The Diary of Edmund Ruffin. Vol. II, The Years of Hope, April, 1861-June, 1863 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS265 campaigns, gradually developing into a competent military leader. He demonstrated this in his victory over a stronger Union force at the battle of New Market. The author gives good coverage of Breckinridge 's military career. After Appomattox, Breckinridge was on the Union's mostwanted list. There is a fascinating account of his 1,000 mile flight by foot, horse, and boat across defeated Dixie and on into Cuba. He returned to Lexington in 1869 following President Johnson's amnesty proclamation, re-entered law, calmly accepted the new nation , and died in 1874. By this time, paradoxically, many Kentuckians believed they had fought on the wrong side in the Civil War. "It has been said with considerable truth that Kentucky joined the Confederacy after the Civil War was over," (p. 108) and Professor Lowell Harrison of Western Kentucky University explains the meaning of that statement and much more in The Civil War in Kentucky. Harrison adds this work to his earlier books on John C. Breckinridge and George Rogers Clark. He believes that "the 1862 invasion of Kentucky was the high-water mark of the Confederacy in the West" (p. 57). The author gives an unusually balanced view of General Braxton Bragg's role in this affair, assigning him his mistakes, "but blame for his failure to concentrate his forces for the decisive battle in Kentucky must be accorded in large measure to Smith, Polk, and Hardee, who failed to supply him with the information needed for a competent decision" (p. 51). Harrison also reveals the anger and disgust Confederates felt regarding the opportunism displayed by many Kentuckians who played both sides of the fence in order to predict the winner. Harrison's book lives up to its title, and his experience in the field assures that much of the chaff concerning Kentucky's political and military roles in this war is eliminated. These three volumes suffer from lack of indexes, but I heartily recommend all three to any reader of the Civil War era, especially if that reader would like to gain a true understanding of that much used phrase, "border state." Frank F. Mathias University of Dayton The Diary of Edmund Ruffin. Vol. II, The Years of Hope, April, 1861-June, 1863. Edited by William K. Scarborough. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1976. Pp. xxxv, 706. $35.00.) Fresh from the joy and glory of personally firing the first shot of the Civil War, Edmund Ruffin returned triumphantly to Virginia to enjoy the approval and applause which he had long coveted. Yet 266CIVIL WAR HISTORY disdainful toward the many former Unionists, whom he termed "submissionists," despite the fact that events had forced most of them into his own camp, Ruffin scribbled away faithfully at this massive diary which William K. Scarborough has ably edited and which historians will find intriguing. Ruffin's views concerning many matters, ranging from Yankees to Jeffersonian democracy, were extreme and distorted, but concerning himself he had moments of striking lucidity. He explained one of the reasons he left war-time Richmond not long after arriving there: . . . I was so fretted & disgusted with the appointment of officials, & with the inactivity & wrong doings of high public functionaries. I could not (& never can) bridle my tongue, & by speaking of persons as I deemed they deserved, & my free censures & opinions reaching their ears, I would be again building up for myself the load of disfavor & odium which I had before borne, or which my recent celebrity, & general applause, have served but partially to hide. (P. 20) Never in power himself or even particularly close to those who were, Ruffin's diary still allows one to see the war and its impact from a prime vantage point. The editor suggests that Ruffin's comments on wartime strategy were remarkably perceptive. He early recognized, for example, the seriousness of L'nion naval superiority and, despite his insolvement in the Virginian arena, well understood the importance of the Western theater. In fact, the fall of New Orleans in April, 1862, led him for the first time to admit the bare possibility of the Confederacy's defeat. In other, non-military matters Ruffin revealed not perspicacity but the dogged obtuseness of a slaveowner. He was stunned...