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BOOK REVIEWS193 service was too great, and he accepted a position with Duncan's forces, defending the Louisiana coast, from their post at Fort Jackson, until New Orleans fell. When Benjamin Butler, commander of occupation forces, pardoned Seymour, he went back to publishing the paper. Shortly thereafter, however, Butler had him imprisoned at Fort Jackson for two months; he had written a "patriotic obituary of his father" (4). In the spring of 1863, he obtained a new appointment as staff officer for Brig. Gen. Harry T. Hayes, ist Louisiana Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia. In this capacity, Seymour acquired impressive experience, serving at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness and in the Shenandoah Valley. Indeed, the reminiscences recall these campaigns in great detail and with an interesting style. The author is as often critical of the Confederate actions as of the Federals. His language is descriptive yet clear and concise. The horrors are plainly evident; he romanticizes nothing. But even through the harshness of reality, anecdotes also present the human side of war and provide an immediacy lacking in secondary sources. Overall, Terry L. Jones, author of Lee's Tigers: The Louisiana Infantry in the Army of Northern Virginia, does a fine job of editing the volume. His style is pleasantly readable, and he is truly devoted to telling Seymour's story. But while his introduction is informative, it is not insightful; the same is true of the explanatory paragraphs which begin each of the six chapters . And an epilogue adequately pieces together the puzzle of his life after Cedar Creek. The footnotes serve to supplement or correct the text and are replete with primary source references, but Jones's use of tertiary sources (Dictionary of American Biography, Encyclopedia of the Civil War) is at times disconcerting. Still, The Civil War Memories of Captain William J. Seymour deserves a place in every Civil War historian's library. In some instances, it is the only surviving source other than the official records. And, perhaps even more importantly, Seymour provides an unflinching portrait of many of the most studied and least understood actions of the war. Vista K. McCroskey University of Texas at Tyler Indiana Quakers Confront the Civil War. By Jacquelyn S. Nelson. (Indianapolis : Indiana Historical Society, 1991. Pp. 324. $27.95.) The greater part of Jacquelyn S. Nelson's book concerns those members of the Society of Friends in Indiana who actively supported the Union cause in the Civil War. Following a survey of the background of the Quakers, the author covers the record of Indiana Friends who served in the military during the Civil War. She explains the motivations of Hoosier Friends who entered the military and describes their experiences in army life and war. Also, 194 civil war history Nelson discusses the Friends who supported the Union war effort from the home front and the Quakers who declined to do so in accordance with pacifist tenets. Nelson intended to dispel "a myth" that Indiana Friends, adhering to pacifist principles, did not participate in the Civil War (xiv). The author concluded : "Quaker support of the Civil War in Indiana, then, including Friends' contributions of money and material aid as well as enrollment for military duty, was the rule rather than the exception" (96-97). That conclusion is not supported by the statistics reported in the book. Nelson's estimates show that a majority of all Hoosier men of military age enrolled in the armed service and that a minority of such Quaker men did so. Between 2 1 and 27 percent of all such Quaker men in Indiana joined the military; 62 percent of all such Hoosier men did military service (21). While giving anecdotal evidence, the book does not offer statistical data revealing the proportion of Indiana Friends who backed the Union cause with money and material aid. Furthermore, as the author makes clear, the official position of the Society of Friends in Indiana remained consistent with the traditional Quaker opposition to war. Nevertheless, Indiana Quakers Confront the Civil War provides useful information about a topic neglected in the literature on the subject. It gives a precise number of Indiana Quakers who fought in the Civil War. The author...

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