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Between North and South: A Maryland Journalist Views the Civil War (review)
- Civil War History
- The Kent State University Press
- Volume 23, Number 2, June 1977
- pp. 173-174
- 10.1353/cwh.1977.0023
- Review
- Additional Information
BOOK REVIEWS173 Anderson's diary, which provides a detailed day by day account of his activities in England and France from May to November 1861, must take its rightful place alongside James D. Bullock's two volume work, The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe. Bullock's study, based on his diary, now long lost, puts Anderson's account in the unique position of being the only known extant eye witness description of Confederate purchasing efforts. Curiously, well known books by E. D. Adams, Frank Owsley, and Donaldson Jordan and Edwin J. Pratt do not mention Anderson. Richard I. Lester's recent account of purchasing activities in Great Britain makes only a passing reference to him. Skillfully edited, the Anderson diary is entertaining, informative, and at times exciting reading. Within its pages one finds intrigue, detective surveillance, personal confrontations, extensive bribery, skillful maneuvers, and, of course, outright daring and bravery. And there is humor too. How could one forget, for example, the cocks crowing aboard the Fingal as she otherwise moved in enforced silence through a dense fog and Federal vessels before Savannah . Today's reader is singularly fortunate because Major Anderson was articulate, well educated and above all inclined to record faithfully and fully his daily experiences. W. Stanley Hoole, who is well known as a contributor to and as editor of the Confederate Centennial Studies, comprising twentyseven volumes, has provided a Prologue which reviews Major Anderson's wartime career to the end of the conflict and an Epilogue which describes his post war years until his death in 1883. Extensive and often detailed notes are inconveniently placed after the Epilogue and are followed by a brief bibliography and serviceable index. Charles Cullop East Carolina University Between North and South: A Maryhnd Journalist Views the Civil War. Edited by Ellen Marks and Mark Norton Schatz. (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1976. Pp. 430. $18.00.) Between North and South is a most welcome addition to the literature of the Civil War. William Wilkins Glenn, a member of a wealthy and aristocratic Maryland family, fortunately preserved for posterity his activities, commentaries on events, the gossip and rumors, and various reactions to that tumultuous period. Glenn was strongly pro-Southern, and suspicions of this by Federal authorities led to his arrest and temporary imprisonment in 1861. Indicative of his stature and influence, Glenn was finally released without having to take an oath to secure his parole. Once released he discreetly stepped up his pro-Southern activities until he was forced 174civil war history to flee Baltimore in the wake of the Gettysburg campaign. Later, in 1864, Glenn returned to the United States. Following the war Glenn became involved in the efforts to secure the release of Jefferson Davis. Glenn's narrative, a composite of diary notations, commentaries, and recapitulations of events, is an important insight into the thinking , changing moods, and activities of the pro-Southern element in Baltimore during and after the war. An additional dimension to his narrative is his observations and comments on his stay in England and on a visit to France. With its inaccuracies and distortions Glenn's work must be used with care, but for the scholar and reader interested in this emotionally divided state his narrative is essential reading. Unfortunately, the editing does have some drawbacks. Despite a seventy-nine page glossary and footnotes to the text, many important names, such as Generals Dix, Schenck, Morris, and Wallace , go unfòotnoted, and the reader must turn to the glossary for a brief description of the person and his position. Despite this criticism the editors and the Maryland Historical Society, in allowing it to be published, deserve high praise for seeing that this important manuscript is finally available for wider use. Richard R. Duncan Georgetown University A Southern Odyssey: Travelers in the Antebellum North. By John Hope Franklin. (Baton Rouge*. Louisiana State University Press, 1976. Pp. xvii, 299. $12.50.) In the decades preceding the Civil War, southern travelers to the northern states far outnumbered their northern counterparts, though prior to the publication of this book their story was largely unwritten. None of these southern visitors wrote a travel book which...