Lt. Spalding in Civil War Louisiana: A Union Officer's Humor, Privilege, and Ambition by Michael D. Pierson (review)

By relying entirely on the contents of a single letter to drive his narrative, Michael Pierson presents an eminently readable work that is both an individual biography and an effective racial, gender, and social history of the men who made up the Union army in 1862. This letter—which Lt. Stephen Spalding of the 8th Vermont wrote on July 8, 1862, while stationed in Algiers, Louisiana—is unique in that it displays a candid side of military life that is less commonly seen than the sentimental, romantic picture preserved in the thousands of surviving letters that otherwise dot the historical landscape. Spalding used humor and exaggeration to convey rollicking stories before slipping into a more somber tone to discuss, as he put it, "the mutability of all things human" with his friend and former roommate James Peck (3). Viewed as a whole, the letter explicitly and implicitly touches on topics such as race, gender, and death to provide a panoply of references that Pierson is able to unpack and contextualize with the benefit of hindsight. Thanks to his experience with the era and self-professed infatuation with Spalding's letter, Pierson gracefully navigates Spalding's complex web of colloquialisms, references, and inside jokes to immerse the reader in the world of 1860s America.

Pierson structures his argument in a way that allows Spalding to serve as a representative example of a Vermont Democrat and, in the process, applies perspective to archaic references that Spalding no doubt found vernacular in July 1862. Spalding's feelings on race, for example, are contextualized to illustrate the broader view that most northern Democrats held toward African Americans during the second year of the Civil War. Additionally, Pierson dissects the actions and liberties Spalding describes to show them as indicative of the position of power men North and South held in Victorian-era America. In essence, by using Spalding's letter as a jumping-off point, Pierson has created a rich world of characters, ideas, and situations that bring 1862 Louisiana to life. Pierson uses additional sources—such as the 8th Vermont's official regimental history (written in 1886) as well as letters from other men in Spalding's regiment—to flesh out the narrative and introduce a cast of supporting characters who are often used to confirm or repudiate Spalding's stance on a particular issue. The point-counterpoint nature of this examination does not create a binary world, however, but one in which shades of grey permeate the daily rituals of those living out their damp, broiling existence under the Louisiana sun in 1862.

Moving beyond that summer in Algiers, Pierson's additional research carries Spalding's story into his past and future. Pierson puts masculine ambition on display as he investigates Spalding's military life prior to joining the 8th Vermont, casting doubts on Spalding's integrity as an honest representative of his own abilities in the process. He also spends considerable time investigating the circumstances of Spalding's own death on June 14, 1863, at Port Hudson, Louisiana: the 8th's regimental history records Spalding's final actions as well as a death premonition Spalding had supposedly announced the night before the battle. Such premonitions are a trope within nineteenth-century Civil War history, a fact Pierson only passingly references as he investigates the rationale behind Spalding's macabre language. It is surprising that after painting such a compelling portrait of the role exaggeration and romantic ideals played in Civil War–era literature, Pierson takes Spalding's words pertaining to the supernatural at face value. This aside, Pierson's examination of the battle and the differing accounts of the Vermonters' role in it add a final layer to a story that would be all too easy to overlook in a similarly structured manuscript.

In sum, Pierson has illustrated...