With Sherman to the Sea: A Drummer's Story of the Civil War (review)

disregarded conventions of grammar and orthography, that the periscope was introduced in the Civil War. Burke Davis has solved the problem of making hash out of the leftovers. His book is arranged in thirty-eight "chapters" ranging over such subjects as "Mr. Lincoln's Beard," "Music, Music," "Spies at Work," "Sex in the Civil War" (a very disappointing seven pages), "Imported Warriors," and oddly enough, "Some Oddities of This Odd War." Altogether there are about 250 pages of yarns, incidents, and incredible tales which might amuse the buffs of the Round Tables, keep high school classes awake, and—perish the thought —inspire concoctors of scenarios for television. William B. Hesseltine University of Wisconsin With Sherman to the Sea: A Drummer's Story of the Civil War. Edited by Olive Deane Hormel. (New York: John Day Co., 1960. Pp. 255. $4.00.) In the spring of 1862 the 10th Michigan Infantry regiment was mustered into the Union army and sent to the Western theater in time for the campaign against Corinth, Mississippi. With this organization was thirteen-year-old Corydon Foote of Flint, Michigan, who served as a drummer until he was honorably discharged soon after entering Savannah, Georgia, with Sherman's army. When Foote was nearly ninety years of age, he related his experiences to Olive Deane Hormel, who committed them to paper and prepared a manuscript . Miss Hormel then turned her material over to Elizabeth Yates, who spent some time working on it. The result of this joint effort is a small volume of reminiscences entitled With Sherman to the Sea. Unfortunately the book is not documented, has no explanation of editorial policy used in preparing it for publication, and contains errors to which the editor or editors—whichever is correct—should have called attention. It is startling, for example, to find Shiloh and Pittsburg Landing referred to as two different battles. The presentation in quotation marks of conversation supposedly recalled with exactness after a lapse of seventy-five years rings untrue. As one more story of the Civil War, Foote's memoirs have a good deal that is interesting and now and then a little that is exciting; but as source material for historians, they are of little value. Frederick D. Williams Michigan State University 218 ...