William H. Emory, Scientist-Soldier (review)

286CIVIL WAR HISTORY but provided an interesting record of garrison duty in his letters home. After returning to Cincinnati, he practiced law, entered politics as a states rights Democrat , and expressed his strong romantic impulse through poetry. In 1 861 , Lytle was appointed commander of the ?oth Ohio Volunteer Infantry and saw his first service of the Civil War in western Virginia. After recuperating from a wound suffered a Carnifex Ferry and a stint as commander of a training camp in Kentucky, Lytle assumed command of a brigade. He and his command spent several months in 1 862 occupying Huntsville, Alabama, before returning to Kentucky to help turn back Braxton Bragg's invasion of the Bluegrass State. At Perryville, Lytle was taken prisoner and, after being paroled and exchanged, returned to duty with promotion to brigadier general in 1863. He then participated in William S. Rosecrans's operations in Middle and East Tennessee before dying a hero's death at Chickamauga. Lytle was, according to Ruth C. Carter, editor oíForHonor, Glory, and Union and author of a study of the Lytle family in antebellum Cincinnati, a man whose aristocratic character, romantic outlook on life, and Democratic politics "epitomized a southern cavalier rather than a Yankee" (207). Lytle's Civil War letters also reveal him to be a capable and conscientious officer who, like most, was preoccupied with rank, the minutia of war, the quest for material comfort, and keeping track of affairs back home. Although a fine book, For Honor, Glory, and Union is not without flaws. In the section of photographs, Don Carlos Buell is misidentified as Phil Sheridan and vice versa. Readers interested in Lytle's views on race and slavery or his response to the Emancipation Proclamation will also be disappointed. To Lytle, the war was caused by Southerners acting on a "misconception of the true sentiments of the northern masses on the subject of slavery" (118). Yet at no point in his wartime letters does he elucidate what in his mind those "true sentiments" were or should be. And although she deserves much praise for her outstanding work editing and introducing these letters, Carter's sympathy for her subject gets the better of her at times. Lytle was clearly a fine officer. However, few readers will come away from this book sharing Carter's conviction that he "ranks among the best Union volunteer officers for his leadership skills" (28). Still, this is an engaging and worthwhile book. It will appeal to anyone with an interest in the operations in which Lytle participated and the experiences of a volunteer officer in the Mexican and Civil Wars. Ethan S. Rafuse University of Missouri-Kansas City William H. Emory, Scientist-Soldier. By David L. Norris, James C. Milligan, and Odie B. Faulk. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998. Pp. 353. $29.95.) In a forty-five year career, William H. Emory distinguished himself as a soldier and scientist during the middle years of the nineteenth century. Emory was born BOOK REVIEWS287 into a prominent Maryland family in 1 8 1 1 . He was educated at West Point, graduating in 183 1 . The boredom ofgarrison life prompted Emory to resign his commission in 1836 to become an assistant United States engineer. Two years later, he was appointed to the newly created Corps ofTopographical Engineers, where earned a reputation as one of the nation's premier military scientists. Emory was involved in some of this new agency's most important projects. From 1844-46, he served as a principal assistant to the American commissioner for the Northeastern boundary survey between the United States and Canada. During the Mexican War, 1846-48, Emory was chief topographical engineer for Stephen W. Kearney's Army ofthe West and participated in its two-thousandmile trek to secure California. His primary assignment was to conduct a natural history survey of the vast region traversed. His journal, Notes of a Military Reconaissance ( 1 850), established Emory as an expert on Southwestern geology , botany, and zoology. The map he prepared of the expedition's route, considered a cartographic classic, was the first accurate depiction of the region from the Rio Grande to the Pacific. At the end...