Diary of a Confederate Soldier: John S. Jackman of the Orphan Brigade (review)

BOOK REVIEWS183 predecessors have done. Therefore, it belongs in every library used by serious students of the Civil War. James L. Mooney Naval Historical Center Diary ofa Confederate Soldier: John S. Jackman ofthe Orphan Brigade. Edited by William C. Davis. (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1990. Pp. 174. $24.95.) John S. Jackman, a Confederate sympathizer, lived in Bardstown, Kentucky , when the Civil War began. In September 1861, shortly before his twentieth birthday, Jackman casually walked down to the railroad depot to pick up the daily newspapers. Three years, eight months, and four days later he returned home with the most extensive diary account written by a member of the famed First Kentucky Brigade, known to posterity as the "Orphan Brigade." Organized in Tennessee during the fall of 1861, the First Kentucky Brigade consisted of the 2d, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 9th infantry regiments and a battery of artillery. With the termination of Kentucky's neutrality, the brigade advanced into the Commonwealth to complete its recruiting. Jackman joined Company B of what became the 9th Kentucky Infantry Regiment. Major General John C. Breckinridge, an early commander of the First Kentucky Brigade, was credited with the epithet "Orphan Brigade" when he despaired over sending his "poor orphans" to their deaths in an ill-fated charge at the Battle of Stones River in January 1863. However, Jackman first referred to the brigade as orphans in his diary on May 30, 1862, indicating that the term may already have been in use. The brigade, which fought throughout the Civil War in major engagements from Shiloh to the campaign in the Carolinas, began service with about 4,000 men. Hard fighting at Stones River, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga took a heavy toll, reducing the brigade to 1,512 men by the spring of 1864. The Atlanta campaign, during which all but about fifty men received wounds, led the army to convert the First Kentucky Brigade into mounted cavalry, but no more than one-half of the men ever received horses. Just 600 members of the Orphan Brigade survived the war. Jackman's account of the demise of the First Kentucky Brigade, viewed from his position of adjutant's clerk at brigade headquarters, is literate and insightful. A keen observer who understood the importance of accuracy , Jackman distinguished between those portions of the diary that were written daily and those that were drawn from memory. The entire memoir was in its final form by 1867. 184CIVIL WAR history The diary's strengths lie in the length of time covered, the fact that the Orphan Brigade saw action in so many major battles, and his forthright picture of the everyday life of both common soldiers and officers. The descriptions of the role played by incompetent leaders—confusion and miscalculations in battle, and frequent accidents during seemingly endless marches—come to life in Jackman's diary: soldiers grow used to the monotony of camp, learn to take false reports of enemy activities in stride, and to accept rumors of future troop movements without concern. Jackman's sickly nature frequently kept him in the camp hospital or in private homes in the vicinity, also making his diary an excellent account of conditions on the Southern home front during the Civil War. Indeed, constantly moving from front to front and typically falling behind his regiment, Jackman describes how civilians provided much of the medical care of the Army of Tennessee and most of the food consumed by the troops. Marion B. Lucas Western Kentucky University General John H. Winder, C.S.A. By Arch Fredric Blakey. (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990. Pp. xvi, 275. $29.95.) A martinet who always went by the book, Brigadier General John H. Winder was motivated by a desire to redeem his family's military reputation "by his own exemplary military conduct" (xiv) after his father's signal failure as American commander at the "Bladensburg races" in 1814. In this book, Arch Fredric Blakey contends that Brigadier General John H. Winder has gotten bad press from most contemporaries and historians. He intends to set the record straight and generally succeeds. Appointed Provost Marshal of Richmond in 1861, Winder was responsible for...