a bit prosaic. But armies 320CIVIL WAR HISTORY must have these items and many more of like nature plus mules, oxen, or horses for transporting men and supplies. And the officers and men must be paid even if the pay is only eleven dollars a month in depreciated currency. In seven chapters, one of them only four pages in length, the author defines the place and purpose of the quartermaster and describes the operations of the Clothing Bureau, the Tax-in-Kind Bureau, the Cotton Bureau, the Field Transportation Bureau, and the Pay Bureau. After reading the list of responsibilities that were assigned to the quartermaster one is inclined to agree with the 1861 writer who asserted that the quartermaster was "the most important by far of all the staff"; and after noticing the titles of the sixty-three separate forms that were required, the reviewer is disposed to wonder how the author of this brief monograph was able to summarize so much diverse data on such a wide variety of topics under so few headings and into so little space. Indeed, one general reaction to the monograph is that it suffers from over-compression. On some occasions conclusions are stated that are not completely supported by the material that is presented. In other instances, activities such...

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