The Desolate South, 1865-1866 (review)

92CIVIL WAH HISTÜHY The book is also an excellent reference for those who might wish to revive vague recollections of such items as the "Swamp Angel," or the suicidal doublebarreled chain-shot gun, or the centrifugal musket-ball slinger, or the Civil War versions of the flame thrower and body armor. In Lincoln and the Tools of War the present Chief of Ordnance would cert.iinly recognize problems that have faced him and his immediate predecessors . The muzzle-loader vs. breech-loader controversy was echoed, on the eve or the second World War, in the arguments between supporters of the Springfield and the Garand rifles. Those who felt that the faster-firing Garand would encourage soldiers to fire without aiming and to waste ammunition were using the theme of Cenerai Ripley's defense of the musket in 1861 — and in both eases the argument had some merit. For there will probably always be with us Ripley's basic problem: to put existing stockpiled weapons into the hands of the troops, or to gamble on crash production of relatively untried weapons of great potential value. The research behind this volume has obviously been painstaking and literally exhaustive; in fact, Mr. Bruce has really assembled enough material for several volumes, and therein lies what is perhaps the only adverse criticism — the subject is too big to be compressed into three hundred pages. Because of this mass of material, the author adheres neither to a strict chronological development nor to a progressive treatment of each type of weapon, but seeks a middle road; as a result, the story appears to jump back and forth unnecessarily, particularly in the second half of the book. But to compensate for this fault — if fault it is — the author furnishes a complete set of notes, covering forty-four pages at the end of the text; there are no source footnotes, but any statement or quotation can easily be traced through an ideal system of page and paragraph references. Add to this a ten-page bibliography and a comprehensive index, and it will be seen that in addition to presenting a highly readable story, Mr. Bruce has made a valuable contribution to Civil War research. Arthur P. Wade West Point, New York The Desolate South, 1865-1866. By John T. Trowbridge. Edited by Gordon Carroll. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1956. Pp. xvi, 320. $6.00.) A:\fONC; several .northerners and Europeans who visited the South after the Civil War and wrote accounts of their experiences was John T. Trowbridge, abolitionist, journalist, and editor. His report was one of the fullest and one of the best, not as objective as he thought but as balanced as could be expected under the circumstances. Holding a high opinion of the pen over the sword, he remained in Boston until the summer of 1865, but in the next few months went into every Southern state except Texas. Trowbridge clearly disliked "rebels" and shaded his narrative as became a proper Bostonian of 1865, but the factual part seems authentic. He visited batüefields and towns, observed and talked with all classes of the population, and related his experiences with a good deal of gusto. His account of the physical condition of the South and its Book Reviews93 confused state of mind is sounder than his misplaced optimism concerning the future of the South and the prospects of the negro race. The work of the freedmen's schools, the negro as laborer, the condition of the battlefields, and the poverty of the people are recurring themes. The editor's task has been to reduce the text by perhaps one-third, supply a brief biographical introduction, and substitute photographs for the contemporary maps and drawings. His work concerns the original edition of 1866 (a second, enlarged edition appeared in 1868), and Mr. Carroll's editorship is not of the best. He asserts that he has "removed nothing of significance," but he has eliminated the footnotes, "several chapters," and numerous paragraphs. He has recast phrases to improve the continuity. None of these changes or omissions is indicated in the text. There is no index. The student will prefer the original; the casual reader will...