O. O. Howard, Union General (review)

346civil war history encroaching federal government, he failed to acquire Cuba. The Spanish executed him by strangulation, garroting him in ajammed public plaza in Havana on a Sunday morning in September 1851. It is difficult to believe that anyone will have to tell this story again. Chaffin's rich account rests on both U.S. and Cuban sources, and it fits easily into the broad scope of nineteenth-century political and diplomatic developments. His masterful summation of a complex series of events fulfills a fundamental tenet of sound history: an engagingly written narrative about a narrow story that reveals much about a people and the period in which they lived. López became a folk hero who challenged federal law during a time in which political decentralization was popular. We finally have the definitive account of Lopez's central achievement: fatal glory. Howard Jones University of Alabama O. O. Howard, Union General. By Gerald Weland. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 1995. Pp. viii, 187. $26.50.) Gen. William T. Sherman hung O. O. Howard's portrait next to his own in his home in New York City after he had retired. West Pointer, Indian fighter, and Indian peacemaker, Civil War corps commander in both the eastern and western theaters, Freedmen's Bureau executive, writer, educator, and deeply religious, O. O. Howard is an interesting biographical subject. His honesty and integrity may have elevated Howard's successful military career higher than would be expected considering his ill-advised military leadership at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg and lack ofexecutive administrative abilities with both the Freedmen's Bureau and the Freedmen's Bank. Howard was a significant leader during the mid-to-late nineteenth century, and his life and times continue to be of interest to students and scholars of United States history. Gerald Weland's thesis is that neither John Alcott Carpenter's Sword and Olive Branch: Oliver Otis Howard nor William S. McFeely's Yankee Stepfather : General O. O. Howard and the Freedmen "accepts even the possibility that Howard was other than an incompetent." The author makes some good points in answering these criticisms. However, Weland's defense is flawed because a reader cannot determine what sources he based his analysis upon. Howard's two-volume 1907 Autobiography is a worthy source, but Weland's heavy reliance upon Mark Boatner's Civil War Dictionary and Richard and Trevor Dupuy's Encyclopedia ofMilitary Historyfrom 3500 B.C. to the Present for Civil War battle and leadership analysis is hardly a strong recommendation for serious students. Weland's bibliography statement begins: "Much of this work was compiled from obscure records or journals that would be all but impossible to find in most public libraries" (181). None of the obscure records or journals are identified in the bibliography. The classic reference source Official book reviews347 Records ofthe War ofthe Rebellion was sparingly cited and referred to as "WR " rather than the standard OR. The endnotes consist mostly of supplementary information and opinions on the text, rather than citations of sources. Although correspondence with the Smithsonian, the U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, and the National Archives were acknowledged, other Howard depositories were not.The extensive O.O. Howard Papers at Bowdoin College and other collections at both Howard University as well as the U.S. Military Academy Library and Archives were never cited. The author seems to be most interested in Howard's post-Freedmen's Bureau activities with western Indians. The book would have been better with this theme in mind as many factual errors can be noted early in the book. For instance , West Virginia is claimed as a state as early as 1 859 (West Virginia became a state on December 31, 1863). The first recorded strategic movement of troops by railroad was not during theAmerican CivilWar but in the 1859 FrancoAustrian War in Italy. The Presidio is not the "oldest continuously occupied military post on North American soil"; West Point, New York, has been since January 20, 1778. Howard received his Congressional Medal of Honor for heroic actions at Fair Oaks, Virginia (where he lost his right arm), and not at Gettysburg. The author forgets that Gen...