Hood's Texas Brigade in Reunion and Memory (review)

BOOK REVIEWS75 Jennison was allowed to recruit a regiment for federal service with the encouragement of Kansas' two most powerful politicians. Senator James Henry Lane, a sometime Jayhawker himself, was sympathetic to Jennison, while Lane's political enemy, Governor Charles Robinson, advocated federal muster as a way of controlling Jennison's independent force. After enrollment, Union commanders tried to control Jennison by promising promotion, by threatening courts martial, and by transferring his troops. When it became apparent that the regiment would be ordered away from the Kansas-Missouri border, Jennison resigned his commission. The men of the Seventh Kansas Cavalry were neither Jennison's nor Jayhawkers during much of their service. Jennison had been their commander for only about eight months, and field leadership had been exercised by D. R. Anthony, a quarrelsome Leavenworth editor. After Jennison's resignation, new leaders emerged from the ranks. Although the men of the regiment "pillaged the loyal and disloyal alike," they were according to Starr, ". . . no better and no worse—than the men of any other regiment in the Union Army." Starr argues convincingly that the Seventh underwent a process in combat which largely eliminated inefficient political officers. A tough, battleworthy regiment emerged. Other regiments shared this change, but the Kansans, with their early experience with Missouri guerrillas, became efficient troopers before most of the federal cavalry had learned to use their mobility. The Seventh served well in Tennessee and Mississippi in 1862 and 1863, and in defeating Sterling Price in Missouri in 1864. This book should serve as a model for those who would write readable and reliable regimental histories. Starr is best when describing the character and movement of the regiment, but he has done more than write a regimental narrative. By including lengthy biographical sketches and extended discussions of Kansas politics, he has broadened the focus of the book to include the proper setting. The author's historiographical discussions in the footnotes are generally sound. He has a tendency to lecture some modern Missouri and Kansas historians who seem to be continuing the old border warfare, but his correctives are usually substantial. Mark A. Plummer Illinois State University Hood's Texas Brigade in Reunion and Memory. By Harold B. Simpson . (HiIIsboro, Texas: Hill Junior College Press, 1974. Pp. xviii, 369; $9.50.) It only seems that "old soldiers never die—young ones do." Actually all fighting men are mortal. But before they take that trip "across the river to rest under the shade of the trees,"—Stonewall Jackson's last words, and a euphemism for death used ad nauseam by Confederate 76CIVIL WAR HISTORY sympathizers ever since—the survivors of war show a striking propensity to organize into veterans' associations. Such clubs vary somewhat, but all tend to foster elitism, altruism, mutual benefit, interest in their own history, and so on. The remnant of the six-thousand-man Civil War brigade originally led by John Bell Hood began reunions in 1872 and continued until 1933. The group usually attracted about the same proportion of those eligible as did other Confederate veterans' associations, between one fourth and one third of those alive, but it reached a peak of one hundred twenty veterans present out of two hundred alive in 1910. The last two enfeebled survivors met in 1933 for a final reunion. In 1966 the association was "re-activated," with membership limited to descendants of brigade members, plus an additional twenty-five honorary positions . Now numbering more than six hundred, it has even had offers from ineligible applicants to "buy in," that is, to pay for admission. The history of veterans' groups is worthy of attention. They play notable social roles, often have considerable impact, and touch the lives of a great many individuals. Hood's brigade financed monuments, dabbled in history, and built homes for indigent veterans and Confederate women—institutions that both later served other needy citizens as well. George W. Littlefield, a prominent and supportive member of the association, was induced as a result of his United Confederate Veteran activity to give the monies that established the Littlefield Fund for Southern History. This financed the publication of the multi-volume History of the South series by the Louisiana...