Secret Yankees: The Union Circle in Confederate Atlanta (review)

72CIVIL WAR HISTORY sharp-tongued, and always Uvely, Adams's letters are a treasure trove to be mined by historians, and Leasher is to be congratulated for bringing them to scholarly attention. Joan Waugh University of California at Los Angeles Secret Yankees: The Union Circle in Confederate Atlanta. By Thomas G. Dyer. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Pp. xiü, 383. $29.95.) Yankees? In Atlanta? Surely Not. Thomas Dyer diUgently goes to work in Secret Yankees to debunk the popular misconception promulgated by Gone With the Wind that wartime Atlanta was united behind the Confederate cause. Dyer, through excellent, meticulous research is able to identify a small, yet dedicated, circle of both white and black Union men and women, living inside one of the Confederacy's most important cities. Obviously, viewed as traitors by their proConfederate neighbors, this circle was quite secretive and thus their exploits have largely been ignored until now. Dyer traces the pro-Union movement in Atlanta primarily through the lives ofAmherst and Cyrena Stone, two Vermont natives who had relocated to Georgia by 1 850. Cyrena andAmherst, Uke several other farrulles inAtlanta ofNorthern birth, became slaveholders but held no passion for secession. With the outbreak of armed conflict, paranoia gripped the city that Yankee spies and sympathizers lurked around every corner. Citizens with ties to the North or of questionable loyalty to the Confederacy were under constant scrutiny and suspicion . The pro-Union circle was forced to remain secret. It is primarily through the writings of Cyrena Stone that Dyer is able to piece together the hardships, fears, thoughts and actions of these Unionists. In a very impressive piece of detective work, Dyer is able to prove that the previously unknown author of a pro-Union diary is actually Cyrena Stone. Referring to herself only as "Miss Abby," the diarist purposely used a pseudonym and similarly altered or deleted references to other Unionists in the event that the book fall into Confederate hands. Cyrena's diary ultimately became the inspiration and source for a fictitious book written by her half-sister, entitled Goldie's Inheritance: A Story of the Siege ofAtlanta, which is the story of a Unionist woman living in Atlanta during the Civil War. There is no mistaking that the heroine in this story is indeed the real life Cyrena Stone and the mysterious "Miss Abby." The retelling of how Dyer pieced this puzzle together is almost as intriguing as the story of these Unionists. Thomas Dyer has provided a unique chapter to the better understanding of the complex history of wartime Atlanta. At the same time, he provides a wellresearched story that competently explains the predicaments, conflicts, and struggles faced by the Unionist in Atlanta. Secret Yankees does not pretend to compare the Unionist situation in Atlanta to that in other Southern cities such as BOOK REVIEWS73 Richmond, but it does beg the question of the pUght of Unionists elsewhere in the Confederacy. Was the Unionist experience in Atlanta unique, or was it comparable to other cities? A small complaint for an otherwise excellent contribution to a neglected side of the Civil War home front and the history of Atlanta. Myers Brown The Atlanta History Center "By the Blood ofOurAlumni ": Norwich University Citizen Soldiers in theArmy ofthe Potomac. (Mason City, Iowa: Savas Publishing Company, 1999. Pp. vi, 446. $29.95.) In the preface to this narrowly focused volume, Robert G. Poirier explains that his purpose is to help rectify "a maddening lack of recognition" ofthe miUtary achievements ofgraduates ofNorwich University. Norwich, estabUshed in 18 19, and located in Northfield, Vermont, is the nation's oldest private military college . Poirier (Norwich Class of 1966) writes that in his readings as a student of military history, he often finds mention of men in combat from West Point or Virginia Military Institute or the Citadel, but no reference to men from Norwich . This is so even though his small institution had produced more officers for the service of the United States during the Civil War than any school other than the U.S. Military Academy. By the Blood ofOurAlumni is Poirier's effort to begin correcting this "oversight " of Norwich men's achievements. It details...