Guide to Civil War Books: An Annotated Selection of Modern Works on the War Between the States (review)

IÓ2CIVIL WAR HISTORY Guide to Civil War BooL·: An Annotated Selection ofModern Works on the War Between the States. By Domenica M. Barbuto and Martha Kreisel. (Chicago and London: American Library Association, 1996. Pp. viii 221. $32.00.) Even before the warended, publishers and authors weredevoting lavish amounts of ink and paper to the story ofthe conflict. The ensuing decades have seen only brief lulls in the fervid production of books treating the struggle. Old themes and topics are continuously reworked, the old battles fought again, leaders and legends discussed, dissected, or Reconstructed. Truly original ideas and fresh approaches to the war have only intruded occasionally. What was true of previous decades generally pertains to the abundant Civil War scholarship and writing of the last twenty years; redundant or merely adequate books substantially outnumber those works ofdemonstrable superiority in analysis and presentation. The last twenty years have, however, been marked by the emergence of a few promising new approaches to the war. Given the surfeit of Civil War books, good bibliographic guides are always welcome and are very nearly essential as a means of avoiding aimless floundering in the war's whelming written residue. The Guide to Civil War Books: An Annotated Selection ofModern Works on the War Between the States is a useful and welcome resource. Dominica M. Barbuto and Martha Kreisel selected just over three hundred books—from the past twenty years—which they believe merit the consideration of thoughtful readers. A few nineteenth-century works, reedited or republished in the last twenty years, are also included in the bibliography . Barbuto and Kreisel deserve credit for identifying the better books about the war published since the mid-1970s. The authors offer a brief review of each work cited in their guide. These summaries are not intended as critical essays, but Barbuto and Kreisel usually go beyond simple description, placing each entry within the larger field ofCivil War scholarship. Moreover, Barbuto and Kreisel provide—for each entry—a short list of reviews in scholarly journals. This cross-referencing is especially useful in placing the authors' choices historiographical context. The Guide to Civil War Books is arranged topically and reflects the more "inclusive" trends in recent Civil War scholarship The authors have balanced very carefully their selections between standard military and political works and those books that emphasize culture, gender, and ethnicity. "Art and the War," "Cities and States," "Commerce and Finance," "Medical Care," "Social Aspects," and "Native Americans" are among thirty-one specific categories into which Barbuto and Kreisel have arranged the works selected for inclusion in their bibliography. The Guide to Civil War Books is also indexed by author, title, and subject. The bibliography is improved by the inclusion ofmore than twenty illustrations. Nineteenth-century line drawings, etchings, and photographs complement the text. These small illustrations effectively highlightthe topical divisions ofthe work. book reviews163 One error—particularly unwelcome in a bibliographic guide—is the incomplete citation for Pea Ridge, Campaign in the West. Inexplicably, co-author Earl J. Hess is missing from the citation and annotation for this excellent book. This isolated error aside, the Guide to Civil War Books is a commendable work. Barbuto and Kreisel have made a durable and substantive contribution to Civil War bibliography. Kenneth Startup Williams Baptist College Ploughshares into Swords: Josiah Gorgas and Confederate Ordnance. By Frank Vandiver. (1952; reprint, College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1994. Pp. 368. $16.95.) The Journals ofJosiah Gorgas, 1857-1878. Edited by SarahWoolfolkWiggins. (Tuscaloosa: University ofAlabama Press, 1995. Pp. 360. $39.95.) Out ofprint since 1952, Ploughshares into Swords: Josiah Gorgas and Confederate Ordnance has been reissued in Texas A&M's Military History Series. In what has come to be rightly regarded as classic of Civil War history, Frank E. Vandiver attributed to Josiah Gorgas "a military career which was to contribute more than any other man, with the exception ofRobert E. Lee, to the success of the armies ofthe Confederacy" (3). Whether or not one entirely agrees with this assessment, none can deny that Gorgas possessed a "genius for military administration " that helped to keep the Confederacy afloat long after it should have, in Gorgas's words, "totter[ed] to its destruction" {Journals 75). As Chief...