The Continuing War

The Continuing War EDITED BY JAMES I. ROBERTSON, JR. the crvTL war has gone Hollywood. Several film producers are making plans to climb aboard the centennial bandwagon. The box-office success of The Horse Soldiers, an adaptation of Grierson's Raid, reflected the intense interest in war movies, despite the fact that MGM was somewhat disappointed with the returns from Raintree County and The Red Badge of Courage. Now the House of Leo the Lion is strongly considering a reissue of Gone with the Wind, which they figure can hold its own with any new flicker released. Twentieth Century Fox is rushing John Browns Body into production, and Columbia still plans to dramatize MacKinley Kantor's Andersonville. Bleeding Kansas is the setting for a United Artists movie, The Jayhawkers. Allied Artists are said to be holding The Desperate Women, a drama of female spies, for 1961 audiences . The same firm is toying with the idea of re-releasing Friendly Persuasion. Havingenjoyed high success with his Chancellorsville, Edward Stackpole has just published a campaign history, From Cedar Mountain to Antietam. Initial reviews score it as another homerun for The Stackpole Company. Chilton Pubhshers recently brought forth a package on Gettysburg : The Shaping of a Battle, by James S. Montgomery. This new and comprehensive account of the Pennsylvania invasion adds nothing not already known of that 1863 campaign, but the character sketches are excellent and the view presented is broad enough to give a full picture of what happened. Supplementing the book are reproductions of the three gigantic Bachlder maps of Gettysburg issued by the War Department in 1876. The Civü War Centennial Commission, under its hard-working director , Karl S. Betts, wül soon begin distribution of a booklet entitled 425 426 JAMES I. ROBERTSON "Facts about the Civil War." This same body is also supervising a newspaper history of the war. Bruce Catton heads an editorial board responsible for the journalistic study. Mr. Catton's biography of Grant, Grant Moves South, is slated for March release by Little, Brown. Last month Dutton published Roy Meredith's Mr. Lincoln's General, a pictorial history of Grant that also includes data from little-known documents and letters. Ishbel Ross has written a study of Julia Dent Grant—The GeneralsWife . Dodd Mead released the biographyat the same time that Little Brown published Jay Monaghan's Custer, which concentrates on the young braggart's Civü War career rather than on his Indian affairs. In March, Indiana University Press wül release a new and annotated edition ofJames Longstreet's memoirs, From Manassas to Appomattox. The editor of this column prepared these provocative recollections of Lee's War Horse." Dr. Festus P. Summers, the hub of West Virginia University's History Department, is preparing a revision of his railroad history which will have the title Mr. Lincoln's Lifeline: The Baltimore and Ohio in the Civil War. The earlier edition is rightfully a collector's item. Daredevils of the Confederacy, a new work by Oscar Kinchen and published by Christopher of Boston, treats of the St. Albans Raiders, whom James Horan brought to light earlier in his Confederate Agents. Alan T. Nolan of Indianapolis has done a history of the Iron Brigade which Macmillan wül publish shortly. W. W. Hassler, whose A. P. Hill: Lee's Forgotten General , is still moving well, has finished a study of Pelham slanted for the teen-age set. Garrett and Massie wül do the publishing. For you collectors of soldiers' narratives, New York's Greenwich Publishers (489 Fifth Avenue) can still supply Letters from Libby Prison, edited by Margaret W. Peele and published in 1956. This is an unusually good collection of letters by Colonel Frederick A. Bartelson of the 100th Illinois Infantry Regiment, and it spans the period January-June, 1864. Do notpass up this one. AUan Nevins has written an outstanding broad study of the war's first year. The Warforthe Union: TheImprovisedWar, 1861-1862, is thefifth of ten proposed volumes, with Number 6 to appear next fall. Müitary students wül find little here that meets their fancy, but this is social, economic , and political history at its best. Putnam has released a...