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BOOK REVIEWS345 biographer Charles WiItse once observed ofthe Cast Iron Man's speeches. There are many examples in this volume of Stevens being contradicted or taunted by more conservative congressmen—who soon found their ears pinned back, in part because of Stevens's quick wit and mordant humor. Consider, for example, his exchanges with an Iowa congressman early in 1866, in which he refers to Andrew Johnson's notorious denunciation of him and other Radical leaders. In the repartee, which frequently evoked laughter from Congressmen in attendance, Stevens suggested that perhaps Johnson had never even made the speech—that it was all a hoax—and then having established this "fact," he hoped that his colleagues "will permit me to occupy the same friendly position with the President I did before" (104). Stevens's relations with the president were, of course, far from a laughing matter. Increasingly convinced by the fall of 1 865 that the freed slaves would never enjoy the fruits of citizenship while Johnson was president, Stevens was one of the first members of the House publicly to say that Johnson deserved impeachment. This position he followed with obsessive implacability, until the final days of Johnson's trial in 1868, which he served as a manager, when the physically failing Stevens was forced to confront the reality that Johnson was going to remain in office and his own dreams of an egalitarian social order would not be realized any time soon. Readers of this well-edited volume will confront some of the abiding themes of American democracy: deep-seated racial prejudice; the ongoing question of state versus national sovereignty; and the tensions inherent in a polity that hallows both equality and property rights. The vehicle for considering these matters, Thaddeus Stevens, never merited the obloquy poured on him in his own day and long beyond. Nor does he merit canonization. He was fundamentally a brilliant, flawed gadfly, constantly reminding Americans that they could do much worse than embrace the ideals represented in Thomas Jefferson's Declaration. Michael J. Birkner Gettysburg College Constructing Munitions ofWar: The Portsmouth Navy Yard Confronts the Confederacy , 1861-1865. By Richard E. Winslow III, (Portsmouth, Rhode Island: The Portsmouth Marine Society, 1995. Pp. xvii, 432. $35.00.) Winslow, in this twenty-first publication of the Portsmouth Marine Society, states that his monograph is a chronological study ofthe Portsmouth Navy Yard during the Civil War. The author further asserts he "concentrated on presenting a wartime narrative of individuals making and carrying out decisions, and on interpreting the results" (xvii). Compiled from a myriad of original sources, including newspapers, manuscript collections, and official naval reports, Winslow has contributed to a better understanding of the often-forgotten manufacturers of war. Winslow begins this work by presenting the bleak future facing the yard in i860 as only fourteen vessels had been built since 18 14. When the war began, 346CIVIL WAR HISTORY the yard quickly expanded its personnel and facilities to accommodate and carry out its primary mission of victualing ships for the blockade. In addition to supplying and refitting ships, Portsmouth yardworkers also constructed the famed U.S.S. Kearsarge, which engaged the CS.S. Alabama, and the double-turreted ironclad monitor U.S.S. Agamenticus, as well as twenty-two other vessels during the war. The author credits much of the success of the Portsmouth Navy Yard to Civil Engineer Benjamin F. Chandler. Chandler wanted the Portsmouth facility to be a first class yard, which lead to the construction of "reservoirs, a quay, ... a machine shop and foundry, a smithy, a boathouse and carpenter shop, and a paint shop" (205). Chandler also oversaw the completion of a futtock saw mill and the conversion of much of the yard's buildings from timber to stone or brick. Winslow contends that because ofthese improvements by 1 865 the Portsmouth Navy Yard had been transformed from a "prewar, sleepy, and secondclass status [yard] . . . into a first-class establishment" (285). Combined with exhaustive research and well-written prose, Winslow has produced a quality examination of the U.S. Navy's attempts to construct and maintain viable wartime vessels at one naval yard. Despite these merits, this monograph contains one pervasive...

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