The Confederate Letters of Benjamin H. Freeman (review)

BOOK REVIEWS85 more." No direct evidence, however, is offered to support the contention that Baltimoreans were more concerned with the local issue of reform than they were with the sectional issues plaguing their fellow Marylanders . The fact is that most Marylanders perceived their choice as one "between 'Bell and the Union' or 'Breckinridge and Disunion!' ", and they chose Breckinridge. There are several oversights, inconsistencies, and contradictions in this book that should be noted. Although the author claims to have written "a rather precise kind of social history" that "looks much more at the populace than at the politicians," he fails to provide even the most rudimentary demographic information. This failure is compounded by relegating one of the most significant statistics in this study to a footnote. It indicates that Catholics voted against Bell, but no attempt is made to pursue the religious cleavages in the Maryland electorate. The assertion that "reform zeal" in Maryland contributed to the demise of the Whig party, the ascendency of the Know-Nothings, the decline of the Know-Nothings, and the defeat of Bell is crucial to Evitts' thesis. This reform impulse, he argues, grew out of an "aversion to politics " which had become "increasingly rougher and cruder" after "the elections of Andrew Jackson." This disillusionment with politics was not limited to "out-of-office" or "snobbish Whigs," he concludes, but was an universal phenomenon. The only evidence concerning aversion to politics as usual cited by Evitts is statements made by snobbish, out-ofoffice Whigs. Discussing the election of 1855 Evitts writes, "In the counties of Maryland the Know-Nothings ran best in the areas where the Whigs were traditionally weakest;" then he contradicts himself only a few pages later by asserting that "most of the old Whig counties went American." The most blatant inconsistencies concern the important matter of allegiances. "Secession was never more than a distant possibility ," the author boldly exclaims, after having asserted with equal conviction that "without question the decision to send troops through Annapolis prevented Maryland from seceding." Adding to our confusion , Evitts claims that "Maryland's commercial interests dictated that the state should stay with the North," but then he explains that "Baltimoreans would have been outraged by the idea that anyone thought of them as Northerners." Despite these serious flaws, A Matter of Allegiances is a valuable study of Maryland politics during the decade preceding Ben Butler's occupation of Baltimore. Michael R. Greco San Jose State University The Confederate Letters of Benjamin H. Freeman. Edited by Stuart T. Wright. (Hicksville, N. Y.: Exposition Press, 1974. Pp. 109. $5.00.) 86CIVIL WAR HISTORY Shortly before May 4, 1862, Private Benjamin H. Freeman sent home "one pare of draws [drawers]" for "Pa to ware." This kind of intimate detail characterizes The Confederate Letters of Benjamin H. Freeman, a new book compiled and edited by Stuart T. Wright, a promising young history student from North Carolina. Freeman was only one of the thousands of young men who went off to fight in the Civil War, but his poignant yet plain letters could have been written by almost any of them. And this is the strength of these letters. Freeman, like many others, had his "likeness taken." Many of these photographs survive. Across more than a century in countless books, their haunting faces stare out. Since these are the letters of an average foot soldier, they give body, not only to Freeman, but to many anonymous young soldiers. Like them, Freeman had a great concern for his bowels. For instance, on August 22, 1863, he reported to his parents that he was "well except by bowels" Like every soldiers "I wish I could be home at Christmas." He talks of food and its prices. He dutifully, almost indiscriminately, reports to home the important and the unimportant. Stonewall Jackson's death received hardly more attention than the death of "Lucy's Tom Cat." Finally, as the war drew long, he recorded: "Pa I saw two men shot . . . for desertion," while he assures his folks that he is "a patriot soldier of the South." Soon he simply writes that they "shot another man." His observations were casual and without bitterness. On at least...