My Beloved Zebulon: The Correspondence of Zebulon Baird Vance and Harriett Newell Espy (review)

360CIVIL WAR HISTORY Longacre states that by war's end Wilson, at 27, was the country's most successful cavalry commander. Some may dispute that. Wilson lived until 1925 and had a long career in business before returning to the army to serve in the Spanish-American War and the Boxer Rebellion. A major attribute of this book is that it is no biased paean of unadulterated praise for Wilson. Longacre wisely recognizes him as a "gloryhunter ," egotistical, "blatantly ambitious, dedicated to succeeding at almost any cost." The author feels Wilson possessed considerable tactical and strategic ability, and that undoubtedly is correct. He concludes that Wilson overcame great handicaps of personality, with his life illustrating how a man with these flaws, "can significantly influence the political and social life of his era." Writing in a readable and lucid style, the author recites the story of this fascinating man in an engaging way. It is unfortunate that the summary -type footnotes at the end of the volume are inadequate for sufficient documentation. Manuscript sources used concentrate largely on Wilson and a few of those around him, and the book would benefit from a wider range of original sources. Good use is made of the Wilson Papers at the Library of Congress and the Delaware Historical Society. It is possible, though, that the author could have gleaned some material from the Alcorn and Wilson Papers at the University of Wyoming Archives and the Bender Collection at the Wyoming State Archives and Historical Department. On the other hand, it must be remembered that Wilson in his very voluminous writing left copies of much of his work scattered around. Any biographer has a problem when his subject has been as prolific as Wilson, who wrote a two-volume autobiography, Under the Old Flag. Longacre has surmounted this challenge fairly well. Some readers may quarrel, as does this reviewer, with the author's coverage of Wilson 's relations with Grant. Grant, who almost made a protege of Wilson, later became disenchanted. Longacre is perhaps extreme in his statement that Grant "sought revenge" against Wilson, although he admits Wilson had a habit of becoming estranged from former friends. Photographs included are useful, but there could have been more, and detailed maps. Despite some strictures as to analysis and depth, James Harrison Wilson has found a biographer. This is a volume that should reopen a good many points of argument and discussion for Civil War students. E. B. Long University of Wyoming My Beloved Zebulon: The Correspondence of Zebulon Baird Vance and Harriett Newell Espy. Edited by Elizabeth Roberts Cannon with an Introduction by Frances Gray Patton. (Chapel Hill: University, of North Carolina Press, 1971. Pp. xxv, 278. $10.00. ) BOOK REVIEWS361 Zebulon Baird Vance is best known for a distinguished political career which included service as North Carolina's governor during the Civil War and as its United States senator from 1879 to 1894. Personally, he was a charming, earthy, and witty man given to occasional vulgarity. In My Beloved Zebulon, Vance also emerges as an attentive and always proper suitor. The volume consists of the pre-nuptial correspondence of Zeb and Harriett Newell Espy from 1851 to 1853. It includes a well written Introduction in which Frances Gray Patton presents an informative sketch of these two young people, their families, and their courtship . Patton writes that at age twenty-one Zeb was still a poor, halfeducated , and rough country boy. As such he seemed less than ideally suited for the hand and heart of such a "pretty, pious, [and] well-connected " young woman as Harriett Espy. (p. xi). But whatever their differences, the two were in fact well matched. As a cautious, humorless , and obsessively religious individual, Harriett sought "a brilliant sinner to save." Likewise, Zeb, who was "untroubled by the least shadow of mystical faith," needed her "evangelical fervor." (p. xxiii). Because the couple met only nine times during their two and one-half year courtship, and then briefly and usually in company, the relationship matured through the 121 letters which comprise this volume These are essentially love letters in which Zeb and Harriett express their admiration for each other and write of their...