Book Notes

BOOK NOTES Military Memoirs of a Confederate. By E. P. Alexander. Edited by T. Harry Williams. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962. Pp. xli, 652. $7.95.) Georgia-bom Porter Alexander was one of only three Confederate artillerists to attain the rank of general; and in the opinion of many, he was the best gunner of that small group. As commander of artillery in Longstreet's I Corps, Alexander participated in die major battles of the Eastern theater. It was his seventy-five guns that raked the Federals on Cemetery Ridge preparatory to Pickett's charge. Although he was seventy-two when he published his Military Memoirs in 1907, Alexander showed a keen mind and firm grasp on those events of which he was a part. His book, considered by Douglas Southall Freeman to be "die best critique of operations for the Army of Northern Virginia," is one of the most frequently quoted of Confederate sources. Therefore, the republication of these memoirs is both needed and welcomed. T. Harry Williams, who has a penchant for moving deftly from one side to the other (e.g., see his Beauregard and his Lincoln and His Generah), has added notes and a detaded introduction tiiat enhance the value of the memoirs themselves. Arms and Equipment of the Civil War. By Jack Coggins. (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1962. Pp. 160. $5.95. ) There are already a number of illustrated volumes devoted to botii the common soldier of the Great Conflict and to his tools of war. The former are often over-sentimental, the latter over-technical. Those mildly weary of these approaches have a treat in store in this excellent book. Some of the same material is here, of course, but the emphasis is on the most pertinent matters. As an artist-conespondent during World War II, Mr. Coggins brings to bear on his subject an extremely sophisticated knowledge of things military , plus a clarity of both expression and illustration—a rare and satisfying combination indeed. In these black-and-white drawings the usual representative uniforms, bullet and shell cutaways, and carbine and pistol and cannon types, are detailed. But the author also includes significant items not often graphically shown—such as battle and action formations, comparative weapon capabilities, and a valuable diagrammatic description (pp. 76-77) of the timing, pacing, and artillery ballistics involved in cavalry and infantry assaults against smoothbore battery fire. These latter features alone 449 450CIVIL WAR HISTORY make the volume a must for every Hollywood technical director's Civil War bookshelf, as well as for anyone desiring a deeper appreciation of "what the Civd War was really like." A Petition Regarding the Conditions in the C.S.M. Prison at Columbia, S.C., Addressed to the Confederate Authorities. By John Fraser. Edited by George L. Anderson. (Lawrence: University of Kansas Libraries, 1962. Pp. 57. $1.50.) This small monograph, as its tide implies, revolves around a petition sent to General William J. Hardee by a prisoner of war, Lieutenant Colonel John Fraser of the 140th Pennsylvania Infantry. Fraser, a Scotch-born professor of math at war's outset, had helped organize a Pennsylvania regiment in 1862 and had led it at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and in the Wilderness before his capture in June, 1864. Following a few days at Libby, Fraser and other Federal officers were transfened to Camp Sorghum, South Carolina. The misery of this prison led Fraser to draw up a petition in November, 1864, on behalf of his fellow-prisoners. He penned a copy of the petition in a small journal and added the names of 161 men who were confined at Sorghum. To this historical scrap, Professor Anderson has added a lengthy introduction on Fraser and copious notes. The sum total is more an essay on Fraser than a discourse on Sorghum. Yet students of Civd War prisons will find in Professor Anderson's commentaries some interesting data on one of the lesserknown Confederate compounds. Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers. By Rufus R. Dawes. Edited by Alan T. Nolan. (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin for Wisconsin Civd War Centennial Commission, 1962. Pp. xv, 313. $5.00. ) Of the coundess number of Northern personal...