Vicksburg: A People at War, 1860-1865 (review)

336CIVIL WAR HISTORY federate area would be removed from the south. As it happened, their plan did not succeed, and the men regained the Canadian border with a band of infuriated northerners on their heels. The attention of this story is directed toward the raiders rather than upon the raid itself. Documentation of source material makes of this book a thoughtful volume, since primary and secondary works are included. At times, however , the reader finds himself bogged down in many details which may be argued as being necessary for the presentation. Nevertheless, this is a minor complaint as compared with the author's intent and accomplishment. Arthur Lerner Los Angeles, California. Vidisburg: A People at War, 1860-1865. By Peter F. Walker. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960. Pp. xvi, 235. $5.00.) for over three years the reviewer was the historian at the Vicksburg National Military Park. During this period one of the most frequent questions asked of the park personnel was, "What did the Vicksburg civilians do during the siege?" Since there was a dearth of material available in the files on this important phase of the Vicksburg story, the visitor had to be given an inadequate answer. Research projects were scheduled treating this topic; this project was deferred. Now that Dr. Peter F. Walker's dissertation has been published, this important gap in Civil War historiography has been bridged. Dr. Walker has consulted and used all the readily available sources in collecting material for his study. The only collections that were not consulted are those in the hands of private individuals. Only in one or two instances would these documents have made much difference. For example , on pages 133-134, the author quotes McNeily, a secondary source, as reporting that the planters of the Vicksburg area had continued to grow cotton, instead of raising corn. Opposed to this statement are the descriptions of the countryside contained in many of the Union soldiers' diaries. These Federal soldiers were impressed by the large corn fields in the Vicksburg area. The author's interpretations cannot be criticized. Marshaling his evidence , Dr. Walker succinctly analyzes the population of the city in 1860 and its attitude toward secession. At first, the Vicksburgers opposed the policy of the "fire eaters." But with the withdrawal of Mississippi from the Union, the conservatives saw their position first weaken and then collapse. Between January 9 and April 15, according to Dr. Walker's well-founded arguments, four events—the Silver Wave episode, the Davis Reception, the riots on South Street, and Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers—helped to cut the ground from under the conservatives. Once the decision for war was made, both the military and the city fathers gave no thought to civil defense until the spring of 1862, when it was too late. From May, 1862, until July 4, 1863, the city was in almost constant Book Reviews337 peril. The author shows that "civil defense" was almost non-existent in the Civil War. Within a very short time the "city fathers" had voluntarily abdicated their position to the military. During the times of stress and strain, the author has pictured wih bold, clear strokes people from every facet of civilian life—the hero and the coward, the profiteer and the patriot. The book's title is a little misleading. The author devotes 210 of his 224 pages of text to the period between 1860 and July 4, 1863. As many others who have written of the Civil War in Mississippi, Dr. Walker glosses over the final 22 months of the conflict. During this time, Vicksburg served as a base of operations for a number of powerful Union expeditions which carried the fire and sword to the portions of the state east of the Big Black River. A number of these strikes, such as McPherson's Canton Expedition, Sherman's Meridian Expedition, and Osband's raids, were much more than cotton-gathering forays, which is all that the author mentions. One would like to know how the Vicksburg citizens fared during these troubled months. Either the author should have included this period in his book or changed the title. The only...