The Journals Of Thomas Hubbard Hobbs (review)

BOOK REVIEWS89 desire a reduction in the number of items included in both. Overall , however, Jones has produced a commendable study. Richard M. McMurry Valdosta State College The Journals Of Thomas Hubbard Hobbs. By Faye Acton Axford. (University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1976. Pp. 272. $10.00.) Seeing the University of Virginia for the first time on a rainy November day in 1847, Thomas Hubbard Hobbs of Athens, Alabama , recorded that "altho' I did not see it under the most favorable circumstances, yet I am delighted with its appearance" (p. 85). In the tradition of many educated Southerners in the antebellum period, Hobbs entered the events of his life (and whatever else happened to interest him) in private diaries. Under the skillful editing of Faye Acton Axford, his recordings, covering the period between 1840 and 1862, are now available. Hobbs was born in Limestone County, an integral part of Alabama 's Tennessee River Valley, on April 18, 1826, and was descended from Virginians on both sides of his family. He attended La Grange College in Alabama, Hoffman's Law Institution in Philadelphia, and later, the University of Virginia, where he graduated in the summer of 1849. That fall he was examined and admitted to the bar in Athens. He was married twice: in 1852 to Indiana Elizabeth Booth of Virginia ("Indie" died in 1854), and in 1858 to Anne Benagh, also of Virginia, and by whom he had two sons. The young lawyer served in the state legislature where he supported railroad development and free, schools. When the Civil War began he became captain of an infantry company that saw action as part of the Ninth Alabama in Virginia. Wounded in the fighting at Gaines' Mill in June 1862, Hobbs died on July 22. The compiler has arranged the journals into ten chapters. The book has complete index, although the type is so small that the entries are almost unreadable. This reviewer questions the decision to forego footnotes. Instead, explanatory notes, indicated by various typographer's marks, are inserted in smaller type in the body of the page and following a specific entry. Although people, objects, and events are thoroughly identified, the placement of the notes intrudes on the flow of the reading. Hobbs was an intelligent commentator. He wrote about people, both the famous and the not so famous, with an observant eye. Although deeply religious, Hobbs was tolerant of his less devout contemporaries and had both compassion and a sense of humor. His considerable descriptive abilities touched on clothing, man- 90CIVIL WAR HISTORY ners, customs, modes of travel, religion, moments of happiness and of sadness, politics—the sum of life as he experienced it. The result, if not startling, is a valuable account of life in the South, especially in North Alabama. The extremely thorough work of Editor Axford is highly useful and informative. William Warren Rogers Florida State University The Battle of the Washita: The Sheridan-Custer Indian Campaign of 1867-69. By Stan Hoig. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday fit Company, 1976. Pp. xvii, 268. $8.95.) The Buffalo War: The History of the Red River Indian Uprising of 1874. By James L. Haley. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday fit Company, 1976. Pp. xxi, 290. $7.95.) Death Song: The Last of the Indian Wars. By John Edward Weems. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday fit Company, 1976. Pp. xx, 311. $10.95.) These volumes cater to the public's insatiable fascination with the Great Plains Indian wars during the closing decades of the nineteenth century. Triggered by the headlong expansion of aggressive white trespassers—buffalo hunters, miners, ranchers, farmers, townbuilders —into the trans-Mississippi West, military engagements between blue-coated cavalrymen and painted warriors defending their homelands were a mixture of savagery, heroics, treachery and confusion on both sides. Hollywood notwithstanding, "To be caught up in an attack by Indians was not romantic," writes James L. Haley; "it was a cold, mean, bloody, cruel and terrifying experience. But above all it was a revolting, ugly thing." Yet the allure of these events and such colorful personalities as George Armstrong Custer persists even for historians. The three volumes under review broaden our understanding of this frontier...