Editors' Overview

This issue of Civil War History offers our readers two articles on military history, but with some provocative twists. Joseph M. Beilein Jr.'s "The Guerrilla Shirt: A Labor of Love and the Style of Rebellion in Civil War Missouri" traces the evolution of "irregular" clothing from its roots in the fashion of antebellum frontiersmen and Indians, through the production of guerrilla clothing by rebel women, to the significance placed on clothes by the men who wore them. Guerillas' sartorial splendor, Beilein argues, reflected their acceptance of notions of masculinity that dramatically differed from beliefs concerning manhood held by regular troops. Beilein's fusion of military and social history allows him to intervene in two particularly vibrant subfields of Civil War history: the nature and significance of irregular warfare and the power of gender to shape the wartime experiences of participants.

John Matsui also mixes social and military history in his examination of the short-lived Army of Virginia. His article, "War in Earnest: The Army of Virginia and the Radicalization of the Union War Effort, 1862," finds increasing disgruntlement expressed by Union soldiers, especially the officers, against the intransigent southern civilian population. Matsui notes the intensifying role of Radical Republicans, who by the summer of 1862 demanded harsher policies, as well as a cadre of antislavery generals who were dissatisfied with the conciliatory civil-military policies of Gen. George B. McClellan. These constituencies united in the efforts of western general John Pope and the new Army of Virginia, which punished disloyal civilians, protected self-emancipated slaves, and sought to wrest control of the war effort from both conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans like Lincoln. Matsui concludes: "The complication-ridden birth and violent death of the Army of Virginia presents an under-studied chapter in the political radicalization of an over-studied war from a conflict limited in means and goals to war in earnest, just shy of total war."

We are also pleased to introduce another new feature for our readers: edited documents. While conducting research in Canada, Marc-William Palen discovered this obscure travel narrative and determined that it offered a unique and overlooked perspective on the first year of the war. "A Canadian Yankee in King Cotton's Court" will no doubt remind readers of Frederick Law Olmstead's famous Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller's Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave States. This anonymous Canadian's views as he journeyed from Texas northward to his home in Ottawa are equally rich and no less insightful.

Our Review section highlights several new and important contributions to the growing literature of the American Civil War. We have reviews of the latest works by Gary Gallagher, Elizabeth Leonard, and Steven Woodworth and several titles that explore the dynamics of slavery and abolition. We also review new volumes that touch on the experiences of women and African Americans during the Civil War era.