The Chancellorsville Campaign: March-May, 1863, and: The Atlanta Campaign: May-November, 1864, and: The Wilderness Campaign: May 1864, and: The Gettysburg Campaign: June-July, 1863 (review)

334CIVIL WAR HISTORY The Chancellorsville Campaign: March-May, 1863. By David G. Martin. (Conshohocken, Pa.: Combined Books, 1991. Pp. 176. $24.95.) The Atlanta Campaign: May-November, 1864. By John Cannan. (Conshohocken , Pa.: Combined Books, 1 991. Pp. 176. $24.95.) The Wilderness Campaign: May 1864. By John Cannan. (Conshohocken, Pa.: Combined Books, 1993. Pp. 238. $19.95.) The Gettysburg Campaign: June-July, 1863. By Albert A. Nofi. (1986; Conshohocken , Pa.: Combined Books, 1993. Pp. 256. $19.95.) Combined Books states a noble purpose for publishing the Great Campaigns series—"to bring solid history to a larger audience, bridging the gap between academic history and the history now available for general reading." Unfortunately , the books so far published do not meet this desirable end. There is a consistency to the format of the books. Each is profusely illustrated , and each has several maps, although the cartography is uneven, ranging from fair to useless. Sidebars, in which particular people or topics are discussed , are a good idea that is not always well executed, occasionally leaving the reader unsure of what is sidebar and what is main text. In an attempt to "simplify matters" (publisher's explanation), "times have been rendered on a 24hour basis." This unnecessary pretentiousness is historically incorrect, confusing to some readers, and, in at least one instance, to the author. Indexes in the four volumes vary from sketchy to nonexistent. The best of the four books reviewed here is The Gettysburg Campaign, perhaps because the author had the opportunity to revise and correct the 1986 edition . The descriptions of terrain and troop deployment are good, the narrative of the moments leading up to Pickett's Charge is stirring, and the sidebars are lively and informative. A judicious examination of the leadership of the two armies is excellent, and the analysis of the importance ofGettysburg and its relationship to the entire war is astute. The Wilderness Campaign does not measure up to the quality of Gettysburg. The writer fails to unravel the confusion ofthe battle, perhaps due in part to the many errors. The author has a penchant for eccentric or incorrect words. For example, after identifying a soldier as Charles A. Wilson, he describes the man as "anonymous" (202); elsewhere, he uses the word "worst" when the proper word is "worse" (181). The use of commas and semicolons is frequently confused (e.g., 37, 56, 70, 1 14, 129, 146, 205); and in some sentences the comma is clearly misplaced (e.g., 66, 147). There are inconsistencies; after referring to the Mexican War several times, it suddenly becomes the Mexican American War (129). Many of the sidebars are poorly written, and the entire volume exhibits sloppy editing. TheAtlanta Campaign, in turn, does not measure up to Wilderness. Pronouns are confusing or incorrect (e.g., 16, 163); there are misspellings—vollies for volleys (117); words are missing (e.g., 23, 29, 34, 151); words are transposed or repeated (e.g., 1 16, 144); a instead of an appears in several places; apostro- BOOK REVIEWS335 phes are used in words that are not possessives but not used in words that are; and there are several sentences containing extra words or phrases, for example, "After cutting off his enemy's rail links had been severed" (148), and "Lawry's men past were unaware of a cavalry force" ( 1 53). There is a sidebar on Fort Pillow for no apparent reason other than to allow the author to write about it, for it is not put into the context of the Atlanta campaign, nor is it mentioned in the main text. The maps, which appear to be taken from an early Civil War atlas, are useless. The one captioned "Action around Kennesaw Mountain" (95) shows several hundred square miles. It is difficult even to find Kennesaw Mountain on it, and the author made no attempt to indicate the action that took place there. The map labeled "Map of action from Adairsville to Dallas" misses including Dallas on the map by five miles. Incredibly, The Chancellorsville Campaign is even worse. It abounds in errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation; suffers from vague or incorrect pronoun use (e.g., 88, 103); uses apostrophes incorrectly; and...