Our Incredible Civil War (review)

Book Reviews217 had set up almost impregnable defenses along both sides of the National Road, Gibbon's troops smashed their way through and here won themselves the title of the "Iron Brigade." At Antietam, at Fredericksburg, and then at Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863, the Iron Brigade, now commanded by Solomon Meredith, played a prominent role. At Antietam they suffered such heavy losses that their thin ranks had to be filled out with the men of the 24th Michigan, which now became part of the Iron Brigade. When Lee once again broke loose and sent his forces swinging northward into Pennsylvania, it was the Iron Brigade which helped to plug the gap. Moving up the Emmitsburg Road, the Westerners heard the sounds of battle and moved off to their left toward Seminary Ridge, where they ran head on into Archer's Tennessee and Alabama regiments. Against overwhelming odds the Iron Brigade held its position as the Confederate force grew larger every hour and threatened at any moment to completely envelope their dwindling lines. When the main Union force had taken up defensive positions along Cemetery Ridge the Iron Brigade was at last ordered to withdraw, after having suffered casualties of from 65 to 80 per centi For all practicalpurposes this was the end of the Iron Brigade as an integral and distinctive unit. But the proud history of the brigade continued to live on, and veterans of the Iron Brigade always boasted that they had not taken a single backward step except on orders and that no Rebel hand had ever been laid on the guns of Battery B. Mr. Nolan has told the story of the Iron Brigade in expert fashion. Tightly knit, closely written, and carefully documented, The Iron Brigade is military history at its scholarly best. There are no contrived situations or manufactured conversations—the dramatic excitement proceeds from the historical situations themselves. The use of maps is essential in following the progress of the big men in the black hats, and in this respect the battle maps which Wilson Hoyt III has designed are exceptionally helpful. The Civil War Centennial Commissions of Indiana and Wisconsin and the Company of Military Collectors and Historians are to be congratulated for having sponsored this fine tribute to the fighting men from the Old Northwest. Thomas H. O'Connor Boston College Our Incredible Civil War. By Burke Davis. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960. Pp. 249. $4.95.) Many a Civil War author has wondered, as he concluded his book, what he could do with the accumulation of odds and ends, the miscellaneous facts and curious incidents which he had left over from his researches. There was, for example, the "fact" that Winchester, Virginia, changed hands seventysix times during the war, the "fact" that Joseph E. Johnston was one of Cump Sherman's pall-bearers, that Nathan B. Forrest was a vigorous writer who disregarded conventions of grammar and orthography, that the periscope was introduced in the Civil War. Burke Davis has solved the problem of making hash out of the leftovers. His book is arranged in thirty-eight "chapters" ranging over such subjects as "Mr. Lincoln's Beard," "Music, Music," "Spies at Work," "Sex in the Civil War" (a very disappointing seven pages), "Imported Warriors," and oddly enough, "Some Oddities of This Odd War." Altogether there are about 250 pages of yarns, incidents, and incredible tales which might amuse the buffs of the Round Tables, keep high school classes awake, and—perish the thought —inspire concoctors of scenarios for television. William B. Hesseltine University of Wisconsin With Sherman to the Sea: A Drummer's Story of the Civil War. Edited by Olive Deane Hormel. (New York: John Day Co., 1960. Pp. 255. $4.00.) In the spring of 1862 the 10th Michigan Infantry regiment was mustered into the Union army and sent to the Western theater in time for the campaign against Corinth, Mississippi. With this organization was thirteen-year-old Corydon Foote of Flint, Michigan, who served as a drummer until he was honorably discharged soon after entering Savannah, Georgia, with Sherman's army. When Foote was nearly ninety years of age, he related his experiences...