The Continuing War

The Continuing War EDITED BY RICHARD B. HARWELL 35 Malvern Avenue, Apt. 5 Richmond, Virginia when henry hotze, the brilliant phopagandist for the Confederacy, was editing The Index in London he wrote to a prospective associate on August 11, 1864: "The cherished ambition of my life is to make the Index a worthy representative in journalism of the highest ideal of that Southern civilization which is as yet only in its infancy. This ideal is as far removed from blind idolatry of the past as from the conceited contempt of the past, which characterizes our age." The current upsurge in interest in the Civil War has sprung from no "blind idolatry of the past," and, being founded very largely on the results of investigative research, it' is well equipped to combat "the conceited contempt of the past, which characterizes our age" — be "our age" our own or Henry Hotze's, 1956 or 1864. The Journal of Civil War History now has an opportunity to become a worthy representative of a new sort of historical journalism. It is a pleasure to report for it forthcomibg titles in that stream of publications which has been called "The Continuing War." Bell Wiley and Seale Johnson, the Confederate entrepreneurs of Tennessee 's McCowat-Mercer Press, have joined their talents once again to produce a new edition of a rare personal narrative, William Nathaniel Wood's Reminiscences of Big I, that is a fine successor to 1492 Days and As They Saw Forrest. This is the best edited, best produced volume yet to come from the Wiley-Johnson combination. It will be the late spring publication on the rapidly growing list of McCowat-Mercer publications. Mr. Wiley has promoted himself from the "common soldier" of the Union and Confederate armies and from the "plain people of the Confederacy " and in Big I has worked with the reminiscences of a Confeder109 110RICHARD B. HARWELL ate company officer. But Nat Wood was no stuffed-shirt aristocrat. He was more the red-blooded American yeoman type. He worked himself up from private, and he fought the war the hard way. His narrative was written a good many years after the close of the war, but it retains a freshness lacking in many narratives of the old veteran type. Wood wrote directly and simply. And he himself comes through the story as a direct and simple character, a character of conviction and capability. He was from Albemarle county, Virginia, and served in the Monacello Guard, Company "A," 19th Virginia Regiment, from First Manassas to the end of the war. Particularly interesting in his story, as Professor Wiley points out, is his first-hand account of the Battle of Gettysburg. In his usual thorough manner the editor has appended useful material to the new edition as well as providing it with an introduction and illusa trations. The original edition is a fine book, but too scarce for many Civil War collectors ever to obtain a copy. The new edition is an even finer book and will be widely available. Additional material in it includes the first printing of two wartime letters from Wood, muster rolls of his company , and the surviving fragments of the original manuscript of Big I, a version which differs in some respects from the printed book. A completely different type of Civil War publication will make its debut somewhat later in the year, a Civil War comic strip. It is "Johnny Reb and Billy Yank," created by Frank Giacoia and distributed by Ben Martin and his New York Herald Tribune Syndicate. Months in advance of first regular publication it has a line up of an impressive number of papers to carry it, and soon ought to have nationwide coverage. The strips are clearly and handsomely drawn and should be instrumental in creating a whole new generation of Civil War fans. "Johnny Reb and Billy Yank's" first installment begins on the eve of First Manassas: "My name is Johnny Reb and I'm a Virginian. When I heard about how the Yankees was going to invade us, I joined up to fight for my state and for the South. The summer of 1861, they marched a...