Portraits of Conflict: A Photographic History of Louisiana in the Civil War (review)

180CIVIL WAR history It is not unsurprising that so political an artist produced his best work during the flush times of the 1840s and early 1850s, the period of Whig ascendancy. After 1855, like the good Whig he was, Bingham sought the support of the state and obtained government patronage for official portraits for the Missouri statehouse. The congruence is almost eerie: with the demise of the Whig party, so came the dwindling of Bingham's artistic achievement. Rash has given us a nuanced and informed interpretation of the intersection of art and politics in Bingham's career. For the study of western history she usefully reminds us that our views of western settlement have to account as much, if not more, with the Whigs' statist program of managed nature as with our romantic notions of frontier individualism. And her work reaffirms the belief that historians, even art historians, can only ignore politics at their peril. David C. Ward Smithsonian Institution Portraits of Conflict: A Photographic History of Louisiana in the Civil War. By Carl Moneyhon and Bobby Roberts. (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 1990. Pp. xi, 352. $45.00 cloth, $30.00 paper.) Thousands of Louisianians fought for the Confederacy on several fronts—in engagements within their own state and on battlefields far from home with the Armies of the Trans-Mississippi, Tennessee, and Northern Virginia. Simultaneously, many Yankees fought in Louisiana or against Louisianians elsewhere. The twelve chapters in A Photographic History of Louisiana in the Civil War present a comprehensive photographic record of the entire Louisiana Civil War experience, from secession through the major campaigns within the state itself, the performance of Louisiana troops in other areas, their Union opponents, and life behind the lines. Each chapter begins with an accurate and wellwritten introduction to its principal theme, followed by contemporary photographs (each with a detailed caption) of participants on each side— from private to general to civilian. The second study in a projected series, this Portraits of Conflict volume, contains the finest single selection of Louisiana Civil War photographs available and would make an outstanding pictorial companion to John Winters's definitive The Civil War in Louisiana. The authors mined all the major collections, public and private, for the photographs included in this volume. Most of those chosen were obtained from Louisiana State University, Tulane University, Confederate Memorial Hall in New Orleans, and from the United States Army historical collections . (The well-known Andrew Lytle, who took most of the Civil War-era photographs in Baton Rouge, is himself pictured on page 6 some years after the conflict.) Among the more striking studies are those of BOOK REVIEWS181 handsome Maj. David F. Boyd, CSA, postwar president of LSU (51); 1st Lt. Jefferson D. VanBenthuysen, Jr., CSA, minus the eye he lost at Gettysburg (68); childishly young-looking CpI. Grant R. Taylor, CSA, captured at Port Hudson (99); and the first Union military governor of New Orleans, portly Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. "Beast" Butler, USA, portrayed all too revealingly in profile (251). A close reading of the text revealed only one factual error recognized as such by this reviewer: on page 336, "Carpetbag" governor Henry C. Warmoth is said to have died on September 30, 1901. Actually, Warmoth died thirty years later. All in all, this is a splendid addition to the general pictorial record of the Civil War, and especially to Louisiana's role in that conflict. Scholars and buffs alike will want to have a copy. It is to be hoped that future volumes in the Portraits of Conflict series will embody the same high standards of selectivity and scholarship that characterize this volume on Louisiana. Mark T. Carleton Louisiana State University Warships of the Civil War Navies. By Paul H. Silverstone. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1989. Pp. xiii, 271. $38.95.) When one views the revolutionary changes that took place in naval warfare during the Civil War, it is surprising to realize that so much time had passed before someone compiled a satisfactory reference book giving basic information on each of the warships of the Union and Confederate Navies. To be sure, several attempts were made to fill this gap in the literature...