Lost New Orleans (review)

BOOK REVIEWS359 Meigs on the fighting in 1863 at Orchard Knob, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge. Published here for the first time, it is similar to Meigs's dispatch to Edwin Stanton that became the standard account of these engagements. Military historians and remnants of Civil War Round Tables may find its description of Grantissuing crucial orders in battle to be of interest. Appropriating nearly half of the book are the reminiscences of Samuel Beckwith, Grant's telegrapher and cipherer. The account was published in the New York Sun in 1913; one may question whether it should have consumed new print. But few biographers of Grant have gone to Beckwith, and he does provide some intimate, though rather bland, sketches of the commander. The editors expect to publish more volumes of this sort. When they do, they might exercise a more careful judgment on the essays and documents deserving a place in Grantiana. Carl M. Becker Wright State University Lost New Orleans. By Mary Cable. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company , 1980. Pp. xvi, 235. $21.95.) Architectural history is this book's central theme. Despite the timeless quality of New Orleans, virtually every lot of its real estate has been the site of not one but a succession of structures. Cable's volume deals with notable and less well-known buildings which have fallen before the ravages of swampy terrain, rain and flood, hurricane winds, innumerable fires and, most especially, human wreckers and rebuilders. On most pages, illustrations recall the look of the exteriors and occasionally the interiors of these buildings. While photographs are the principal medium, there are also drawings, including a selection from the extraordinary official illustrations collected in the Notorial Archives. After an initial chapter on the period before the Louisiana Purchase, the presentation centers on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and is organized according to the buildings' functions. For example, there are chapters on houses, on hotels, and on commercial establishments. A substantial text elucidates the pictures. Basing her narrative on a wide range of literary sources, including travellers' accounts, newspaper descriptions and city guidebooks, the author analyzes both the frequently changing face of the Crescent City and the architects most responsible for the alterations. Among the latter are such expected ones as Benjamin Latrobe and James Gallier but also some surprises. Cable reveals that New Orleans once possessed the only railroad station designed by Louis Sullivan and that Frank Lloyd Wright worked on its drawings. Her book is far more than a sort of nostalgic history of architectural styles and innovations in decor. It also includes much on the daily life of the people who used the buildings. Among the aspects considered are how they earned their livings; their imaginative cuisines; 360CIVIL WAR history their alternating devotion to Heaven and to Hell. Notneglected are such grimmer topics as plague and death. Colorfully embellished by quotations , this is actually a popularly written history of the city. Readers of Civil War History are likely to be interested in particular aspects of the book. Several maps and views give a good idea of the city's overall appearance in the mid-nineteenth century. Moreover, there are the photographs of the mansion occupied by General Benjamin F. Butler, of the St. Charles Hotel in which several Union commanders made their headquarters, and of the French Opera House whose pleasures they enjoyed. For Reconstruction, there are pictures of the St. Louis Hotel, used by the legislature, and of the Mechanics Institute, focal point of the bloody New Orleans Riot of 1866. However, Cable's book is not exclusively for Civil Warriors or specialists of any kind. A wide audience should find it to be both instructive and enjoyable. Frank L. Byrne Kent State University :â^r'-· ...