My Dear Nellie: The Civil War Letters of William L. Nugent to Eleanor Smith Nugent (review)

186CIVIL WAR history Just over 600 letters appear in this volume, of which Polk wrote roughly 15 per cent. Even with so few of his own letters, however, Polk comes through as Jackson's chief lieutenant in Tennessee, equally able to examine overall principles and strategy with the Elder Statesman, and personalities and tactics with the county faithful in Murfreesboro, Pulaski, or Bolivar. Shrewd management of his own career is evident, too, as Polk, expecting defeat at the hands of newly-elected Whigs if he sought a third term as Speaker, agrees well in advance to run for governor in 1839. The correspondence with Jackson, totalling 25 pieces, shows a variety of dimensions to their relationship: knight doing battle for the king's cause; collaborators of equal status sharing information; cool master chiding impetuous student. An example of the last occurs when Polk rambles on about a rumored upheaval in Van Buren's cabinet; next day Jackson replies that it's all a passel of Whiggish gossip: "I am astonished that you should have believed such an absurd tale." In addition to Jackson, other prominent political figures are Andrew Jackson Donelson (24), John Catron (14), Cave Johnson (14), A.O.P. Nicholson (7), Mahlon Dickerson (7), Martin Van Buren (6), and Felix Grundy (4). The Catron letters are particularly interesting for the political doings of a newly-appointed Supreme Court justice. Polk's increasingly important role apparently did not seriously curtail his attention to the routine concerns of private citizens. His lifelong attention to detail, mixed with a typical desire to be helpful and a canny protection of the interests of his constituents, is apparent in his note to the Navy Department regarding a young man wishing to be a middie: "I don't know him but I forward his papers as requested; if you appoint him, don't count him on Tennessee's quota—after all, the lad does live in New York!" A number of family letters round out the two-year collection. The annotations and editorial mechanics are excellent and help to ensure that this volume, like its predecessors, has something of value to a wide variety of scholarly interests. James E. Sefton California State University, Northridge My Dear Nellie: The Civil War Letters of William L. Nugent to Eleanor Smith Nugent. Edited by William M. Cash and Lucy Somerville Howorth. (University Press of Mississippi, 1977. Pp. xii, 247. $9.95.) William L. Nugent of Greenville, Mississippi, was a mature young man in his late twenties when the Civil War began. Graduated with honors from Methodist-sponsored Centenary College, Nugent later took a readership of law under Abram F. Smith of Greenville whose book reviews187 eldest daughter, Eleanor (Nellie), he married in September, 1860. Upon the secession of Mississippi from the Union Nugent accepted a position in charge of defense preparations. In March, 1862, he enlisted in the Washington County cavalry and served until the end of the war in various locations in Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. After signing an amnesty oath in May, 1865, Nugent returned home to a destroyed Greenville. Nellie died on January 1, 1866, being about twenty two years old. Nugent's letters to Nellie began in June, 1860, and continued throughout the war. His letters are obviously those of an educated, observant, sensitive man. The first nine were written before Nugent and Nellie were married and he continually assured her of his love in flowery language. Approximately thirty pages, often filled with verbose phrases, become rather tiresome and the editors would have done well to give the reader only a sampling. After the marriage and the outbreak of war, Nugent's letters took on a different tone, becoming less filled with windy phrases and more interesting for their insights into the social and cultural history of the age. The collection enjoys a thread of continuity that is unusual and enables the reader to formulate some concept, however limited, of how one man and his wife attempted to cope with the strains and anxieties of their long separation and the tragedies brought by the war. Nugent's observations also reveal information about civilian morale, religious philosophy and conditions, the impact...