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l88CIVIL WAR HISTORY benefit from full-length studies of their Civil War service. They were veterans of the 9th Indiana Infantry and the 1 2th Connecticut Volunteers, respectively. Schaefer's well-documented work will serve as a good introduction to the writings of both authors, especially in regards to the oft-neglected De Forest, along with a compelling analysis of realism in combat writing. David M. Stokes University of Southwestern Louisiana Ambrose Bierce: A Sole Survivor, Bits of Autobiography, by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998. Pp. xxvi, 356. $38.00.) Ambrose Bierce's extensivejournalism and many short stories made him one of the most celebrated popular writers of the late nineteenth century, especially noted for his satirical wit and sardonic, often bitter, tone. Although he never self-consciously told the full story of his own life, much of his output was autobiographical and of some interest to students of the Civil War and the Gilded Age. The editors of this volume have skillfully brought together this material to form a vivid, if ideosyncratic and incomplete, memoir. Bierce enlisted in the 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment early in 1 861 and fought with it in George B. McClellan's West Virginia campaign and again at Shiloh. At Chickamauga, now a staff officer, he stood with George Thomas. Finally, he was severely wounded at Kennesaw Mountain.Years later, he wrote about some of these experiences in a series of articles, including a long one on Shiloh, that appeared in various Hearst newspapers and magazines from the late 1 870s until earlyin the twentieth century. Bierce had a hard war and his memories ofit were not the least bit sentimental. He emphasized, rather, the blood, stink, boredom, and waste of battle, occasionally joined, as they were, by moments of intense fear and exhilaration. Bierce's comments are peppered with pungent observations. The rebel yell at Chickamauga "was the ugliest sound that any mortal ever heard—even a mortal exhausted and unnerved by two days of hard fighting, without sleep, without rest, without food and without hope" (32). He has few heroes among the generals . Oliver Otis Howard, for one, was a "consummate master of the art of needless defeat" (44). Interspersed throughout, as well, are many shrewd comments about men in battle, their memories, and the history that they, and we, write about these long gone moments. After the war, Bierce briefly worked for the federal government before settling down to a career writing the most opinionatedjournalism of which he was capable. He covered the social scene, the arts, the contemporary press, life in San Francisco and in England, all with the same tartness of his wartime memoirs. His outsider, reformist sensibilities were often aimed at what he saw as the inanities of American politics: "I openly affirm, and can prove, the entire incapacity BOOK REVIEWS1 89 of our people, or any people, for self-government" (149). He strongly deplored women's rights movements and trade unionism but was surprisingly sympathetic to ethnic and religious outsiders: Chinese people, African Americans, Mormons. Such attitudes brought him few friends but a healthy readership. What does all of this effort and crotchetiness add up to? Not all that much so far as the author himself was concerned. "With the passing of the years," the editors write, "Bierce's frustration at the apparent ineffectiveness of his unrelenting campaign to reform his contemporaries by means of satire became increasingly evident" ( 171 ). On the other hand, the writing can be enjoyed for its literary qualities and humor, and students of the nineteenth century will find information and description to texture and buttress a point or two oftheir own, thanks to the pungency and sharp eye of the author. There is much valuable observation even amid misanthropic mutterings against everybody and everything. Joel H. Silbey Cornell University Thank GodMyRegimentanAfrican One: The CivilWarDiaryofColonelNathan W. Daniels. Edited by C. P. Weaver. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. Pp. xvii, 214. $26.95.) Like other White Northerners who led black troops during the Civil War, Col. Nathan W Daniels was an idealist determined to improve the lot of African Americans. 'Thank God it hath been...

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