Who Fired the First Shot? and Other Untold Stories of the Civil War (review)

Book Reviews441 prising that these "socialist" facilities did not long survive the war. Published by a pharmaceutical history institute, the book should fascinate those pharmacists who are also Civil War buffs. It should also interest students of business history. To yet other readers it may serve as an example of a worth-while piece of research which has proved too long for an article, too short for a book. Without some of the trivia and much of the massive detail it would make an interesting article. But then the pharmacists might be unhappy. George W. Adams Southern Illinois University (Carbondale) Who Fired the First Shot? and Other Untold Stories of the Civil War. By Ashley Halsey, Jr. (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1963. Pp. 224. $5.00.) This is a very unusual Civil War book, and deserves a better title. The present one is misleading, and applies only to the first chapter, which is not one of the best. Although Halsey has found some new material for it, the question of who fired the first shot has been threshed over before, far beyond its inherent interest. Other chapters rate considerably higher and bring out much which will be new to most readers, and some which will no doubt be new to all. Those on prisons, on the Indians who fought on both sides, on massacres, and on the influence of soldiers' wives on their husbands' allegiances are exceptionally well done. Halsey discusses the various interpretations of the word "massacre," and how they differ, depending which side you favor; that no one will excuse the mass killing of civilians by the bushwhacker Quantrill, is obvious, but that the much-exploited affair at Fort Pillow, in which only soldiers were involved, may be considered legitimate because certain conditions existed, Halsey analyzes without taking sides. The author is not quite correct in his chapter on medical practices. Lister founded aseptics and antiseptics in 1867, not 1865, and while, generally speaking, sanitary measures were as bad as Halsey describes them, both treatments were applied during the war, although empirically and without their present designations. He fails to relate that on account of the progress which had been made hospital gangrene, the greatest killer of all, had been completely vanquished in the North by the time the war neared its end, and that Southern surgeons were practicing aseptics, without knowing it, by boiling cotton and horse hair before using them. To review the entire contents of this volume in a few hundred words is impossible. The author carries us from weapons to duels, from inventions to snipers, from fratricidal combats to outdated forts. Students who prefer the truth to biased traditions will thank Halsey for pointing out that Northern writers often have distorted or suppressed evidence, and that, as he expresses it in a clever bon mot, "history is on the side of the bigger printing presses." As an example he demonstrates that Andersonville was by no means the worst 442CIVIL WA R history prison camp, but that some in the North, both the well-known and the littleknown ones, surpassed it in beastliness by a good-sized margin. The last chapter, which deals with a would-be hero who never reached the fighting front, supplies some healthy humor, giving the volume a refreshing ending. The book is not without its faults. The author's repeated references to his own collection of weapons and to his excellent marksmanship are not in the best of taste, and the illustrations leave something to be desired. Despite its drawbacks, Who Fired The First Shot? as a whole stands out as one of the few recent publications which is not mere rehash. The author has explored many heretofore neglected aspects of the conflict, and for those tired of reading about many-times-told battles and campaigns his book should make a welcome addition to their shelves. Otto Eisenschiml Chicago Federals on the Frontier: The Diary of Benjamin F. Mclntyre, 18621864 . Edited by Nannie M. Tilley. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1963. Pp. xv, 429. $7.50.) Ben McIntyre was an Iowa carpenter who recorded his day-by-day experiences in the Union army from September, 1862, to August, 1864. He...