Civil War High Commands (review)

In the foreword to this formidable volume, John Y. Simon makes a dry understatement: "This is neither a book to curl up with on a cold winter night nor one to take to the beach." This is, however, a reference work that is staggering in its scope, definitive in its countless details, and indispensable in its usefulness. The result of almost fifty years of relentless research in more than a thousand published and archival sources, Civil War High Commands provides essential information on the lives and careers of 3,396 general officers of the Union and Confederate armies (regular, provisional, volunteers, and militia), admirals and commodores of the two navies, as well as presidents, cabinet members, and state governors. The authors set out to supplant the mountain of misinformation that has been propagated in other biographical accounts and references about the Civil War's most important leaders. What seemed like an impossible task has yielded impressive results.

Along with biographies and service records, the book features extremely helpful essays, tables, and synopses that deftly explain complicated military matters such as grades, ranks, and commissions; army history and organization; military laws and regulations; and geopolitical components of command structures. There are also directories of high commanders' birthplaces and locations of interment; listings by rank and date of appointment; information on various military divisions, departments, and districts; and descriptions of army corps and commanders, plus naval squadrons and commanders. An innovative feature is the "short title bibliography" (actually endnotes) consisting of abbreviated citations keyed to note numbers that appear in the text. In effect, a note is limited to a single source citation, while a number might appear repeatedly, rather than only once, throughout the text. Complete source citations are available in the massive bibliography. A forty-page name index is the crowning feature of this enormously important reference work.