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86civil war history books and articles have been cited. Mr. Eaton has also made good use of manuscript sources in widely scattered depositories, which first-hand material has given freshness to many passages. The author is at his best, in the opinion of this reviewer, in the conclusions he draws from the perspective of almost a century after the events described. Many examples arrest the reader's attention. His criticism of Confederate strategy (124-129) is a case in point. Other illustrations are his appraisals of the inadequacies of the government (58-60), of the errors which cost Lee the victory at Gettysburg (200-204), of the weaknesses which caused the fall of Vicksburg (207), and of the reasons for the ultimate victory of the North (285). On the economic side, Mr. Eaton points out that aside from the Erlanger loan (which benefited only the Paris bankers, for it yielded the Confederacy less than three million dollars in cash of the fifteen million dollars negotiated) and the utterly inadequate taxes collected, the South had littìe to depend upon in the way of finances. It was driven to borrow and to put the printing presses to work, with the prospect of inevitable inflation and the astronomical prices always associated in the popular mind with the Confederacy. Although all necessary bibliographical data is supplied in the notes, the omission of a bibliography deprives the reader of ready reference to a given source and at times necessitates a prolonged search through the notes for the desired information. Ella Lonn Baltimore, Maryland. Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days in the Confederate Army. By W. W. Heartsill. Edited by Bell I. Wiley. (Jackson, Tennessee: McCowat-Mercer Press. 1954. Pp. 416. $6.00.) anyone interested in civil war history will welcome with keen delight this day-by-day account (for four years, one month, and one day) of a private soldier in a Texas regiment of the Confederate army. Two distinctive features cause this book to stand apart from other soldier narratives: it was printed by the author himself in 1876 on a small ten-dollar Octavo Novelty Press, and the entire edition of one hundred copies was illustrated by sixty-one original photographs sent to Heartsill by members of his company, the W. P. Lane Rangers. Each picture was pasted into the book by the author. Only thirteen copies of the original edition are known to have survived, and each, if offered for sale, would command a very high price. William Williston Heartsill was born at Louisville, Tennessee, on October 17, 1839. In the late 1850's he migrated to the Lone Star State, and was clerking in a wholesale merchandise firm at Marshall, Texas, when the war came on. At once he enlisted in a company of mounted troops, die W. P. Lane Rangers, which was formally sworn into state service on April 19, 1861. About a month later this group became Company "F" of the Second Regiment of Texas Cavalry, commanded by Colonel John S. Ford. From then until the bugle sounded the South's last charge, Heartsill faithfully recorded the day-by-day events of a common soldier's life in the Southern arm/. Book Reviews87 As Heartsill's military experience was long and varied, his narrative is an exceedingly valuable one. After a year's service on the southwestern frontier and a stint in prison, he was shanghaied while en route from Virginia to Texas to rejoin his command and was forced into duty with General Braxton Bragg's army in Tennessee. While serving under this commander he participated in the bloody battle of Chickamauga. In November, 1863, Heartsill and three comrades "deserted" Bragg, whom they greatly detested, and after a long walk of seven hundred miles rejoined his old unit in Texas. His detailed account of this journey, which took in portions of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, is one of the most valuable parts of the book as it throws much light upon the plight and attitudes of the plain folk among the turbulent border areas of the Confederacy. Heartsill saw both sides of prison life, being incarcerated at Camp Butler for several months in 1863, and...

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