The 4th Michigan Infantry in the Civil War by Martin N. Bertera, Kim Crawford (review)

102 The Michigan Historical Review the essay is valuable and well done, it cannot take the place of a more detailed listing of source citations. Despite this lack, Baugh’s The Detroit School Busing Case is an important and useful book that should be required reading for anyone concerned about civil rights law in America, the history of the civil rights movement, or the profound problems that continue to face our nation’s schools. Stephen A. Jones Central Michigan University Martin N. Bertera and Kim Crawford. The 4th Michigan Infantry in the Civil War. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2010. Pp. 412. Bibliography. Index. Notes. Photographs. Paper, $44.95. From the opening pages of this exceptionally fine work, Martin Bertera and Kim Crawford claim the reader’s attention by declaring their intent to write a humane history—not one of impersonal and abstract social forces, or economic and geographical determinism, or mere politics—but of individuals bound together by the things that move, well, real soldiers—loyalty, honor, fear, revenge, and patriotism. Using a wide and impressive variety of archival collections, letters, diaries, personal memoirs, and newspapers, the authors have produced a book that represents not a dry and abstract social study, but a tangible, sensate, and soulful work of the humanities. As the title states, the authors follow the career of the Fourth Michigan Infantry. In well-written prose, Bertera and Crawford describe the difficulties (logistically and personally) of forming companies and the regiment as a whole, as well as maintaining both over time. For example, disreputable characters tried to take advantage of the chaos and exploit the unit’s fundraising for their personal benefit. The conflict between “Black Republicans” and “War Democrats” also divided the Fourth Michigan for much of its life, and stupid accidents plagued the regiment, especially in its first year. The men found that baseball, prayer, and letters and gifts from home relieved their stress and boredom. After the trip from Michigan to Washington, D.C., the Fourth Michigan encamped at John Quincy Adams’s former mansion. Only witnesses at Manassas, the Fourth helped fortify Washington during the subsequent fall and winter months before suffering serious losses during the Seven Days Campaign of 1862. Posted as reserves for the Book Reviews 103 troops at the center left at Antietam, the unit saw no fighting in Maryland and only a little at Fredericksburg. The regiment fought fiercely, though, in hand-to-hand combat toward the end of the second day at Gettysburg, losing its leader, Colonel Harrison Jeffords, to a bayonet thrust. After participating in Grant’s Wilderness Campaign, the regiment’s surviving members were divided on June 19, 1864, the last day of the men’s three-year enlistment: roughly half went back to Michigan and half stayed in the army. Though the authors continue the story of those who remained in the war effort after June 19, the history of the regiment effectively ended on that day. Of those who stayed in the army, some fought in Virginia, while others were put into a reorganized Fourth Michigan and stationed in diverse places, including Tennessee and, after the war, Texas. Perhaps the most moving chapter is the final one, “I Saw Passing a Great Army,” which explores the ways in which veterans remembered, explained, and mythologized their time in the army as “part of an epic, something larger than life—the Army of the Potomac” (p. 264). This is a lovingly produced book. Most impressively, the authors— probably with considerable expense to Michigan State University Press— include the regiment’s roster, which is ninety-six pages long. A paragraph or more accompanies the name of each man who served in the Fourth Michigan, detailing his experiences during and after the war. Flipping through this section will humble most readers, as it is the literary equivalent of walking through the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. The names, the dates, the hopes—failed and realized—make these soldiers of the past very real. In fact, the roster provides souls for the very marble statues and war memorials that Bertera and Crawford fear have distorted our memory of this great and terrible war. Bradley J...