The Battle of Wildcat Mountain (review)

Kenneth H. Hafendorfer. The Battle ofWildcatMountain. Louisville, KY: K H Press, 2003. 320 pages. Cloth. $25.00. For too many years, the Civil War Battle of Wildcat Mountain (or as it is sometimes called the Battle of Rockcastle Hills), outside of London, Kentucky, has not been thoroughly examined by historians. Although noted Kentucky historian Thomas Clark treats the battle in some detail in his history of Laurel County, most historians merely mention the fray in passing. Part of that seems justified since after a day's fighting, with combined forces numbering over 8000 men, the Confederates lost twelve, while only five Union forces were killed. In fact, only 62 were wounded, counting both sides. On paper, it doesn't look much like a battle at all, perhaps nothing more than a skirmish. But the numbers belie the importance of the battle to almost all of Appalachia, for if Confederate General Felix K. Zollicoffer and his forces had routed Union General Albin F. Schoepf and his men from their strategic stand blocking the important and oft-used Wilderness Road, things might have been quite different for the rest of the war. Yet, of course, the Grayclads didn't win and retreated down the Wilderness Road. Both Union and the Confederacy saw the Wilderness Road and the Cumberland Gap as key to opening up east Tennessee with its many Yankee supporters. In his book on the battle, Louisville physician and Civil War historian Kenneth A. Hafendorfer details the intricacies of the struggle to satisfy the most ardent military tactician. The strategies of both sides are carefully and impressively delineated, all gathered from a rich store of sources that seem to have exhausted every possible angle of inquiry. Hafendorfer often employs the words of actual participants to reinforce the explanations given to each phase of the battle, accounts gathered from obscure and perhaps long-forgotten diaries and military records. In addition, the author thoughtfully provides readers with 42 maps, describing various stages of the battle, and 63 photographs and other illustrations that also add substance and power to the prose. However, as a minor point, the book does suffer from lack of a thorough and judicious editing, with too many misspellings and other mechanical errors that mar the quality of the research and ultimately annoy the reader. Civil War scholarship has often divided itself into two distinct camps. On one side are those who feel that the implications of the 70 battle deserve the focus: What was the battle's ultimate significance? What is its lasting legacy? On the other side are those who feel that Civil War history should describe in loving detail the battle strategies, troop placement, and the broad and bloody machinations of war, since these factors determine the outcome of the particular battle. Ultimately, Hafendorfer's book represents the second philosophy. Readers who believe that the intricacies of battle should be the focus will find his book both interesting and informative, for it is a book about a battle that has too long lingered and waited patiently for its scribe. —Marshall Myers Sandra Ballard and Patricia L. Hudson, eds. Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2003. 673 pages. Cloth. $45.00. The introduction to Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia, begins with a quote by West Virginia poet Irene McKinney: "I'm a hillbilly, a woman, and a poet, and I understood early on thatnobodywas going to listen to anything I had to say anyway, so I might as well say what I want to" (1). The editors of Listen Here, Sandra Ballard, editor of Appalachian Journal, and Patricia Hudson, a freelance writer for Southern Living and other magazines, wanted to make sure that writers like McKinney did get listened to, so more than ten years ago they began preparations for this collection of 105 Appalachian women writers. At 673 pages, this book gives us plenty to listen to, and it is every bit worth hearing. Listen Here is a monumental work, a comprehensive gathering that goes all the way back to 1826 for an excerpt from an Anne Newport Royall travel book and is immediate enough to include the very modern musings...