War Journal of Louis N. Beaudry, Fifth New York Cavalry (review)

BOOK REVIEWS257 acted in and reported on local struggles involving Unionists, Confederates, the defenders of slavery, abolitionists, slaves, and freedmen. Once the Union had finally decided to arm blacks, Stephens traveled to Massachusetts to enroll in the most visible, and certainly most discussed, black regiment in the Civil War, the Massachusetts 54th. His remaining letters detail the training of the 54th and its campaigns against Charleston and in Florida. Stephens vividly testifies to the regiment's heroism in usually ill-conceived and unnecessarily dangerous battles and its political heroism in refusing to accept inferior pay for fighting the Union's war. Unfortunately the letters end after August 1864. Yacovone's biography tells of the triumphant return of the fate 54th to Massachusetts and of Stephens's initially promising career as a schoolmaster and politician in Tappahannock, Virginia. His later years were spent in Brooklyn, where he helped organize the William Lloyd Garrison Post of the Grand Army of the Republic. Briefdescriptions can scarcelydojustice to the qualities ofGeorge E. Stephens as a writer. In choosing the phrase "A voice of thunder" from an ultra-militant speech of Henry Highland Garnet, Yacovone testifies to Stephens's mastery of the prophetic style so richly developed by the abolitionists. But there is much more to Stephens; though preoccupied with the struggles of his people both against the slave-power and the often hostile white men of the North, he also wrote picturesque descriptions of camp activities and telling vignettes of individual lives of a sort rarely kept in official records. A child of the Second Great Awakening, Stephens denounced Demon Rum and disapproved of the use of tobacco. Generally and vigorously opposed to colonization, he was also prejudiced against Africa and Southern African American culture. But above all he was a remarkably gifted writer. While grateful for these excellent letters, one wishes Stephens had written many more. Robert McColley University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign WarJournal ofLouis N. Beaudry, Fifth New York Cavalry. Edited by Richard E. Beaudry. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Co., 1996. Pp. xi, 248. $31.50.) Louis N. Beaudry, a Roman Catholic convert to Methodism, served as chaplain of the 5Ü1 Regiment, New York Cavalry, from January 31,1 863, until the close of the Civil War in 1 865. During his life, Beaudry composed a forty-volume diary, of which three volumes have survived to be edited and annotated by his great-grandson, Richard E. Beaudry. Mustered in 1861 in Staten Island, the cavalry unit was known as the First Ira Harris Guard; its command stood at ? ,064 enlisted men and fifty officers. During the war, the guard served at Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and 1 19 skirmishes. When direct references are not present, the editor provides useful context to Beaudry's commentary . An excellent index helps the reader locate activities. 258CIVIL WAR HISTORY The diary reads quite well. Beaudry is fulsome about camp conditions, skirmishes , and religious services. He notes the weather daily, and the reader can be impressed with the effect of nature on the spirit and abilities of a regiment. Beaudry acted with high seriousness. Initially, the chaplain fulminates against gambling by soldiers and waxes about his participation in the military temperance movement. The book's attention to military affairs gains momentum at Gettysburg. Beaudry is captured by the Rebels, and he offers good commentary on prison conditions. The diary stops for awhile, but then is resumed after his day of freedom. The diary effectively reproduces the rhythms of camp life and usefully describes the daily activities of drills, games, hunting, and conversation, which are punctuated by skirmishes and funerals. References to the deaths of close friends convey the costs ofsuch battles as theWilderness in May 1864. There is a good deal of passing commentary on incidental situations. For example, Beaudry offers a moving scene in which he is fed by a newly freed black family in Virginia on July 4, 1 864. In August 1864, the regiment joined Gen. Philip H. Sheridan's command. Beaudry's journal offers good description of the highly destructive battles in northwest Virginia. By now the war's effects are demonstrably harsher, with announcements of the deaths of...