Advice After Appomattox: Letters to Andrew Johnson, 1865-1866 (review)

BOOK reviews89 impression upon Brazilian life. One, Thomas McKnight, introduced the moldboard plow to Brazil. Others in the group established the first Baptist church in Brazil. The present study of the McMullan colony is an outgrowth of a Texas Tech doctoral dissertation. The author, a descendant of the McMullan family, has done an outstanding job in tracing the major events of this southern colonization effort. The research is thorough and the narrative is clearly written. The volume would have greater value if the author had provided more comparison with other efforts at Confederation colonization . Too, it would be informative to know more about the reaction ofthe Brazilians themselves to such efforts. These, however, are only minor criticisms and should not detract from the overall value of the work. Ralph A. Wooster Lamar University Advice After Appomattox: Letters to Andrew Johnson, 1865-1866. By Brooks D. Simpson, LeRoy P. Grafand John Muldowny. Special Volume No. 1 of the Papers of Andrew Johnson. (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1987. Pp. xxvi, 259. $29.95 and $14.95.) The notice that this is "Special Volume No. 1 of the Papers of Andrew Johnson," appears on the title page, but it is given no further explanation. Unlike other volumes of presidential papers which emphasize letters sent, this volume contains letters received by President Johnson. Thirty-eight letters from Salmon P. Chase, Carl Schurz, Benjamin C. Truman, Harvey M. Waterson, and Ulysses S. Grant form solicited and unsolicited reports to Johnson on conditions in the South. Appendixes offer several additional letters, and almost as an afterthought the editors included "the only public record of Johnson's direct response to the information garnered on these tours" (Appendix II, p. 241). During Johnson's first year as president, Chase and Schurz volunteered to tour the South and report on conditions as they saw them. Realizingthat these reports might reflect the special views of the two correspondents, Johnson, seeking a counterbalance, asked his friends Waterman and Truman also to report on conditions in the South. Perhaps foradded balance, Johnson asked General Grant for his observations of Southern acceptance ofthe war's outcome, the condition ofthe former slave population, and on race relations. Each correspondent submitted his observations through letters which are published as a report. Waterman's letters, written in midsummer from the upper South and from the lower South in the fall, form two reports, while Grant's three-page letter reflects a military style. The editors introduce each report with an interpretive essay which ade- 90CIVIL WAR HISTORY quately summarizes the report by using almost as many pages as the original letters. Notes for the essays are conveniently placed at the bottom ofthe page, while notes to the letters are awkwardly placed at the end of each letter which causes some letters to begin or end in the middle ofa page. The "Preface," "Prologue," and "Epilogue" are instructive and contribute to the volume. The index is useful. According to the editors, this compilation ofletters from Chase, Schurz, Waterson, Truman, and Grant "was intended to make readily available the fruits of[their] efforts to garner information" (Preface, xii). This statement was the only explanation for publishing a "Special Volume No. 1. . . ." Four pages later, the editors acknowledge that these letters were variously published in the North Carolina Historical Review (1950), the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (1960), the Tennessee Historical Quarterly (1959), and the Georgia Historical (Quarterly (195 1). The letters ofSchurz and Truman were published as Senate Executive Documents and Schurz's report was published by a commercial press in 1969. While the present volume provides a convenient source for these esoteric letters, this reviewer remains puzzled about the unexplained bibliographical information that this is "Special Volume No. 1 ofthe Papers of Andrew Johnson." Are we to expect a "Special Volume No. 2"? Harry P. Owens University of Mississippi CarpetbaggerofConscience:A Biography ofJohn Emory Bryant. By Ruth Currie-McDaniel. (Athensand London: University ofGeorgia Press, 1987. Pp. 238. $30.00.) Characterizing John Emory Bryant as "an aggressive personality, yet one with deeply held tenets of morality and reform," Ruth Currie-McDaniel seeks to cast new light on this carpetbagger from Maine. Bryant's career in...